so many cameras, how to decide?

[Guest thiswayup]

Let me get back to cameras themselves you give you my personal opinion what I use for what and what I think the advantages or disadvantages with specific models are. You can then think about whether any of that applies to you and whether it is something you have already considered or haven't yet but shouldn't.

 

Image Quality

 

Let's get that out of the way first, unless you regularly remove 30% of the pixels through cropping, you aren't going to see an improvement with the 24MP over the 16MP sensors. 

 

 

 

And what makes you believe this piece of nonsense? All things being equal, a higher resolution sensor will record higher frequency signals more accurately than one with a lower resolution. Eg the higher definition sensor will render hair and fabric detail better. And skin. Which isn't always a good thing; you really don't want to know what retouching a picture taken with a Foveon 40MP equivalent sensor is like if the model was having a bad skin day - and this information, like that for hair, does show even in quite small compressed images. Anyway, bad skin aside, a 16MP x-trans image looks quite disappointing next to a Foveon shot, even sized down. (Well, when the Foveon gets to shoot inside its freakishly small optimal range.)

 

You might not understand why, but resolution does matter. It might not to you, but you're probably not the person the XPro2 is aimed at. A professional portrait or fashion photographer would certainly value the higher resolution even in moderate sized images.

[Guest thiswayup]

@milandro -got it.

 

 

 

I do not care about the video, most likely, go hero will have 8K very soon, and lets see what iphone 7 will bring. 

 

 

Measuring video quality that way is rarely a good idea - you'd do much better to look at dynamic range and susceptibility to moire. Poor quality 4K and 8K are useful in the action cam market because the high resolution lets you select a small part of the frame and track it - sometimes you even shoot two povs at once this way. But for any other use, you'd be a lot better off with the video mode on a RX100i.

[cug]

And what makes you believe this piece of nonsense?

 

Actual practical experience in a situation where we dealt with billions of photos. Daily.

 

Might not be up to your standards, of course, we only had to get it right for a few hundred million people out there in the world, so who am I to understand this? 

 

Maybe you take a lesson in appropriate discussion behavior and come back and make your argument without insulting people you have no frigging clue about?

 

It seems that you are completely forgetting that probably 99,9999% of all photos taken never make it to anything bigger than a phone screen. The next bigger one is a low resolution computer screen. If it gets super fancy it's a high resolution retina display. And even fashion magazine and billboard shots are just fine with 16MP. Only freaks on the internet obsess over the difference between a 16 and 24 megapixel APS-C sensor resolution.

Edited March 22, 2016 by cug

[Guest thiswayup]

Actual practical experience in a situation where we dealt with billions of photos. Daily.

 

Might not be up to your standards, of course, we only had to get it right for a few hundred million people out there in the world, so who am I to understand this? 

 

I.e. it's your opinion. And one that

 

1. Goes against physics

 

2. Goes against anything a competent portrait or fashion photographer will tell you

 

3. Can easily be disproved by a few minutes browsing on flickr or using one of the camera review comparison apps - just compare hair/brush bristles in the test targets that have been shot with a Sigma Foveon or 30+ bit Sony or Nikon to those shot with a 16 bit x-trans; the difference is easily visible.

 

>> Maybe you take a lesson in appropriate discussion behavior

 

Telling someone who is talking nonsense that he is doing so is always appropriate: you're wrong, deal with it. You may have a lot of experience cleaning toilets or making coffee in a company that made consumer prints or whatever your supposed and carefully non-revealed source of "expertise" is, but common sense should tell you that doesn't make you an expert on needs of other sectors of the market. Professionals don't shoot headshots with a Phase One so they crop them! They shoot in a studio in a standardized set-up that let's them frame the subject exactly. They  use the 80 megapixel sensor because it renders better, even if you don't understand why. For you to be outraged that I won't accept that your personal opinion should overrule the experience of the entire fashion, product and portrait photography industries is just silly. And rather pompous - you're really not that big a deal.

 

For goodness sake, you strange person - why do you think professional portrait and fashion photographers used 120 and plate film so much before digital? (And some still do so now.) Pete Hurley uses a Phase One for actors headshots - he's not even shooting a full head and the main use is for A5 images. If you want to show fine detail, you have to use a sensor that will pick it up. 

 

>>> It seems that you are completely forgetting that probably 99,9999% of all photos taken never make it to anything bigger than a phone screen. 

 

It seems that you can't read, that you are prone to hysterical exaggeration when faced with a loss of face, and that you don't understand how people look at images. Because

 

1. I carefully explained that this is about information frequency and applies even to quite small images 

 

2. 99.9999% is nonsense. Most people still use computers and laptops at least as much as phones and you are insulting the intelligence of everyone here by suggesting they are stupid enough to believe otherwise

 

3. In fact, phones are a very demanding medium. If you knew anything about the subject you are pretending to be an expert on you would that required print resolution is based not the physical size of the image but of the subtended size for the viewer. Ie a billboard designed to be looked at from 40 yards away can be shot at a lower resolution than an image mean for a 3 inch screen to be viewed at two feet. Which is why, you strange, strange person, high-end phones have 300 dpi screens. (If you'd actually worked in the printing business as you imply, you'd know this: http://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/minimum-resolution-calculator/)

[cug]

Telling someone who is talking nonsense that he is doing so is always appropriate: 

 

Excellent. You are talking nonsense. 

[immo_p]

The best market in Europe to buy a camera is probably Switzerland, believe it or not. Cameras are cheaper than in Germany.

[drushka]

I have considered renting cameras but it costs one third of the price of a used camera per day, so I'd rather just buy a couple of cameras on ebay and sell the one I don't like, that way I lose less money in the process and might get to keep both lenses (if they are different).

 

If you are price sensitive, here is a comparison of ebay pricing of the X-E2 and X-T10 cameras. If you don't shoot series of photos for which you'd need a larger memory buffer, they deliver the same image quality as the X-T1 at a fraction of the cost.

 

24 MP in the X-Pro2 sounds great but remember that your lenses have to resolve this kind of information, too. If you use adapted legacy lenses or zooms, the existing 16 MP cameras (X-E2, X-E2s, X-T10, X-T1) will suit you just fine, and you have lots of money left over to build up a selection of higher quality glass for when you decide to upgrade in a year or so, when the X-T2 goes to a reasonable price level, or the X-T20 is out.