Xmas was generous and brought me a wonderful IQ180 back for my Contax 645. And like mostly between Xmas and New Year there is some time for "meaningless" things, so I did a little comparison test between four digital cameras of the last decade to see if there is any progress in image quality :-)
The contenders:
2002: Contax N Digital (6 MP Philips CCD sensor w/ AA-filter, @ ISO25) + Contax N 100f2.8 Macro @ f8
2006: Leica R8 DMR (10 MP Kodak CCD sensor w/o AA-filter, @ ISO100) + Leica R 60f2.8 Macro @ f5.6
2009: Canon 5DII (21 MP Canon CMOS sensor w/ AA-filter, @ ISO 100) + Zeiss ZE 100f2 Macro @ f8
2011: Contax 645 IQ180 (80 MP Dalsa CCD sensor w/o AA-filter, @ ISO 50) + Zeiss Contax 645 140f2.8 @ f11
I tried to match the view angle and frame by choosing appropriate focal length lenses according the sensor sizes and f stops to roughly match the depth of field. All pictures from same tripod location but the height (respectively elevation) slightly different due to the different camera height.
I opened all raw files in ACR applied same sharpening 70/0.5 and automatic CA correction and cropped all images to the equivalent frame and to resampled to the resolution of the Contax N Digital.
So here is the 1 Million $ question: Which image is by which camera/sensor/lens combination?
Enjoy, Christoph
(first the cameras, next post the images)