I beg to differ, there is always a bit of a loss in any image transformation, starting with a few extra bits can make up for some of that loss. It is like hi-fi, most of us can not hear anything above 15kc or so, but you can tell the difference between a system that goes to 20kc and one that only goes to 15kc. It is called headroom.
-- graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" ----------------------------------- John Francis wrote: > On Fri, Oct 13, 2006 at 04:35:46PM -0400, Perry Pellechia wrote: >> Yes, I understand all about sampling, dynamic range and resolution. >> In my field (NMR spectroscopy) the instrumentation typically uses 12 >> or 16 bit ADCs. The four extra bits offer tremendous improvement in >> dynamic range and fidelity. Adding another 6 bits would offer even >> more improvements assuming what feeds the ADCs have enough dynamic >> range and high signal to noise. > > Precisely. And that isn't true for the K10D. According to some > figures posted here (and elsewhere) there are at the most 2^17 > electrons in a full well on the sensor (and that may be an over- > estimate by a factor of 10 or more), and the signal-to-noise ratio > probably isn't any better than 2^12. > > Using a 16-bit processor is reasonable, to avoid quantization > noise when applying non-linear transforms such as gamma correction. > But there's no added benefit in going to a 22-bit processor today. > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
