Will removing an AA filter still improve sharpness after downscaling an image?
Asked 7/11/2014
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Some cameras, such as the Nikon D5300, omit the anti-aliasing (AA) filter to gain a little extra sharpness at the sensor level. If you shoot at the camera’s full resolution but then downscale the image to something like 10 MP, will that extra sharpness still be visible, or does the benefit mostly matter only at native resolution?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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The effect of omitting the low pass filter decreases as resolution increases. That's why we're suddenly seeing AA filterless cameras, we've reached a point where aliasing is no longer a significant problem. The difference you see will depend on what glass you're using, really sharp lenses will still produce aliasing, at least in the centre.
In most cases the difference will be minor, even at full resolution, so it will be marginal at 10MP and almost certainly gone when resized further for the web.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
12y ago
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Usually the benefit is much smaller once you downscale, and it may become hard to see at all.
An AA filter slightly softens the image to reduce aliasing and moiré. Removing it can give a small sharpness gain at full resolution, but on modern high-resolution sensors that gain is already fairly minor in many real-world shots. After resizing to 10 MP, the resampling process tends to smooth away much of that difference.
How much remains depends on the subject and lens. Very sharp lenses and fine repeating detail can still show a bit more crispness from a camera without an AA filter, especially at native resolution, but after downsampling the difference is usually marginal and often disappears entirely for smaller web sizes.
In practice, post-processing matters more: good resizing and sharpening technique will generally have a bigger effect on the final look than the presence or absence of the AA filter.
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