SL2 high iso performance and pushing for landcsapes

[ajitmenon]

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Hi
I believe this topic has been broached on and off in some posts but I had some specific questions I'd like to ask in particular. Primarily, I am asking from a landscape photographer's point of view. An SL2 has just become available and I'm trying to figure out if I should go for it (since I can trade in some old gear and not pay as hefty a price). I currently shoot with an M10 and prior to that with a Nikon D800.
With the M10, I hit a massive limit during a visit to Death Valley while trying to shoot nightscapes (admittedly on a pretty dark night) because of the lack of exposure over 32 seconds at 1600 ISO.  So I do want to consider the SL2 as an option because I really love Leica colors. On my M10, I did find that ISO 400 and up, the dynamic range definitely begins to dip a fair bit.

1. Has anyone used the SL2 for long exposure, night time photography? 
2. Roughly how much leeway does it have for pushing shadows at the higher ISOs - 3200, 6400. I'd imagine it's probably only a stop or so before purple noise and banding take over.
3. for long exposures, how bad are the hot pixels creep up ? I've heard mention that you can remove a fair few using Capture One's hot pixel feature. 
4. And in general, does everyone still under-expose by a 1/3 of a stop or so to always preserve highlights?

If anyone has any RAW files to share, that would be amazing. Besides some comparisons with other cameras, particularly the Nikon Z7 or Sony A7iii (which I did see though most of it was at base 100 which is amazingly good). 

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[Jared]

6 hours ago, ajitmenon said:

Hi
I believe this topic has been broached on and off in some posts but I had some specific questions I'd like to ask in particular. Primarily, I am asking from a landscape photographer's point of view. An SL2 has just become available and I'm trying to figure out if I should go for it (since I can trade in some old gear and not pay as hefty a price). I currently shoot with an M10 and prior to that with a Nikon D800.
With the M10, I hit a massive limit during a visit to Death Valley while trying to shoot nightscapes (admittedly on a pretty dark night) because of the lack of exposure over 32 seconds at 1600 ISO.  So I do want to consider the SL2 as an option because I really love Leica colors. On my M10, I did find that ISO 400 and up, the dynamic range definitely begins to dip a fair bit.

1. Has anyone used the SL2 for long exposure, night time photography? 
2. Roughly how much leeway does it have for pushing shadows at the higher ISOs - 3200, 6400. I'd imagine it's probably only a stop or so before purple noise and banding take over.
3. for long exposures, how bad are the hot pixels creep up ? I've heard mention that you can remove a fair few using Capture One's hot pixel feature. 
4. And in general, does everyone still under-expose by a 1/3 of a stop or so to always preserve highlights?

If anyone has any RAW files to share, that would be amazing. Besides some comparisons with other cameras, particularly the Nikon Z7 or Sony A7iii (which I did see though most of it was at base 100 which is amazingly good). 

1) Not yet.  I have plans to try for an image of Comet Y4 Atlas as soon as we get past full moon, though.  Ask me again in a week.

2) Based on shorter exposures in poor light, yeah, not a lot of room for pushing at ISO 6400 and above.  There is a little room at ISO 3200 if you are a touch underexposed, but not much.  Maybe 1.5 stops befor noise gets bad?

3) Lots of ways to get rid of hot pixels and other fixed pattern noise.  The best approach is to create a set of dark frames at the end of your imaging session, then average them together as a master dark frame. You can then subtract them in Photoshop from your light frames.  It also helps if you dither your light frames.  This is for situations where you are combining multiple light frames to increase signal-to-noise ratios.  Note that dark frames should be made at the same temperature as lights, so you can’t just create a master at home.  I haven’t tried Capture One’s hot pixel removal.  I have done equivalent in PixInsight (astronomy specific software) and it works very well.

4) For Milky Way shots, you are generally limited in how long an exposure you can take before the Earth’s rotation causes stars to trail.  Your focal length determines maximum exposure time.  If you are using a mount that tracks the night sky, you can go longer—to the limits of its tracking accuracy.  With a guided telescope mount and/or a short focal length you can take much longer exposures, and you will be limited by shot noise (length of time before you start losing dynamic range to sky glow).  Under light polluted skies, that might be a minute or so.  Under dark skies, often several minutes.  Then you align and stack multiple images to allow you to push the shadows without horrible noise.  All depends on how dark it is, what focal length you are shooting at, whether you have a tracking mount for your camera, and whether you are incorporating terrestrial objects or just things in the sky. The light meter really doesn’t enter into it at all.

What were you planning to shoot?  And at what focal length?

Here is a lunar shot I took two or three nights ago of the Sea of Tranquility and a cool lunar rille just by holding my iPhone up to my telescope eyepiece.  Haven’t done any astrophotography with the SL2 yet, though I have examples using the SL and 90–280.

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Edited April 3, 2020 by Jared
Typo

[Photoworks]

 

[Photoworks]

looks like they are going to address  in the next firmware update

[Jared]

5 hours ago, Photoworks said:

looks like they are going to address  in the next firmware update

What are you expecting them to address in firmware?  The max exposure duration at ISO 1600 on the M10?  Or something on the SL2?  What would you want on the SL2?  They already got rid of required LENR (thank goodness).  What would you want different?

[Photoworks]

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9 hours ago, Jared said:

What are you expecting them to address in firmware?  The max exposure duration at ISO 1600 on the M10?  Or something on the SL2?  What would you want on the SL2?  They already got rid of required LENR (thank goodness).  What would you want different?

the hot pixel rain will be fixed.

not sure how the m10 is relevant in SL forum

[Jared]

Gotcha.  The M10 was relevant because the original poster was asking about differences between SL2 and his experiences with an M10 doing night time photography.

[Jared]

16 hours ago, Photoworks said:

looks like they are going to address  in the next firmware update

One other technique that you can use to help mitigate the issue you ran into with hot pixels is using a median combine of several exposures.  That will cut down on hot pixels dramatically on the foreground.  It can wreak havoc with star trails, though, so you might need some creative blending of images.  Ideally, blend images from a tracking mount with images from a tripod. I have done this quite successfully with an SL.

[ajitmenon]

Ha! thanks for all the replies
The video link to mathphotographer's pixel rain issue is nice but he did ramble on for a bit.  He probably hadn't used Capture One much but it's most likely the Single Pixel fix in the Noise Reduction tab. Having said that, am glad he showcased it and that C1 does a good job fixing it! If Leica does manage to fix this in an update later, that's great!

Jared - that iphone pic using a telescope is pretty ridiculous !! very nice job!

In response to what I shoot with (at least for nightscapes), it would be either the WATE or the Zeiss 15 f/2.8. In my Nikon days, I loved the Zeiss 21mm distagon. 

Overall, I probably won't be shooting nightscapes all the time but don't want to be limited either. Seems like the SL2 is decent from what I have read - at least not having LENR helps to at least get your exposure right. I'd have loved a bit more of a leap in ISO dynamic range at the higher ISOs in the SL2 but it seems to have been a segment that hasn't progressed as quickly recently as it has in the resolution department!

For northern lights, some of my photography from back in 2014 (Nikon D800) is here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/inagitation/albums/72157647828667207

An old favorite (again with my Nikon)  is below- I shot the sky as a short 20 second exposure or so (to limit star trails), but then shot an 8 minute exposure of the foreground (stopping down in aperture for DOF)

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[ajitmenon]

FYI - hope I was not unkind to mathphotographer's link in saying it was "rambling"... I guess I was just a bit impatient watching the video, waiting for the solution. Must say it was very methodically done. 

[Jared]

OK, I don’t have any shots like that taken with the SL2 yet, but I’ve got a couple from this summer with the Q2 which has the same sensor.  These were both stacks of 8s exposures to reduce star trails.  Obviously, with a wider lens you could go longer, but the Q2 has a 28mm lens so this was about it.  Both were taken last July from Martha’s Vineyard with moderate light pollution.

The SL2 is going to be fine for this type of photography. It’s a big step up on the M10 for this kind of work.  Probably not quite as good as my X1D for this due to lower dynamic range and smaller pixels, but based on the Q2 it should be pretty solid.

 

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[Jared]

The catch right now would be lenses... Maybe Sigma has a fast wide angle with well controlled astigmatism in the corners?  The Leica 21mm Summicron is still a year or more away.  Perhaps an adapted M lens?  Most of them need a bit of stopping down to produce good stars away from the center of the field.  I know my old 21mm Summilux was so-so for this kind of work, needing to be at f/2.8 or so.  The SEM could be used wide open but wasn’t very fast.  Maybe the 18mm SEM?  Or one of the Voigtlanders?  

[ajitmenon]

Nice pics Jared!
yeah true - I do have the M-mount Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 as a fast ultra-wide option but I hear the Sigma options are great, the 14-24 2.8 being the most flexible version (and affordable to boot). 

The upcoming 21 summicron sounds like it could be quite amazing considering the 21mm distagon  used to be my favorite lens on the Nikon back in the day.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

The Rokinon 14mm is easily adapted to the SL2. Great wide astro lens. The SL16-35 is optically good but slower. Haven't tried the Sigma 14-24 for Astro yet but it's sharp to the corners wide open.

Gordon

[Jared]

Yeah, the 16-35 is a great lens, but I’d prefer something I can use at f/2.8 or even f/2 for night sky.

[ajitmenon]

I have the WATE which will probably be my go-to for the time being unless I pick up the 14-24 later...

Slightly off-topic, I posted a thread about SL2 start-up times - anyone have a sec to give me their 2 cents?

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/308287-sl2-start-up-time/

I had the original SL back in the day but the slow start-up was super annoying for general walk-around or street photography!
Obviously it's not a biggie for landscapes!

Thanks again!