Nagging questions

In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

> He is writing that with RAW usually you have one more stop of headroom.
> The D3 achieves up to 12, but it is also a full-frame camera, pretty
> much the best performing one at the moment. Most DSLRs use smaller
> sensors and have therefore less dynamic range. You claimed that "most
> dslr sensors are capable of over 12 stops" which is simply not true.

yes it is.

<http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/digital.sensor.performance.summa
ry/>
 >> Stay informed about: Nagging questions 

Alfred Molon wrote:

> Most DSLRs use smaller
> sensors and have therefore less dynamic range.

Bzzzt.
Sensor size *as such* has nothing to do with dynamic range.
Pixel size, however ...
Small sensors tend to have smaller pixels, that's all.

> You claimed that "most
> dslr sensors are capable of over 12 stops" which is simply not true.

http://clarkvision.com/articles/digital.sensor.performance.summary/ind...html#da
indicates that the sensors are perfectly capable of 12+ stops,
based on their full well capacity and read noise, but excluding
A/D noise (which is not really tied to the sensor, anyway).
The rest of the page makes it clear that the camera performance
is limited by
a) 12 bit A/D converters,
b) noise in A/D converters,
c) *much* less improvement for A/D converters of 14 bit than would
be assumed by the additional bits. High megaherz speeds seem
to do that, at least for now.

-Wolfgang
 >> Stay informed about: Nagging questions