This is a quagmire of some magnitude.
Cell or photo-site size is certainly not the only issue affecting image quality. It’s not even really a factor to consider between DSLRs
The APS-C and APS-H are throwbacks to the 90’s when Kodak came out with the ADVANCED PHOTO SYSTEM. I remember it well because I bought my daughter a camera and was horrified to discover that processing was nearly twice the price… but they did give a sheet of thumbnails when processing the film!
You could choose how you wanted the prints cropped by setting the camera.. “H” was a wide shot which had a format of around 1: 2, probably 16:9 which is becoming the video standard.
“C” was the standard size which was, I think, the same aspect ratio (NOT SAME SIZE) as 35mm 1:1.5 (3:2)
APS –S … I think was standard photo sizes which would have been 1: 1.25 or 4:5
I stand to be corrected here.
In the beginning most digital sensors stuck to 3:2 Now there are slight variations to the theme but nothing of consequence that I know about.
For me the biggest advantage in the bigger sensor size is depth of field. The smaller sensors have way too much of it and it’s very difficult to use selective focus as a means of emphasizing your subject (Unless it fits on the head of a pin) With the smaller sensors, everything’s too close to being in focus most of the time.
All that said, you would most certainly get better results from a new 10MP camera than an old 6MP camera.
The camera takes a black and white image (RAW) with data for one colour per pixel and “Calculates” or extrapolates from that data a colour image with three colours per pixel. As the software improves for this process, so image quality will improve Or at least that’s the promise of a brighter tomorrow…
When manufacturers try to cram too many photosites onto one small chip, noise starts to outweigh the advantage of finer resolution and ugly pictures are the result. So for now, phone cameras with 5MP sensors won’t take as good quality images as point and shoot cameras with 3MP chips.
The great thing about digital is that you can take a laptop into a store and shoot the same pic on 5 cameras, load them up, take them home and see if you can really see the difference… I bet you can’t.
Herschel Mair
From: Howard <home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2007 8:48:44 PM
Subject: Re: Sensor Cell Size? ( wasNikon Proud?)
processing, even if using RAW? I'm certain most dSLR cameras do NOT
simply produce the RAW data unadulterated! But if I'm wrong, tell me
(nicely). My D80 gives better results allround than my D100, yet it's 10
MP as opposed to 6 MP.
Howard
PhotoRoy6@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Is noise the only factor? I see different id tags like APS-H and APS-C
> on different cameras. Does this mean anything to you. I guess this
> puts more emphasis on Popular Photo Magazine verbal grade than on the
> actual size touted by the manufacturer
>
>
>
> In a message dated 5/28/2007 4:34:21 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> herschelmair@xxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> Yes.
> The size of each cell effects the how much noise you get compared
> to how much image data you get.
> So a big 6MP chip will give better results that a tiny 10mp chip
> h
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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