NOC40

 Matt James Smith's original comment on the colour info was all you needed folks.... sharpness<>RAW

Nope, not by far. Most PC displays are 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, some -but few- high end monitors are 2560x1440 and most TV sets are FullHD.

 

Retina refers to pixel density per square inch -regardless of how far you are- reverting back to the method used in print, since supposedly the pixel density is such that you'd find it hard to tell the difference between printed characters and screen-displayed characters. The bigger the display, the more difficult it is to make it "retina". The iPhone 4 was Retina due to the small screen, but the later released iPad with slightly improved technology was not. It took apple two more generations to bring Retina density to the iPad.

Nope, not according to the wikipedia article on it or logic for that matter. "Retina" is meant to refer to an angular pixel size at least as small as the limiting resolution of the human eye. So it's pixel density divided by viewing distance. Read the article if you don't believe me. People are still mixing up resolution, pixel density, and angular pixel density. "Retina" is ONLY about angular pixel density.

I think it's retina style screen that'll lead to 4K adoption. When all screens just are  retina screens, we'll all have a 4K screen without a choice.

Just about any modern display these days IS a "retina" screen, whether it's on a mobile phone or laptop or PC. Apple seems to have created an amazing mystique around the term retina, when all it really means is moderately high pixel density compared to viewing distance.

"The biggest threat to photographic cameras and DSLRs is not smart-phones, but 4K video"

Right.... So beta took over from vhs, SACD's took over from MP3, Everyone makes video calls now instead of texting and no-one's ever used Instagram.

(Sadly in my view) most people don't really care about quality. Convenience is more important. I think you'll end up watching more portrait-format videos from people's mobiles than 4K

Andrew, great detailed review.I just had a couple of technical points.

You said "4K also gives you the ability to crop in post if shooting 4K and delivering in 1080p but that will further reduce the full frame look of your lenses." How does it reduce the full-frame look? You're just cropping an image. The DoF stays exactly the same.

Second, battery "capacity" isn't measured in mAh, it's mAh times (average) voltage. Are you sure all the batteries you are comparing have the same voltage?

[attachment=399:Original vs 1080.jpg]

I reckon I can see the difference. Here's a  blown up version of a 100% crop of the original image and a 200% crop of a reduced "1080" of the same image.

Has anyone managed to get a Canon "4K" frame grab through QC at a stills stock library? I very, very much doubt it will be sharp enough.

I can't seem to download the full res files, but I've had a little play with the first "side-by-side". Have a look at http://www.fabulouspictures.com/Metabones.psd and switch the NEX5N layer on and off. All I've done is moved the top photo over the bottom one (resized at constant aspect ratio and rotated). The NEX layer has some horribly blown highlights, esp in the red channel. And where has all that distortion come from? Even at 660px wide the 5D image looks much sharper. What's going on?