lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

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Macro_Cosmos
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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

Both are plenty sharp and clean. I think it is time to focus on taking photos, not gear. Just my two cents.

ray_parkhurst
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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by ray_parkhurst »

Your R6 has DLA of ~f10, and both objectives are operating around EA20, so the AA filter is not going to cause much image degradation compared with diffraction. Depending on how strong the AA filtering is, it is possible you would not even be able to tell the difference between with and without the filter in place. Bottom line you're limited by the objectives, not the camera.

clarnibass
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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by clarnibass »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:21 pm
My primary cameras have always been Canon with AA filters. They work fine.

Certainly the AA filter must soften the image that is presented to the sensor. But there are many other sources of softening and all of them, including AA, can be corrected to a large degree with digital sharpening. I am confident that if the R6 were available without an AA filter, and you shot the two cameras side by side and then processed each image optimally for the camera that shot it, you would not see a compelling difference.
The "classic" example is when Nikon had the D800 and D800E "without" the AA filter. If I remember correct, it did have an AA filter, it was much weaker, so actually it's not as straight forward as having or not having that filter. I think some later models didn't have that filter at all (someone correct me if I remember wrong).
The difference was very noticeable... if you looked at it in a certain way. For example unedited RAWs and depending on the photo. Whether it made a difference overall... sometimes... to some people.
I now use a camera without an AA filter, but for a decade I was using one that AFAIK had a pretty strong one, and almost 2m wide prints looked fine.

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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by rjlittlefield »

clarnibass wrote:
Mon Jul 18, 2022 9:52 pm
The "classic" example is when Nikon had the D800 and D800E "without" the AA filter.
The D800E essentially replaced the D800's normal 2-layer AA filter with a differently configured 2-layer assembly in which the second layer canceled whatever spread was introduced by the first layer. I don't think it's accurate to say that the assembly was still an AA filter but "weaker". It was more like a special sandwich that gave the net effect of a clear piece of glass. More about this is written at https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... 66#p104666 .

Earlier in the same thread, at https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... 35#p104535 , I addressed a particular bit of early advertising that showed a huge advantage to the 800E. In particular, I showed how that advertised advantage basically went away if you properly filtered each image according to the sensor that it was shot with.

I did subsequently buy a D800E, mostly because I wanted a large-megapixel full-frame sensor and at the time (May 2014) it was the only one that effectively did not have an AA filter.

I still use the D800E from time to time, mostly for instrumentation purposes in evaluating lens sharpness.

But for actual photography, I usually use a different camera that happens to have an AA filter.

The reason for that choice is that whatever difference in usable sharpness there may be is so small that it is swamped by other system-level features such as better tethering and presence of electronic shutter that happen to come bundled with the AA-equipped sensor. The choice is a matter of all tradeoffs combined, and for my priorities AA filtration is not very important compared to other factors.

--Rik

clarnibass
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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by clarnibass »

I don't know much about the technical aspects so I'm sure I got some things wrong. I really meant the effect is weaker rather than anything about the filters themselves.
I quoted your post because it was the subject but it was mainly about the question in the OP and agreeing with you that having an AA filter isn't necessarily a reason to not choose a camera or not.

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Re: lower quallity on Canon R6 - because of AA filter ?

Post by ray_parkhurst »

For many years I used a Canon T2i with "High Resolution" modification, basically removed the AA filter and replaced with same thickness glass. A while back I picked up a standard T2i and made comparison shots between the HRT2i vs Standard T2i, with results published here:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 25&t=40885

This work was at ~EA5, large enough to see the difference.

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