The following is quoted below with the kind permission of Petapixel.com
This comparison, by Norwegian professional photographer and photography teacher/author Magnar W. Fjørtoft, is backed up with a real test. He shot a scene of a shipyard containing great detail at f/8 on his old 12mp APS-C camera and his brand new 24mp full frame camera.
He printed each photo 43″ wide and asked a group of 30 photo professionals and enthusiasts to write down which camera shot each print. Was it the 12mp APS-C or the 24mp full frame? They were allowed to examine the prints as closely as they wished.
Only 50% of their calls were correct, which is the same a flipping a coin. Magnar said that he himself could not detect a difference between the prints and had to label them on the back “A” and “B” to keep track of which was which.
After printing both images, Magnar wrote, “We simply could not believe our eyes! Then we laughed and laughed. We could not spot any differences!”
That is remarkable, I would have guessed Medium Format would be easily recognizable. 'Differences' in audio equipment often disappears in 'unfair' Blind Comparisons, the expectation bias is a powerful force,
check this out:
I never print large, and I have stated many times that I cannot tell the difference between my 1" rx100's images and my FF RX1r when viewed on my 27" monitor.
Except for FF sensor's shallow focus capability, that can be readily seen even as small as Large Icon Size
Bear in mind that when you use SONY sensors, the pixel pitch of the:
- 26Mpx APS-C,
- 60Mpx FF and
- 100Mpx MF
... is identical. Since a lot of people "zoom in" to 100% they would see the same detail in all 3 sensors.
And if the example was also about scaling, e.g. getting 12Mpx to resolve 43", that is then roughly 100px/inch. The 24Mpx sensor gives you 139px/inch. A matter of diminishing returns as you cannot carry on down-scaling the image. The A7RV resolves 221px/inch ... you see where this is going?? You pick some random size (43" - and why not??) and then draw some conclusions regarding sensor size. But you cannot keep on doing this as your eyes have only so much resolving power. And then of course, a BIG one: what subject?
Then there's the issue of printing ... another mini-equalizer on the way ...
Having sad all this: what's this got to do with fixed lens cameras?
So in short there's more to this than a simplified test. There was a test, similar to the one mentioned above, where somebody had used a Canon P&S and compared the results to a Hasselblad. Mot people couldn't see any discernible difference. Not sure now if they also used 43" ;-)
Something to think about??
Deed
