Quote:
|
That's interesting. Clearly the difference between 14bit and 16bit let alone 12bit - 16bit is very large. I'd be interested to know the ADC process though. Is it really that the ADC just chops that dynamic range, clipping extremes, or is there a more intelligent compression process that precedes it?
|
There is no clipping, it's just a difference in resolving an analogue signal to discrete values, or shades for imaging.
The difference between 14bit and 16bit is the number of shades that can be represented.
The 2 bit difference is a factor of 4, or, 2(binary) to the power of two(bits) = 2^2 = 4
So if all else is equal, every shade of grey that a 14 bit system can resolve, a 16 bit system can break that down further into 4 more shades.
To put it another way:
2^14 = 16384 shades (from 0 = pure black to 16383 = pure white = saturated)
2^16 = 65536 shades
65536/16384 = 4
Between 12 and 16bit is 2^4, or 16 shades.