Sensor Format Size and Image Quality

Lensrentals has published an article of mine on the relationships between sensor size and image quality.

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2023/06/sensor-format-size-and-image-quality/

I'd be happy to discuss it in this thread.

Jim

[deleted]

I was hoping to read more about "image quality" per se, the only on-line standard for which (CPIQ) is for camera-phones.

Sad to say, my interest waned when I saw Resolution expressed in units of MP ... but that's just me ...

Hi Jim i read the article and it really doesn't go into image quality at all. its more of an over view.
after shooting m43 for 5 years professionally and the reason was for live hdmi out to live monitors as no other companies could stream
for 13 hours, image quality was very good with my raw processing actions in place though. finally switching to FF 3 years ago a7r2 and now the sony a74 i
can say processing the raw files with FF are so much nicer/easier and more accurate to control than the small formats. lifting shadows/darker shades of the image
much more confined to the dark shades where the darker shades on smaller sensors are spread over a larger colour range and always seemed to lift the whole image not specifically the darker tones. i suppose its always been said
smaller sensor images look more black/gritter and havnt the same smoothness of colour transitions. another thing ive also noticed is the crispness of detail
with FF sensors images rarely need sharpening in photoshop after ACR conversion due to less pixel bleeding i assume. but revisiting my past images image quality
goes to the 16meg sensor from the em5mk2 over the em1mk2 20 meg sensor.

IQ is mostly a matter of the photographer and scene lighting, not his/her camera sensor size.

The initialism "FWC" is introduced without explaining what it stands for.

In this kind of case I'd write something like: "Full Well Capacity ("FWC")"

There's a question of whether it's important to explain what FWC is in this context.

"As the format gets larger, the f-stop required for the same depth of field (DOF) and diffraction gets narrower."

"narrower".

Maybe something like:

"As the format gets smaller, the f-stop required for the same depth of field (DOF) and diffraction gets smaller in proportion."

disagree, its all about the sensor size. but it depends if those differences matter personally or to the client. I havent had any complaints from selling more than 5000 images from my m43 cameras and still post even here some images from those cameras. But when it came to shooting my own daughters high school graduation
images out doors and not in the studio m43 could not compete with my a7r2 even with 0.95 lens attached to my em12.

That's not the usual understanding of IQ (Image Quality). Just as "bokeh" means the quality of the blur of the portions of the photo outside the DOF, as opposed to the quantity of the blur, IQ refers to technical qualities of the photo that are directly a function of the equipment (e.g. resolution, noise, flare, color, etc.). Great photos can have horrid IQ and horrid photos can have great IQ.

Is pupil a clearer term than node ?

Yes, obvious nonsense. Kubrick shot the moon landings at Shepperton.

Yeah. But a lot of DPs really like it. I don't understand either.

"Between ideal type-1 equivalent cameras, there is no difference in image quality. So, there is no difference between an ideal APSC and full frame camera. Period."

Section 1.3 refers:

www.falklumo.com/lumolabs/articles/equivalence/ff.html

"image quality" equals www.imatest.com/solutions/cpiq/

i have shot with an a6300 and a7r2 +a74 in identical situations in my studio as the a6300 is my backup camera. I shot a whole day with the a6300 and printed and sold the images just to make sure it was up to the task , and it was very good and produced professional results. does it compete with my a74 . no it does not , the a6300 produces amazing video as well but still the a74 beats it to the line.

Are the "a6300" and "a74" ideal type-1 equivalent cameras?

they both take photos. which is what cameras are used for.

And diffraction.

Here's what I said:

So, no, I didn't express resolution in MP.