14 Bit vs 12 Bit

J

JayD

Senior Member
Just purchased a D7200 from my earlier D3100. Whilst there isnt any doubt that the D7*** series is better than the D5*** & D3*** series featurewise and whilst many sites and posts do a detailed analysis of their specification - I dont find much talk on the 14 bits vs the 12 bits comparision. Some of the D5*** do take 14 bit photos, I would like to see if any analysis has been done on the bit rate, everything else being equal.
Is that why 14 bit images in GENERAL tend to be better than the 12 bits, notwithstanding how much resolution the eye can comprehend ?


Thanks
 
M

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Only just switched to 14bit myself,in the past i have used Photo shop Elements and lots of things in it would only work in 8bit,now i have CC ime hoping its not the case.
 
J

JayD

Senior Member
And that raises another question :
1. Whether there would be a difference in quality of a 12 bit vs a 14 Raw file from the camera to be extrapolated to 14/16 bit in PS

Jay
 
A

aroy

Senior Member
JayD said:
And that raises another question :
1. Whether there would be a difference in quality of a 12 bit vs a 14 Raw file from the camera to be extrapolated to 14/16 bit in PS

Jay
Click to expand...

12 bits has the last 4 bits ;of a 16 bit number; zero. Similarly 14 bits have the last 2 bits as zero. The reason to have 16 bit data is that all memory is BYTE aligned and 16 bits is the next nearest to 12 and 14 bit data. Proprietory format like NEF use lesser bits to save storage space and increase throughput speed, but computers rarely use odd bit data. As it is every time normal software has to use data that is not multiple of a byte, it has to translate/format it to byte aligned data. The number of significant bits depends on the accuracy of the A-D converter, and some MF designs have true 16 bit data, but most do not.

With higher number of bits you get more shades of colour, hence the transitions are smoother.
12 bits = 4096 shades
14 bits = 16384 shades
16 bits = 65536 shades

Whether you can utilise the minor colour variation depend on your output device. The eye can, but most monitors and printers cannot.
 
J

JayD

Senior Member
Thanks aroy but whilst most of it went over my head. But I still wonder why my D7200 and the photos I see here in the forum from the D7100 more vivid (in general without getting too technical on the PP) than the D3100.


Thanks again.
 
G

Griso

Senior Member
I use 14bit, but only as I like to recover highlights and shadows quite often. I believe, but may well be wrong, that the extra bits will give smoother shades when recovering these extremes. I might be wrong though. If I was just using the images 'as is', I doubt there would be much difference. As I said, I might be completely wrong though.
 
W

wornish

Senior Member
JayD said:
Thanks aroy but whilst most of it went over my head. But I still wonder why my D7200 and the photos I see here in the forum from the D7100 more vivid (in general without getting too technical on the PP) than the D3100.


Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Did you read the article and look at the photos ?

Can you see any difference ?

The photos on this forum IMHO confirm what the article says. Any difference between D3xxx and D7xxx shots given the same lighting is usually down to three things.

If shooting JPG then its in the camera settings.

If shooting RAW its mostly post processing differences and individual skills in taking the shot.

12 bits vs 14 bits only makes a difference in extreme situations usually creating a smoother transition from one shade to another and avoiding posterisation.
 
A

aroy

Senior Member
You can give your images "Vivid" in PP. I use "Vivid" setting when I want vibrant colours. They may look nice on the screen, but the colours are not really what the original image had.

Yes higher number of bits give better colour transition and you have better shadow recovery.
 
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