M9 Colors at Night — Best Way to Shoot High ISO?

[Guest malland]

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Mitch, does this work with the same results using RRP? I remember your older posts on the benefits of this raw processor.

http://www.raw-photo-processor.com/

As I haven't tried RPP with M9 files, I don't know.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Surabaya-Johnny

[douglasf13]

Mitch, does this work with the same results using RRP? I remember your older posts on the benefits of this raw processor.

http://www.raw-photo-processor.com/

 

Iliah Borg, who is involved in RPP, used to say that RPP was better than LR with this method, because of the way it deals with shadows (but LR is better at highlight recovery.) However, that was a few years back, so I don't know if that holds true with newer LR versions.

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[erudolph]

Vis a vis highlight recovery, version 7 of Capture One is outstanding at it.

[Guest malland]

But with the "Shoot at ISO 640 and push in post" technique which is the subject of this thread highlight recovery is not an issue because you're underexposing so much that you don't have clipped highlights. It's shadow recovery that is important.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Surabaya-Johnny

[erudolph]

But with the "Shoot at ISO 640 and push in post" technique which is the subject of this thread highlight recovery is not an issue because you're underexposing so much that you don't have clipped highlights. It's shadow recovery that is important.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Surabaya-Johnny

 

Totally agree, Mitch. I was just sidetracking the thread for a moment. BTW, thank you for this thread!

[newnew]

I would like to draw attention to the new RAW engine in C1 version 7. With this one I have found that 1000 ISO is no issue and 2000 becomes within nice N&B range. Color files rightly exposed or not underexposed more than 2 F-stops are coming out pretty good from the C1 v7 engine.

Has anybody else experienced that ?

Ali R.

[erl]

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I have always been impressed by C1 and Ver 7 is excellent at pulling up detail from both shadows and highlights, IMO. Ealier in this thread I started an examination of Mitch's idea. I see it has some merit and don't with to discredit it, but I am still convinced that 'correct' exposure is the better solution to overall image quality. I think a measure of qualification is required for either viewpoint to legitimize. In my case I am maybe prepared to accept more digital noise that others. I equate it to film grain, up to a point. I also find chimping the LCD periodically useful in some scenarios. Drastic underexposure does not effectively allow this.

 

IMO and together with observation I think Mitch's idea is very good in high contrast night scenes that is Mitch's 'signature'. My feeling is that noise is primarily resident in the shadows and in such night shots are completely 'buried', which is good. This, as Mitch has already stated, can be very beneficial to preserving highlight detail.

 

My problem(s) arise in more general type scenes which can contain some reasonably dark areas. By 'overexposing', detail in those areas is superior and I find, within limits, C1 can still preserve highlight details. I actually have shot a stage scene at 2500ISO on the M8 which caused me to double check the set ISO after I printed it, a large poster size. It really absolutely looked like a a 160ISO shot. I believe it is a result of absolutely nailing the the exposure precisely and correctly.

 

I would have made some experimental pics to further research Mitch's idea but have been heavily otherwise engaged. I hope still to do it in the near future.

Edited August 7, 2013 by erl

[Lightwrangler]

I don't know if it's worth something, but as I have been profiting a lot from this thread, I'd like to add a little comparison I did the other day. Shots were done in really low light low contrast conditions, all pictures with the same, slight import adjustments to color channels, color noise reduction set to 25, all 100% crops, all imported in Lightroom 5:

 

 

ISO 640 without adjustment:

ISO 640 plus 2 stops:

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ISO 1250 without adjustment:

ISO 1250 plus 1 stop:

 

 

ISO 2500 without adjustments:

Edited August 8, 2013 by Royal_Corona

[Lightwrangler]

And here is the picture from which the crop was taken in ISO 640, pushed 2 stops:

 

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[Guest malland]

Royal_Corona, thanks. Your comparison supports what the tests in Jim Kasson's article show. I think that there is a need to increase contras a bit: I took your JPG file and using Preview on the Mac increased the contrast and moved the highlight point to the left; and I find that the image becomes very interesting, You could also, use the new Radial Tool in LR5, to dodge the subject and burn in the dark parts of the background. Actually, I would add only a minor increase in contrast. Also, I would probably increase Color Noise and Luminance Noise reduction a bit, because that is also a part of the technique. To me, your results confirm that this technique should transform the reputation of the M9 as a low-ISO camera.

 

I also think that your comparison addresses some of the issues that Erl is raising in post #147. Essentially, he is saying that the technique is only good for high contrast night scenes. Your examples show the results in "low light low contrast conditions", which is what Erl is talking about. My view is that in these very low light, low contrast conditions one must usually increase contrast in at least part of the image. And, ultimately, there are some scenes that are lit with such unattractive light, that no picture is going to look good — but that is true in daylight as well, because it is the nature of the light that creates a lot of the beauty of a photograph. However, in your picture, with some increase in contrast, one can achieve quite a beautiful look.

 

Here is a very dark, low contrast scene before sunrise. (The little points of light on the horizon are green lights on fishing boats to attract squid).

 

Summicron-28 | ISO 640 pushed 1.35 stops | f/4.0 | 1/25 sec

Hua Hin

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Surabaya-Johnny

Edited August 8, 2013 by malland

[Peter Lea]

Mitch, thank you for a most illuminating (!!) thread. I haven't been looking at the forum for quite a while, as I haven't been seeing anything of much interest, but I have bookmarked this thread and will come back to it.

 

Peter Lea

[dwbell]

To me, your results confirm that this technique should transform the reputation of the M9 as a low-ISO camera.

 

Though is it M9 specific? Is it not just improvements in the post processing algorithms in software such as Lightroom? So is it not as applicable to all bodies, from all brands? Which would mean that a 'better' low light body of the M9 era, say the 5DII has also received a parallel relative increase in quality?

 

Of course it's great news to M9 owners as it improves their creative / artistic options.

 

I too would be interested in Jim, or someone testing the M240 for this threshold where in camera gain increase loses to post process gain increase. As one would expect to find that it's still "better" in low light than the M9.

Edited August 8, 2013 by dwbell

[newnew]

Erl,

Thanks. I will keep experimenting the high ISO's but I believe there is much more to pull from there than meets the eye.

Ali R.

[JimKasson]

Though is it M9 specific? Is it not just improvements in the post processing algorithms in software such as Lightroom? So is it not as applicable to all bodies, from all brands? Which would mean that a 'better' low light body of the M9 era, say the 5DII has also received a parallel relative increase in quality?

 

The situation where you can get as good or better SNR by shooting at lower than normal ISOs and increasing "Exposure" in post when compared to doing ETTR by boosting in-camera gain (ISO) is not unique to the M9. I have tested the Nikon D4 and D800E, and the Sony RX1 and NEX-7, and all show the effect. What is unique among these cameras is the steepness of the M9's SNR fall-off after the highest optimum ISO. In the other cameras, often the loss in SNR is so gradual that picking the highest optimum ISO amounts to a judgement call.

 

You mention a Canon camera. I have not tested any Canons, but several people have told me that increasing the ISO settings in their Canons provides high relative SNRs at ISOs higher than any of the camera I have tested. There are reasons related to the sensor system design in the Canons why this effect should occur, but they are at once geeky and untested, so I won't trot them out here unless there is interest.

 

I too would be interested in Jim, or someone testing the M240 for this threshold where in camera gain increase loses to post process gain increase. As one would expect to find that it's still "better" in low light than the M9.

 

I'd love to have a M 240 to test, and will post the results when that happy day occurs.

 

Jim

[dwbell]

Jim, PM me your location if you're eu based? You could use mine?

[douglasf13]

The situation where you can get as good or better SNR by shooting at lower than normal ISOs and increasing "Exposure" in post when compared to doing ETTR by boosting in-camera gain (ISO) is not unique to the M9. I have tested the Nikon D4 and D800E, and the Sony RX1 and NEX-7, and all show the effect. What is unique among these cameras is the steepness of the M9's SNR fall-off after the highest optimum ISO. In the other cameras, often the loss in SNR is so gradual that picking the highest optimum ISO amounts to a judgement call.

 

You mention a Canon camera. I have not tested any Canons, but several people have told me that increasing the ISO settings in their Canons provides high relative SNRs at ISOs higher than any of the camera I have tested. There are reasons related to the sensor system design in the Canons why this effect should occur, but they are at once geeky and untested, so I won't trot them out here unless there is interest.

 

 

 

I'd love to have a M 240 to test, and will post the results when that happy day occurs.

 

Jim

 

The 5Dii is a nightmare with this kind of thing at lower ISOs. Even bringing up shadows a few stops can lead to pretty significant banding. I've seen various tests over the years, but I don't remember any of the links.

[charlesphoto99]

I think the small(ish) amount of image quality gained by using a base iso and pushing would probably be offset by the pain in the ass it would be processing later as well as viewing the shot on the LCD screen (bad enough as it is with the 2003 tech). I appreciate the thought gone into exploring this technique but it's definitely not for the busy photog, presets or no presets.

 

I do think that the higher iso's on the M9 are vastly underrated, and in general much prefer the image quality of the M9 to the M240. The M9 (and Monochrom by de facto) imo are truly two of the most unique digital cameras out there when it comes to the quality of the image. Not the "best" on paper but they have a look,an "umami" as the Japanese might say, that no other 35mm digital camera, comes close to.

[charlesphoto99]

And remember that bad light is bad light. No sensor no matter how sensitive or how little SNR, etc, etc can make up for that.

[Guest malland]

I think the small(ish) amount of image quality gained by using a base iso and pushing would probably be offset by the pain in the ass it would be processing later as well as viewing the shot on the LCD screen (bad enough as it is with the 2003 tech). I appreciate the thought gone into exploring this technique but it's definitely not for the busy photog, presets or no presets.

 

I do think that the higher iso's on the M9 are vastly underrated, and in general much prefer the image quality of the M9 to the M240. The M9 (and Monochrom by de facto) imo are truly two of the most unique digital cameras out there when it comes to the quality of the image. Not the "best" on paper but they have a look,an "umami" as the Japanese might say, that no other 35mm digital camera, comes close to.

Charles, my experience is that the result of using the "Shoot at ISO 640 and Push in Post" technique is not minor, although it might look to be so in some test. There are major advantages: one is that shooting at ISO 1250 or 2500, it's often difficult to get the exposure right in the type of difficult lighting I have in some of my pictures earlier in this thread, while using the technique you get the Exposure in LR4/5 right every time just by pushing the slider to get the look you want; another advantage is that you usually end up shooting a lower ISO than you would if you set the ISO in-camera. As for the processing, it is trivial once you get the hang of it. As for the LCD, i don't need it for this type of shooting: just think M6.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Surabaya-Johnny

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[douglasf13]

I think the small(ish) amount of image quality gained by using a base iso and pushing would probably be offset by the pain in the ass it would be processing later as well as viewing the shot on the LCD screen (bad enough as it is with the 2003 tech). I appreciate the thought gone into exploring this technique but it's definitely not for the busy photog, presets or no presets.

 

I do think that the higher iso's on the M9 are vastly underrated, and in general much prefer the image quality of the M9 to the M240. The M9 (and Monochrom by de facto) imo are truly two of the most unique digital cameras out there when it comes to the quality of the image. Not the "best" on paper but they have a look,an "umami" as the Japanese might say, that no other 35mm digital camera, comes close to.

 

The payoff is that you never have to worry about changing ISO, and you essentially never blow highlights. I basically shoot digital cameras like film, so I rarely have a million shots at a time to pour through. If you're a wedding photographer or something, though, I can see how it would be an issue.