An irreverent look at the Quattro vs Merrill thing....

dellaaa wrote:

I have to thank you for this post, I believe that it saved me time and some money (at least for the time being). At first I was hell bent on buying a SDQ. I own too many cameras as it is, but something about the Foevon sensor intrigued me. I shoot a lot of music performances in auditoriums and landscapes. For these I use either my Nikon D800 or my Fuji XPro1. I was interested in the SDQ as a step up from my D800 and I was going to use it for landscapes (both in SFD mode on a tripod and handheld in normal mode) and as a walk around hand holdable infrared camera (something none of my cameras are capable of).

I actually ordered the camera, and was all set to get the 17-70 but in the end canceled the order. I canceled it for the following reason, partially after reading your post and doing some further research, I value your opinion, am I correct in my decisions below?

Reasons I didn't buy the SDQ:

1) Disappointed with SFD mode – other cameras such as the Pentax have a SFD mode, but they do this is to increase detail, it looks to me from the samples that I have seen that the SDQ’s SFD mode doesn’t in fact increase resolution, but minimizes noise and smooths out the image. The sample that I have seen actually look softer than their non SFD counterparts.

In the end how much better image quality would I get from the SDQ compared to my D800? The web is full of claims, some saying the SDQ equals MF and out resolves the D800, but honestly, are we just splitting hairs at this point? Would the results from the SDQ be appreciably better than the image below?

2) Infrared quality is not so wonderful – I didn’t realize this until your post, but the quality if IR on this camera is poor. The images I have seen look splotchy and as you say Monetish. I challenged you at first but after looking at them they aren’t so good.

3) Effecs of a polarizing filter are difficult to see in the SDQ. I never realized this but I have see some posts to that effect.

As for the rest of the SDQ vrs D800, there is no contest IMHO. I can shoot astronomical ISO on the D800 compared to the SDQ, I can pull multiple stops out of the shadows in a RAW file, the af is far superior, I can go on. So here is the image, how much better can it be?

I know you jumped down SiFu's neck for daring to comment on a post that you directed to the OP, but I will make the same mistake -- since you could have gone PM to the OP if you really wanted to block us from discussing your questions.

SFD mode is definitely not softer than a single exposure. And it has far better detail (and colour preservation) in the shadows due to absence of noise. But it does not increase the pixel count, so there is no more actual detail across the well-exposed areas of a scene. My example.

The 19.5 MP sdQ resolves about the same perceptual detail as a 36 MP Bayer without a strong AA filter. Maybe a tad more but not much. You need a sdQH if you want significantly more -- it will roughly match a 45-50 MP Bayer. Search this forum for 5DSR vs sdQH, there are one or two good threads.