Lens v. Sensor v. ?: For Digital, what makes the biggest difference

[Cadfael_tex]

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Realizing that the whole package and combination thereof creates the image with the biggest part being the user, I ask the above question.

 

Comparing the pictures I see on this forum with the ones I see on the Nikon forum (which is my current camera) there is a marked difference (even by very competent photogs).

 

So what makes the biggest difference in making a digital camera 'special'? Glass? Sensor? Intangibles? Firmware?

 

(my suspicion is the lens)

[01af]

The lens indeed ... as it always was (for a given image format).

[lct]

Letting firmware aside (i guess you shoot raw), Leica lenses are generally better than Nikons but it is not always true. If you shoot an excellent Nikkor like 180/2.8 for instance the lens will play a negligible role in the comparison with any 180mm Leica. The difference will then come from the lack of AA filter (if you don't have a D800E), the lesser smearing effects of digital Leicas but also their grainy outputs due to digital noise at high isos.

[lars_bergquist]

In the Neolithic days of film, the emulsion was usually the limiting factor. Which film you decided to put in the camera – Tri-X or Panatomic-X for instance – decided the fine structure of the image. Lenses that surpassed the films available were not too uncommon. With Leica, they were what you routinely expected.

 

In spite of all the wailing about the unsurpassable excellence of film (read: grain, diffusion and scratches) sensors are soo good nowadays, at least within each size class, that lenses are hard put to make full use of them. Leica lenses do extremely well at this game. The absence of a AA filter is a plus, but it can be largely compensated by more pixels. Even APS-C cameras do normally beat 35mm film when it comes to detail definition.

 

The old man who learned to develop 35mm film in 1956