regards, Anthony "Of what use is lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight" (Anon)
On 11 September 2011 15:19, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Easy to obtain higher ISOs: set the highest and underexpose by the > number of stops required. Boost in processing. > If only it was always that simple. Like you, I find it a simple matter to clean up noise when I need to, weighing up the pros and cons of detail losses versus smoothness gains on an ad hoc basis. The problem that isn't so easy to fix is the shadow banding that frequently occurs at iso1600 especially at 3200K white balance, which utterly spoils many otherwise good shots even when grain/noise is acceptable. It's fixable given enough time, but I've had to resort to multiple layering where I isolate subject matter from background, run extremely destructive amounts of NR on the background layer, then restore grain so that it matches the subject layer. Selecting the subject is unfortunately not always a simple click of the magic wand tool, it's often a laborious hand-selection with a graphics tablet and stylus. It's not a job I'd choose for the love of retouching. Because that banding is already present at iso1600, and is worsened by underexposure, I could never dream of pushing the ISO any higher, nor do I need to. > I was never interested in any of the E-xxx bodies because of the > viewfinders, but the E-1, E-3 and E-5 are superb. Even the ancient E-1 > with it's old, slow hardware now produces superb results at ISO 3200 > and even ISO 6400 if you know what you're doing when you expose and > process the raw files. The E-1 as you know uses a 5MP Kodak CCD. Those low megapixel sensors like that one and the 6MP Sony, with their big fat photosites, were famously good at minimising noise. The next generation of sensors didn't perform so well at anything except having a higher pixel count. What my complaint goes back to is that Olympus kept flogging that generation of sensor, the 10MP Panasonic, for too long. Long after their competitors moved on to better sensors. Long after Panasonic itself left it behind, 2007's DMC L-10 was their only camera with the 10MP sensor. It was short lived and was their last DSLR. > The E-5 produces very clean results at ISO 6400 > almost without any processing at all. > That's very nice, but I already noted the better processor that the E-single digit cameras use, and the price premium that is required to get one. I wonder how many school lunches my son would need to sacrifice for me to get one? > Overall, though, this obsession with ultra high ISO settings and the > desire for noiseless results is, to me, utter and complete nonsense. > If I was still working for payment I wouldn't call it nonsence to worry my cameras' performance. And if I was making and selling cameras I would worry about what the potential buyers worry about, rightly or wrongly. regards, Anthony "Of what use is lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight" (Anon) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
