Full frame digital bodies.

[glen_h]

<p>I got a used D700 last year at a local real camera store, upgrade from a D200.</p>

<p>With only about 13,000 shots, it wasn't over used, and I don't over use my cameras, either, maybe about 1000 per year.</p>

<p>I suppose some was the desire for full frame, needed or not. It is enough better than that D200 that I am glad that I bought it, but for what I do the price of a newer camera, FX or DX, would have been too high.</p>

<p>One reason for FX is that sometimes I like wide angle lenses. </p>

<p>I have an AI 24/2.8, which I have used since film days. </p>

<p>For reasonable current prices, I do believe that the D700 is a good choice.</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<blockquote>

<p>What possible advantages do you think a nine year old DSLR 12.1mp full frame DSLR might give you over an APS-C D7200 which has a far larger dynamic range when shooting NEFs?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Actually I forgot a very important thing. A full frame is full frame and the crop factor is 1 (for those who insist on crop factor). The number 1 is nice because when I bought my first digital it's a full frame camera and I didn't buy any lens. All the lenses function exactly the same on the digital camera. That was the reason I never considered going digital before Nikon introduced the D3 and D700. </p>

[rodeo_joe1]

Rick, I'm still not sure how you're getting from the

correct photosite spacing of 4.88 microns, to a

degraded lppmm number of 80.

 

1000 microns (1mm) divided by 4.88 = 204.9. Divide that by 2 and you get just over 102 lppmm, and that's the theoretical resolution limit (or Nyquist spatial frequency) of the D810 sensor. The D800's resolution will be a little lower because it has a low-pass AA filter that's absent in the D810.

 

Incidentally a 24Mp DX camera has an even higher

theoretical resolution of 125 lppmm due to its

higher pixel density.

[glen_h]

80% of Nyquist sounds about right to me. For audio, you can make a very fancy low-pass filter to get close, but I don't know how you build a 10th order spatial filter.

 

Cameras without an AA filter depend on the lens resolution being the limit, with diffraction being the final limit. From:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system

 

the Airy disk reaches about 4.88 microns at about f/4.

 

Is the 4.88 microns per individual sensor cell, or per RGBG group?

[rick_jack1]

Your theoretical values are correct, a 4.88 micron pixel should yield 102.22 l/mm, but in real use it is closer to 80% of that value because of the sensor's filters, noise, and diffraction. The D800E has better resolution because of filtration. I am not sure about the D810. It's not really a good practice to evaluate a digital camera using l/mm charts but I was curious. There are lots of things going on here and I'm no expert. I know well capacity is just as important as pixel density. The larger the pixel the more photons it can collect. This is why a larger sensor with the same number of pixels will out perform a smaller one. (24mp FX vs 24mp DX). The FX will have better low noise performance at high ISO's and better color saturation. The image processor is very important as well. I wrongly stated that the D810 and D750 were different, they are both EXPEED 4 processors, only the D500 and D5 are the new EXPEED 5. While the D700 and D3 are EXPEED (1). Run some actual physical tests of your own and see how close to theoretical you can come. Just because it is theoretical don't expect that is what you'll get.