D-Lux 3 disppointing at ISO800 & 1600 even in RAW

[Guest malland]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I bought a D-Lux 3 in Hong Kong on Sunday because I wanted to use its zoomlens at about 50mm-equivalent to complement by Ricoh GR-D, which shoots at 28mm- and 21mm-equivalent. I've just started trying it, but so far am disappointed shooting at ISO 800 and 1600, as the images are soft and sort of "smeared" or have what I would call "striations" — and I've been shooting in RAW. What I don't understand is why this is so, when the sensor is about the same size as that of the GR-D. Any thoughts?

 

My GR-D pictures at ISO 800 in RAW seem to be much better, but I have to investigate this further. And, mind you I'm shooting in B&W and like grain. Have you been able to get anything useful at ISO 800 and 1600 from the D-Lux 3? I still have to see whether ISO 400 is usable.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Kirk]

Hi Mitch... the D-Lux is not going to work for your night street shots @ high ISO. 400 may not even work, although converting to B&W might help. It would at least eliminate the chromatic noise.

 

Have you checked out the Olympus E400? It is smaller and lighter than an M8, but still much larger than your GR. Although the CCD is 2.5 x larger. It takes the 4/3 lenses, so you can get a fast prime lens. Leica will be introducing a Summilux 25mm f1.4 ASPH (50 mm), and Sigma has a 24mm f1.8 Macro (48 mm).

 

Only available in Europe.

[sdai]

Mitch, you could return it for a Fuji F30 which covers 36-128mm on a 35mm equiv.

[andy_mclean]

Hi Mitch,

 

I remember your photographs on the ricoh forum. Lovely work.

 

I recently picked up a dlux3 and find that under sodium lamps, street lights round here.. the camera does suffer even in RAW. However, I have got some reasonable results at 800iso under other light sources.

 

400iso works pretty well.. here are a couple of examples when I was out wandering the other night....

 

The final one is 800iso, 1/10th... so pretty low light...but hellish results.

 

Overall I'm happy with it, only intend to use it for small prints A4 max.... I think that your GRD is a better street camera becuase it's noise has a nicer look, but the que shot would have been 3200iso+ were it not for IS which is worth 2 stops with some practise.

Sorry I can't offer any tips that improve matters.... in fact I'm after them myself.

 

This is OK as long as you are not trying to freeze motion...

 

Best wishes-

Andy

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[andy_mclean]

Apologies, the two above were both 400iso.

 

The two below at 800iso, RAW. The final one is 1/10th, 800iso and sodium lights. The one before under flourescent light.

 

I've haven't made prints much larger than these appear here.. and I know that compressed jpegs on the web aren't the same... but as long as you don't want to freeze motion, then you may get OK results at 400iso... Otherwise, I'm afraid you got the wrong camera.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Riley]

I bought a D-Lux 3 in Hong Kong on Sunday because I wanted to use its zoomlens at about 50mm-equivalent to complement by Ricoh GR-D, which shoots at 28mm- and 21mm-equivalent. I've just started trying it, but so far am disappointed shooting at ISO 800 and 1600, as the images are soft and sort of "smeared" or have what I would call "striations" — and I've been shooting in RAW. What I don't understand is why this is so, when the sensor is about the same size as that of the GR-D. Any thoughts?

 

My GR-D pictures at ISO 800 in RAW seem to be much better, but I have to investigate this further. And, mind you I'm shooting in B&W and like grain. Have you been able to get anything useful at ISO 800 and 1600 from the D-Lux 3? I still have to see whether ISO 400 is usable.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

 

hi Mitch

that camera is only reliably good for iso400 in my mind, even that might be a push. The venus 3 engine, which supposed to deal with noise does so by pixel binning, a process where ... when noise is detected assumes the colour of the pixels around it. So it looks smeared and without detail. Shooting RAW avoids the venus 3 engine, but it means that you then have the noise instead.

 

If you shoot high iso all the time, seriously what sdai says is right, the Fuji F30 is the class act in this sphere, it can shoot at iso3200 and give nice results. Certainly iso 1600 is pretty clean. But in this it is the leader of the field for compacts and has no equal. I dont think it has a manual mode though.

 

How good is the GR? do you have the 21mm lens ?

[nemeng]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I use an Olympus E-500 for digital shooting, which has pretty much the same 4:3 sensor.

 

What I've found is that (RAW) results at ISO 640 are okay, provided you use a little Noise Reduction in Photoshop. FWIW I use Imagenomic Noiseware, but there are plenty of other options - see the notes I have in the FAQ I maintain at:

 

Leica FAQ - Digital Accessories & Issues

[Guest malland]

Mitch, you could return it for a Fuji F30 which covers 36-128mm on a 35mm equiv.

Simon:

 

I'm afraid that the F30 is not what I want. Here's what Jeff Spirer has written on photo.net about it in comparison to the GR-D:

 

Having bought the Fujifilm F30 and replaced it with a GR-D after four weeks, I would take issue. I have used both of them rather than read certain test reports that some manufacturers seem to use for optimization. In the "real world," the GR-D is far more controllable than the F30 and produces better results. The F30 images often look over-sharpened, and the high ISO images are very soft in exchange for low noise. You can get the same results from the GR-D in Photoshop if you like that look, which I don't.

 

Jeff is a knowledgeable professionalphotographer whose judgment I trust. Incidentally, you in Hong Kong like many other places you cannot return a purchase just because it doesn't do what you want. Actually, I like the D-Lux 3 quite a bit: it handles as easily as the GR-D: if you press the "joystick"on the back, you can change easily and quickly a whole lot of settings — autofoucs and metering modes, white balance, ISO. etc.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

[Guest malland]

I remember your photographs on the ricoh forum. Lovely work.

 

I recently picked up a dlux3 and find that under sodium lamps, street lights round here.. the camera does suffer even in RAW. However, I have got some reasonable results at 800iso under other light sources.

 

400iso works pretty well.. here are a couple of examples when I was out wandering the other night....

 

The final one is 800iso, 1/10th... so pretty low light...but hellish results.

 

Overall I'm happy with it, only intend to use it for small prints A4 max.... I think that your GRD is a better street camera becuase it's noise has a nicer look, but the que shot would have been 3200iso+ were it not for IS which is worth 2 stops with some practise.

Sorry I can't offer any tips that improve matters.... in fact I'm after them myself.

 

This is OK as long as you are not trying to freeze motion...

Andy, thanks. Perhaps I posted this lament on ISO800 and 1600 too quickly. I shot some more at 400-800-1600 just now and now think I can probably work with the D-Lux 3 in B&W, which, as I stated above I do like on the whole. It's just that I have to use a different workflow: with the GR-D lately I've been developing the RAW files and converting to B&W with Lightroom and then using LightZone — great program! — and finishing in Photoshop. What I tried now with D-Lux 3 files is to use ACD in Photoshop and then did some capture sharpening using the Capture Sharepening facility in PK Sharpener, which I never need with the GR-D and then convert to B&W in either Alien Skin Exposure or ConvertToBW Pro before going into LightZone, and continuing as I do with GR-D files. Also, I'll have to make some prints to see how they look.

 

A friend in here in Bangkok offered to buy the D-Lux 3 from me, but I think I'll be keeping it.

 

And I think you're right on the IS.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

[Kirk]

The Fuji F30 is only 6 mp, which will not help you produce those large prints that you like to make. And, above 800 ISO it is very noisy, but still great for a P&S. Here are some night time samples and a review:

 

DCRP Review: Fuji FinePix F30

[andy_mclean]

I think that a compact camera, maybe limited to 6-8MPs, with a decent opitical viewfinder built-in, with fast lense f2..with good higher iso... is the holy grail of compacts.

 

Nobody does one.

 

If so, we'd all have it.

 

Actually, I'm describing an M8. ;-)

 

Both the GRD and dlux3 are very nicely designed cameras.. but for me the electronic viewfinder lag is a killer blow. I enjoy using the dlux3 very much, but it has its limitations.. higher isos.

 

Can you post your results Mitch?

 

Andy

[Riley]

i have found out that 1/3 stop underexposing, which was common in slide film days, is a killer for me because i get much noise. LC1 noise scale is flat at iso 100 and 200, but can be pretty horrible at 400. I need to night shoot a bit to investigate further.

[Guest malland]

hi Mitch

that camera is only reliably good for iso400 in my mind, even that might be a push. The venus 3 engine, which supposed to deal with noise does so by pixel binning, a process where ... when noise is detected assumes the colour of the pixels around it. So it looks smeared and without detail. Shooting RAW avoids the venus 3 engine, but it means that you then have the noise instead.

 

If you shoot high iso all the time, seriously what sdai says is right, the Fuji F30 is the class act in this sphere, it can shoot at iso3200 and give nice results. Certainly iso 1600 is pretty clean. But in this it is the leader of the field for compacts and has no equal. I dont think it has a manual mode though.

 

How good is the GR? do you have the 21mm lens ?

Riley:

 

Yes, since the GR-D and the D-Lux 3 have sensors that are quite similar in size, I would have thought that the results should be similar. On the F30, see my quote above from Jeff Spirer.

 

The GR-D is a camera that I really love for B&W, My intial ( and at this stage superficial) impression is that the D-Lux 3 may handle color better than the GR-D. The GR-D produce excellent jpegs, although I shoot in RAW, without over-smoothing. You can habve a look at the link under my signatue, where I have some 100 GR-D shots, some that I have printed as large as 40x52 inches (100x133cm).

 

The 21mm-equivalent adapter is really excellent and I'm hard-pressed to say that my Leica-M 21mm-ASPH is any better, even though the latter is an excellent lens. I never thought that a lens adapter would be this good.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland

[Guest malland]

Hi Mitch... the D-Lux is not going to work for your night street shots @ high ISO. 400 may not even work, although converting to B&W might help. It would at least eliminate the chromatic noise.

 

Have you checked out the Olympus E400? It is smaller and lighter than an M8, but still much larger than your GR. Although the CCD is 2.5 x larger. It takes the 4/3 lenses, so you can get a fast prime lens. Leica will be introducing a Summilux 25mm f1.4 ASPH (50 mm), and Sigma has a 24mm f1.8 Macro (48 mm).

 

Only available in Europe.

Kirk:

 

While the Olympus E400 is interesrting, I really want to stick to a tiny camera because I travel a frequently and extensively and these days in Europe, after the Heathrow scare, one is allowed only one carry-on back, not a carry-on bag and and a computer bag as before — and with such extensive travel I don't want to chack luggage. Another thing is that I like using the LCD to frame because it pushes me to a "looser" shooting style: when I first got the GR-D I thought that I would use my VC28 and Leica 21 external viewfinders, but the few days I put one of these on the camera I never used it.

 

—MItch/Bangkok

[Riley]

hey nice

i like your high contrast style

particularly the old woman with the Bocaj poster behind her

and the upstairs restaurant in paris

[Guest malland]

I think that a compact camera, maybe limited to 6-8MPs, with a decent opitical viewfinder built-in, with fast lense f2..with good higher iso... is the holy grail of compacts.

 

Nobody does one.

 

If so, we'd all have it.

 

Actually, I'm describing an M8. ;-)

 

Both the GRD and dlux3 are very nicely designed cameras.. but for me the electronic viewfinder lag is a killer blow. I enjoy using the dlux3 very much, but it has its limitations.. higher isos.

 

Can you post your results Mitch?

Andy, yes I would love a small sensor camera with a 40-50mm-equivalent f/2 prime lens. But, as I wrote earlier, I'm not bothered by not having an otpical viewfinder becase I like framing with the LCD. And, yes, when I shoot with either the GR-D or the D-Lux 2 no one takes me seriously because I just look like another tourist.

 

I'll post some D-Lux 3 pictures as soon as I get a bit more experience with the camera and produce something more interesting than test shots. I'm curious whether the D-Lux will push me to do something different fromn what I've been doing with the GR-D.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

[Guest malland]

i have found out that 1/3 stop underexposing, which was common in slide film days, is a killer for me because i get much noise. LC1 noise scale is flat at iso 100 and 200, but can be pretty horrible at 400. I need to night shoot a bit to investigate further.

Riley:

 

So you find that overexposing helps? With the GR-D I've been shooting with -1/3EV.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

[andy_mclean]

Mitch, the photo of yours taken from iside a shop window, GRD, where a woman was turning round to face the camera... was that taken via the electronic finder?

 

I find that the lag-time between on screen is stopping me from getting that moment... maybe it's just practise?

 

I like forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

Meantime, check out Jim Radcliffs photos on dpreview. He has sold a few dlux3s singlehandly I think.

 

Oh, and I think the meter in the dlux3 is excellent... and rarely worry about exposure using it apart from obvious blow out situations, especially with RAW.

 

Enjoy your camera-

Andy

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Riley]

Riley:

 

So you find that overexposing helps? With the GR-D I've been shooting with -1/3EV.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

 

i hate to overexpose, well maybe hates a bit strong

i had -1/3ev, now i have zeroed it, i need to try +1/3 tho

just need to be sure im not blowing out the highlights too much

 

its definately better at 0, -1/3 was killing me i think

i shoot an LC1, lots of interiors

[carstenw]

Sorry for butting in, but I think what might do the trick is the upcoming Leica 25mm f/1.4 D, combined with shooting at ISO 400-800 in raw, and using either noise ninja or neatimage to clean it up.

 

Leica D SUMMILUX 25mm ASPH lens