Your Favorite Camera Sensor?

My Favorite: the look of that big beast the 5 Megapixel Olymous E1... subtleties/softness in the color palatte, refined tonal range in B&W...Beautiful

Also Loved the RD1 & the Foveon Merrills, Modern, Artsy, Wonderful
 
Larry Cloetta said:
Why else would we even shoot digital except for "the look of the files." Seems that would be the whole reason to even press a shutter.
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For me AF speed is the most important (or the ability to manually focus fast).
More MP`s let me crop when I just can`t get closer or don`t want to carry around a 200FL lens.

Back to the sensor question.
I don`t require my sensor to look like film (I`ll shoot film ) so for me its the Merrills.
 
Swift1 said:
My favorite sensor is the Olympus 12mp in the E-P1. It renders colors more like color negative film than any other sensor that I've used.
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I second that. I am using the E-P1 with a Zuiko-Pen 1.2/42mm and the results are magical in terms of color and glow.
 
Bought a Sigma Merrill DP2 recently. Really brings our the beauty in digital. It has got me looking at the DP Quattro H and less sure about the M8.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
The Kodak had the most incredible color and skin tones. This was an early fullframe camera, 14mp, based on the Nikon N80 film camera body. It ate batteries, was unusable at anything above the base ISO of 80, and even at ISO-80 it sucked for exposures longer than 1 second due to noise, banding, and other nasty artifacts. In good light, however, the color was gorgeous the images were noiseless and the sharpness was phenomenal (the camera had no AA filter). Due to the serious limitations it imposed, I eventually sold it. I miss it sometimes.

steuben-swamp3.jpg


louisville59.jpg


st-rd-18-house1.jpg


neighbor15.jpg


basketball2.jpg


trina.jpg
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Wow. I've heard a lot about the Kodak but never saw images. These are awesome. Captures yellow like good slide film, something I've never gotten a digital to do right. Great light blue tone too.
I hear you on those Nikon skin tones, btw.
 
In digital photography, the camera provides both the media (analogous to film) and an in-camera image rendering software engine (analogous to the chemical development and wet printing). Image rending can also be done independently using third-party rendering platforms.

The sensor and rendering both determine perceived image quality.

My favorite is any CMOS sensor among those with the best signal-to-noise ratios and high-quality, color-filter array optics. Many cameras meet these criteria.

S/N strongly affects information content. S/N directly determines the analog dynamic range. When the S/N is high, then image noise becomes dominated by photon (a.k.a. shot) noise. This is the lower noise limit for digital photography.

The color filters' quality affects the information content's compatibility with the demosaicking model used to render an image. The filters' frequency bandwidth properties determine how much non-red light contaminated the red pixels, how much non-blue light contaminates the blue pixels, etc

S/N and the CFA determine the technical IQ.

The sensor alone does not determine aesthetic image quality. But an inferior sensor can limit aesthetic IQ.

The perception of sensor-based aesthetic image quality is determined by the raw-file demosaicing model and the image rendering parameters. Sensor-based just means we are ignoring the roles of the lens and exposure. When the image content is high and matches the demosaicing model, aesthetic rendering possibilities are essentially unlimited.

While many cameras have excellent technical IQ, they use different in-camera JPEG/TIFF rendering engines. For instance, Nikon uses EXPEED 3, and others, Canon has DIGIC 7 and others, Leica M uses Maestro II (M10) and Maestro (type 240). Differences between in-camera rendering engines are important.

For raw-file post-production, there are numerous rendering options and each one uses its own proprietary system.
 
RAW files from my D700 are often OK out of the camera, or need minimal touching up in Aperture. Same for my X100 or X10/20. RAW files from my M9 usually need a little work in Aperture before I'm completely happy. I imagine--as Willie says--it might not be just the sensor. There could be some processing--even with RAW files--that happens in the camera.
 
It's interesting how many of us favor the results from early digital cameras, often with a small pixel site count, over the current stuff.
 
sleepyhead said:
The post above have gotten me curious - it would be interesting to see some photos taken with the Fuji S5 Pro.
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Here you go. These photos are not mine, as I can no longer get attractive women to pay attention to me, and my Lightroom is not organized-yet- with tags to find any of my own easily. These are available on flickr at the Fuji S5 Pro Group, which is the best place to go to get a sense of this camera. Unfortunately, many of the photos there are either taken with other Fujis, with lesser sensors, or were taken with the S5 Pro, but poorly.

I pulled out some which are completely representative of what the camera produces if used correctly. These are typical. Will post a few here, and a link to see some additional ones.

First off, besides the natural colors, the DR of this old sensor, up to 800 ISO is as good or better than any 35mm Full Frame made today. DxO has all the comparisons available.


Then there are the skin tones, and the color rendition in general.













The DR of these files allows for some superb Monochrome conversions.





There are a few more here, or spend some time at the Flickr group.
https://cloetta.smugmug.com/Fuji-S5-Pro/

https://www.flickr.com/groups/fujis5/

It is just a superb camera, intelligently used within the not-all-that-restrictive confines of it's ISO and file size limitations. And cheap as chips these days.
A Foveon will give you crisper resolution, an S5 Pro will give you this. Choices to suit everyone these days.
 
Agree, agree, agree.

Agree, agree, agree.

Peter Wijninga said:
Epson R-D1
Leica M9
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Both are ccd sensors, the Epson I understand is from Sony via Nikon. The Leica sensor I have no idea but I love it. My other favorite is the original X100 sensor. Smooth and creamy as cmos sensors seem to be.
 
In my opinion the image processing in the individual camera has more influence to the look oft he files than a sensor has.

My favourites are Fujis, Leicas and - of course - Epsons R-D1 look.
 
jamin-b said:
I only know what I have and use. The old Pentax *ist Ds makes lovely files with rich real colors, but only at base ISO (that limitation is kind of film like ;).
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The old Sony 6mp in the Pentax *istD series was kinda wonderful in its own right. I believe the same sensor was in the Nikon D70 and D100, and the Epson R-D1 (??).

This was done with the original Pentax *istD.


IMGP4249 by Colton Allen, on Flickr
 
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