Steve,
Would you mind posting TIFF files of 16 vs 14 bit images? I think it would make it easier for everyone to grasp the differences in the files and make the discussion more focused.
Well, I have done so in the past.
When I get a chance, I'll shoot some things and post some images.
There is a difference, and it mostly has to do with color. And why this is I don't really know (or care that much), but I do know that the difference that is visible on the Plus side of quality is when the number on the bit mode setting is set to 16.
I just feel like there is - an admittedly impressive - effort to deconstruct how some of the internal processes are shaking out, but these findings seem to occur within their own vaccuum. And I am focused on the end result. That is what the product was made for, to create a photograph at some level of quality. That the end result would reflect the capabilities of the product, and be based on the choices you've made in using it. And when you press 16 you get a better result. And at least with Phase One digital backs (let's face it, there are very few capture products that allow you to choose a 16 bit mode vs a 14 bit mode), when you do so, the image quality is superior. Not dramatically to most, but for sure it is superior in some way.
It is my belief that the engineers who design and create these products know a whole lot more about what they are doing and
most importantly, why they are doing it, than anyone else who is measuring certain things after the fact. And I guess I also find it sort of insulting that in a way, their whole process is called into question in such a limited way when you really don't have the whole story. And there is almost this implication of cheating, or worse,
marketing, to make something seem more than it is (not that this doesn't happen, but that's a different department). Phase One engineers did not sit there, and perhaps at the urging of marketing just make up something called a 16Bit EX mode that has absolutely no advantage over a 14 bit capture or even a normal 16 bit capture, and I don't that that Fuji did either. There are detectives here, and some very good detectives here, but when the results contradict your conclusions, then you're missing something.
Steve Hendrix/CI