  We compare the rms contrast in observed speckle reconstructed G-band images
with synthetic filtergrams computed from two magneto-hydrodynamic simulation
snapshots. The observations consist of 103 bursts of 80 frames each taken at
the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST), sampled at twice the diffraction limit of the
telescope. The speckle reconstructions account for the performance of the
Adaptive Optics (AO) system at the DST to supply reliable photometry. We find a
considerable discrepancy in the observed rms contrast of 14.1% for the best
reconstructed images, and the synthetic rms contrast of 21.5% in a simulation
snapshot thought to be representative of the quiet Sun. The areas of features
in the synthetic filtergrams that have positive or negative contrast beyond the
minimum and maximum values in the reconstructed images have spatial scales that
should be resolved. This leads us to conclude that there are fundamental
differences in the rms G-band contrast between observed and computed
filtergrams. On the basis of the substantially reduced granular contrast of
16.3% in the synthetic plage filtergram we speculate that the quiet-Sun may
contain more weak magnetic field than previously thought.
