I realize I will make very few friends when I express my dislike for "supporting shots" (NOT YOURS in this thread, just in general) for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.
So I apologize for that.
Not about friends or enemies and no reason to apologize, but you make what I believe is fundamentally a philosophical point, so please indulge me as I address it that way.
First, I GET what you're saying and I understand what I think you're after. But I also think the pure photographic comparison you seek is every bit as illusory as the processed world you seek to avoid.
There is no such thing as "what a camera can actually DO", since obviously a camera cannot actually DO anything by itself. Which sounds more flip than I mean it to be. At the most fundamental level, every digital camera shoots a raw image. For those cameras that allow you to pull the raw image out of the camera, you can do the most basic conversion of that image and look at photos of resolution and color charts (like the OP started to do earlier in this thread) and THAT'S what the camera can do in its purest sense. And even THAT isn't all that pure a lot of the time because more and more cameras involve some internal processing to even produce those raw files, particularly in terms of NR at high ISOs.
But EVERYTHING beyond that requires a users input at both the level of seeing the light and framing the shot and adjusting the camera to best capture what he or she is seeing, but ALSO at the level of processing the exposure taken. Even assuming some level of "purity" exists in that raw file, as soon as that image is converted to a jpeg (and many cheaper cameras do that automatically and don't give you a choice about it), its as much about the processing as it is about the "camera". Whether the camera maker sets the processing parameters of the jpeg or whether you or I do by processing the raw file matters not - its at least as much about the processing at that point as it is about the "camera" - the only question is WHO is doing the processing and WHO'S processing skills are you comparing... To my eye, Olympus and
Fuji jpegs are about the prettiest in the business - most other cameras don't do as well to MY eye, but even there I can adjust a lot of parameters about how the camera makes those processing decisions, so its still about my processing skills or at least "decisions". Or consider those cameras that allow in-camera processing of raw files - the Fuji X-series cams all do this. They allow you to make as many jpegs as you'd like from a single raw file before ANYTHING leaves the camera and you can adjust many parameters in doing that processing. But they're all the same parameters you could adjust BEFORE taking the shot by tweaking the jpeg settings. So, if I do the raw processing in-camera using the same parameters that go into producing the jpegs but use that in-camera raw processor to test some "what if" possibilities, is that about what "the camera" is producing, or what I'm producing with the pre and post processing tools at my disposal??? And at that point, why does it matter whether I use tools within the camera or on my desktop to do the processing? Its still a bunch of processing decisions, no?
Since EVERY image coming out of ANY camera involves many processing decisions, the only question is WHO gets to make them, and WHEN. I prefer to make some of them - more with some cameras and some shots than with others. And many of them after the fact. And some shots I'm happy to leave well enough alone and let some engineer/photographer who designed the jpeg engine for that camera maker make the decisions, but even then I've made some of them by the jpeg settings I chose. But decisions about processing WERE made, regardless. So I think of the camera as one link in the chain of making a photograph. The photographer is another link in the chain and the processing tools (and skills of the person using them) are also very important links in that chain. And every photograph is only as good as the weakest link in that chain, as is the case with all chains. So, yes, the "camera" can impose certain limitations, but except in the most extreme circumstances, the limits imposed by the camera are almost never the weakest link in the chain. If you see a photo from an LX5 that you like, the LX5 was capable of producing that image and didn't get in its way. It was good ENOUGH, when combined with the initial exposure and the processing of that file, to produce that image. If you see one you DON'T like you have to consider whether the weakness was in the camera or the photographer or in the processing. And, again, only in the most extreme cases will the answer be "the camera".
This didn't start with digital cameras BTW. In the
film days, the "camera" was capable of even less. When you looked at a photograph that came out of any half decent camera, you were seeing at LEAST as much about the film used for the shot as you were about the camera (although the lens mattered a lot, then as now). Now, with modern sensors, we have a LOT more choices about what type of "film" to use and we can vary that for nearly every shot. In the film days a lot more decisions about how that film/sensor would react to certain types of light were made BEFORE the fact. The beauty of digital cameras is we have the latitude to make a lot more of those decisions AFTER the fact (as is true with digital processing of everything from words to music to columns of numbers). But make no mistake, those decisions were or will be made by someone - the only question being by whom and when in the chain of the photographic process. To me, the decisions I make after the fact are no more or less valid than the decisions made by the designer of the jpeg engine before the fact - they're just processing decisions however you cut 'em.
Think of an electric guitar as an analogy. Some electric guitars are "better" than others. And a real expert guitarist can get an IDEA of it just by playing it without any sort of amplification. But nobody would actually try to make MUSIC that way because that's not what the instrument was designed to do - the sound of an electric guitar without an amplifier and a bunch of settings on both the guitar and amplifier is the equivalent of the raw test chart photo. It tells you a little bit but is useless by itself. The only way a musician can really make a good decision about that guitar is to plug it in, play with the settings, and start making MUSIC with it. And then they can tell how well its strengths and weaknesses work with their own musical sensibilities. I find the same with a camera. I can learn a LITTLE bit about it by seeing the data and the test charts made from almost untouched raw files. But I can't tell how useful a tool its gonna be for me until I start making PHOTOGRAPHS with it in the real world. In the formats and sizes I actually VIEW and present photos at. And that includes a lot of processing decisions. Some of which I make myself, some of which I leave to the engineers who designed the jpeg engine for that camera - and that'll vary shot by shot, but all based on MY judgements. But the camera is just one link in the chain of making any given photograph and, in my hands at least, is VERY rarely the weakest link...
OK, philosophy mode off. I don't consider any of what you wrote or what I just wrote a rant! Just a discussion...
-Ray