Nikon D3S (12.1 Mpix, FF, very high ISO, HD video)

Peter wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote
Peter wrote:
John Sheehy wrote
DRS wrote

Why do Nikons seem to have a base ISO of 200? Is it a trade off of
some kind?

The D3 uses a low silicon fill factor, and makes up for it with large
microlenses, which, of course, fill the wells faster. snip

big snip

Read noise has, like shot noise, a Gaussian distribution
so it is essentially random, and will mostly be seen in
the shadows. To continue the analogy used above, it
looks very much like a paper covered with mixture of
black pepper and grey pepper.

Below a certain amount of exposure, the SNR of an image
is very likely to be determined by read noise instead of
shot noise. (Generally that is not a good thing.)
Because read noise will be seen in the shadows it is
generally more annoying to the human eye.

Thanks for that explanation.

Yes, thanks Floyd. And JPS!


My interest as a photo artist is simply to
make a nice picture. When Nikon says I can shoot at a higher ISO with
less noise, I am skeptical. I have a friend who claims he shoot a D300
at ISO 1,600 without little perceptible noise. Yet I have not found that
to be the case on my D300.

This may be the usefulness of understanding this stuff. How do you get
the best performance from whatever camera you have? ETTR (Expose To The
Right) is one example of how to apply this knowledge, another is helping
to decide whether to buy the latest mumbo jumbo technology and what it's
worth for your particular needs.

Good stuff.


--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

The anti-DSLR Troll, Gavin Jace wrote:
biased crap

"Paul Furman" wrote in message
...
[]
This may be the usefulness of understanding this stuff. How do you get
the best performance from whatever camera you have? ETTR (Expose To The
Right) is one example of how to apply this knowledge, another is helping
to decide whether to buy the latest mumbo jumbo technology and what it's
worth for your particular needs.

Good stuff.

I would suggest taking lots of photos and getting to know your particular
camera very well, rather than applying some hocus-pocus-focus formula
willy-nilly. Get to know when you need exposure compensation, get to
recognise situations when you need to allow for the greater dynamic range.
I think any "good" photographer would learn these things naturally, as you
probably already have.

Cheers,
David

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:42:50 -0700, John McWilliams wrote:
: Paul Furman wrote:
: John McWilliams wrote:
: D. Peter Maus wrote:
: On 10/14/09 16:37 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 14:07:08 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: LOL! Yeah, I still shoot my D70 daily. If you like D300 see if you can
: get your hands on a D700 for a weekend.
:
: The D700 thing is something I have been thinking of for a while now.
:
: You'll never need another woman.
:
: Well I have been on my own for almost two years now, and even though I
: have the social life of a stump, a little feminine companionship
: wouldn't be too bad from time to time.
:
: There is nothing more disturbing than a 60 year old in hormonal
: distress. :-)
:
: I'm right behind you at 58.
:
: I'm 'ahead' of you both at 65, but fortunately on weekends I enjoy the
: company of a woman who likes what I do with
: my equipment, and enjoys post processing almost as much as I do. We
: both try to get it right in camera, and ususally do on the first shot.
: Post processing is usually not strictly needed, but always seems to
: make an image better with a bit of tweaking.
:
: I thought ladies liked 'pre-processing'.
: But wtf do I know at 45 & single again for the last 5 years :-(
:
: It's true that before the shot actually happens, good preparation leads
: to superior results over a hastily composed frame or frantic release of
: the shutter.
:
: And it's a poor workman who blames his tools, but a number of P+S'ers
: claim they get satisfying results from their small units.

LOL!!

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:21:42 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:
: "D. Peter Maus" wrote in message
: ...
: On 10/14/09 16:37 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 14:07:08 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 15:53 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 11:04:56 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 12:56 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 10:45:43 -0700, Alan Browne
: said:
:
: Read all the gory details of this new body:
:
: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101402nikonD3s.asp
:
: Interesting.
: It seems to me the real benefit is going to be in high ISO
: performance
: and the addition of sensor cleaning. I am not drawn to the video in
: DSLR
: trend.
: Not being a pro or independantly wealthy I guess I am going to stick
: with my D300 for now.
:
:
:
: That D300 is no slouch, either.
:
: I'm happy with it, and I still have my D70 lifeboat.
:
:
: LOL! Yeah, I still shoot my D70 daily. If you like D300 see if you can
: get your hands on a D700 for a weekend.
:
: The D700 thing is something I have been thinking of for a while now.
:
: You'll never need another woman.
:
: Well I have been on my own for almost two years now, and even though I
: have the social life of a stump, a little feminine companionship
: wouldn't be too bad from time to time.
:
: There is nothing more disturbing than a 60 year old in hormonal
: distress. :-)
:
:
:
: I'm right behind you at 58.
:
:
: At 72 I'm ahead of both. Lots of fun years left, hopefully for all of us.

I've always assumed I was one of the oldest in the group, but I won't be 72
until next week!

: Differences:
: Although I have a D300, with my 200 as a backup, I am seriously thinking of
: a D5000 because the articulated LCD should give my back more mileage.

Am I the only Canon user in this elderly crowd?

Bob

Bob Larter wrote:
Peter wrote:
"John Sheehy" wrote in message
...
"DRS" wrote in
. au:

Why do Nikons seem to have a base ISO of 200? Is it a trade off of some
kind?

The D3 uses a low silicon fill factor, and makes up for it with large
microlenses, which, of course, fill the wells faster.
In order to meter at
ISO 100, the camera would have very little RAW
highlight headroom, so ISOs
under 200 are only offered as special modes.
Apparently, they use the low
fill factor to get more noiseless electronics at the photosites. This
keeps read noise down a bit, but increases shot noise a little, too.


Would you please explain this concept in English? I
know about SNR and why I get more noise at a higher
ISO, but I don't understand the difference between
read noise and shot noise.

Read noise is related to the gain in the sensor amp, while shot noise is
relatively constant in relation to the original signal.

Not true. Shot noise at the input to the sensor amp
will be amplified just as much as read noise generated
by the sensor.

There is a higher percentage of photon noise (shot
noise) in higher brightness signals. There is a higher
percentage of read noise at lower brightness levels.

Generally that means lower ISO images will more likely
be photon noise limited and higher ISO images are more
likely to be read noise limited. The later is generally
detrimental because noise in the lower brightness areas
is more annoying than noise in the higher brightness
areas.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:21:46 +0300, "Dimitris M" wrote:
: D300 can produce very acceptable photos even at ISO 3200 when and if the
: light is almost daylight as color temp (over 4000 K) with a even smooth
: spectrum. For ex the interior of a house illuminated from windows, when the
: reflective surfaces are mostly neutral. No matter how low is this light. As
: long as the light is of "full spectrum" even very dim, the picture will have
: not suffer to much from noise. A second parameter is the dynamic range of
: the light in the photo. If the darkest area in the photo is not darker than
: 5-7 EV, then this is a factor to not develop the noise in an inconvenient
: way. So, even luminance and good spectrum are the factors that can produce
: pictures with less ugly noise. The remaining noise is more even luminance
: noise (less or no ugly chrominance), more like a powder, as film grain, that
: sometimes can add to beautiful bokeh, if exists.
:
: From the other hand a bad light source, as the green or orange mercury
: street lights with the terrible spectrum, or the dim tungsten lights with
: yellow or brown lampshade that produce light of very low temp, often less
: than 2000K can push the cameras WB adjustment out of the limits even at ISO
: 200.
:
: For ex if the light has a temp of 1800K (not rare), the blue channel is
: almost absent. In that case if we (or the camera) try to correct the color,
: not 100%, but even a little just to look more natural and full, we will
: amplify the blue channel even by more than 5 EV,. That means that even if we
: shot at 200 ISO, the blue channel will be amplified to even higher than ISO
: 6400 and then the noise will be terrible.
:
: So under circumstances, we can have almost perfect photos at ISO 3200 and
: under other very noisy under ISO 800 (or less). Bad light quality and wide
: luminance range of the subject are the enemies of the low noise photo

My 50D gives excellent results at ISO 1000 in a room illuminated by a mixture
of reflected sunlight and incandescent light. I did a shoot in such a room
earlier this week, and my existing light shots at ISO 1000 needed less
correction than those I did at ISO 800 with fill flash. I guess this is
consistent with Dimitris's explanation. The reflected sunlight, which is very
blue, must do a good job of filling the deficit in the blue channel left by
the incandescent light.

Bob

On 10/17/09 09:01 , Robert Coe wrote:
On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:21:42 -0400,
wrote:
: "D. Peter wrote in message
: ...
: On 10/14/09 16:37 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 14:07:08 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 15:53 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 11:04:56 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 12:56 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 10:45:43 -0700, Alan Browne
: said:
:
: Read all the gory details of this new body:
:
: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101402nikonD3s.asp
:
: Interesting.
: It seems to me the real benefit is going to be in high ISO
: performance
: and the addition of sensor cleaning. I am not drawn to the video in
: DSLR
: trend.
: Not being a pro or independantly wealthy I guess I am going to stick
: with my D300 for now.
:
:
:
: That D300 is no slouch, either.
:
: I'm happy with it, and I still have my D70 lifeboat.
:
:
: LOL! Yeah, I still shoot my D70 daily. If you like D300 see if you can
: get your hands on a D700 for a weekend.
:
: The D700 thing is something I have been thinking of for a while now.
:
: You'll never need another woman.
:
: Well I have been on my own for almost two years now, and even though I
: have the social life of a stump, a little feminine companionship
: wouldn't be too bad from time to time.
:
: There is nothing more disturbing than a 60 year old in hormonal
: distress. :-)
:
:
:
: I'm right behind you at 58.
:
:
: At 72 I'm ahead of both. Lots of fun years left, hopefully for all of us.

I've always assumed I was one of the oldest in the group, but I won't be 72
until next week!

: Differences:
: Although I have a D300, with my 200 as a backup, I am seriously thinking of
: a D5000 because the articulated LCD should give my back more mileage.

Am I the only Canon user in this elderly crowd?

Bob


Cease the profanity, before I rise up and smite thee with my cane.

Robert Coe wrote:
On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:21:42 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:
: "D. Peter Maus" wrote in message
: ...
: On 10/14/09 16:37 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 14:07:08 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 15:53 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 11:04:56 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 12:56 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 10:45:43 -0700, Alan Browne
: said:
:
: Read all the gory details of this new body:
:
: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101402nikonD3s.asp
:
: Interesting.
: It seems to me the real benefit is going to be in high ISO
: performance
: and the addition of sensor cleaning. I am not drawn to the video in
: DSLR
: trend.
: Not being a pro or independantly wealthy I guess I am going to stick
: with my D300 for now.
:
:
:
: That D300 is no slouch, either.
:
: I'm happy with it, and I still have my D70 lifeboat.
:
:
: LOL! Yeah, I still shoot my D70 daily. If you like D300 see if you can
: get your hands on a D700 for a weekend.
:
: The D700 thing is something I have been thinking of for a while now.
:
: You'll never need another woman.
:
: Well I have been on my own for almost two years now, and even though I
: have the social life of a stump, a little feminine companionship
: wouldn't be too bad from time to time.
:
: There is nothing more disturbing than a 60 year old in hormonal
: distress. :-)
:
:
:
: I'm right behind you at 58.
:
:
: At 72 I'm ahead of both. Lots of fun years left, hopefully for all of us.

I've always assumed I was one of the oldest in the group, but I won't be 72
until next week!

: Differences:
: Although I have a D300, with my 200 as a backup, I am seriously thinking of
: a D5000 because the articulated LCD should give my back more mileage.

Am I the only Canon user in this elderly crowd?

Hardly! Most* Canon users are secure enough in their prowess as
photographers that they don't need to talk about their equipment all the
time.... it takes only a handful to make it seem like the whole world......

* More than 50.1%
--
john mcwilliams

On 2009-10-17 07:01:26 -0700, Robert Coe said:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:21:42 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:
: "D. Peter Maus" wrote in message
: ...
: On 10/14/09 16:37 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 14:07:08 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 15:53 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 11:04:56 -0700, "D. Peter Maus"
: said:
:
: On 10/14/09 12:56 , Savageduck wrote:
: On 2009-10-14 10:45:43 -0700, Alan Browne
: said:
:
: Read all the gory details of this new body:
:
: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101402nikonD3s.asp
:
: Interesting.
: It seems to me the real benefit is going to be in high ISO
: performance
: and the addition of sensor cleaning. I am not drawn to the video in
: DSLR
: trend.
: Not being a pro or independantly wealthy I guess I am going to stick
: with my D300 for now.
:
:
:
: That D300 is no slouch, either.
:
: I'm happy with it, and I still have my D70 lifeboat.
:
:
: LOL! Yeah, I still shoot my D70 daily. If you like D300 see if you can
: get your hands on a D700 for a weekend.
:
: The D700 thing is something I have been thinking of for a while now.
:
: You'll never need another woman.
:
: Well I have been on my own for almost two years now, and even though I
: have the social life of a stump, a little feminine companionship
: wouldn't be too bad from time to time.
:
: There is nothing more disturbing than a 60 year old in hormonal
: distress. :-)
:
:
:
: I'm right behind you at 58.
:
:
: At 72 I'm ahead of both. Lots of fun years left, hopefully for all of us.

I've always assumed I was one of the oldest in the group, but I won't be 72
until next week!

: Differences:
: Although I have a D300, with my 200 as a backup, I am seriously thinking of
: a D5000 because the articulated LCD should give my back more mileage.

Am I the only Canon user in this elderly crowd?

Bob

Cradle snatcher!
:-)

--
Regards,

Savageduck