The 16-Bit Fallacy: Why More Isn't Always Better in Medium Format Cameras

[Rich42]

Completely forgot about EBCIDIC. I jumped from the 7090/7094 series to the CDC super computer (6600 at the time) ...

My current wife, worked on the IBM 360 back in the day - even to the point of developing a complier for a specialized applications for her thesis.

My early programming was done in BALGOL (a strongly typed language akin to Algol) on the Burroughs B220 (vacuum tubes!). Then the B5000, B5500, 7094, Bendix G20 and Illiac II. All before I got my MSEE.

In high school, I used a DECSYSTEM 10 programmed in BASIC using ASCII paper tape, and I also built and used a Heathkit H8.

You had high school?!!

We only had a one-room school house. To learn programming, had to write ones and zeros on the back of a shovel with pieces of charcoal. Machine code, mostly . . . Assembly was messy like that.

After walking home from school, in the snow, uphill, with holes in my shoes, I did my homework on logs which I scratched clean so I could use charcoal to write on them. But they only lasted for a short time each evening, as they were needed in the fireplace to warm the two rooms that made up our farm house.

Then there was steam power and bye and bye we got electrified. :-D

I did make a Heathkit short wave receiver, though. And built a Q-multiplier for it and designed and built an RF "front end amplifier" for it.

 

[Sittatunga]

Completely forgot about EBCIDIC. I jumped from the 7090/7094 series to the CDC super computer (6600 at the time) ...

My current wife, worked on the IBM 360 back in the day - even to the point of developing a complier for a specialized applications for her thesis.

My early programming was done in BALGOL (a strongly typed language akin to Algol) on the Burroughs B220 (vacuum tubes!). Then the B5000, B5500, 7094, Bendix G20 and Illiac II. All before I got my MSEE.

In high school, I used a DECSYSTEM 10 programmed in BASIC using ASCII paper tape, and I also built and used a Heathkit H8.

You had high school?!!

We only had a one-room school house. To learn programming, had to write ones and zeros on the back of a shovel with pieces of charcoal. Machine code, mostly . . . Assembly was messy like that.

After walking home from school, in the snow, uphill, with holes in my shoes, I did my homework on logs which I scratched clean so I could use charcoal to write on them. But they only lasted for a short time each evening, as they were needed in the fireplace to warm the two rooms that made up our farm house.

Then there was steam power and bye and bye we got electrified. :-D

I did make a Heathkit short wave receiver, though. And built a Q-multiplier for it and designed and built an RF "front end amplifier" for it.

 

[Rich42]

Completely forgot about EBCIDIC. I jumped from the 7090/7094 series to the CDC super computer (6600 at the time) ...

My current wife, worked on the IBM 360 back in the day - even to the point of developing a complier for a specialized applications for her thesis.

My early programming was done in BALGOL (a strongly typed language akin to Algol) on the Burroughs B220 (vacuum tubes!). Then the B5000, B5500, 7094, Bendix G20 and Illiac II. All before I got my MSEE.

In high school, I used a DECSYSTEM 10 programmed in BASIC using ASCII paper tape, and I also built and used a Heathkit H8.

You had high school?!!

We only had a one-room school house. To learn programming, had to write ones and zeros on the back of a shovel with pieces of charcoal. Machine code, mostly . . . Assembly was messy like that.

After walking home from school, in the snow, uphill, with holes in my shoes, I did my homework on logs which I scratched clean so I could use charcoal to write on them. But they only lasted for a short time each evening, as they were needed in the fireplace to warm the two rooms that made up our farm house.

Then there was steam power and bye and bye we got electrified. :-D

I did make a Heathkit short wave receiver, though. And built a Q-multiplier for it and designed and built an RF "front end amplifier" for it.

I didn't realise they had Yorkshiremen in California.

Oh, we have a proud history of it here. My brother is quick to remind me that while the soles of my shoes were, for all practical purposes non-existent, he only had the boxes the shoes came in to wear.

 

[JimKasson]

1. Myth: 16-Bit Provides More Dynamic Range A 16-bit file can, in theory, encode 96 dB of dynamic range versus 84 dB for 14-bit.

Oh, the joys of linear DACs... Each bit doubles the range and is thus 1 stop. A dB (decibel) is the far less intuitive, perception-based equation: 20*log10(2^bits). CMOS image sensors are basically (analog charge-based) photon counters. That makes them inherently digital: there really is a unit charge that corresponds to absorbing 1 photon. So, let's stick with calling things by stops and bits rather than dB. ;-)

For voltage, current, etc, one stop is 6 dB, or close enough for government work.

 

[ProfHankD]

1. Myth: 16-Bit Provides More Dynamic Range A 16-bit file can, in theory, encode 96 dB of dynamic range versus 84 dB for 14-bit.

Oh, the joys of linear DACs... Each bit doubles the range and is thus 1 stop. A dB (decibel) is the far less intuitive, perception-based equation: 20*log10(2^bits). CMOS image sensors are basically (analog charge-based) photon counters. That makes them inherently digital: there really is a unit charge that corresponds to absorbing 1 photon. So, let's stick with calling things by stops and bits rather than dB. ;-)

For voltage, current, etc, one stop is 6 dB, or close enough for government work.

True, it's only 2% off. Still, saying each bit doubles the range is precise and counting bits seems more convenient than multiplying that number by 6. Then again, who doesn't like measuring water depth in Fathoms? ;-)

 

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

And I use Power dB's. 10Log(gain). So every doubling or halving is 3dB. This, even with what is more of a voltage than a power, such as receivers (as opposed to transmitters, which are high power).

Plus, we use our dB's relative to a milliwatt. Even with receivers. A typical cell phone transmitter is in the +30dBm range while the receiver is in the -110 dBm range. That makes it easier to calculate the link margin. In this example, 140 dB.

It is far easier to use the logarithmic measurement than the linear ones, Watts and Microvolts.

I bring it up because when I get to talking dB's, I'm very likely to use the Power ones....

Stan

 

[JimKasson]

1. Myth: 16-Bit Provides More Dynamic Range A 16-bit file can, in theory, encode 96 dB of dynamic range versus 84 dB for 14-bit.

Oh, the joys of linear DACs... Each bit doubles the range and is thus 1 stop. A dB (decibel) is the far less intuitive, perception-based equation: 20*log10(2^bits). CMOS image sensors are basically (analog charge-based) photon counters. That makes them inherently digital: there really is a unit charge that corresponds to absorbing 1 photon. So, let's stick with calling things by stops and bits rather than dB. ;-)

For voltage, current, etc, one stop is 6 dB, or close enough for government work.

True, it's only 2% off. Still, saying each bit doubles the range is precise and counting bits seems more convenient than multiplying that number by 6. Then again, who doesn't like measuring water depth in Fathoms? ;-)

That’s a way of looking at things with which I have great familiarity. Don’t you call 3dB down on a Bode plot the half power point?

But I usually use stops for photography.

 

[Gandolphi]

How else would they deliver the Hovis….

Completely forgot about EBCIDIC. I jumped from the 7090/7094 series to the CDC super computer (6600 at the time) ...

My current wife, worked on the IBM 360 back in the day - even to the point of developing a complier for a specialized applications for her thesis.

My early programming was done in BALGOL (a strongly typed language akin to Algol) on the Burroughs B220 (vacuum tubes!). Then the B5000, B5500, 7094, Bendix G20 and Illiac II. All before I got my MSEE.

In high school, I used a DECSYSTEM 10 programmed in BASIC using ASCII paper tape, and I also built and used a Heathkit H8.

You had high school?!!

We only had a one-room school house. To learn programming, had to write ones and zeros on the back of a shovel with pieces of charcoal. Machine code, mostly . . . Assembly was messy like that.

After walking home from school, in the snow, uphill, with holes in my shoes, I did my homework on logs which I scratched clean so I could use charcoal to write on them. But they only lasted for a short time each evening, as they were needed in the fireplace to warm the two rooms that made up our farm house.

Then there was steam power and bye and bye we got electrified. :-D

I did make a Heathkit short wave receiver, though. And built a Q-multiplier for it and designed and built an RF "front end amplifier" for it.

I didn't realise they had Yorkshiremen in California.

 

[Gandolphi]

A man with a “reet Grady shovel” is a man with no more needs

Completely forgot about EBCIDIC. I jumped from the 7090/7094 series to the CDC super computer (6600 at the time) ...

My current wife, worked on the IBM 360 back in the day - even to the point of developing a complier for a specialized applications for her thesis.

My early programming was done in BALGOL (a strongly typed language akin to Algol) on the Burroughs B220 (vacuum tubes!). Then the B5000, B5500, 7094, Bendix G20 and Illiac II. All before I got my MSEE.

In high school, I used a DECSYSTEM 10 programmed in BASIC using ASCII paper tape, and I also built and used a Heathkit H8.

You had high school?!!

We only had a one-room school house. To learn programming, had to write ones and zeros on the back of a shovel with pieces of charcoal. Machine code, mostly . . . Assembly was messy like that.

After walking home from school, in the snow, uphill, with holes in my shoes, I did my homework on logs which I scratched clean so I could use charcoal to write on them. But they only lasted for a short time each evening, as they were needed in the fireplace to warm the two rooms that made up our farm house.

Then there was steam power and bye and bye we got electrified. :-D

I did make a Heathkit short wave receiver, though. And built a Q-multiplier for it and designed and built an RF "front end amplifier" for it.

I didn't realise they had Yorkshiremen in California.

Oh, we have a proud history of it here. My brother is quick to remind me that while the soles of my shoes were, for all practical purposes non-existent, he only had the boxes the shoes came in to wear.

 

[SeeingSomeThingsMissingMany]

2016 film Hidden Figures is a terrific film based on actual events in NASA in the 60's where Black Ladies programmed IBM computers.

One of the Black Ladies Dorothy Vaughan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

"Vaughan prepared for the introduction of computers in the early 1960s by teaching herself and her staff the Fortran programming language. She later headed the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division (ACD) at Langley".

One of the Black Ladies Katherine Johnson did the maths for the trajectories the re entry paths, astronaut John Glenn trusted only her for the calculations. She has a building named after her in NASA : the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson

"Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon.[4] Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. She was known as a "human computer" for her tremendous mathematical capability and ability to work with space trajectories with such little technology and recognition at the time."

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.