TL;DR
Rank the four shots below from best to worst. Mention the position as top-right, bottom-left, etc. Submit your ranking as a comment.
The Fuss
These are interesting times for camera enthusiasts. Digital cameras have advanced to a level where most cameras are capable of publication quality snaps and you don’t even need to carry a camera to take good pictures, thanks to smartphones.
One big debate this has fuelled is regarding the importance of sensor size now. Some people believe, as they always have, that bigger is better and a full-frame sensor will always win.
Some people believe that beyond a certain threshold (1/1.7″? 1″? 4/3?) sensor size becomes irrelevant because the rules of equivalence (same DoF, same shutter speed, same FoV) dictate that all sensors will be operating in a similar fashion since they’re seeing the exact same amount of light, for the exact same amount of time.
Furthermore, it is argued that most pictures are never going to be printed and hung on walls. Instead, they will be viewed on phone, computer or TV screens at a nominal resolution of, currently, 2MP (HDTV resolution) or in future, 8MP (4k TV resolution). At such resolutions, minor differences in image quality become immaterial.
To find out how deep the shade of grey is between the black and white of FF supremacy vs. FF irrelevance, I’ve devised a simple test. The image you see above/below is a PNG screenshot of DPReview’s Studio Comparison Tool, loaded with camera test shots from cameras with different sensor sizes. I have chosen the web resolution from the tool to match the “common use” scenario, i.e., sharing pictures on the web.
Now, can you rank these shots from best to worst? Mention the position as top-right, bottom-left, etc. Submit your ranking as a comment below.
Once I have obtained enough responses, I’ll publish a summary and also reveal the link that will load this very comparison in DPReview’s Studio Comparison Tool, thereby revealing the cameras chosen.
Thanks in advance for participating!
Update: The poll is closed and the results are out!