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A final bout of 'warm' S2 ISO tests


tashley

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I posted yesterday some comparison tests of the S2 against the P45+ and that test confirmed my suspicions that the S2 at least matches the P45+ at lower ISO and bests it as the ISO ratings rise. I was aware, however, that the external temperature at just about 0 centigrade might be flattering the S2 since there may (or indeed may not) be a question mark over its heat dissipation and that might (or might not) imply that it would become noisier at higher ambient temperatures.

 

Today I shot a bookshelf indoors but lit by diffuse window light in a room heated to 24 centigrade in which the camera had been allowed to acclimatise for a long while, and had also been switched on and used intermittently for well over an hour. I include one shot to show the mis en scene and then 100% crops at all ISO.

 

I underexposed by half a stop so as to avoid blowing highlights. I also took another frame, not shown here, of the calibration profile panel from the Xrite colour passport and this was used to make a custom colour profile in Lightroom 2. The rest of the files were developed in LR for maximum detail, with default NR and sharpening but with black point dialled back to 3 and WB set using the Passport and applied identically to each frame.

 

Of course I could do a set in tungsten light too but hey, this has to stop somewhere...:D

 

I shot tethered. Like people say, it's a bit slow but boy is it pleasant and simple and in my limited experience of it, it just works, unlike my Phase tethering which is very temperamental...

 

 

Here are my results

 

p292707599.jpg

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x
You have Elizabeth David! I made risotto milanese from her book for our new years party. Perfect with salmon. Should have made an M9 photo of it, perhaps.

 

I have a LOT of cookery books. I test every recipe...

:D:D:D

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Tim, IMHO these look fine indeed. Lightroom 3 with the anticipated camera profile will probably do quite well I guess. It is, as you know, supposedly even better at higher ISO. Thanks for sharing these.

BTW, sorry to hear about the hot pixel/stripes. Hope Leica will deal with this swiftly and smoothly.

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Tim,

 

I love the x-rite Passport, what a great little tool. did you run a profile on these.?

 

Lovely to photograph books like this and still have resolution to see the half-tone screen on the book, actually to nicely resolve it. I take it you are shooting with the 70mm here. for some reason Im thinking there need to be a smaller 50 "pancake" lens somewhere in this lineup to act as a 35fov.

 

Can't wait to see some real work from this camera. ;-)

 

.

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Tim, IMHO these look fine indeed. Lightroom 3 with the anticipated camera profile will probably do quite well I guess. It is, as you know, supposedly even better at higher ISO. Thanks for sharing these.

BTW, sorry to hear about the hot pixel/stripes. Hope Leica will deal with this swiftly and smoothly.

 

Thanks Peter! I am quite sure they will... in fact some people think it can be done with a small individual firmware update, though I am not sure if that will work on the S2

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"..Today I shot a bookshelf indoors..."

 

 

Tim, we are in 2010..now!..;)....:D....

 

looks good...:)

 

regards,

Jan

 

I'm still signing my cheques 2009 and will be for some months yet!

 

I took the camera out for a walk today and shot a whole load of other stuff, but non of it would win the Prix Pictet...

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Tim,

 

I love the x-rite Passport, what a great little tool. did you run a profile on these.?

 

Lovely to photograph books like this and still have resolution to see the half-tone screen on the book, actually to nicely resolve it. I take it you are shooting with the 70mm here. for some reason Im thinking there need to be a smaller 50 "pancake" lens somewhere in this lineup to act as a 35fov.

 

Can't wait to see some real work from this camera. ;-)

 

.

 

I love it too, and though it's a pity it can't make ICC profiles it works easily and nicely for LR and is really useful for clipping and WB too!

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Thanks for this proper comparison!

 

Regarding the previous heat->noise discussion: Yes, heat affects noise, but mostly very long exposures, that's why only certain scientific/astronomic cameras have active cooling.

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Looking good so far Tim, other than the possible column defect. I really appreciate you sharing your test results.

 

One comment you made a few posts back struck me and exemplifies what attracts me to this camera versus other digital MF cameras - "I took the camera out for a walk today..."

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Guest guy_mancuso
Nope, nothing bad to expect. These look pretty good to me too though as I said above the real torture test is high ISO/Tungsten...

 

Bingo really these test using daylight is not the proper way , you really should be doing tungsten than WB . Tungsten is the worst with noise , I always test the worst case scenario. But I see noise at ISO 320 and we also should be looking at mid tone shadows

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Bingo really these test using daylight is not the proper way , you really should be doing tungsten than WB . Tungsten is the worst with noise , I always test the worst case scenario. But I see noise at ISO 320 and we also should be looking at mid tone shadows

 

yes exactly. midtone shadows are the real test. i tried to do this but the comments were 'underexposure' (off mark). i retain that noise at base iso of the S2 is too high. this can't be fixed in FW.

peter

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Bingo really these test using daylight is not the proper way , you really should be doing tungsten than WB . Tungsten is the worst with noise , I always test the worst case scenario. But I see noise at ISO 320 and we also should be looking at mid tone shadows

 

Aaah what the heck! I wasn't going to do this but it's a quiet Sunday evening so here goes... exactly the same procedure as above, a profile made with the Passport and WB adjusted with same, all LR3 default setting except for applying the correct profile and WB and dialling the blacks back to 3 (which actually makes the noise pop out in the shadows quite a bit, I'd be tempted in these shots to reconsider that move!)

 

Pure, fairly dim tungsten light, no natural light at all.

 

 

ISO 160:

p611719588.jpg

 

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ISO 320:

p640272944.jpg

 

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ISO 640:

p664911490.jpg

 

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ISO 1250

p942060765.jpg

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