Do Digilux 2 photos have distinctive look?

[lemalk]

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Phenomenal. Completely phenomenal.

Some of the clean output of the ISO 100 shots here makes me wonder a) is it the new replacement sensors or is it better noise-reduction software that's out there?

 

Here are two more samples from me

 

@ ISO 100:

 

@ ISO 400 on a frustrating night with some keeper shots among dozens of misshots:

[John Thawley]

Phenomenal. Completely phenomenal.

Some of the clean output of the ISO 100 shots here makes me wonder a) is it the new replacement sensors or is it better noise-reduction software that's out there?

 

Here are two more samples from me

 

@ ISO 100:

 

@ ISO 400 on a frustrating night with some keeper shots among dozens of misshots:

 

I'd double check the EXIF data on the shot you're showing as ISO 400. I don't recall ever seeing a Digilux 2 perform anywhere near like that as ISO 400.

 

JT

[lemalk]

I'd double check the EXIF data on the shot you're showing as ISO 400. I don't recall ever seeing a Digilux 2 perform anywhere near like that as ISO 400.

 

JT

 

Hey John - It is at f2.0 at 1/30th at 400 ISO. Do you mean excessively high in noise or what are you referring to?

[AlbertoDeRoma]

Hey John - It is at f2.0 at 1/30th at 400 ISO. Do you mean excessively high in noise or what are you referring to?

 

I think it's the opposite. Since ISO 400 is the maximum, I think that John's positively impressed by the results. But I could be wrong.

 

Alberto

[John Thawley]

Hey John - It is at f2.0 at 1/30th at 400 ISO. Do you mean excessively high in noise or what are you referring to?

 

 

I don't recall ever seeing an ISO 400 image coming out of a Digilux 2 that clean. If it were possible, I'd shoot at 400 ISO. By no means am I calling you a liar, but I honestly think you're mistaken. We're not talking a little bit here. In fact, your ISO 100 image seems to have more grain/noise than your ISO 400 image.

 

JT

[daveleo]

at iso 400 my D2 produces much more noise than i see here .... i never leave iso100 with the D2 except for "emergencies".

 

how did you do this?

 

are these postprocessed for noise reduction?

 

do you have them reversed ???

[lemalk]

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at iso 400 my D2 produces much more noise than i see here .... i never leave iso100 with the D2 except for "emergencies".

 

how did you do this?

 

are these postprocessed for noise reduction?

 

do you have them reversed ???

 

No - not at all. Promise! Here's a link to the ISO 400's flickr page and exif data:

 

Flickr: More detail about

 

It was post-processed in Lightroom 2 - settings are +10 Luminance noise red. and +75 color noise reduction.

[John Thawley]

No - not at all. Promise! Here's a link to the ISO 400's flickr page and exif data:

 

Flickr: More detail about

 

It was post-processed in Lightroom 2 - settings are +10 Luminance noise red. and +75 color noise reduction.

 

Amazing. I could live with that.

[jrethorst]

This bears on a question I asked recently in another thread. I understand that noise reduction is last-ditch, but sometimes we need higher ISO.

 

Given that, can anyone discuss relative merits for the Digilux 2 of noise reduction as done by Lightroom, Noise Ninja, Nik Dfine, others?

 

-- Let me start a new thread for this, since it's somewhat a change in topic and this thread is already very large.

Edited February 7, 2010 by jrethorst

[wda]

Amazing. I could live with that.

I try to use ISO 100 whenever possible with my D2. By choice I resort to using the inbuilt bounce flash, if necessary at ISO 200. Occasionally I am obliged to use ISO 400 and have found that the use of Noise Ninja or, more recently, Lightroom 2.6 noise reduction often improves the result.

 

Here is a grab shot this morning, taken in weak winter indoor natural daylighting at ISO 400 and processed in LR as described. (white balance; curves to improve highlights; clarity to improve mid-tone sharpness; slight sharpening of raw file; Luminance +15; Colour noise +70; not PS work on this occasion). I find the settings are not overly critical. I would only use this solution in extreme situations, but am generally satisfied with its potential value.

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[John Thawley]

Maybe our collective psyche is becoming more accepting of grain/noise... at least in a controlled sense. Not a bad thing really. I often feel our photography (via digital and other technologies) has become a little too sterile.

 

Cat shot looks terrific.

[wda]

Thank you John. I certainly think an over-cleaned digital picture looks unreal. I also believe some people get over-excited about noise. It really only looks objectionable when a picture is underexposed and then the blacks mistakenly lightened in an uncontrolled way. That is where much noise arises.

[nabarund]

hi all,

 

love the D-2 pics. keep 'em coming. just got mine back from the hospital (fried motherboard), but back behind the lens now.

 

here is a picture from kolkata, india, on a late december evening during Durga Pujo. ISO 400, f2.0, 1/25th sec., 7mm focal length, superfine JPG. only post-processing was an ever so slight modification of the curves to get rid of some of the noise in the sky.

 

(unfortunately, it looks blurry than the original after shrinking it to fit the L-forum upload max file size, though. any suggestions on settings in PS for that?)

 

i took the picture in the D-2's native B/W mode. i love the B/W setting on the D-2 because it reminds of me of the amazing gray tones that Ilford's XP2 (B/W film made for C-41 processing) had. in the pre-digital days, i shot for a B/W newspaper and the option of doing 1h processing was great. of course i can do the tweaks in PS if I shoot color, i know i know. but i still like the feel of the B/W engine in the D-2.

 

missed the deadline for joining the L-forum by 4 days (!) to qualify for submitting to the L-forum book. dang it! oh well.

 

cheers,

ndg

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[cow_penalty]

I should stop by this forum more often! In any case, here is one I snapped on my way home from work last weekend:

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[erocks]

On a Sun drive to Annapolis, checking sailboats, and playing with contrast and crops...

 

 

Vibes,

Ernesto

[John Thawley]

On a Sun drive to Annapolis, checking sailboats, and playing with contrast and crops...

 

Annapolis

 

Vibes,

Ernesto

 

Did you use unsharpen mask or edge sharpening on these? Not sure if it's the downsampling or sizing... but a few of the shots with birds look a little "crunchy" on the edges.

 

JT

[mobeyone]

My daughter at her 5th birthday party, indoors and no flash.

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[erocks]

John,

I have used the Definition slider in Aperture (40-50) and I use to shoot Jpeg with Sharpening +1. I then flickr'ed asking the plug-in to resize to 1024...I believe both the cropping and not sharpening after resizing might be the cause. But I find the process very quick for me...

Interested in your sharpening workflow and resizing (do you do it in Aperture?) when posting to the web.

Thanks for the comments, you actually made me switch from Capture NX and Lightzone to Aperture, and I am a happy boy since then. I regained the joy of shooting rather than spending time post processing.

Er

[John Thawley]

John,

I have used the Definition slider in Aperture (40-50) and I use to shoot Jpeg with Sharpening +1. I then flickr'ed asking the plug-in to resize to 1024...I believe both the cropping and not sharpening after resizing might be the cause. But I find the process very quick for me...

Interested in your sharpening workflow and resizing (do you do it in Aperture?) when posting to the web.

Thanks for the comments, you actually made me switch from Capture NX and Lightzone to Aperture, and I am a happy boy since then. I regained the joy of shooting rather than spending time post processing.

Er

 

Ah... keep in mind the amount of information and base resolution of a Digilux 2 file... by today's standards, those files can be rather fragile when it comes to post processing. Comparing the D2 file to, let's say a 5D MK11 file is similar to comparing dog years to human years. The file is not as resilient to adjustments... little tweaks can have a lot of impact to a D2 file ESPECIALLY if you're going to down sample for web.

 

My D2 files typically get (in Aperture) a little bump up on the Exposure slider. Some reduction in Brightness. Slide the Details adjustment up to about 30-40%. Then I'll click the Noise Reduction in default settings. Edge sharpening in default settings and often the Vignette setting in default positions.

 

I find doing more than that can start creating anomalies to large areas of color (graininess in the sky?) and other degradation.

 

If I've stuck with those values, exporting and resizing in Aperture goes smoothly. I used to have a preset of what I though was a good level of edge sharpening, but I found it created similar results (not quite as harsh) as yours upon resizing.

 

Actually, this is not much different than most my post processing. Here's a video tutorial I did:

 

http://www.johnthawley.com/journal/2009/11/25/making-your-photos-pop-using-apertures-adjustment-tools.html

 

JT

Edited February 15, 2010 by John Thawley

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Lux

[erocks]

Great video John, thanks for fwding.

 

If I can suggest a topic for one of next videos...vault management, how do you do it...in general, backup img management. I am sure Aperture friends would learn a lot from your best practices.

 

Looking fwd to your Aperture 3 experiences, I will let you dig out the flaws before we all commit to it

 

Thanks again, and great pictures btw!

Ernesto