H1 - Anyone see black specks in cropped photos?

This might be image noise...but I'm not sure. I only see it if I crop a zoomed image closely...such as a plane, bird....or the moon.

Generally it appears as small black specks. I thought it was noise...but a few of the specks appear in about the same areas on different shots of the moon. I suspect image noise...but want to make sure its not dust on my CCD...since there are already some specks on the LCD (as being discussed in another thread.)

The specks show up more on lower exposure shots of the moon. With higher exposure shots they arent as noticable. What looks like a super shot with auto windows re-size gets speckly with cropping. I ocassionally see these specks too with cropped photos of planes or birds. They appear seperate from normal luminance noise which usually cleans up easily to ISO100.

I just want to make sure those black specks are just noise and not a CCD dust problem that might need addressing. Anyone else see this or know for sure what it is?

Yes, I've seen them. But it doesn't count on Moon shots.

Those are often shadows where you can't see the highlights - small craters or mountains where you can only see the shadows, not the peaks.

I thought it was some kind of weird noise, as well. But none of my other pictures evinced those spots and they always came out in the same quadrant of the moon (lower right near shadow). Ergo: not noise, it's something real!

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AAK - http://www.aakatz.com

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Greg Gebhardt in
Jacksonville, Florida
D Two X
Leica D-LUX Two
Sony R-One

I found a good comparison set. A moon shot I took at full zoom (24x with NO teleconverter) and a similar photo taken by someone else with an H1 using a 1.7 teleconverter. The exposures and colors are nearly identical, however my photo has black specks in it...and the other photographers moon does not. My shot was ISO64 and I'm sure his was too.

I also have an ISO100 shot I took of the full disk that has even more specks. Looks like the number and darkness of specks increased with higher ISO leading me to believe its noise. I also have a comparison full disk shot by a 3rd H1 photographer for comparison...and again...no specks on his.

That's 3 H1's and only mine shows specks on the moon?? Can't just be the fact I'm using digital zoom as vs their 1.7 converters because the specks show up on mine a bit even at 12x zoom. If this is noise...why is mine so much noisier than theirs?

Images are below (hopefully) I've never posted images to this forum so hopefully HTML code works and they show. If images dont show or hotlinks don't work...just follow the links to the images. Any suggestions would be appreciated. - Thanks Dave

My Moon ISO64 24x zoom



.

direct link to above image



Nearly identical shot by another H1 photographer. 1.7 teleconverter used.
ISO unknown (but cant be lower than 64 which is lowest setting)



Direct Link to above image



Here's another moon from yet a different photographer...and again no Specks. Click to view.



Additional links to my photos with more examples of "Specks"

My Moon: LOTS of specks...ISO100 24x total zoom



Same shot...smaller uncropped



My Moon: ISO64 12x Optical Only - No specks on small version. Some light gray and black specks present on crop



Cropped



Plane at dusk: My photo

ISO200 Not bad smaller but Lots of color mottling noise present on crop and black specks similar to moon shots shows up.



Cropped

To the Webhost....

My Apologies. I posted 2 live images and URL links for the rest...but all went live.

Please remove those images or delete the post entirely. I did not intend all those images to post.

Hi, at a guess these look like artifacts either from over sharpening or excessive noise reduction (or both). Are these straight from the camera?

Yes straight from the camera with no exposure or software adjustments of any kind. Only cropping.

I do have in Camera sharpness set to High because despite the talk by many that H1 photos are a bit sharp...I actually find them soft at times.

I still find myself sharpening them in POST ocassionally even with in camera sharpness set to Hard. (nothing done to these images though).

Can't be caused by in camera Noise reduction because it only applies noise reduction at very slow shutter speeds...and that's definitely not the case with moon shots that have plenty of light. My moon images are generally 1/60-1/100 or higher depending on how much I stop down the aperture.

Could you try sharpening turned down in the camera and use 300 to 500/.2 to .5 usm in the computer? What sharpening did the other camera have set?

My guess is these are noise and artifacts made worse by using digital zoom.Seems like the times i've tried digital zoom I got spackled images too,but i've only tried it a couple times.With the precision zoom setting,if you go past 12X the camera has to create extra pixels to make the image larger.

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Sony DSC-H1

Sorry,I missed the part in your post where you mentioned getting the specks with optical zoom.But in the example you posted I can't tell for sure if the specks are artifacts,or just craters and shadows.While on the digital zoom shots it's obviously artifacts.Also I checked the ISO on all the examples shown from other photographers,and they were all taken at ISO64,which is what I would suggest for avoiding noise.I don't know about using the higher sharpness setting,I haven't tried it.But I do know digital zoom produces crappy pictures,and you could probably "digitally zoom" them yourself in post processing with better results if you have some decent software.I believe all the camera does is crops the image and then adds pixels to make it large again.
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Sony DSC-H1

I appreciate the replys.

I'm not sure what sharpness or ISO the other photographers moon shots were taken at since no EXIF data was posted. Since a 1.7 telephoto was used on their shots and the size was nearly the same as my digital zoomed shots without telephoto...I'm guessing there was no digital zoom used on their shots. Probably just 12x optical with the 1.7x telephoto.

If you look at my moon photo just above the airplane that's a 12x optical only with no digital zoom used. You can still see some light specks showing up. Those definitely aren't moon craters. They appear to be random specks showing up in the darker areas. They diminish slightly with higher exposures but to remove them completely the image has to be so overexposed the moon loses all detail. At a normal or slight underexposure... the specks show up feverishly. (hmm...maybe....they're moon measles?). Plus if those were real moon features...You'd see em on the other photographers moon images as well. - I've also got a 5 inch reflector telescope and there's nothing like that on the moon. Just a bit of green cheese up there...

Doing some reading on the topic regarding digital zoom and your correct in that Sony just crops the center and then adds missing pixels. Its great if you're not blowing up an image or cropping full in POST...but if either is done...then the artifacts to become quite obvious. Smart zoom is better as full CCD is used...but only at low resolution...so that's not much help if printing is going to be done. I think the best option is to shoot at 12x only and digitally zoom in post as needed.

Still....with light specks showing even at 12x optical zoom... I'm back to square one... Why in my images...and not the other H1's?

I'm going to try to take some test shots with what moon is left...down to about 30% now and set my in camera sharpening to normal and low and see if that helps any.

In general the camera takes great photos... but ...since I like taking photos of planes and lunar imaging... and noticed this aberration I'm just trying to verify there's nothing wrong with the camera.... and that there's no dust on the CCD that might only show up at lower exposures.

You can get a free program here that will let you view the exif data embedded in other people's photos.It's called Opanda IExif.That's how I could tell the other moon shots were at ISO 64.

http://www.opanda.com/en/iexif/index.html
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Sony DSC-H1

The airplane shot is way over-sharpened. Look at the sharpening halo around the entire plane. Plus the specks (and no, I've seen them and I have no idea what they are) have halos around them to.

Got me baffled. Only saw them once, thought I had a dirty lens. Didn't.

Could be dust or something in the air. Try shooting a daylight sky and see what you get.

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AAK - http://www.aakatz.com

I had the same problem, but it corrected itself when I changed the exposure.

Here's two pictures of the moon taken a day apart:

ISO 200 1/250th f/8

Has the same spots as you, and I have no additional sharpening as you did, so you don't have to waste your time testing that:



Here's one taken the next night at 1/30th f/8 and ISO 64:



Exposure and ISO were very different. Noise perhaps? Environmental? No idea, but it isn't dust on your sensor or lens, that I can guarantee.

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AAK - http://www.aakatz.com