[filmscanners] Re: color bit depth and digital cameras

["David J. Littleboy" <davidjl@gol.com>]

From: <ppatton@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was just playing with my new Nikon D200 and discovered
something that surprised me.  Unless there is some quality
adjustment setting I missed, it's color bit depth apparently is
only 8 bits in NEF Raw.  By comparison, my Polaroid SprintScan
4000 scanner has a color bit depth of 12 bits, and other scanners
have much higher color bit depths than this.  While color bit
depth is a commonly cited specification for scanners, I've seldom
seen it cited for digital cameras.  Does the lower bit depth for
the D200 imply lower quality color rendition than my 12 bit scanner?
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I suspect you've done something wrong. This reference

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

Shows the D200 doing very well indeed at ISO 100. I'm quite sure it uses a
12-bit A/D converter.

Note that just because a camera or scanner has X bits in its A/D converter
doesn't mean you have X bits of valid data in the output files.

David J. Littleboy
davidjl@gol.com
Tokyo, Japan


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