Old Sensor v New Sensor

[Mike Farley]

Here's a test which you do not often see on the Internet, with two cameras of different vintages with the same number of megapixels and sensor size fitted with identical lenses. I am not sure that it tells us anything which we did not already know, namely that the improvements have been mainly to shadow noise and high ISO performance rather than outright image quality. The 2008 camera acquits itself remarkably well against the 2015 model. Both sensors, of course, were manufactured by Sony, although Nikon's engineers might well have made different decisions when deciding how to process the image data. Even if Raw files are meant to be as captured directly from the sensor, there are suspicions that manufacturers apply some tweaks. One example is the infamous Raw file lossy compression of recent A7 cameras, which I do not know whether that occurred with the A900 as well.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... -d750.html

[Mike Farley]

In a further update in his series of blog posts about using an older camera, Mike Johnston gives a reminder (if anyone needed it) that improvements have also been wrought in post capture processing software. Provided an image is taken in Raw, it is possible to get a better result than when the camera was new. Maybe our gear is like fine wines.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... range.html

[Mike Farley]

A further example from The Online Photographer of improvements in software, this time DxO, being used to enhance images from older cameras.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... i-use.html

[Mike Farley]

A follow up post from Mike Johnston in which he compares results from the Sony A900 with Sigma Art 35 f/1.4 lens attached to a Fuji X-T1 and 23 f/1.4 which gives a similar field of view on the APS-C crop sensor. The Sony is 24 MP and full frame, the Fuji has a smaller sensor and just 16 MP but the technology inside is some six years newer. Which of the cameras wins out? Will there even be a winner?

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... usion.html