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Author Topic: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?  (Read 24212 times)

ondebanks

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #40 on: April 16, 2013, 06:12:34 am »


Hmmm...I hadn't intended to reignite this debate but others have pitched in...so...

I will take this chance to address you original post:

"The Leaf Aptus-II delivers stunning, film-like quality that rivals any capture device available in the industry, regardless of resolution"
How is that not true? This is a statement about image quality, not features. Leaf Aptus is targeted mainly at studio shooters. High ISO and long exposures are not basic features for that demo.

To me, a statement as bold as "any capture device available in the industry, regardless of resolution" leaves no wriggle room for exceptions like the ones you gave.
"The industry" refers to the camera industry, not a niche segment like cameras targeted at studio shooters, and "capture" refers to any usage that cameras are commonly put to, which includes shooting at higher ISO and longer exposures.

You can also fault their camera for not having: the best auto focus, the best shooting speed, the best video capability,  auto-ISO, JPEG in camera - there are many many features that exist in a Canon 1DX that are missing from a Leaf camera - that does not make Canon the better camera, or the quoted statement untrue.

I had no complaint about any of those other features, as they were not relevant to image quality.

I guess there is an undecided argument that when you mention "image quality" - are you talking about image quality under the best circumstances, or the worst circumstances, or some kind of average between the two. To me it makes sense that it is measured under the best circumstances, unless specified otherwise.

If the quality can vary by so much depending on the "circumstances", then it is beholden to at least specify what those best circumstances are. I'd also like to see an appraisal of quality/performance for less than ideal circumstances. For example, in the EU, when a car advert flaunts its fuel efficiency performance, the headline "extra-urban" figure is accompanied by a note specifying something like "at sustained 90 kph", and there is also a second, less impressive figure given for "urban cycle" performance, and a third figure, "combined", which is a distance-weighted average of the other two. Maybe we need an EU regulation for cameras/sensors  :o

"quality that rivals any capture device available in the industry" - Copy from 2010, still as far as image quality alone, I don't think it has become untrue. They are not saying it's better than everyone else, just that it is on the front line with the other "bests".

True, "rivals" doesn't necessarily imply "exceeds".

"unsurpassed 12 f-stops of dynamic range" - As was pointed out here, the original copy was written in 2010 when it was indeed the best dynamic range in the market. Careless copy paste and neglect to effectively review copy before it goes out. I'm pretty sure they didn't release that statement after careful review and with intent to deceive. Still, I guess this is the one thing you can really fault them here.

Erik has already covered this - there were other cameras in (and long prior to) 2010 that had surpassed 12 stops of DR.

Actually, I have previously posted here, that where MFD generally has a distinct edge is not necessarily in the quantity of DR (although the new IQ2's seem to be back on top), but rather the quality in S/N terms along the range of stops covered by the DR at base ISO. No-one seems to have picked up on this point...maybe because there is a lack of understanding of noise models.

"the only back with an internal rotating sensor" - I was not aware of other backs with *internal* rotating sensor. I know on cameras like GX680 or RZ67 you can rotate the backs, but what other backs have internal rotation, without using the camera's rotation or taking the back out?

I think you missed my point here. What I said was that Leaf seemed to have forgotten that they themselves had another back with an internal rotating sensor!

Usage of words like "stunning", "unrivaled", "unsurpassed" - This is a common disease of Israeli marketing. They've latched on the the hyperbole way of creating marketing statements, and it's very hard to convince them that sometimes a reserved statement can make a better impression.

Can't comment on Israeli product marketing...but for a small country, they do have an admirable indigenous entrepreneurial tech sector, which produces such products to market!

Ray
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #41 on: April 16, 2013, 06:26:09 am »

Hi,

There is another small country having an admirable indigenous entrepreneurial tech sector, which produces such products to market, with Copenhagen as capital. ;-)

Best regards
Erik


Can't comment on Israeli product marketing...but for a small country, they do have an admirable indigenous entrepreneurial tech sector, which produces such products to market!

Ray
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ondebanks

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #42 on: April 16, 2013, 06:49:05 am »

Absolutely! My sister lives there (Århus).

Ray
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #43 on: April 16, 2013, 11:48:01 pm »

Ray,

You may elaborate a bit on this statement. My understanding is that as long as we expose to the right at base ISO we use the full dynamic range of the sensor, and in that situation it is probable that a larger sensor collects more photons and thus reducing shot noise, resulting in smoother highlights and mid tones. What could counter act this would be if the larger sensor has less electron storage capacity than the smaller sensor.

CMOS sensors similar to Exmor get their improved DR mostly from reducing readout noise, thus having cleaner darks.

So larger sensors would have better highlights and midtones unless they would underexpose by intention, for instance to avoid clipping of cloud detail.

Something I missed?

Best regards
Erik


Actually, I have previously posted here, that where MFD generally has a distinct edge is not necessarily in the quantity of DR (although the new IQ2's seem to be back on top), but rather the quality in S/N terms along the range of stops covered by the DR at base ISO. No-one seems to have picked up on this point...maybe because there is a lack of understanding of noise models.


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ondebanks

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #44 on: April 19, 2013, 06:11:16 pm »

Erik,

No, you didn't miss anything - you have neatly described some of what I was referring to. What goes on in the shadows is also interesting. There is a real difference between the appearance of shadow detail taken by high-readout noise (MFD) and low-readout noise (small format CMOS) cameras, even when the signal is adjusted to give the pixels the same average signal to noise.

But there was a thread some months back (one of the endless MFD vs. D800 ones) where the D800 camp were saying "it's better because it has quantifiably greater DR" and the MFD camp (including the dealers here) were saying "nonsense, we get more detail out of the shadows than the D800 can". I offered an assessment arising from signal-to-noise curve modelling I had done, which suggested that these seemingly irreconcilable positions are reconcilable, but it seemed to be ignored. Positions were too entrenched to pay attention to it, perhaps.

Ray
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sbernthal

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #45 on: April 20, 2013, 03:35:43 am »

If the quality can vary by so much depending on the "circumstances", then it is beholden to at least specify what those best circumstances are. I'd also like to see an appraisal of quality/performance for less than ideal circumstances. For example, in the EU, when a car advert flaunts its fuel efficiency performance, the headline "extra-urban" figure is accompanied by a note specifying something like "at sustained 90 kph", and there is also a second, less impressive figure given for "urban cycle" performance, and a third figure, "combined", which is a distance-weighted average of the other two. Maybe we need an EU regulation for cameras/sensors  :o

Image quality is always depending on circumstances - for all digital cameras, not uniquely for Leaf.
My point was, when a camera company makes a statement to the "image quality" of their product, how does the reasonable reader interpret it?
Do they think they camera company is talking about high ISO results? Or about long exposures?
My understanding is that those two conditions are specific cases.

When a camera company wants to refer to high ISO performance, or to long exposure performance, they say so using the aforementioned terms.
When they say just "image quality", IMO they always mean performance under the best conditions.
I think this is the way consumers interpret it, and this is the way the camera manufacturers mean it, and that it applies in almost all cases.
You would like them to say "image quality under the best conditions", but I don't think that is a realistic expectation.

As for car manufacturers, I don't know the EU regulations on publishing gas mileage, but it is well known that "lab results" that the company publishes, are always quite different that "actual test results" that you can find in independent review websites. I agree that any marketing claim that can be objectively verified and standardized, should be enforced by law, but to the best of my knowledge, even in critical industries like food and drugs, the regulation is far from 100% effective.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2013, 03:37:31 am by sbernthal »
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FredBGG

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #46 on: April 20, 2013, 04:45:55 pm »

Erik,

No, you didn't miss anything - you have neatly described some of what I was referring to. What goes on in the shadows is also interesting. There is a real difference between the appearance of shadow detail taken by high-readout noise (MFD) and low-readout noise (small format CMOS) cameras, even when the signal is adjusted to give the pixels the same average signal to noise.

But there was a thread some months back (one of the endless MFD vs. D800 ones) where the D800 camp were saying "it's better because it has quantifiably greater DR" and the MFD camp (including the dealers here) were saying "nonsense, we get more detail out of the shadows than the D800 can". I offered an assessment arising from signal-to-noise curve modelling I had done, which suggested that these seemingly irreconcilable positions are reconcilable, but it seemed to be ignored. Positions were too entrenched to pay attention to it, perhaps.

Ray

An example of what you can get out of the shadows with the D800:



Left side is uncorrected default, right side is the same file corrected in Adobe Camera Raw.
Shadow detail is exceptional and I have yet to se it matched by anything else other than black and white film using a 8 dip water bath process.
that takes about 30 minutes before getting the film into the fixer.

« Last Edit: April 20, 2013, 04:50:58 pm by FredBGG »
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larkis

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #47 on: April 21, 2013, 12:34:55 am »

Could you show a 1:1 of that without any additional noise reduction besides the default. I'm actually interested in the camera as an additional body to what I already have (backup).

AreBee

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #48 on: April 21, 2013, 06:35:28 am »

Fred,

Quote from: FredBGG
An example of what you can get out of the shadows with the D800

The scope for adjustment is impressive, but is it not also academic? After all, no competent photographer would have shot your first, grossly under-exposed image. Had the same image been shot exposed to the right, push of shadows, if required at all, would have been marginal.

Please can you provide a real-world example where push of such magnitude was warranted?
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eronald

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #49 on: April 21, 2013, 08:38:09 am »

Fred,

The scope for adjustment is impressive, but is it not also academic? After all, no competent photographer would have shot your first, grossly under-exposed image. Had the same image been shot exposed to the right, push of shadows, if required at all, would have been marginal.

Please can you provide a real-world example where push of such magnitude was warranted?

This is exactly the attitude which is wrecking the MF cameras for many of us. And ultimately for everybody as to produce perfect shots @ 1600 with very red light you need to be able to produce good ones @ 12800 in bluish light. Although I guess you could also argue that every competent photographer should be able to light up any scene with daylight color temperature like the cine crowd.

Edmund
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 08:39:45 am by eronald »
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AreBee

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #50 on: April 21, 2013, 09:25:04 am »

Edmund,

Quote from: eronald
This is exactly the attitude which is wrecking the MF cameras for many of us.

I'm not sure if the above sentence refers to my "attitude" or to Fred's. Please can you confirm?
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 09:36:48 am by AreBee »
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eronald

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #51 on: April 21, 2013, 09:49:19 am »

Apologies, not your attitude, just your technically ill-advised position. You are like a car critic who says that  a "truck doesn't need a big engine "because it is a truck and doesn't need to do more than 55MPh on the freeway", and who then acts surprised when the same truck takes ages to move away from a light, and can't go over a mountain pass.

There are a bunch of technical reasons why DR and higher ISO is useful in camera electronics. One is that you lose a lot of DR in compensating for white balance. Another, closely linked, is that spare DR and ISO gives you the license to use more orthogonal color filters in the CFA, which translates into better color separation and more beautiful user color - which in fact is the reason why even an antique MF back will demolish a dSLR in file quality. Then of course is the fact that photographers will be able to use fewer Watts of lighting, which translates to less food for the assistants who carry such things, and lower rental fees. Oh, by the way, in many MF backs there is no "electronic"  ISO above 50 or 100, the 200, 400 and 800 settings are all done by software and DR (Although some P1 backs have hardware binning, that's a different game). The high ISO on MF backs are thus often just called ISO for the convenience of our friends in marketing, the same ones who insist whisky tastes better when diluted by water.  SLRs on the other hand often do have signal amps and can really go up to 400 or so before they need to invoke pure DR.  Now that must be a terrible thing to know, wrecks your life, don't it?

On a related note, the Nikon D800 really is in many ways is a breakthrough design, like the Canon 1Ds in its time. As a camera, I don't like it, it is a bit too plasticky, but the sensor is a game changer, in density and in flexibility, and some of us are still hoping the MF guys will finally band together and commission a decent sensor from Sony. Either they do something like that or they will just fade away, $40K backs and all. I have a $50 or something Nikon 50mm/1.8 which cost me about as much as a Hasselblad lenscap, and which feels like a cardboard pinhole lens, but which just keeps making beautiful pictures with decent bokeh - I've compared it to every 50 on the market including Zeiss at 20x the price and it compares well. The Canon 50/1.8 I have mounted on an old 400D does almost as well. A good design is a good design regardless of the end-user price, and the label; the SLR guys may make cheap cameras but they spend a fortune in engineer hours on *design* including AF, optics and sensors.

Edmund

Edmund,

I'm not sure if the above sentence refers to my "attitude" or to Fred's. Please can you confirm?
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 10:29:05 am by eronald »
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AreBee

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #52 on: April 21, 2013, 12:02:02 pm »

Edmund,

Thank you for clarifying.

Quote from: eronald
...not your attitude, just your technically ill-advised position.

Quote from: eronald
Oh, by the way...Now that must be a terrible thing to know, wrecks your life, don't it?

I think you may be jumping to conclusions. You apparently consider that I have an axe to grind with respect to the D800/E specifically, and DSLRs generally. If so then you are mistaken.

I welcome all the dynamic range I can get. However, no one I know deliberately shoots images grossly under-exposed and then pushes the file to the extent indicated in Fred's post. If doing so is useful for some then it is news to me, hence my question to Fred.
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Martin Ranger

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #53 on: April 21, 2013, 12:32:37 pm »

However, no one I know deliberately shoots images grossly under-exposed and then pushes the file to the extent indicated in Fred's post. If doing so is useful for some then it is news to me, hence my question to Fred.

Rob,
you are probably right: nobody deliberately underexposes the entire image (although who knows, it might be an arty thing). But some parts of images might be underexposed (deliberately or not) in order to avoid blowing out highlights in other parts. In those cases it is nice to be able to push the dark parts.

Martin
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AreBee

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #54 on: April 21, 2013, 01:42:22 pm »

Martin,

Quote from: Martin Ranger
...some parts of images might be underexposed (deliberately or not) in order to avoid blowing out highlights in other parts. In those cases it is nice to be able to push the dark parts.

I agree fully.

The cameras under discussion offer far from modest dynamic range. One represents the state of the art. Therefore, the requirement to push presumably already is low. Consequently, it is the practical usefulness of the magnitude of push demonstrated by Fred that I enquire about.

If Fred or anyone else can provide a real-world example demonstrating the requirement to push to such an extent then I would be interested to learn of it. If they cannot, then does that not tell its own story?
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Martin Ranger

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #55 on: April 21, 2013, 02:04:19 pm »

If Fred or anyone else can provide a real-world example demonstrating the requirement to push to such an extent then I would be interested to learn of it. If they cannot, then does that not tell its own story?

Rob,
one of the things I shoot is charreadas (Mexican rodeos). There you have a combination of extremely bright sunlight, light sand in the arena, white shirts/dresses, and faces obscured by the shadow of enormously large hats. Being able to lift the faces a bit rather than having to blow out significant parts of the image is very nice. Below is an example (where in fact the highlights are blown).
More generally I would think that any time you have strong sunlight (say Southern California) it is quite common to get situations where the ability to pull out the shadows is extremely useful.

Martin

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AreBee

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #56 on: April 21, 2013, 02:23:16 pm »

Thank you Martin. :)
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eronald

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #57 on: April 21, 2013, 02:53:31 pm »

AreBee,

 I don't think you have an axe to grind, and frankly I don't care at all about the D800, as I didn't buy one. I think you genuinely believe this degree of DR is not of practical relevance; aside from the fact that one could do one-shot HDR, I am pointing out that it IS relevant because in fact pushed DR is what allows modern digital backs to simulate ISO higher than 100 and to compensate for the channel disparities inherent in unbalanced lighting eg. to avoid a noisy blue channel with Tungsten lighting. So in fact if you are using a P45 in tungsten lighting @ ISO 400, the back itself has a native ISO of something like 50 at most, so you are pushing from 50 to 100 to 200 to 400 -3 stops- and then adding about 1 stop for the white balance so in fact your have pushed the thing by 4 stops; if on top of this you didn't expose to the right @400 you may be pushing your exposure by 5 stops - which you just said "no one deliberately" will do.

 Let me summarize: EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER USING ISO 400 WITH A NON-BINNING BACK UNDER TUNGSTEN IS PUSHING BY 5 STOPS.

 Now get someone with credentials which you respect to confirm what I just wrote above. If they say differently I will thank them for improving my education, if they confirm, you can send me a Christmas card :)

Edmund

Edmund,

Thank you for clarifying.

I think you may be jumping to conclusions. You apparently consider that I have an axe to grind with respect to the D800/E specifically, and DSLRs generally. If so then you are mistaken.

I welcome all the dynamic range I can get. However, no one I know deliberately shoots images grossly under-exposed and then pushes the file to the extent indicated in Fred's post. If doing so is useful for some then it is news to me, hence my question to Fred.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 02:56:47 pm by eronald »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #58 on: April 21, 2013, 03:42:40 pm »

Hi,

Both high ISO performance and tolerance to underexposure are aspects of DR. A system with high DR will also have a good high ISO performance and it will be able to to do the FredBG trick. So underexposing an image and pushing shadow detail is a good way to demonstrate DR.

It is possible to achieve good ISO performance with little DR, if the sensor is clean but readout circuitry is weak using variable pre amplification, that is pretty much what Canon does.

I have recently made a posting where I indicated that DR was overemphasised. I still think it is, but I found several images with DR in the 11-13 EV range. If you include setting sun, for instance and want decent foreground drawing you need all the DR you can get. The reason is that you need to underexpose intentionally to minimize clipping on the highlights. It is not underexposure, technically I would say it is correct ETTR.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=76997.0

Best regards
Erik



I welcome all the dynamic range I can get. However, no one I know deliberately shoots images grossly under-exposed and then pushes the file to the extent indicated in Fred's post. If doing so is useful for some then it is news to me, hence my question to Fred.
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FredBGG

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Re: Leaf's advertising - why the false claims?
« Reply #59 on: April 21, 2013, 04:09:11 pm »

Fred,

The scope for adjustment is impressive, but is it not also academic? After all, no competent photographer would have shot your first, grossly under-exposed image. Had the same image been shot exposed to the right, push of shadows, if required at all, would have been marginal.

Please can you provide a real-world example where push of such magnitude was warranted?

While the example I posted is very extreeme it is a demonstration of the capability of the camera. In all situations where shadows are pushed a little or a fair bit there is some quality loss compared to exposing the shadows more. What is importasnt with the example I posted is that even in exteeme cases the results are still very good. This meands that in more commomn practial cases the quality will be even higher.

There are endless exampekls in the real world where this is an enourmous advantage. If this were not the case Kodak would not have strived for years to increase dynamic range of negative film.

A few examples. Fashion runway. Black model wearing white top and black skirt or panrs with dark, but embroiderted boots. Light on the runway is prety much more from above.

Fashion with two models in the sun. One blond model and one model with jet black hair. L'oreal is the suject of the editorial.
Next shot. One model leaning against a white car with the other model inside the car.

Black vocanic rock and vitage white car.

Black vocanic cliffs soaked in water with a nude beauty shot. Jet black hair.

I do a lot of high key lighting with lekos and fresnel spots in studio and on location.
Deep moody shadows. The way the detail falls off into the shadows makes quite a difference.

The most important thing I see in the test I posted is that despite lifing the shadows many stops there is still absolute black in the final image.
This is because there is information deep into the blacks.

Another reson why dynamic range and high quantization (lots of steps... real ones, not just the extent of the file format) is the whole reproduction process. If one looks at what the independant channels of data used to make offset printing plates they are very adjusted. If you stay with modest dynamic range and quantization you end up with banding issues and that requires the offset printer to add some noise to control this.
The cleaner and more robust the file is the better off you are.

If we also add on top of that the dodging and burning required in fashion and beauty retouching the more you start with the better.
This is particularly imposrtant for skin as the tones are subtle and we are wired to read skin tones more than other things.

Now I'm not saying that MFD is not capable of doing a very good job at this, but it is not quite as good as the D800 and D600.
Very close, but the important thing is that while a few years ago 35mm DSLRs lagged behind in this area they are not leading.
It's not nesccessary to invest $20-50,000 anymore to obtain high dynamic range that used to be unique to MFD.

It will be interesting to see how the newer sensor in the IQ260 performs in this area, not that the IQ160 was a slouch at all.

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