Reading mode: Light Dark

Argument about pixels seeks comments

Go to last post
Hi Jason,

With a title to the article such as he has penned:

"Sigma SD14 Dissatisfaction: Finally Believe Me, Foveon Fanboys?"

I personally wouldn't even dignify his opinions with a response. First, he (Brian), for a "technical editor," obviously doesn't understand the term "resolution" since he falls into the marketing morass and expresses a misgided opinion that file matrix size and "resolution" are somehow equivalent.

As we all know, using display pixel count as a synonym for "resolution" was only a convenient and rough correlation courtesy of CFA technology. That is a CFA sensor producing "X" number of display pixels has somewhat equivalent measured black and white resolution with another CFA sensor of similar display pixel output.

Of course when Sigma produced a 3.4 "megapixel" output with an SD9/SD10 which equalled or exceeded the measured black and white resolution of a "6.3 megapixel" CFA capture then thinking people had to reconsider the meaning of the term "resolution" and return to the only meaningful definition which is and always has been "optical resolution".

So an argument against Foveon and Sigma's calling their camera a "14 megapixel" camera based on the term "resolution" is simply foolish and reveals a lack of technical understanding. To make things worse, Brian then uses Wikipedia as a reference to bolster his arguments.

The author of the Pop Photography's "exhaustive" (per Brian) tests chimes in there and we all know how accurate that review was - LOL.

Bottom line is we have there one of those "ain't that right Michael? ( Michael J. McNamara - author or the Pop Photo Review)" - "yeah Brian - I'm glad somebody agrees with me" mutual admiration societies.

When someone in a supposedly senior technical position resorts to such a title and publicly calls Foveon sensor users "Fanboys" then I draw the line at even dignifying this tripe with a response. As far as I'm concerned they can print EDN's opinion and I'll gladly substitute it for an old, outdated Sears catalog and give it a place of honor in my outhouse.

Lin
Jason Page said:
http://www.edn.com/blog/400000040/post/810011881.html

This looks worth while send the author takes the time to reply
respectfully.
--
I'm happy as can be with my SD9.
http://jasonpage.zenfolio.com

My online profile:
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=6667382292234295898
Click to expand...
 
i gave them a very short answer :
10 mb bayer=
5 million pixels for green
2,5 million pixels for blue and red
foveon = 4,7 m for green , for red and for blue.
Guido
 
The title of the article sux big time - but the facts are correct as far as I can see. He has made measurements on test patterns - including the test pattern from Foveon - and the results looks correct.

BTW. I have come to the conclusion that it is a matter of opinion whether the SD14 is 4.7 or 14 Mpixels. And you cannot really falsify opinions. Therefore - the discussion has become rather uninteresting.

My personal opinion is that it is a 4.7 Mpixel camera as this is the native resolution of the converted but unscaled RGB file. But other opinions exists and there are motivations for those opinions also. Weaker motivated opinions IMHO.

--
Roland
 
Guido FORRIER said:
i gave them a very short answer :
10 mb bayer=
5 million pixels for green
2,5 million pixels for blue and red
foveon = 4,7 m for green , for red and for blue.
Click to expand...
Not entirely true. Neither Bayer CFA nor Foveon X3 makes pictures directly from the sensor. Therefore none of the methods results in picture elements (i.e. pixels). Therefore you cannot count pixels on the sensor. You can only count pixels in the picture output - i.e. after conversion.

Thats when it gets messy. Conversion can be made several ways. And thats why opinions wary.

My opinion is that you shall count pixels in the native unscaled outputs. That way of counting (unfortunately) favours Bayer CFA.

Foveon fans and manufacturers do not like that. So - they choose another way of counting that (unfortunately) favours Foveon X3.

Both are useless for comparison. Still the debate goes on :)

--
Roland
 
sorry,
Brian Dipert wrote : photosites = pixels

so bayer 10mb = 5 miilion green , 2,5 million red and 2,5 million blue = totaly 10 million
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering color .
for black and white it has 10 miilion 'pixels' (=photosites).
Do not forgett the effect of AA filter and blurring .
read also :
http://www.foveon.com/article.php?a=74

Guido
 
Guido FORRIER said:
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering
color .
Click to expand...
Nope - absolutely not. No CFA reconstruction software works thus.

--
Roland
 
One of the things I hate about the Foveon and bayer technology debates is that people (on both sides) so often misunderstand how the technologies work then make great sweeping erroneous statements about it, almost inevitably interpreting things to support their prejudices. Why can't we measure resolution in lp/mm or something!
Roland Karlsson said:
Guido FORRIER said:
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering
color .
Click to expand...
Nope - absolutely not. No CFA reconstruction software works thus.

--
Roland
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
 
Roland Karlsson said:
My personal opinion is that it is a 4.7 Mpixel camera as this is the
native resolution of the converted but unscaled RGB file. But other
opinions exists and there are motivations for those opinions also.
Weaker motivated opinions IMHO.
Click to expand...
Of course - it has 4.7 Million sesnor locations (sampling 3 colours at each site) and produces files with 4.7 millions pxiels. I think this is quite clear. By contrast a 10MP Bayer sensor has more sensor locations, but only samples one colour at each site. The 10MP Bayer sensor should have considerably greater B&W resolution, but slightly less "colour resolution". However the other factor in the equation is the AA filter that Bayer sensors require, which reduces their resolution. The relative superiority (compared to a Bayer sensor with the same number of sensor sites) presumably must be largely due to the lack of AA filter. The superior colour resolution is presumably a combination of 3 colour sampling at each site as well as lack of AA filter.

The real question about resolution or any other aspect of picture quality is about how the final images look.

--
I think I'll change my signature
 
David,

Tell that to the idiot who wrote that article. I quote:

"My consistent message has been that Foveon's Mpixel claims can't be taken seriously; that simply by embedding discrete red, green and blue spectrum-optimized photodiodes within each photosite (pixel), Foveon can't claim that they've tripled the sensor's resolution."

We can argue all we want about claims and numbers, but this clown is making the most "sweeping erroneous statement about it" by referencing pixel count to resolution and then going further to somehow insinuate that Bayer has proved him right. Most of what he has written there is complete gobbledygook which mostly belies his title of Senior Tech Editor.

I certainly do not want to get in the middle of another exciting marketing ploy discussion; Roland seems to have launched that successfully. But if morons like this with great titles add their two Groschen to the pot, all is lost.
DMillier said:
Roland Karlsson said:
Guido FORRIER said:
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering
color .
Click to expand...
Nope - absolutely not. No CFA reconstruction software works thus.

--
Roland
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
Click to expand...
--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com
 
Laurence Matson said:
David,

Tell that to the idiot who wrote that article. I quote:

"My consistent message has been that Foveon's Mpixel claims can't be
taken seriously; that simply by embedding discrete red, green and
blue spectrum-optimized photodiodes within each photosite (pixel),
Foveon can't claim that they've tripled the sensor's resolution."

We can argue all we want about claims and numbers, but this clown is
making the most "sweeping erroneous statement about it" by
referencing pixel count to resolution and then going further to
somehow insinuate that Bayer has proved him right. Most of what he
has written there is complete gobbledygook which mostly belies his
title of Senior Tech Editor.
Click to expand...
Laurence - Guido asserted a faulty fact (actually a factoid). I said so and David agreed. Nothing wrong with that I assume.

The myth that pixel count not is related to resolution is wrong. The pixel count in a picture is the upper limit for resolution.

The pixel count for imagers don´t really exist anymore after the current fuzzification of the meaning of a pixel.
Laurence Matson said:
I certainly do not want to get in the middle of another exciting
marketing ploy discussion; Roland seems to have launched that
successfully. But if morons like this with great titles add their two
Groschen to the pot, all is lost.
Click to expand...
You are already in :) And - it was Jason that started it, not me :)

Look at my posts here - I have consistently adviced not to discuss it. I have even said that it is uninteresting as it is up to personal opinions.

My answer to Guido had nothing to do with counting pixels. It was just to tell Guido that you don´t combine four values to one pixel when doing Bayer CFA reconstruction. Its not made that way.

--
Roland
 
my opinion :

i never see a review where the 'expert' is taking himself a good shot , develop very well the rawfile and print it (with good knowlegde and skill) on A/A1/A0 and then argues about image quality .

some members of this forum do it and even sell their pictures . I suppose they know better .
guido
 
Guido FORRIER said:
my opinion :
i never see a review where the 'expert' is taking himself a good shot
, develop very well the rawfile and print it (with good knowlegde
and skill) on A/A1/A0 and then argues about image quality .
some members of this forum do it and even sell their pictures . I
suppose they know better .
Click to expand...
Thats correct. Serious users use the equipment more than reviewers can ever do. It might even be so that some reviewers become camera nerds because they are not all that interested in making photographs - but rather more interested in cameras.

So - your advice is generally sound. Put more faith in users than reviewers.

But - it is not necessarily so that a serious user knows what he/she is talking about We humans are very easy to fool - and the best one to fool us are ourselves. We see whatever we want to see and hear whatever we want to hear.

--
Roland
 
I think we all agree that using MP as a measure of resolution was useful in the early days but isn't really now.

The problem I imagine for some people is it seems dishonest to use a different definition of MP from everyone else (even if it is legitimate).

To keep the moral highground, yet still be able to market successfully, maybe Foveon should abandon the term MP altogether? Whilst the article had a nasty tone and was a bit hazy about the facts, it did perhaps successfully get across the sense of unease people might have with Foveon's sudden uprating of their sensor pixel counts.

It's a difficult one all round. I certainly sympathise with Foveon/Sigma's dilemma...
Laurence Matson said:
Tell that to the idiot who wrote that article. I quote:

"My consistent message has been that Foveon's Mpixel claims can't be
taken seriously; that simply by embedding discrete red, green and
blue spectrum-optimized photodiodes within each photosite (pixel),
Foveon can't claim that they've tripled the sensor's resolution."

We can argue all we want about claims and numbers, but this clown is
making the most "sweeping erroneous statement about it" by
referencing pixel count to resolution and then going further to
somehow insinuate that Bayer has proved him right. Most of what he
has written there is complete gobbledygook which mostly belies his
title of Senior Tech Editor.

I certainly do not want to get in the middle of another exciting
marketing ploy discussion; Roland seems to have launched that
successfully. But if morons like this with great titles add their two
Groschen to the pot, all is lost.
DMillier said:
Roland Karlsson said:
Guido FORRIER said:
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering
color .
Click to expand...
Nope - absolutely not. No CFA reconstruction software works thus.

--
Roland
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
Click to expand...
--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed
people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
 
Don't worry about this. David Miller and myself are the only two who are capable of finding the truth. (Okay, maybe Mike Charnery, too. But he only took a picture of a flower. ;) We will use a novel technique NEVER used before in photography. We will look at actual prints at varying sizes! ;)
DMillier said:
The problem I imagine for some people is it seems dishonest to use a
different definition of MP from everyone else (even if it is
legitimate).

To keep the moral highground, yet still be able to market
successfully, maybe Foveon should abandon the term MP altogether?
Whilst the article had a nasty tone and was a bit hazy about the
facts, it did perhaps successfully get across the sense of unease
people might have with Foveon's sudden uprating of their sensor pixel
counts.

It's a difficult one all round. I certainly sympathise with
Foveon/Sigma's dilemma...
Laurence Matson said:
Tell that to the idiot who wrote that article. I quote:

"My consistent message has been that Foveon's Mpixel claims can't be
taken seriously; that simply by embedding discrete red, green and
blue spectrum-optimized photodiodes within each photosite (pixel),
Foveon can't claim that they've tripled the sensor's resolution."

We can argue all we want about claims and numbers, but this clown is
making the most "sweeping erroneous statement about it" by
referencing pixel count to resolution and then going further to
somehow insinuate that Bayer has proved him right. Most of what he
has written there is complete gobbledygook which mostly belies his
title of Senior Tech Editor.

I certainly do not want to get in the middle of another exciting
marketing ploy discussion; Roland seems to have launched that
successfully. But if morons like this with great titles add their two
Groschen to the pot, all is lost.
DMillier said:
Roland Karlsson said:
Guido FORRIER said:
in fact a bayer 'pixel' is a square of 4 photosites for rendering
color .
Click to expand...
Nope - absolutely not. No CFA reconstruction software works thus.

--
Roland
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
Click to expand...
--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed
people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com
Click to expand...
--
Galleries and website: http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/mainindex.htm
Click to expand...
 
ChromeLight said:
Don't worry about this. David Miller and myself are the only two who
are capable of finding the truth. (Okay, maybe Mike Charnery, too.
But he only took a picture of a flower. ;) We will use a novel
technique NEVER used before in photography. We will look at actual
prints at varying sizes! ;)
Click to expand...
Looking is very subjective and prone to errors :P

To really appreciate the true nature of images - blind tests need to be used!

--
Roland
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top