Pentax K-5 outperforms Phase One P65+ and Nikon D3s in Dynamic Range...how is this po

[996gt2]

What kind of sensor trickery is going on here? How can an APS-C sensor beat both a full-frame sensor (D3s) and a medium format sensor (Phase One P65+) for dynamic range?

I'm pretty skeptical about these results. K-5 is beating out a P65+ for dynamic range when the latter is 1) Medium format and 2) using 16 bit processing?

http://dxomark.com/index.php/en/Camera-Sensor/Compare-sensors/%28appareil1%29/676|0/%28appareil2%29/579|0/%28appareil3%29/628|0/%28onglet%29/0/%28brand%29/Pentax/%28brand2%29/Phase%20One/%28brand3%29/Nikon

[AngryCorgi]

Originally Posted by 996gt2

What kind of sensor trickery is going on here? How can an APS-C sensor beat both a full-frame sensor (D3s) and a medium format sensor (Phase One P65+) for dynamic range?

I'm pretty skeptical about these results. K-5 is beating out a P65+ for dynamic range when the latter is 1) Medium format and 2) using 16 bit processing?

http://dxomark.com/index.php/en/Camera-Sensor/Compare-sensors/%28appareil1%29/676|0/%28appareil2%29/579|0/%28appareil3%29/628|0/%28onglet%29/0/%28brand%29/Pentax/%28brand2%29/Phase%20One/%28brand3%29/Nikon

Most of the extra DR is in the shadows on the K-5. It's there, but it will be joined by noise if you want to extract the whole thing. The D3, D3s and D700 have the extra DR spread out in the highlight and shadow range, allowing you flexibility to shoot normally and then adjust the shadow/highlight range.

The results are real. Nothing to be skeptical about. There are examples of on the net of massively underexposed shots that appear to be solid black frames that can be brought back from the dead.

16-bit vs. 14-bit vs. 12-bit has nothing to do with DR. It has to do with the # of tonal steps in the image. There are plenty of cameras that record >8EV of DR in SOOC JPEG output, and JPEG is only 8-bit/channel.

[Combatmedic870]

What a great sensor!

[AdamJL]

Originally Posted by Combatmedic870

What a great sensor!

Yyyyyyup. Great to see Pentax making stuff like this. Hope it continues and it piles on the pressure on the big guys.

[Yaamon]

Originally Posted by AdamJL

Yyyyyyup. Great to see Pentax making stuff like this. Hope it continues and it piles on the pressure on the big guys.

Exactly this is good for all camera manufactures.

This will put pressure on the manufactures and hopefully canon to make better quality sensor and not higher MP sensors.