Fuji F50fd

[tongodeon]

A while ago I wrote a glowing review of the Fuji F31fd. It's only 6 megapixels, but the super-sensitive, super-low-noise ISO3200 CCD gives it much better clarity than any higher-resolution camera I've seen. The only real down-sides are the size (a little bulky) and the proprietary xD memory card.

Fuji just announced the F50fd. It's got a 12

Comments

[usernameguy]

Keep in mind, the quantum limits aren't the only problem. There's also the "circle of confusion" caused by the lens. The CoC is limited by the precision of the optics as the circle goes to zero.

To put it another way - there are limits in consumer-level lens and optical dimensions that put a lower limit on the resolution. I don't know whether the CoC lower limit is comparable to the limits emergent from the interaction of photons and semiconductors.

[catbear]

There's a lot of yelling in the forums I inhabit about whether or not Mr. Clark is full of shit in some of his conclusions, but in any case, this is a good place to start:

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/digital.sensor.performance.summary/

[mskala]

I don't know the complete answer, but by E=hv where h is Planck's constant and v (should be Greek nu) is frequency, assuming light at 500nm (which is green), that's a frequency of 5.99*10^14 Hz, so 9.21*10^9 photons (assuming they're all green) carry 3.66*10^-9 J of energy. To get that much in 1/30 of a second, the light source has to be delivering 1.10*10^-7 W of power into your collecting device

[tongodeon]

let's consider a 40W bulb and suppose it delivers light equally in all directions ... your collector has to subtend 3.45*10^-6 steradians

I really like where you're going with this, but we're not taking a picture of a lightbulb. We're taking a picture of an object illuminated by a lightbulb. Since "neutral gray" reflects 18% of incoming light that's going to increase the required angle by a bit.

[mskala]

Yes, and even if the object reflected 100% of the light it received, a lot of that (assuming it's not a perfect mirror reflecting the light straight from the bulb to your camera) would be reflected in some other direction, not at you. I think that factor will be even more significant