Megapixels – Are they important?

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Gidders

For those of you who have heard, or heard of, the legendary LP12 I won’t have to tell you the result

A good analogy Clive but I could not afford one of those either. Thorens TD160B MkII was more within my reach. I did lash out on the arm though on the same principle, SME Series III S. In a photographic context the equivalent of a solid tripod was through the weight of the platter and the addition of a Spectra vibration damping pad to which the LP sticks like the proverbial.

Talk of tripods or other support we have not touched on here. But a soft lens and additional blurr, however small through camera shake, and my results would have been even worse.

Don

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Gidders

For those of you who have heard, or heard of, the legendary LP12 I won’t have to tell you the result

How's about giving a clue for us ignorami (well, me anyway), who have never heard of the LP12? I presume the LP12 gave good sound even with lower grade amp and speakers?

Off topic a bit, but isn't it great that technology is constantly improving our aural experiences? DAB radio is limited to 128 kbps and often less which means that the sound quality is LOWER than analogue.

[treeve]

Originally Posted by Leif

How's about giving a clue for us ignorami (well, me anyway), who have never heard of the LP12? I presume the LP12 gave good sound even with lower grade amp and speakers? Off topic a bit, but isn't it great that technology is constantly improving our aural experiences? DAB radio is limited to 128 kbps and often less which means that the sound quality is LOWER than analogue.

I have always maintained that it is useless having all the security features possible on a door, if the hinges are not protected, or the door is of poor construction, or that it has breakable glass in it. Same thing applies to technology. Primary first, what follows can be upgraded. Audio range is 20Hz to 20kHz, although mine was tested at 12Hz to 24kHz when I was a teenager, I doubt my range is that much now. So I don't think 128kHz should worry you unduly.
In connection with this thread ...
There are conditions in low light where I would like to use the manual settings for my DSLR, to limit the effects of noise. Can anyone offer advice as to settings to eliminate the effects of low light and the sensor - I am used to dealing with film material, which was never a problem. Should I set for 9.5Mb Fine or lower res? Should I set for a different ISO?

[Gidders]

Originally Posted by Leif

I presume the LP12 gave good sound even with lower grade amp and speakers?

You bet. Linn, the makers, worked on the principle that to play a record, your base point should be to rotate it perfectly accurately at a perfectly uniform speed. The better you did that, the better the tone arm and stylus could extract the information from the record, and the more information you got off the record, the better it would sound. After all there is no point in amplifying something massively, if all you are amplifying is a mush.

A bit like enlarging a picture - creating a 20 x 16 enlargement can actually look worse if the information doesn't exist in the base image because the lens is not top quality

Originally Posted by Leif

DAB radio is limited to 128 kbps and often less which means that the sound quality is LOWER than analogue.

Sad but true - try Radio 3, Classic FM or Virgin Radio at 160 kbps and certainly I think that, providing you don't get hung up on the fact that vinyl records suffer from a few clicks & pops, musically my LP12 still sounds as good a my CD player

[Gidders]

Originally Posted by treeve

There are conditions in low light where I would like to use the manual settings for my DSLR, to limit the effects of noise. Can anyone offer advice as to settings to eliminate the effects of low light and the sensor - I am used to dealing with film material, which was never a problem. Should I set for 9.5Mb Fine or lower res? Should I set for a different ISO?

To reduce the effects of noise, my recommendation would be to first get the exposure correct. Underexposing tends to increase noise in the image shadow areas. The second thing is to use the lowest ISO you can while still having a sufficiently fast shutter speed to avoid camera shake or subject movement. As far as which file size setting to use, I would always advocate using the best available otherwise you are throwing information away. If you do end up with a noisy file, noise ninja or neat image can be very effective at reducing the effects.

I'm not sure what camera you are using - campacts with their smaller physical sensor dimensions are more susceptible to noise than DSLRs - with my Minolta A2, 200 ISO was about as far as I would go. Now with my Canon 20D 400ISO is fine and even 800 ISO is acceptable

[treeve]

Thanks for the info and advice, Gidders.
My camera is a Fuji Finepix S9500. Plenty of facilities
and control, but a lot more complex than using the
Nikon F2. With film, I could pretty well guess the exposure
and it would either be "spot on" or "near enough".
I have tried fog shots with the DSLR and it has been nigh
impossible to focus - I could use my eyes with the F2, but
with Digital it all depends on the sensors. Very handy though
being able to swap ISO in the middle of a session, instead
of have two cameras with different films.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Gidders

Sad but true - try Radio 3, Classic FM or Virgin Radio at 160 kbps and certainly I think that, providing you don't get hung up on the fact that vinyl records suffer from a few clicks & pops, musically my LP12 still sounds as good a my CD player

Thanks. They must have uprated the BPS since I last tried a few years back ... I must try them again.

I'm clearly not an audiophile. I once bought a recording of a Shostakovich symphony (12?) which was highly rated. Indeed it was an amazing performance as the conductor and orchestra must each have snorted a few kilos of speed beforehand. But it had been recorded during the Leningrad Asthmatics Society AGM, and the constant background sounds of hordes of Russians suffering a lingering death from airway constriction destroyed the quiet passages.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Gidders

To reduce the effects of noise, my recommendation would be to first get the exposure correct ...

I can but agree with Gidders' advice, and I will add that it is also worth using RAW. On some cameras, especially Nikon, the JPG processing reduces the image quality compared to RAW. Also, regarding noise, RAW allows you to perform noise filtering (Noise Ninja say) BEFORE sharpening. I suspect that creates better results. (This is my understanding, and not based on testing, so a little test might be worthwhile.) BTW if you do get Noise Ninja, or similar, the 16 bit version is worth having, not the 8 bit one.

Some people say you should not worry about burning out the highlights at high ISO as it is preferable to slightly overexpose to avoid noise in dark areas. But if you can increase the exposure, then why not just reduce the ISO to avoid burnt out highlights?

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Gidders

Now with my Canon 20D 400ISO is fine and even 800 ISO is acceptable

With my Nikon D200 ISO 800 is also acceptable, as long as I shoot RAW, and use Noise Ninja to remove the grainy effect.

[Don Hoey]

In the first place I think a deal depends on the imaging programs you currently have. From an earlier post it appears you are using Paint Shop Pro 7 ( 8 bit only ) and no doubt the software that came with the camera. A look on DPR suggests that comprises FinePix Viewer & Raw File Converter LE. From that review it appears that the Raw Converter is just that, and offers no control just conversion to 8 bit Tiffs. For some odd reason it appears to convert these to 4864 x 3468 pixel, 17 megapixel TIFFs, each of which is around 50MB.

I have checked Fuji website but cannot find info on the software but I have downloaded the manual for future reference.

Given the lack of control of RAW images you might as well use Jpeg fine ( file size around 4,570KB ) and do a bit of testing at ISO 100, 200 & 400. A bit like getting to know the difference between different films, but a lot quicker and cheaper.

I have absolutely no experience of noise reduction programs so cannot really comment other than to say there was a period in the gallery of members posting and it was effective. Due to the pixel count and sensor size of the 9500 this would probably be quite a desireable program to have for ISO 200 and above.

Mainly use M/F lenses on a top flight A/F camera, almost always use a monopod or a 16lb tripod, never use NR progs, mmmmmmm, guess that may put me in the top 10 of WPF crazies.

Don