On Mar 15, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Darren Addy wrote: > Before you answer: What if it was a Leica? > http://www.petapixel.com/2012/03/15/leicas-upcoming-m-series-camera-may-have-a-bw-sensor/
Let's rephrase that question: "Would you like a camera with two stops more sensitivity, and three or four times the resolution? What if you had to give up color to get it?" Color doesn't come for free. In order to get color, you have to throw away a lot of light at each sensor site. If all you ever photograph are technically easy subjects like models in the studio, barns, or cats in plenty of light, then incrementally better performance isn't a big deal. If you find yourself pushing the performance envelope of your camera and having to convert to B&W, not for specific effect but because the noise is less obnoxious in B&W than in color, an added stop of performance can be worth it. Yesterday afternoon, I stumbled across a photo of a friend who passed away on Sunday. It's one of those "look what my shiny new lens can do", portraits that didn't mean anything at the time, but it's one of the few photos I have of him before he lost an eye to cancer. It was shot with the K100 at ISO 1600. Smaller versions aren't bad, but when you bump up the size, the sensor limitations become obvious: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/6836872410/sizes/o even in black and white the shadow noise is an issue: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/6836875878/sizes/o A black and white version of the K100 would have made a huge difference, bringing this photo across the threshold from just noisy enough to be bothersome, to just clean enough to not be bothersome. The K-5 could have taken this same shot without even breathing hard, but that just means I'm running into the same issues in less light. So, given the choice of spending $800 on a faster lens for low light work, or $800 for a special version of the K-01 without the Bayer filter, to give me another stop or two of sensitivity on all of my lenses for extra tough lighting, if I had that $800 I almost certainly would. I probably wouldn't drop the dosh on the Leica version though, even if I had Godfrey's toy budget. > -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
