Hi ISO- Marketing Race

I've been watching the new camera releases- and it seems as if everyone is jumping on the high ISO bandwagon. The Oly 550 with ISO5000, the Panasonic FZ8 with ISO3200, and a slew of compacts claiming ISO 3200 or, at a minimum 1600.

I've seen some test shots off of the Oly 550- and frankly, the ISO performance is absolutely no better than any other camera. ISO100 and 200 are OK. ISO400 gets noisy, and by the time you hit ISO800, it's just for web shots. The rest are just there for marketing purposes. I expect the other tiny sensored boxes will perform the same.

It seems that High ISO capability is the next megapixel race. And- it seems like Fuji might get killed on this one. Not that anybody is really offering much better high ISO performance- but to the average consumer who doesn't spend their days reading camera reviews, Fuji is losing its marketing edge (even if they still are 2-3 stops better). The F40 should have thrown in an ISO 6400- regardless of what it looked like- just for marketing purposes.
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morey000 said:

It seems that High ISO capability is the next megapixel race. And-
it seems like Fuji might get killed on this one. Not that anybody
is really offering much better high ISO performance- but to the
average consumer who doesn't spend their days reading camera
reviews, Fuji is losing its marketing edge (even if they still are
2-3 stops better). The F40 should have thrown in an ISO 6400-
regardless of what it looked like- just for marketing purposes.

Click to expand...

Sad, but yes, many manufacturers are doing that. Fuji must at least keep iso3200 on every Fxx series model.

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Best Regards,

Danny



My Albums
http://photobucket.com/albums/a44/yeeonly

Something I don't fully understand is why digital cameras still use discrete ISO settings.

As I understand it, ISO is essentially a gain setting (to use audio terminology) for the pixel amplifier. I can understand why film was produced in discrete ISO ratings in an exponential scale (to limit the numbers of different film types but still cover a usable range). With digital, why not let the ISO rating be calculated via a formula to produce a target exposure time for a given focal length and f-stop? So the camera might use an ISO rating of 1020 for one shot and 2876 for another - why does it have to be 1200 or 3200?

I agree. We are in the world of digital so lets take all the advantage we can.

I fi want too shho a scene at 1/4Sec at f4.2 why cant the camera calculate an ISO to give me the correct exposure.

You could say the same for shutter speed as well.

Well, hopefully, manufacturers will soon start battling on the apertures...

That would be a great advance!

Instead of boasting a 1600 ISO on their S9x00, fuji could have designed a f/2-f/4 lens that would have given the same low-light capability using ISO 800, with better noise and DOF control...

Jumbuk said:

Something I don't fully understand is why digital cameras still use
discrete ISO settings.

As I understand it, ISO is essentially a gain setting (to use audio
terminology) for the pixel amplifier. I can understand why film
was produced in discrete ISO ratings in an exponential scale (to
limit the numbers of different film types but still cover a usable
range). With digital, why not let the ISO rating be calculated via
a formula to produce a target exposure time for a given focal
length and f-stop? So the camera might use an ISO rating of 1020
for one shot and 2876 for another - why does it have to be 1200 or
3200?

Click to expand...

Hi,

I fully agree !!

What you are suggesting exists (almost) on dSLR pentax K10D :

TAv (Shutter speed and Aperture priority) mode allows you to set the shutter speed and aperture manually and the camera will automatically select the correct sensitivity.

I very much like your idea of additional calculating shutterspeed in function of focal length and f-stop ... i also would like to have an indication on LCD of DOF and the possibility to set hyperfocal distance automatically.

Maybe on a next Fxx and/or Sxx Fuji cam ????

Greetings,

Marc

mrbr said:

Hi,

I fully agree !!

What you are suggesting exists (almost) on dSLR pentax K10D :

Click to expand...

must be EXISTS ( not almost exists ).

mrbr said:

TAv (Shutter speed and Aperture priority) mode allows you to set
the shutter speed and aperture manually and the camera will
automatically select the correct sensitivity.

I very much like your idea of additional calculating shutterspeed
in function of focal length and f-stop ...

Click to expand...

this is Aperture priority mode with Auto ISO !! Already exists ofcourse ...
Must have been sleeping a bit ...

Greetings,

Marc

One magazine recently speculated that in a few years it "would be nice to have a base ISO of 6400". Well, yes, I guess it would be especially if one could print sharp pictures.

Pegleg

High ISO's are beggining to fill the same niche that MP's once did... now that customers know just enough to understand that more MP's has almost zilch to do with image quality. Unfortunately, now they are thinking that a higher ISO range has something to do with the useability of a camera (and image quality for that matter) and not understanding that a company can pump ISO's as high as they want... and unless the sensor is of a reasonable size and the MP's aren't outrageous for that size - the high ISO's are going to look like webcam shots. Eventually, consumers will learn that as with MP, ISO's by themselves tell you very little about image quality... now if they looked at sensor sizes... they might finally get a quick-glance statistic to turn to when glancing over camera models.

Regardless, it is much more difficult to implement clean quality high-ISO's then it was to pump tiny sensors full of bloated megapixels. As long as the Canons, Sonys, Nikons, Panasonics, etc. are using 1/2.5 sensors in a majority of their cameras - Fuji is in no danger of losing out.

morey000 said:

I've been watching the new camera releases- and it seems as if
everyone is jumping on the high ISO bandwagon. The Oly 550 with
ISO5000, the Panasonic FZ8 with ISO3200, and a slew of compacts
claiming ISO 3200 or, at a minimum 1600.

I've seen some test shots off of the Oly 550- and frankly, the ISO
performance is absolutely no better than any other camera. ISO100
and 200 are OK. ISO400 gets noisy, and by the time you hit ISO800,
it's just for web shots. The rest are just there for marketing
purposes. I expect the other tiny sensored boxes will perform the
same.

It seems that High ISO capability is the next megapixel race. And-
it seems like Fuji might get killed on this one. Not that anybody
is really offering much better high ISO performance- but to the
average consumer who doesn't spend their days reading camera
reviews, Fuji is losing its marketing edge (even if they still are
2-3 stops better). The F40 should have thrown in an ISO 6400-
regardless of what it looked like- just for marketing purposes.
--

Click to expand...

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Fuji A310, F10, & F30

TrikePhotos said:

I agree. We are in the world of digital so lets take all the
advantage we can.

I fi want too shho a scene at 1/4Sec at f4.2 why cant the camera
calculate an ISO to give me the correct exposure.

You could say the same for shutter speed as well.

Click to expand...

Try Pentax K10D -- it's got A-S priority with floating ISO.

Yeah-then at ISO6400 and f/8
Outside you'd need a shutter speed of 1/320,000 sec

Or am I misuderstanding the term "base ISO"

pegleg666 said:

One magazine recently speculated that in a few years it "would be
nice to have a base ISO of 6400". Well, yes, I guess it would be
especially if one could print sharp pictures.

Pegleg

Click to expand...

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I would think base ISO would refer to the "norm" middle of the road ISO... sort of how ISO 400 is now and how it was "high-ISO" just two years ago. If ISO 6400 becomes the new ISO 400... that means ISO 100-6400 or even 12800 will be useable and printable.... would be amazing.

morey000 said:

Or am I misuderstanding the term "base ISO"

pegleg666 said:

One magazine recently speculated that in a few years it "would be
nice to have a base ISO of 6400". Well, yes, I guess it would be
especially if one could print sharp pictures.

Pegleg

Click to expand...

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Click to expand...

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Fuji A310, F10, & F30

Due to dispersion effects and how small the pixels are, digicams don't really use apertures smaller than F/8.

So- their aperture range is:
F2.8, 4, 5.6, 8. 4 stops. Less if the max aperture is f3.5.

From an ISO standpoint- they now have more light range than aperture.
50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200. That's 7 stops!

Time to replace Aperture priority automatic with ISO priority automatic. (yes- I know the Pentax DSLRs have it)
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one can certainly push the exposure of todays DSLR's and get printable 6400. this isn't anything but a test image for the sake of push-sake, but it's printable and while it's dark, it's a true depiction of the scene at the moment.

Web Size:
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp/image/73522660

100% Crop:
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp/image/73522659

overall, I'm back to the Fuji world with my recent F20 purchase and am happy for what it can do for sure. much like the DSLR world, so long as exposure is good, the higher ISO's function fine. If the lighting is very dim fine details won't show through, but again, if the lighting is good and it's shutter speed that's needed, I think Fuji nails it.

still playing with the higher ISO's on the F20, but have used ISO 400 and 800 for some craigs list and ebay items where I didn't want to have to do any PP on the images

Non Craigs list related of course:
ISO 400 that I'm happy with'
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp/image/74677135

ISO 2000 that prints just fine
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp/image/74622867

Cubensis said:

morey000 said:

Or am I misuderstanding the term "base ISO"

pegleg666 said:

One magazine recently speculated that in a few years it "would be
nice to have a base ISO of 6400". Well, yes, I guess it would be
especially if one could print sharp pictures.

Pegleg

Click to expand...

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Click to expand...

--
Fuji A310, F10, & F30

Click to expand...

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-tim
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp

.... In the marketing game. It's just one more bullet point on the item description under the camera at Best Buy, Circut City, ect. So we're going to see more camera with the settings for high ISO's like 1600 and 3200.

Noise, on the other hand, is not something that the mass market of P&S camera buyers understands. So, P&S marketers can safely add high ISO settings, without too much concern over actual noise performance at those settings, because the vast majority of buyers don't know what noise is, or could access that one camera is better or worse in that regard to another at say 1600 ISO, or for that matter will even use the setting.

People on this board, and others like it, make up a small percentage of P&S buyers. To varying degrees, folks here understand, or are curious enough to want to learn about, what the bullet points mean.

Interesingly, I think we're seeing the opposite on P&S lenses. The general public can understand zoom length, so we're seeing an extension in reach ... 140 - 200mm becoming more common. BUT the trade off is slower lenses. Max app's of 5.0, 5.8, even higher at the long end, and f2.8 seems to be the best at the short end. The vast majority of folks buying these cameras happily zoom out to 200mm at their kid's recital, and shrug off the blurry images on the camera's screen, never realizing the connection between light, shutter speed, focal length, and max f stops.

They may not even notice the blurs and noise: fewer people print these days ... and while people on these sites probably all view images on their PC's, I think there is a large and growing number of P&S users who only view images on their camera's screen.

One last observation: to make the finacial numbers work on an advanced P&S camera these days, it seems to me that marketers need to make these cameras appeal to as wide an audience as possible. I don't think there are enough prospective buyers out there to deliver a return on the investment if a marketer delivers an advanced P&S that has all the features we want, and no trade offs to the "mass market". Canon's G7 is a perfect example of that.

So Fuji may need to win by losing: they have to play the mega pixel game. Rather than gamble on low noise at high ISO's, to stay in the game they may have to opt for more MP's in their new cameras. Using the low noise sensors in the F30\31 may not be an option: it may be more cost effective to use available chips than figure a way to up the MP's and keep the noise down with the super CCD's they have now. They can simply keep the high ISO settings on the camera.

I don't know of the F30/31 has been big enough winner for them in terms of ROI ... it has not recieved the distribution in big box stores, at least in the US ... which might lead to a bad ROI equation. Those results may lead Fuji down one path or the other...