Hello Chuck:
I read your article on the A7S on the Camera Forum and found it very interesting. Of course I know nothing about video so that part of it is opaque to me but the stills info is very useful. What you said about the blue channel caught my attention. I wonder if that contributes to "the look" that the A7S seems to have.
Regards,
John
John, it almost has to I would think, to some degree. It takes all three channels to produce white, so if nothing else, it should produce better and stronger whites than most others. But I know what your talking about, I see it as well. There is a special quality to A7S still images.
For B&W, a good strong blue channel is so critical I know people who substitute the green channel or the red for the blue to make it stronger when the normal blue channel is too lame.
The A7S conversions knock my socks off, they are really great and with more balls than even my A7R, which isn't so bad in and of itself. Combine the dynamic range the S has with that strong blue channel and you get the deepest D-Max blacks with detailed nuances, and a wonderful tonal range of grays transitioning to whites (fifteen stops worth!) to work with.
I don't have a printer available at the moment, but experience leads me to feel these S files should print up handsomely. S files are crisp and richly detailed to begin with a good lens, so they size up nicely I'd guess for even larger prints.
Things with a lot of high frequency detail stuff going on, like trees with their millions of tiny branches and leaves, take resolution to capture the finest details. That is territory for an A7R, D800/810, and especially the medium format backs. Those kinds of subjects really aren't suitable subject matter for an A7S if the intent is large prints. Those subjects depend on quantity as much as quality.
I'd add one thing more on this printing size subject. I printed and sold many beautiful prints from files I shot with my Canon 1D, 1D MKII, 1Ds and Leica DMR. Those prints I still have were done at 24x36 up to a couple at 40x60. They still look good, even by today's higher resolution standards. The Sony A7S has more megapixels than the Canon 1D, 1D Mk II, 1Ds or the Leica DMR.
My point being it is not always the megapixels that count. I find it is the quality of the pixels I have, the subject matter, and the detail present in the original file that determines how well I can upres to print larger if I want. I have a few, though not many 11 Megapixel camera files I will print at 40x60 and I have several 33MP Leaf Aptus Medium Format and 36MP A7R files that I wouldn't print larger than 8x10 or 11x14.
The very idea that there is a "standard" maximum or minimum print size is wrong thinking to me. Print size can only be calculated individually taking the specific image into consideration first.
Warmest Regards,
Chuck Jones