[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1289]

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on: November 15, 2020 at 1:56 pm

I tell many people that almost all cameras these days are created equal and many of them with few exceptions can make great photographs.  The Light 16 isn’t one of these cameras.  I have kept this article in my archives for a while.  We created it while we were building photoPXL and thus because of just how bad my experience was with it I decided toraise it from the dead, get it off my article list and share it with you.  This video pretty much says it all and we got rather punchy during the filming as I was getting so frustrated with the experience.  You can read the article HERE

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[John Sadowsky Participant Posts: 169]

Re: The Worst Camera Ever

Reply #1 on: November 16, 2020 at 2:49 pm

I became aware of the L16 about 3 years ago.  I am an EE (Electrical Engineer) and have lots of EE friends.  One of my friends sent me an article about the L16 – making grandiose “DSLR Killer” claims about sharpness, resolution, and dynamic range.  I quickly did online research to gather as much technical information about the multi-camera design, and I showed that there was NO WAY they could justify their claims.  For example, if you simply add up the area of the 16 sensors, you still don’t match the area of a full-frame sensor.  The claims were based on the magic signal processing that would fuse data from these 16 sensors.  The bottom line, however, is you can’t make up physical limitations via signal processing.

Then, the IEEE Spectrum did a puff piece on the L16.  The IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which I believe is the largest professional engineering organization in the world.  They completely bought into the claims and said nothing negative about the L16.  I was pissed!  I wrote the editors and gave them my analysis.  Of course, they did not reply.  I ended up quitting the IEEE shortly after that, for a number of reasons, but the publication of technological puff pieces without the slightest critical review, in their flagship magazine no less, was on my list.  Just not acceptable, and unfortunately the L16 was not the only case.

I saw one other review of the L16 about a year later.  They had dropped the “DSLR killer” claims and were promoting it for photojournalism.  Apparently, a black brick is more inconspicuous than an actual camera.  Given Kevin’s showing us how long processing times – photojournalism?

I have one quibble with Kenvin’s review.  When he compared the L16 to the iPhone, he failed to mention that the iPhone is, well, also a phone.  🙂

JSS

[Stephane Bosman]

Re: The Worst Camera Ever

Reply #2 on: December 12, 2020 at 3:32 am

“I ended up quitting the IEEE shortly after that, for a number of reasons, but the publication of technological puff pieces without the slightest critical review, in their flagship magazine no less, was on my list.  Just not acceptable, and unfortunately the L16 was not the only case.” Recent years have seen similar decadence at once reference magazines like Nature and The Lancet, probably others too. They get corrupted by political lobbies that pressure them into taking group think more in consideration than actual science.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Stephane Bosman.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Kevin Raber.

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