I don't think it's annoyed as much as curiousity and/or concern.
OK, I get the picture. Funny though, that the subthread wasn't about ignoring John, but John seems to be the one you can't ignore. Myself, John seems to me to be the epitome of the clued up user. He has invested in a Canon system because it was clearly the best overall system. Now it isn't. And the improvements that the competition are making are not just academic, they are things that can change the whole methodology of photography and eliminate some of the biggest pratfalls we fall liable today. During the time of my Canon ownership, Canon has gone from out and out bets for the kind of photography I do to arguably the worst. John's reaction is a bit the same as mine. He sees those improvements and he wants them, but he doesn't want to change his whole system to get them, so the best solution would be for Canon to make the improvements. Saying that kind of thing is what these forums are about. And if you disagree, there's no law that says you have to participate in those threads.
From what I've read it appears this low ISO performance difference may be more in the electronics and processing than the sensor itself.
It is to do with the characteristics of the ADC concerned, that is very clear from the performance data.
There's some speculation that Nikon and Sony are doing multiple reads from this new sensor to improve the DR.
That was speculation about a previous sensor. In this case, they aren't.
Others have speculated that Canon has some problems with the shielding or the quality of components used in their circuits.
The root of it is in the architecture they are using. You can see exactly the same thing with the Nikon D3, D700, D3S and D3100 all of which are Canon like in their design.
I'm not technically proficient enough to know but I'm also not convinced that Sheehy, Helke or you are either.
If you're not technically proficient enough to know, then you're not technologically proficient enough to judge that.
There's a lot of big words and theory thrown around here but little or no evidence as to the posters resume's or accomplishments. Simply put, the discussion is interesting but suspect in my mind on several fronts (this is the Internet after all). I've known too many people in my lfe that were experts at baffling with their BS but when challenged by someone who really knew what they were talking about were quickly exposed. I'm not saying any of you fit that description, just that there are others like ejmartin or Richard N. Clarke that do have the resume's and IMO are more believable.
That says very little. Emil's professional expertise is condensed matter theory, which hardly indicates that he'll be an expert in sensors. You judge that by the logic and evidence of his arguments, and whether the arguments he advances match with reality, and they do. I don't think I've ever seen Emil stand on his CV, and nor should he. Roger Clark (I presume that's who you mean, I don't know of a 'Richard N Clarke') is another case, the fact that he is an planetary scientist doesn't imply particular knowledge of photography, and in fact some of what he says is plain wrong. Once again, you need to judge by the arguments and evidence, just the same as either of these guys would be expected to do in their professional career.
Offer up your resume with some methods to cross check for validity and I'll be happy to consider it otherwise please understand that all of you are just a handle spouting words with an opinion on the Internet. Just because you can sound credible doesn't mean you are.
If you know enough to judge, yes it does. I don't know John Sheehy's qualifications, and I've had some ding-dong disagreements with him, but during those disagreements I knew enough from his arguments to know that he does understand how this stuff works. That's because I have the expertise to judge and validate his arguments for myself. And I'm not going to publish my bio here. For several reasons:
i) What's the point? Even if I told you I was a University professor specialising in sensor systems, it wouldn't for a second make my arguments any better or mean my opinions were 'correct' - you still have to judge that for yourself on the basis of the arguments and evidence.
ii) There are several people here who would abuse any such publication
iii) Why the hell should I? I'm not requiring you to publish your CV before I assess your arguments, nor have you asked anyone else, nor have the people who you seem to think 'have' CV's done this.
Would I like to see the next generation of Canon sensors perform on par or exceed the new Sony offerings on DR and noise at all ISO's? Certainly, but for the way I currently shoot it would be like 8 FPS on my 7D. It's a nice capability to have when I need it but I've not used it yet but maybe that's a paradigm shift I need to make.
For me it would make a big an practical difference to how I would work, but we presumably work different ways.
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Bob
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