A question regarding pixel size and the number of pixel

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:





I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

--

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

The assumption is that you are comparing DR in same sized prints.

--

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

The assumption is that you are comparing DR in same sized prints.

--
https://blog.kasson.com

Click to expand...

Thank you for trying, but not helpful. E.g. when you crop after printing, why would dr be less?

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

The assumption is that you are comparing DR in same sized prints.

Click to expand...

Thank you for trying, but not helpful. E.g. when you crop after printing, why would dr be less?

Click to expand...

If you crop after printing, you are no longer viewing the images at the same print size. Let's say you print a 16x20. Then you print another one and crop it to 8x10. Now you view both prints from the same distance. The visual DR is the same.

But if you crop before printing and print both the full format and cropped format prints at 16x20, the visual DR is not the same.

--
https://blog.kasson.com

deednets said:

Thank you for trying, but not helpful. E.g. when you crop after printing, why would dr be less?

Click to expand...

See if this helps:

Noise, Dynamic Range, and Print Size

Photographers talk a lot about noise and dynamic range, and camera makers are quick to publish specifications that promise ever-increasing performance. Those numbers are often reported at the sensor level: how many electrons a pixel can hold before clipping, or how many electrons of read noise lurk at the dark end. Those are useful engineering quantities, but they don’t tell the whole story. What matters to a viewer is not the signal-to-noise ratio of a pixel, but how noise and dynamic range appear in a finished image, at the size and distance it is seen.

At the pixel level, signal-to-noise ratio is the ratio of collected photoelectrons to the RMS noise. Dynamic range is defined as the ratio of full scale to the mean signal level that produces a predetermined signal-to-noise ratio. That definition applies regardless of output size. What changes with print size is the appropriate threshold SNR: for small prints, downsampling averages noise and allows us to accept a higher SNR in the shadows, while for large prints the magnification of noise means we require a lower SNR for tones to remain usable.

Print size and viewing distance make the bridge between sensor data and human vision. A person with normal eyesight can resolve detail at about one arc-minute of visual angle. Translate that into pixels per degree of field of view, and you can calculate how many sensor pixels fall within the resolving power of the eye at a given print size. When you make a small print and view it from a comfortable distance, multiple sensor pixels contribute to each visual resolution element. Their noise averages down by the square root of the number of pixels, so the apparent SNR improves. When you make a large print, the opposite happens. Each sensor pixel covers more visual angle. There is no averaging advantage, and the noise is simply magnified. The same file that looks pristine at 8×10 inches can appear noisy at poster size.

Dynamic range and noise are two sides of the same coin. As the noise is reduced, dynamic range is increased. At the pixel level, the range is fixed: the ratio of highlight saturation to shadow noise does not change when you resize the image. What changes is how much of that range is visible. In a small print, the averaging effect hides low-level noise in the shadows, and subtle tonal differences remain discernible in a large print, the noise is more prominent. The visible dynamic range is therefore a function not just of the sensor, but of the enlargement factor.

There is another layer, too: the human visual system itself. Our sensitivity to contrast is not uniform across spatial frequencies. We are less sensitive to fine-grained variations than to coarser ones. As prints get larger, the noise spectrum shifts into frequencies where our eyes are more sensitive. That is why grain in a big print can look much more intrusive than it did in a small one, even if the sensor numbers haven’t changed. It is also why downsampling a file before printing often makes the result look cleaner than the raw SNR numbers would suggest.

The practical consequences are easy to observe. Take a raw file from a high-resolution sensor and make two prints. One is 8×10 inches, viewed from two feet away. The other is 40×60 inches, viewed from the same distance. The small print will look smooth and rich, even in the shadows. The large print will still be impressive, but if you look closely, noise will be more apparent.

To scale dynamic range with print size while keeping the definition consistent, you can set the shadow ‘usability’ threshold by print height. Bill Claff sets the threshold SNR to 16,000 divided by the picture height in pixels. This yields SNR = 10 for an 8-inch-high reference print at 200 ppi (1,600 px) and adjusts downward for larger prints (viewed farther away) and upward for smaller prints (viewed closer). Visible dynamic range is then the ratio of full scale to the mean signal level where the image SNR falls to this threshold; expressed in stops, DR_visible = log2(full_scale / signal_at_threshold).

This formula ties sensor resolution to human visual limits at a standard viewing distance. By convention, a print 1600 pixels high is taken as the reference size. At that size, the threshold is 10, meaning tones with an SNR greater than 10 are considered clean enough to contribute to usable dynamic range.

As the picture height grows the threshold decreases. Suppose your file is 4000 pixels high. Then the threshold SNR is 16000/4000 = 4.

This scaling preserves the original engineering definition of dynamic range -- full scale divided by the signal at the threshold SNR -- while making the threshold sensitive to viewing conditions. The result is a measure of photographic dynamic range, one that falls naturally as you ask more of your pixels by printing larger.

This scaling approach turns a fixed engineering definition into something that reflects perception. You still compute DR as full-scale signal divided by the shadow signal at the threshold SNR. But the threshold itself is not fixed; it increases with print size, mimicking the way noise becomes more intrusive as you enlarge an image.

Claff’s formula was devised when high-resolution sensors topped out around 16 megapixels. As sensors grow to 16,000 pixels high, the threshold falls to SNR = 1, which corresponds to very noisy shadows. At that point the formula will need to be revised, perhaps by defining a larger reference print size and adjusting the 16,000 constant upward.

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers. Why does this then depend on how large your output size is? You may rememebr those DR graphs with 15 or so stops from clear-white to black. This was shown, all 15 or whatever, stops in a 200x800 image. Or whatever the size of that thing was ...

If you then turn this on it's head and say that a 3000x3000px crop, say, from your GFX100RF cannot depict 15 stops within the same image as the image output needs to be larger?

What am I missing? WEre those DR charts showing those shades of grey incorrect? Or do those shots taken with the GFX100RF lose dynamic range because the guy cropped the original image?

Dunno ... but I am clearly not getting it.

Deed

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers. Why does this then depend on how large your output size is? You may rememebr those DR graphs with 15 or so stops from clear-white to black.

This was shown, all 15 or whatever, stops in a 200x800 image. Or whatever the size of that thing was ...

If you then turn this on it's head and say that a 3000x3000px crop, say, from your GFX100RF cannot depict 15 stops within the same image as the image output needs to be larger?

What am I missing? WEre those DR charts showing those shades of grey incorrect? Or do those shots taken with the GFX100RF lose dynamic range because the guy cropped the original image?

Dunno ... but I am clearly not getting it.

Deed

Click to expand...

Tthis new article by Jim Kasson should clarify what DR is and how it should be observed, compared, and measured:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers. Why does this then depend on how large your output size is? You may rememebr those DR graphs with 15 or so stops from clear-white to black.

This was shown, all 15 or whatever, stops in a 200x800 image. Or whatever the size of that thing was ...

If you then turn this on it's head and say that a 3000x3000px crop, say, from your GFX100RF cannot depict 15 stops within the same image as the image output needs to be larger?

What am I missing? WEre those DR charts showing those shades of grey incorrect? Or do those shots taken with the GFX100RF lose dynamic range because the guy cropped the original image?

Dunno ... but I am clearly not getting it.

Deed

Click to expand...

Tthis new article by Jim Kasson should clarify what DR is and how it should be observed, compared, and measured:

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/noise-dynamic-range-and-print-size/

Click to expand...

Thank you! I read it, but think I am not following the emphasis on "print size"?? What if you look at an image at 100% on a screen? Does the overall sensor size then matter less when you can see a maximum of 2560x1600px on a 30" DELL IPS? If then the pixel size is the same, is the Fuji X-Pro3 26Mpx sensor indistinguishable from the GFX100 when all you look at is the 2560x1600px?

What if you then print the pixels you can see to a 30" (diagonal) print?

Thanks anyway ...

Deed

<snip>

deednets said:

SrMi said:

Tthis new article by Jim Kasson should clarify what DR is and how it should be observed, compared, and measured:

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/noise-dynamic-range-and-print-size/

Click to expand...

Thank you! I read it, but think I am not following the emphasis on "print size"?? What if you look at an image at 100% on a screen?

Click to expand...

Comparing the outputs of two different cameras at 100% has no practical relevance. Only comparing outputs of the same size (print or digital) tells you something about the difference in DR between two cameras.

deednets said:

Does the overall sensor size then matter less when you can see a maximum of 2560x1600px on a 30" DELL IPS? If then the pixel size is the same, is the Fuji X-Pro3 26Mpx sensor indistinguishable from the GFX100 when all you look at is the 2560x1600px?

What if you then print the pixels you can see to a 30" (diagonal) print?

Thanks anyway ...

Deed

Click to expand...

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers. Why does this then depend on how large your output size is? You may rememebr those DR graphs with 15 or so stops from clear-white to black.

This was shown, all 15 or whatever, stops in a 200x800 image. Or whatever the size of that thing was ...

If you then turn this on it's head and say that a 3000x3000px crop, say, from your GFX100RF cannot depict 15 stops within the same image as the image output needs to be larger?

What am I missing? WEre those DR charts showing those shades of grey incorrect? Or do those shots taken with the GFX100RF lose dynamic range because the guy cropped the original image?

Dunno ... but I am clearly not getting it.

Deed

Click to expand...

Tthis new article by Jim Kasson should clarify what DR is and how it should be observed, compared, and measured:

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/noise-dynamic-range-and-print-size/

Click to expand...

Thank you! I read it, but think I am not following the emphasis on "print size"?? What if you look at an image at 100% on a screen? Does the overall sensor size then matter less when you can see a maximum of 2560x1600px on a 30" DELL IPS? If then the pixel size is the same, is the Fuji X-Pro3 26Mpx sensor indistinguishable from the GFX100 when all you look at is the 2560x1600px?

What if you then print the pixels you can see to a 30" (diagonal) print?

Thanks anyway ...

Deed

Click to expand...

I'm guessing your confusion is occurring because you are not taking into account the effect of noise of dynamic range. Jim explained this perfectly, but let me have a go in a more layman style, maybe that'll will help.

The highlight end of dynamic range is limited by the clipping point: you can't see tonality in clipped highlights. The shadow end of dynamic range is in a sense also limited by clipping in that you can no longer see tonality once the shadows are clipped to black.Taken at face value it would seem the clipping points determine dynamic range and ought to the same for all print sizes.

But that doesn't really reflect the real world situation. The shadows tend to be limited by noise long before they get clipped to black: once noise rises above a certain threshold level (subjectively determined, everyone has different tolerances), we can no longer accept it and are no longer prepared to lift shadows to reveal further tones. The normal way we deal with excessive noise in the shadows is to keep them dark to hide it. Artificially clipping blacks to disguise noise reduces dynamic range.

The amount of noise we can tolerate in the shadows is very much dependent on print size: the bigger the print, the more obvious the noise. This means that with big noisy prints we have to darken the shadows more to cover it up, reducing overall dynamic range. Thus bigger prints have their dynamic range more limited by noise than smaller prints where the reduced enlargement factor and noise averaging disguises the noise. We perceive this as the smaller print having both less noise and greater dynamic range.

--
2024: Awarded Royal Photographic Society LRPS Distinction
Photo of the day: https://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/wp/photo-of-the-day-2025/
Website: https://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/wp/
DPReview gallery: https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/0286305481
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidmillier/ (very old!)

Not answering your question really (others here can do that better than I can)

I read the post on the Sony forum, and I think this poster said:

"…..With a few GFX prime lenses and exclusively shoot on tripod, the IQ blows A7r V out of water Not really just 39mp more but mostly in DR and tonality, GFX photos look obviously more popping up and smoother….."

I agree on tonality/DR/smoother. At the same time "blowing out of the water" is a phrase that is used too often and many times is an exaggeration.

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers. Why does this then depend on how large your output size is? You may rememebr those DR graphs with 15 or so stops from clear-white to black.

This was shown, all 15 or whatever, stops in a 200x800 image. Or whatever the size of that thing was ...

If you then turn this on it's head and say that a 3000x3000px crop, say, from your GFX100RF cannot depict 15 stops within the same image as the image output needs to be larger?

What am I missing? WEre those DR charts showing those shades of grey incorrect? Or do those shots taken with the GFX100RF lose dynamic range because the guy cropped the original image?

Dunno ... but I am clearly not getting it.

Deed

Click to expand...

Tthis new article by Jim Kasson should clarify what DR is and how it should be observed, compared, and measured:

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/noise-dynamic-range-and-print-size/

Click to expand...

Thank you! I read it, but think I am not following the emphasis on "print size"?? What if you look at an image at 100% on a screen? Does the overall sensor size then matter less when you can see a maximum of 2560x1600px on a 30" DELL IPS? If then the pixel size is the same, is the Fuji X-Pro3 26Mpx sensor indistinguishable from the GFX100 when all you look at is the 2560x1600px?

What if you then print the pixels you can see to a 30" (diagonal) print?

Thanks anyway ...

Deed

Click to expand...

At 2560x1600px you're essentially comparing two 4MP identical images.

The fact that one came from a crop of a 26MP APS-C sensor and the other one from a larger 100MP 33x44mm sensor is irrelevant.

BUT, you are NOT seeing the full images, hence you are NOT comparing their respective dynamic ranges. You are instead comparing the DR of two 4MP images, in which case, they're the same (because you've thrown away more of the larger image).

--
Marco

mujana said:

Not answering your question really (others here can do that better than I can)

I read the post on the Sony forum, and I think this poster said:

"…..With a few GFX prime lenses and exclusively shoot on tripod, the IQ blows A7r V out of water Not really just 39mp more but mostly in DR and tonality, GFX photos look obviously more popping up and smoother….."

I agree on tonality/DR/smoother. At the same time "blowing out of the water" is a phrase that is used too often and many times is an exaggeration.

Click to expand...

Indeed.

DR improvement is 2/3rd of a stop, useful, but hardly "blowing out of the water". Reduced noise likewise (which contributes to smoother "tonality"). The extra 40MP combined with the excellent GF lenses should produce improved detail, useful if you print very large indeed.

Reviewers everywhere, pro and occasional, in all walks of life seem to suffer from a hyperbole habit. When I read phrases like "blowing out of the water" these days, I mentally translate them into "barely detectable under the most extreme conditions". It seems more reliable an assessment.

--
2024: Awarded Royal Photographic Society LRPS Distinction
Photo of the day: https://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/wp/photo-of-the-day-2025/
Website: https://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/wp/
DPReview gallery: https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/0286305481
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidmillier/ (very old!)

deednets said:

SrMi said:

deednets said:

JimKasson said:

deednets said:

I just had a chat with somebody on the Sony FF forum who claimed that the GFX100 would "blow the A7RV out of the water". An easy assumption to make, but I always failed to see the logic. Bear with me for a moment, here is an image shot with the lowly (I think) Fuji X-T1, 10 years ago in Bhaktapur, Nepal, a few days before the big earthquake:



I used the image as an example, where I asked as to how this image could lose dynamic range when you crop this image? Cut the black stuff off, either in post - or by using a par of scissors??

I feel like I would like to put this animal to rest, once and if possible, for all: If the above shot was taken with a GFX100 - and then cropped to the above size - would then dynamic range only exists across the WHOLE photo? And ignore the differences from brightest to darkest spots in the centre?

The way I see it - and where I am possibly be wrong is this:

The pixel pitch of the 26Mpx sensor is identical to the 60Mpx A7RV/Q3/Leica 11 - and the 100Mpx GFX100. Just more pixel, but per-pixel no jump in quality. Is this where I got it wrong?? Somebody here posted some landscape photos taken with his GFX100RF and claimed a tonal quality in his cropped examples. But, but, but??? Would a 100Mpx sensor with the same pixel pitch cropped to 60Mpx or below not have the same DR as the lowly A7RV//Q3 etc??

Anyway I thought the "blowing out of the water", often used on dpreview, when the difference is North of Crass, got me thinking that when people claim the tonality of a crop has the MF tonality, are they actually correct?

Note: I have dabbled with a Hasselblad once, landscapes in Laos, where I couldn't fully verify the superiority, you know, the blow out of the water "thing", but hey, maybe my standards are just not particularly high, a claim I have heard a few times, so must be some truth in it, right??

Thanks for a short answer, if anybody here can. I am aware of Bill Claff's website where FF sensors lose DR when shot in APS-C mode, like the brightest spot MUST be outside the APS-C crop to verify this??

Deed

Click to expand...

The assumption is that the images are printed at the same size. So the noise in the cropped image will be magnified more in the print.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about printing at the same size, that's equivalent to the re-size argument, correct? I was talking about dynamic range.

Click to expand...

Comparing dynamic range makes only sense when you compare it at the same output size.

Click to expand...

Yes but: pick 2 spots in my image above then see how many stops this covers.

Click to expand...

You have the wrong definition of dynamic range. It's full scale over the mean signal level that produces a specified signal to noise ratio.

deednets said:

Why does this then depend on how large your output size is?

Click to expand...

The denominator changes.


--

mujana said:

"blowing out of the water" is a phrase that is used too often and many times is an exaggeration.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the fact that it has no measurable meaning

My personal pet peeve is every new product seems to be a "game changer", which also has no measurable meaning

That's a new idea. How about we create a new unit of measure called the GameChanger. A measurement of 0 gc' would be no change while a measurement of 100 gc's would be a totally different device

--
Personal travel snapshots at https://www.castle-explorers.com
1. Making good decisions is generally the result of experience.
2. Experience is generally the result of making bad decisions.
3. Never underestimate your capability for doing incredibly stupid s**t.

Schrodingers cat said:

mujana said:

"blowing out of the water" is a phrase that is used too often and many times is an exaggeration.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the fact that it has no measurable meaning

My personal pet peeve is every new product seems to be a "game changer", which also has no measurable meaning

Click to expand...

Quantitative thinking is harder than qualitative thinking. Insistence on scalar metrics is comforting to some people, but is ultimately subjective, since the choice of the weights is subjective.

JimKasson said:

Schrodingers cat said:

mujana said:

"blowing out of the water" is a phrase that is used too often and many times is an exaggeration.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the fact that it has no measurable meaning

My personal pet peeve is every new product seems to be a "game changer", which also has no measurable meaning

Click to expand...

Quantitative thinking is harder than qualitative thinking. Insistence on scalar metrics is comforting to some people, but is ultimately subjective, since the choice of the weights is subjective.

Click to expand...

I have an idea. We need to create a new unit of measure. We can call the unit a GameChanger.

In use, a measure of 0 gc's would mean no change and a measure of 100 gc's would mean an entirely different device

You could even have negative gc's, meaning the change was regressive

--
Personal travel snapshots at https://www.castle-explorers.com
1. Making good decisions is generally the result of experience.
2. Experience is generally the result of making bad decisions.
3. Never underestimate your capability for doing incredibly stupid s**t.