With all the talk of a 22 bit A/D converter for the K10D, and the corresponding speculations of true 16-bit colour depth in the raw-files, there are a couple of things I wonder about.
Firstly, I wondered what the competition was doing. In the 35mm realm, Canon use 12-bit colour depth in both 5D and 1DSmkII. I didn't check other models. Leica, however, use 16-bit for the R-series digital back. In the medium format realm, it seems that all the makers except Mamiya use 16-bit. I have checked Sinar, Leaf, PhaseOne and Imacon. Mamiya ZD use 12-bit colour depth, but 14-bit A/D. I couldn't find any info on the A/D conversion for the other brands. Anyway, it seems that 12-bit is a standard for 35mm, and that 16-bit colour rule the medium format world. Better dynamic range has been mentioned frequently in the discussion of 16-bit colour, but I don't think I paid enough attention. How much would 16-bit depth improve the dynamic range over 12-bit in terms of f-stops? Is this going to be like going from slide film to colour negatives, or is this on a different scale? thanks, Jostein -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
