H3DII 400ISO Sample

[David Grover]

Nick has asked me to drop up a sample of an ISO 400 shot from an H3DII.

This was shot in the UK at the Focus exhibition in Birmingham.

With regards to CF products and H3DMk1 products being able to use higher ISOs, this is a project currently underway.  The firmware is unfortunately quite different due to the hardware changes between Mk1 and Mk2.

Hopefully results soon though.

Best,


David

PS.  There is a small version of the whole image and a couple of crops.  Lighting was overhead HMI and a dash of H pop-up flash!  Exp 1/250 @ f4.8 (Sounds like a camera club now doesn't it?)

JoeyFocus_nort.jpg is a sample with NO retouching, the rest has had some skin work.

[David Grover]

Crop 1...

[David Grover]

Crop 2...

[David Grover]

No retouching...

[stewhem]

Hi David
Thanks for posting the sample. I've just downloaded the update and not really had time to play but my feeling is that the quality, in terms of less noise, has improved for 200 and 400 on my H3DII 39. Is this wishful thinking or have things been tweaked to make it happen? Incidentally, I think it's great to have 800 in reserve and I used it yesterday on a construction site. I'm impressed so far.

[David Grover]

David,

Thank you for posting these. Personally I think her lipstick is too metallic for my tastes.

Question: While I have a firm understanding of film speed, can you please let me know if there is a large difference in digital capture between ISO and exposure time or are they closely related programmatically?

I do not mean to be repetitive but to clarify: with film capture, film light sensitivity (ISO) and shutter speed are entirely independent. I'm merely asking if an ISO increase is closely related to exposure time for digital capture (an increase in one can easily yield an increase in the other programmatically (for your programmers))?

Obviously I'm asking if the recent ISO bump is a prelude to the exposure bump to 64-seconds?

Can I assume a noise laden higher ISO exposure is more acceptable than a noisy 64-second exposure?

Kind regards,
Derek

What colour do you normally wear then? 

Programmatically speaking(?) I still think there is quite a difference between the too.  Unfortunately when the ISO goes up up up to differentiate signal to noise ratio is much harder.  This is were all the development it really - trying to distinguish the 'real' signal from the bogus noise parts of the signal.  If you are really good at doing that then, the upper limit is much higher.  We are much better at that since a few years back thanks to a particular developer.

With digital capture there is no reciprocity failure with long exposures, but again it is the same issue really.  As the exposure time goes up, the harder it is to distinguish good and bad again.  This is ably helped though by the black calibration.. but there is another issue there.

In the old days (read Imacon 3020 type backs) a black calibration was taken automatically and routinely.  Fine for quality but very annoying if you are held up while trying to shoot portraits.  So now we prefer to have a fixed black cal file which is mathematically scaled based on the temperature of the CCD (yes there is a thermometer on it!) and the exposure time.  You can then accurately calculate the black calibration to a point....

The longer the exposure is though, that gets harder.  The alternative (like Phase One) is to make a black cal shot before capture.  We have been fighting against this as it is more inconvenient for the photographer.  In the case of the multi shot backs it actually does do a black cal before the first shot as you need a nice linear response between all captures.

So I am not sure if that answers your question... but hope it helps.  I guess they are linked to some extent but the way the issues are dealt with can vary.

Best,



David

[David Grover]

Hi David
Thanks for posting the sample. I've just downloaded the update and not really had time to play but my feeling is that the quality, in terms of less noise, has improved for 200 and 400 on my H3DII 39. Is this wishful thinking or have things been tweaked to make it happen? Incidentally, I think it's great to have 800 in reserve and I used it yesterday on a construction site. I'm impressed so far.

Yes, you can say you will see a small incremental difference on 200/400.  I doubt on 50 to 100 you would see anything much!

[christianhough]

Thanks for that. Love the lipstick!

best
Christian

[David Grover]

What colour do you normally wear then? 

Programmatically speaking(?) I still think there is quite a difference between the too.  Unfortunately when the ISO goes up up up to differentiate signal to noise ratio is much harder.  This is were all the development it really - trying to distinguish the 'real' signal from the bogus noise parts of the signal.  If you are really good at doing that then, the upper limit is much higher.  We are much better at that since a few years back thanks to a particular developer.

With digital capture there is no reciprocity failure with long exposures, but again it is the same issue really.  As the exposure time goes up, the harder it is to distinguish good and bad again.  This is ably helped though by the black calibration.. but there is another issue there.

In the old days (read Imacon 3020 type backs) a black calibration was taken automatically and routinely.  Fine for quality but very annoying if you are held up while trying to shoot portraits.  So now we prefer to have a fixed black cal file which is mathematically scaled based on the temperature of the CCD (yes there is a thermometer on it!) and the exposure time.  You can then accurately calculate the black calibration to a point....

The longer the exposure is though, that gets harder.  The alternative (like Phase One) is to make a black cal shot before capture.  We have been fighting against this as it is more inconvenient for the photographer.  In the case of the multi shot backs it actually does do a black cal before the first shot as you need a nice linear response between all captures.

So I am not sure if that answers your question... but hope it helps.  I guess they are linked to some extent but the way the issues are dealt with can vary.

Best,
David

To answer your question: metal lips scare me, I like human colored lips.   

I was just wondering if an increase in ISO means you're closer to an increase in exposure time because perhaps they are related in digital capture (obviously they are not related with film capture).

I assume that the digital gods made digital capture similar to film capture (ISO, exposure, etc...) but in digital you're really just dealing with a sensor and algorithms (programs) on the light that strikes the sensor. The range I've seen with my H3DII39 blows away film! In fact, often times I wonder why I'm still shooting in 1/3 stops and bracketing so much! It's just not as necessary with digital because it can be programmatically altered on the workstation.

I suppose, if not limited to the constraints of film legacy, digital capture could have been something much different.

Is there any new information about the 64-second exposure bump? How noisy are the results? Will it use black calibration shot like PO?

If using a mathematical temperature based black calibration, will there be an issue with rapidly changing temperatures, such as at sunrise or sunset (when I am out shooting and needing more exposure time)?

Realistically, how close are we to the 64-second exposure bump? What do you honestly think? Thanks!

Kind regards,
Derek

As far as I can glean from R&D exposure time and ISO bumps are not necessarily inextricably linked!  Therefore they kinda have to be dealt with separately.

I will gather some 64s information this week.

Thats a good point about temperature variations and the answer is I don't know!  I will attempt to find out in layman's terms.  ;-)

David

[Dustbak]

David,

Thx for the update and letting the MkI and CF users know that their speed bump (ISO) is being worked at. Naturally we are keen to get that even if not so much for the 64sec update.