Sonalta said:
“For all - Seven pages of posts on this thread, several pages of posts on the other thread, several people that own both the a700 and the a900 have posted, but NONE of them have provided the images that several of us have asked for numerous times.
This proves to all of us beyond a shadow of doubt that the a700 wins the long end resolution battle against the a900 when using the same lens on both cameras. This also proves that long end shooters need to purchase longer lenses with the a900 when moving from the a700 for the shooter to actually benefit when shooting at the long end.”
As I mentioned in previous posts, although the A700 has a 1.5 crop factor “advantage”, this is almost entirely offset by the fact that the width of an image (in pixels) from the A900 is about 42% larger than an image from the A700. So at most, the gain in the width of an A700 image in pixels (all things being equal) because of the crop factor of 1.5 is only about 8%, and certainly no more!
You also have to bear in mind that this advantage arose because the pixel density per linear inch of an A900 image is 4279, and for the A700 it is 4617. The above figures for pixel density are calculated using the same methodology as in this article:
http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/dslrsens ... ensors.htm
But, as also said in a previous post, I would far prefer to own the A900 because the pixels are packed less densely on the A900 sensor than they are on the A700 sensor, as shown by the above pixel density figures (not the other way around as I think someone said in an earlier post).
The above article talks about the benefits of having less pixel density, and thus larger photosites:
“From a theoretical point of view pixel density should affect the amount of random digital noise present in an image and the dynamic range in the image the camera produces. Dynamic range is how much detail can be held in shadow areas before highlights begin to loose texture or, how many F stops of light range the camera sensor can capture. Again, in theory, larger photosites (less pixel density) on the sensor should produce less random noise and more dynamic range for any given sensor size.”
It’s interesting to note that the pixel density per linear inch of a Canon EOS 5D MKII image is lower again, at 3962.
I have done the above calculations in a bit of a hurry, so if someone would like to confirm they are correct, I may put them on my web site for future reference.
Regards
Rob
http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Sony-A900.html
(Examples of the incredible resolution of some Sony A900 images)