Originally posted by Kunzite I already answered this by giving some examples.
All of these examples where irrelevant to the "accelerator" unit discussion (see below).
Originally posted by Kunzite Whoa there. The digital image capture process is largely analogue (one could say the film is digital by the way) - that is, until the A/DC does its job. Only down the stream it is digital.
What you need to understand is that the "sensor" is a unit comprising, among other things, the sensels, read-out circuitry, built-in noise reduction (proper one, not denoising), and (in the case of the Sony sensor we are talking about, column-parallel) A/D conversion circuitry.
In other words, the "sensor" chip is not just some light-sensitive material that converts photons into electrical charge, it is the whole shebang.
Ricoh cannot do anything but read out the digital data from the sensor.
So yes, anything to do with noise happens within the chip which we refer to as "the sensor".
The "downstream" you are referring to starts right after the sensor. There are no discrete A/D converters on the PCB of the camera.
I hope that helps you to adjust your view on what is going on and hence on what a unit like the "accelerator" unit can achieve and what it cannot achieve.
Originally posted by Kunzite Do you even know what the accelerator does?
Yes, it applies denoising, increases saturation and sharpens the image. All of which can be observed by comparing K-1 images to K-1 II images.
Since we also know how a modern Sony sensor works (anything analogue is hidden within the chip), we know that all the above processing happens on digital data (that some people would prefer to be written to the card as is).
Originally posted by Kunzite What if it does apply dark frame NR based on - for instance - temperature, or other such factors?
If the "accelerator" unit used dark frame subtraction then
- you could do the same yourself; you'd just have to capture the dark frames explicitly. However, we know that it isn't just dark frame subtraction, because
- you wouldn't observe smoothing effects in the final images.
Originally posted by Kunzite It's much more complicated than writing the line above.
How is that an argument at all?
Of course engineering a camera is more complicated than stating that there are manufacturers which can properly engineer a camera. That doesn't mean that the engineering is so complicated that most of them struggle to achieve the same quality as Pentax.
To the best of my knowledge, the sensor even has built in power-supply noise rejection. No vodoo or special magic sauce is required to establish a power source that allows the sensor to operate to its maximum potential. Providing an EMI-free environment surely is harder but, again, these matters are irrelevant for an "accelerator" unit discussion, as you'll hopefully agree, now that you know that it can only operaterate on "downstream" data.
Originally posted by Kunzite Again this is nowhere as simple as writing the line above. "Stabilising the operating conditions"? What the beep does it means?
It can, for instance, mean to keep the temperature constant.
This is, of course, not practical, but could be done to show that even with constant temperature and other parameter you think are important held constant, a K-1 image would not suddenly look like a K-1 II image.
Originally posted by Kunzite The patent was an example of noise issues actually encountered in a camera, because you have this wrong idea that a sensor is impervious to external (internal to the camera) factors.
I never said that the sensor is "impervious to external (internal to the camera) factors".
Where did you get that from?
Originally posted by Kunzite It might be applicable to a Sony sensor, it might be applicable to a Ricoh custom-made sensor.
The patent is definitely not applicable to the sensors used in the cameras that use the "accelerator" unit.
I have surely mentioned this before: Do you think it is a coincidence, that the "accelerator" unit is exactly emulating the DR characteristic you see in cameras that use a sensor with dual-gain technology?
These sensors can actually improve DR at higher ISO settings by using a higher analogue gain before the A/D conversion. They hence exhibit a jump in DR at a certain ISO value. Now isn't it very plausible that Ricoh tried to emulate the same effect in lieu of actually using sensors with dual-gain technology?
Do you think that is really pure coincidence? Or is it more likely that the creative Pentax engineers came up with a way to (somewhat) achieve with post-processing what they couldn't achieve by using the right hardware in the first place?
Originally posted by Kunzite Breaking news: you prefer processed images, too.
No, I'm not.
Not in the sense that we are discussing.
I find it very unhelpful to confound the necessary conversion of raw data into images, that we can look at, with completely avoidable pre-processing of raw data.
Originally posted by Kunzite You cannot see unprocessed ones, anyway (not even by investigating the content of a RAW file with a hex editor).
I refuse to believe that you actually believe to be making a valid argument.
You must know the difference between calculating images from raw data and manipulating raw data.
The calculation of images from raw data does not smooth out detail. In other words: The K-1 exists and no so-called "raw purist" complains about it as it refrains from manipulating raw data by applying denoising, saturation adjustments, and sharpening.