My cat Ruby

[lunaticitizen]

I just found this wonderful button in Lightroom Classic called Auto Tone button

I can use the result as a base for further editing. Or maybe not because the result already looks perfect

Auto Tone


SOOC JPG


I was testing my new lens which is really wonderful but unfortunately a bit on the heavy side

[lunaticitizen]

Hmm apparently Flickr stripped EXIF info from images other than the original size one.

[Manfred M]

Hmm apparently Flickr stripped EXIF info from images other than the original size one.

Flickr has always done that. The data is available if we open the image on Flickr.

While I have never used one, I understand that Cosina uses all metal construction in their lenses, so they will be heavy. The eye closest to the camera is quits sharp when I zoom in, so that reflects well on the lens design.

What I find less attractive is how the shallow DoF means most of your image is soft and out of focus. While that can work well, it does not work all that well for me; the softness is quite distracting.

[lunaticitizen]

Flickr has always done that. The data is available if we open the image on Flickr.

While I have never used one, I understand that Cosina uses all metal construction in their lenses, so they will be heavy. The eye closest to the camera is quits sharp when I zoom in, so that reflects well on the lens design.

What I find less attractive is how the shallow DoF means most of your image is soft and out of focus. While that can work well, it does not work all that well for me; the softness is quite distracting.

Hey Manfred, thanks for the comment.

Re Cosina lens, yes apparently it's all metal; it's heavy and a bit unbalanced on my camera. When I looked for a tele, macro lens above 100mm the options (pardon the Japanese language) are already so heavy, and I wanted to know what this apochromatic thing is all about, so I chose Cosina.

Re shallow depth of field, now when I look at the image again I agree that it's distracting. It was just the limit of my tiny Nissin flash can do when bounced off ceiling.

I should've set the f-stop at f/11, maybe? But then the image would have been severely underexposed since I also set the ISO manually at 100. I like how clean my images look like at the base ISO (regardless of the composition ) and I'm loath to raise it.

I'm thinking of getting a stronger flash such as Godox AD300 Pro; but then it might not work for this particular scenario. I'd have to set up the flash first, in addition to the fact that I suck at manually focusing the lens. By the time I'm ready the cat will have run away somewhere.

I might have to resign to the inevitable that I'd have to raise the ISO and accept less clean images.

What do you think?

[Manfred M]

You have a modern camera with an exceptional sensor. I like clean images as well and I also try to shoot at the lowest ISO setting I can get away with. That is a way of saying, having a sharp image with appropriate depth of field is more important than being totally “clean”. Modern noise reduction software works far better than trying to correct for out of focus or motion blur.

In terms of manual focus, try to prefocus your camera and shot that way. With a bit of practice you will be able to get great shots. Modern street photographers still use this approach.

[xpatUSA]

I should've set the f-stop at f/11, maybe? But then the image would have been severely underexposed since I also set the ISO manually at 100. I like how clean my images look like at the base ISO (regardless of the composition ) and I'm loath to raise it.

I'm thinking of getting a stronger flash such as Godox AD300 Pro; but then it might not work for this particular scenario. I'd have to set up the flash first, in addition to the fact that I suck at manually focusing the lens. By the time I'm ready the cat will have run away somewhere.

I might have to resign to the inevitable that I'd have to raise the ISO and accept less clean images.

What do you think?

I think not.

Another way to get more of the animal in acceptable focus is to shoot with it smaller in the frame i.e. from a greater focus distance for a given focal length, then crop.

Some might say cropping "throws away" detail but if for example your sensor is say 6000x4000px and you're posting here at say 1500x1000px or you're viewing on a "2K" monitor, what's to lose? ...

All my cameras' ISO knobs are super-glued to 100, too ...

[rpcrowe]

IMO with modern digital cameras of virtually any manufacturer and with both mirrorless and DSLR varieties, you "should" be able to get clean images at significantly above ISO 100... The cleanliness of the image at various ISO levels depends on the sensor you are using and is also greatly determined by correct exposure.

As with Manfred, I also prefer an in-focus image that is devoid of camera shake but, has a bit of noise than an OOF image with camera shake. I will also usually shoot at the lowest ISO possible - quite often at ISO 100

This is a front lit image shot at ISO 100...



Here is a back lit image shot with the A6400 at ISO 800 which I consider reasonably decent overall quality...



The ISO 100 image is a bit better in quality but, IMO, not overwhelmingly so...

[Manfred M]

you're posting here at say 1500x1000px or you're viewing on a "2K" monitor, what's to lose? ...

That has been my point for years. Unless one is making large prints, there is no need for anything more than a 10MP camera; most of the data gets thrown away and even with 10 MP, one doesn't have to be too close as the final downsizing will be ~ 2MP.

[lunaticitizen]

You have a modern camera with an exceptional sensor. I like clean images as well and I also try to shoot at the lowest ISO setting I can get away with. That is a way of saying, having a sharp image with appropriate depth of field is more important than being totally “clean”. Modern noise reduction software works far better than trying to correct for out of focus or motion blur.

In terms of manual focus, try to prefocus your camera and shot that way. With a bit of practice you will be able to get great shots. Modern street photographers still use this approach.

Honestly I've never done any noise reduction with my images. This might be the right time to learn how to do that.

I'll search a bit about how to prefocus.

Thanks.

[lunaticitizen]

I think not.

Another way to get more of the animal in acceptable focus is to shoot with it smaller in the frame i.e. from a greater focus distance for a given focal length, then crop.

Some might say cropping "throws away" detail but if for example your sensor is say 6000x4000px and you're posting here at say 1500x1000px or you're viewing on a "2K" monitor, what's to lose? ...

All my cameras' ISO knobs are super-glued to 100, too ...

Yes, I understand the theory too but

• Getting too far from my subject and my flash will get even weaker.
• I'm not fond of extreme cropping since I want to use the whole area of my camera sensor for SNR reason

But I absolutely get your point about image presentation.

[lunaticitizen]

IMO with modern digital cameras of virtually any manufacturer and with both mirrorless and DSLR varieties, you "should" be able to get clean images at significantly above ISO 100... The cleanliness of the image at various ISO levels depends on the sensor you are using and is also greatly determined by correct exposure.

As with Manfred, I also prefer an in-focus image that is devoid of camera shake but, has a bit of noise than an OOF image with camera shake. I will also usually shoot at the lowest ISO possible - quite often at ISO 100

This is a front lit image shot at ISO 100...

Here is a back lit image shot with the A6400 at ISO 800 which I consider reasonably decent overall quality...

The ISO 100 image is a bit better in quality but, IMO, not overwhelmingly so...

Beautiful pictures (and models). You could've shot that with an FF camera and I wouldn't understand the difference.

[lunaticitizen]

That has been my point for years. Unless one is making large prints, there is no need for anything more than a 10MP camera; most of the data gets thrown away and even with 10 MP, one doesn't have to be too close as the final downsizing will be ~ 2MP.

Well I never print and it's been years since I last used a printer for any purpose. I got an 8K TV but it's mainly used by my wife. Personally I use an Eizo monitor (just a standard, office model).

But I understand what you're saying.

[xpatUSA]

I'm not fond of extreme cropping since I want to use the whole area of my camera sensor for SNR reason

Leo, I'm not sure what your "SNR reason" is, but the well-respected Roger Cicala (owner of LensRentals) says:

"Noise and high ISO performance: Smaller pixels are worse. Sensor size doesn’t matter."

Applies equally to native ISO performance ...

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/201...atters-part-2/

Since cropping does not change the size of the sensor photo-elements and does not apply noise editing per se, I would say that the SNR of a cropped area is no different to the SNR of that same area before cropping.

Your point about flash distance is understood - especially if it is already at maximum output energy, i.e. not in TTL mode.

HTH.

[lunaticitizen]

Let me think.

I made an exposure with an FF camera, made a 2.0x crop with the resulting image, and printed it at say A0 size.

Then with the same camera I made another exposure so that it has the same angle of view as the one above, but this time without any crop.

Won’t the first exposure look less clean than the second one?

If they look the same then I got some stuff wrong apparently.

I’ll read your references later ok? It’s half past midnight here..

[Manfred M]

"Noise and high ISO performance: Smaller pixels are worse. Sensor size doesn’t matter."

Let me disagree with Roger and you here, to a point. If viewed at 100% magnification, I would agree with the statement. However, we don't generally view at 100%, but down sample or upsample to display size; so an identically framed image from a crop frame sensor image would show larger pixels than a full-frame camera. The full frame camera's images tend to look less noisy because of the difference in magnification.

The other issue is technology. Sensor manufacturers have worked hard to improve SNL, dynamic range, colour bit depth, etc. with each new generation. The newest Sony back-illuminated sensor technology used in Leo's camera has gotten rave reviews versus the older technology. Relative to the previous generation of the sensor, this one produces "cleaner" images.

The other thing that has changed since Roger wrote the article in 2012 is that the noise reduction software has improved in leaps and bounds. It I process an image using the newest raw convertors, I get a far cleaner and more usable image than I got when I first shot it.

When looked at in isolation, I understand where you and Roger are coming from. An image that we view on screen or in a print, on the other hand is not looking at the raw data coming out of a sensor, but one that has been manipulated through software to take care of some of the shortcomings of the in-camera technology.

[xpatUSA]

Let me think ...

I made an exposure with an FF camera, made a 2.0x crop with the resulting image, and printed it at say A0 size.

Then with the same camera I made another exposure so that it has the same angle of view as the one above, but this time without any crop.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Is an FF camera able to crop the negative or the raw image?

If we're talking about printing the crop re-sampled 2.0x to A0 compared with the same angle-of-view also printed at A0, then I imagine that the only re-sampling algorithm that would be meaningful would be Nearest Neighbor - so that a measurement of SNR would be valid. I'll take a look at that.

Won’t the first exposure look less clean than the second one?

If they look the same then I got some stuff wrong apparently.

Not sure what "clean" means; I thought we were discussing SNR?

[xpatUSA]

Let me disagree with Roger and you here, to a point. If viewed at 100% magnification, I would agree with the statement. However, we don't generally view at 100%, but down sample or upsample to display size;

Understood.

so an identically framed image from a crop frame sensor image would show larger pixels than a full-frame camera. The full frame camera's images tend to look less noisy because of the difference in magnification.

I was responding to Leo's comment about SNR from the same camera and portion of the image used, not full-frame vs smaller sensor.

The other issue is technology. Sensor manufacturers have worked hard to improve [SNR], dynamic range, colour bit depth, etc. with each new generation. The newest Sony back-illuminated sensor technology used in Leo's camera has gotten rave reviews versus the older technology. Relative to the previous generation of the sensor, this one produces "cleaner" images.

The other thing that has changed since Roger wrote the article in 2012 is that the noise reduction software has improved in leaps and bounds. It I process an image using the newest raw converters, I get a far cleaner and more usable image than I got when I first shot it.

The sub-topic is about shots from the same camera processed with the same stuff.

Looked at in isolation, I understand where you and Roger are coming from. An image that we view on screen or in a print, on the other hand is not looking at the raw data coming out of a sensor, but one that has been manipulated through software to take care of some of the shortcomings of the in-camera technology.

But, in the case of a crop versus the full image frame, the manipulation is with the same software and viewed on the same screen or from the same printer and driver. Which leaves us with a comparison of the SNR of a crop upsized to fit a given medium compared with the SNR of that same crop within the full frame, does it not?

In fact all I would need to do is to up-size an image and compare SNRs ...

[xpatUSA]

... Which leaves us with the SNR of a crop sized to fit a given medium compared with the SNR of that same crop within the full frame, does it not?

In fact all I would need to do is to re-size an image and compare SNRs ...

I just now up-sized a graycard image 166 per cent with Lanczos3. SNR of original vs up-sized was 19.48dB vs 19.39dB.

ipso facto

[lunaticitizen]

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Is an FF camera able to crop the negative or the raw image?

If we're talking about printing the crop re-sampled 2.0x to A0 compared with the same angle-of-view also printed at A0, then I imagine that the only re-sampling algorithm that would be meaningful would be Nearest Neighbor - so that a measurement of SNR would be valid. I'll take a look at that.

Not sure what "clean" means; I thought we were discussing SNR?

Hmm probably my language wasn't precise enough.

1. I made an exposure of a uniform target with even illumination using a 61 MP FF camera.
2. Using PP software, I resized (or is it resampled?) the image to 8 MP, and exported it to JPG (let's call this image A) for viewing on my monitor.
3. Using the same file from (1), I cropped the center part of the image and exported it, resulting in an 8 MP JPG (image B).

How about the above?
So my question was, will image A and image B look the same if viewed on the same monitor? By 'the same' I mean will they have the same SNR?

The original problem was that the DoF of the subject in my image is too thin.
You advised me to take a few steps back, make another exposure, and crop the image around the subject. I understand that the resulting image will then have greater DoF than my original one.

If you tell me how to calculate the SNR of a JPG file, I'll definitely try that. I didn't have a grey card so I ordered one on Amazon.

[lunaticitizen]

Let me disagree with Roger and you here, to a point. If viewed at 100% magnification, I would agree with the statement. However, we don't generally view at 100%, but down sample or upsample to display size; so an identically framed image from a crop frame sensor image would show larger pixels than a full-frame camera. The full frame camera's images tend to look less noisy because of the difference in magnification.

-snip-

This is what I wanted to say. Manfred is just, ehm, more precise and eloquent than I was.