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Thread: Big pixels or Little pixles?

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  1. #1
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    Default Big pixels or Little pixles?

    With a lot of cameras coming out lately with wildly different sized pixels, there are more choices than ever, and seemingly more confusion than ever. Large pixels alone do not improve high ISO noise performance. With the same lens at the same imaging position, larger pixels have less pixels on the subject, thus each pixel sees a larger area, which gathers more light, but there is less detail in the image. If you had very small pixels, one could average pixels together and improve signal-to-noise per pixel by trading detail and noise. Less noise and less detail, or more detail with more noise. So which to choose, a camera with larger pixels or smaller pixels?

    In the subsequent posts to this thread, I'll show a series of images taken with 3 cameras, each with different sized pixels. The subject (the moon) was small in the frame, so this is a focal length limited situation. I used a 300 mm f/2.8 lens on the 3 cameras. The exposure = 1/ISO at f/5.6 on each camera. So each sensor received the same amount of light at a given ISO. The 3 cameras have 4.3, 5.7 and 6.4 micron pixels. The 6.4 micron pixel images have the highest signal-to-noise ratio, but the least detail. The images were converted from raw with identical settings on all images.

    Your job, if interested, is to examine the series and evaluate which camera produces the best image at each ISO for this condition. (Note: a frame filling subject will produce different results.)

    Roger
    Last edited by Roger Clark; 03-02-2012 at 12:02 AM.

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