What did Foveon do???

What is ISO 200 at 30 seconds like? Is ISO 100 really the only ISO that's usable at the maximum exposrue time? I ask because ISO 100 at 30 sec is a little 'short' as far as long exposures go for me. But if all ISO 200 does is introduce a nice grain to the photo, that I would be happy with that.

OH yeah up to ISO 800. Actually the ISO 800 has a very nice grain to it. Very film like.
Regards,
Larry

ChromeLight said:

What is ISO 200 at 30 seconds like? Is ISO 100 really the only ISO
that's usable at the maximum exposrue time? I ask because ISO 100
at 30 sec is a little 'short' as far as long exposures go for me.
But if all ISO 200 does is introduce a nice grain to the photo,
that I would be happy with that.

Click to expand...

--
http://www.fredmiranda.com/hosting/showgallery.php?ppuser=235&cat=500
http://www.pbase.com/lmc54/root

. . . of Laurence's one-word answers. How can so much jovial wit be contained in one syllable? The bon mot is more enjoyable with each repetition. Then there's the delightful anticipation as we await his more fulsome snarling, ad hominem attacks. A true master of condescension! A Sigma forum classic! A brilliant example of "the fellowship of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas."

Is there some problem with answering questions in a civil manner? Is it out of style to be polite, or do people get their kicks out of being jerks to each other?

Someone asks a reasonable question, and all I see is a bunch of people poking at each other and being rude. I was going to purchase an SD-14, but I can just imagiine the responses I would get if I had a problem and asked for some help on this message board.

I can only conclude that some of you use the message board to show the contempt you have for the rest of the world. Otherwise, why spend time on a message board making sarcastic comments.

Nothing better to do?

yvind, yet you do think Geir's comment that the only thing improved is noise reduction -- is accurate? I think that statement by Geir was misleading.

And please do see the comments on the other thread from other technical posters...

I'm all for open, useful discussion. I bring up problems I face and request suggestions and ways to solve. It's why I'm here too -- to learn more about my cameras and photography. But for Geir to downplay improvements from SD9/10 vis-a-vis SD14 isn't helpful. Just IMHO of course.
Best regards, Sandy
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/sandyfleischman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyfleischmann

ChromeLight said:

What is ISO 200 at 30 seconds like? Is ISO 100 really the only ISO
that's usable at the maximum exposrue time? I ask because ISO 100
at 30 sec is a little 'short' as far as long exposures go for me.
But if all ISO 200 does is introduce a nice grain to the photo,
that I would be happy with that.

Click to expand...

For really long exposures, check out this gallery:

http://www.kiwipo.1020.photoshare.co.nz/

Several ISO100 shots at more than 1 hour exposure time, as well as a couple of ISO1600 at 2 minutes exposure time. It believe it should be sufficient for most night shot purposes.

--
Geir

Hi ken-- Please don't be put-off! I think I speak for a silent group (majority?) who lurk at the site to try to actually learn stuff and make our camera's work better (rather than engage in OT socializing/oneupsmanship). I personally wish that a lot of the 'regulars' would learn some netiquette and take things off-board rather than filling every thread with personal conversation. Even if unintentional, it comes off as a clique.

at the same time, there are often nuggets of gold in the remnants of the melee...so I recommend lurking and taking what you can. and remember: not one single ounce of any of this hogwash has any effect on the camera itself. it is an amazing device.

engage blast shields

n.

Schnauzer:

--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com

Paulo Ferreira said:

The people that are in the "know" here won't tell you anything,
mostly because that "know" is circumstancial and only serves the
purpose of hinting that they really know and are in control... a
bit like the bouncers of a famous club...

Click to expand...

Wow, we test a camera and get branded as being in teh Super Duper Secret Club!

You could be in the same club, if you just went to SUG meets or attended things like PMA. Being anti-social has never been a path to knowledge as far as I've been able to tell.

Paulo Ferreira said:

So what did Foveon do about night shots? Not much. Because there's
not much they can do or know. My analogy is that they rearranged
the furniture in the bedroom (it looks better) but in the process
they cracked a few splinters. If you want to do nightime
photography you may be better of with some other brand

Click to expand...

Counterpoint:

http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/image/75710746/original



http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/image/75384545/original



http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/image/75632294/original



And of course

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=22962710

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Ken N said:

I can only conclude that some of you use the message board to show
the contempt you have for the rest of the world. Otherwise, why
spend time on a message board making sarcastic comments.

Nothing better to do?

Click to expand...

No, we just like to counter the trolls before they get out of hand, then we answer the questions as best we can.

That's pretty much how internet forums work, if you pay close attention.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Hardy Steiner said:

Hi all,
I had a look at the recent SD14 night pics and I am really
wondering in which way Foveon improved the sensor to reduce the
noise in long exposure shots and high ISO shots. The Foveon site
offers hardly any info on this. Does anybody know what exaclty was
done to improve this?

Click to expand...

Well, first of all the fill factor was improved from the SD-10 sensor to the SD-14. I believe along the lines of 50% to 90% - this means the SD-14 sensor is simply better at gathering light. That's half the battle right there, collecting photons! That I think is the main reason why the fundamental data behind the image is so much cleaner than the SD-10 more sensitive photosites, or imrpoved materials - I am honestly not sure as to how this aspect of a chip is improved.

Then of course you have improvements in dark frame subtraction - that must have some role to play, even though I believe the SD-10 tried to do that as well. But it seems like they have improved whatever mechanism collects and makes use of that data.

Also JLK's not about dark current I think is a good part of the answer, the chip design itself must have been improved to offer substantially less noise just from normal operation.

Lastly there are the processing algorithms, slightly improved as we have seen from processing SD-10 images in SPP 3.0. But you can tell that's nowhere near the whole story since SD-10 higher ISO images still look nothing like a high ISO SD-14 image.

Beyond that, really only people at Foveon know, and probably very few people outside of Foveon could properly understand whatever additional information there might be.

My analogy is that of a house, where Foveon moved to a new house that looks kind of the same from the outside, but holds more cars in the garage, has a swimming pool in the back and a modern update to all the home furnishings and decor with a "Welcome Photons" mat at the front door.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

This was not a troll question here ... and not intended to be one. You all have seen me a long time around here, so you know what I am writing. If I want to know something about the SD14, it is because I am interested and not because of any other reason. I want to know more about it and not put some dark light on something. As I was quite astound about the quality of the new night shot pics taken with the SD14 it is enough reason to ask how Foveon managed to improve the sensor, because if you would take the same pics with the SD10 the results would be different. Thanks a lot to those people who gave some interesting and meaningful input. When I use I camera I want to understand how it works, otherwise, how should you take good pics with it?

Hi Kandell,

Thanks a lot for your great answer! This is what I was looking for, I didn't want to have a highly scientific answer to my question, just a more general comment in which area the improvement took place. I think that the night pics from the SD14 are really wonderful and a big improvement over those taken with the SD10.
Thanks a lot for your help,
Hardy

Aren't you the idiot who demonstrated recently that he cannot read when citing a picture of mine for something while failing to read the heading?

Good call.

Here are the links. Try reading. If you need the the podcast version, let me know.

The header:

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/st_gallen

The text:

"I have used a variety of post-processing techniques here, including a very harsh postcard profile. It is intended to be the way it is."

The image:

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/image/20061511

--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com

Ladehaug said:

The main improvement is the new noise reduction algorithm in SPP3.

Click to expand...

I don't know about that, if that were so why wouldn't SD-10 higher ISO images look way better than they do? Look at this SPP 3.0 (well, Mac 2.2 but the same thing) comparison from a particularly noisy SD-10 ISO 1600 shot:

http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/spp21vs22

There is improvement but I know the SD-14 would have done far better at that shot under similar conditions... so the improvement is not even mostly with noise reduction, though that helps.

I think what you are using as a basis for your thinking is what images look like processed by ACR. But this I think is not a valid assumption when the camera might well be storing some extra information related to the image that ACR is not seeing to use as part of the decoding process. Until we know more details of what is new in the stored image data you can't really say noise reduction plays a huge role, or at least is not simply making use of additional data the camera is providing (different than classical noise reduction as there is much less guess work involved with things like dark frames)

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

http://www.pbase.com/chunsum/image/75540335

nothing to write home about, but FWIW it's ISO800 at 30Sec.

ChromeLight said:

What is ISO 200 at 30 seconds like? Is ISO 100 really the only ISO
that's usable at the maximum exposrue time? I ask because ISO 100
at 30 sec is a little 'short' as far as long exposures go for me.
But if all ISO 200 does is introduce a nice grain to the photo,
that I would be happy with that.

Click to expand...

--
C.

http://www.pbase.com/chunsum
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/chunsum_choi

Hardy Steiner said:

This was not a troll question here ... and not intended to be one.

Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you were a troll at all - just describing why people were answering the more obnoxious responses instead of your actual question.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Hardy Steiner said:

Thanks a lot to those
people who gave some interesting and meaningful input. When I use I
camera I want to understand how it works, otherwise, how should you
take good pics with it?

Click to expand...

That is a good point - I agree you should try to understand as fully as possible what is going on, but really as camera users we have to take more of a black-box approach and experiment with different inputs to see what output we get. So knowing exactly what Foveon did to improve the chip is somewhat less useful than knowing you can push exposure further, or that the camera does not blow out lights in the same way the SD-10 did - more experimental observations rather than deducted knowledge from thoughts about improvements made to the chips themselves. At least that is how I proceed in terms of camera abilities.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

This is right ... I will experiment with the settings as soon as I get a SD14. Right now I am collecting information about it. So far I am quite impressed

ChromeLight said:

What is ISO 200 at 30 seconds like? Is ISO 100 really the only ISO
that's usable at the maximum exposrue time? I ask because ISO 100
at 30 sec is a little 'short' as far as long exposures go for me.
But if all ISO 200 does is introduce a nice grain to the photo,
that I would be happy with that.

Click to expand...

Take a look at these ISO 1600(!) shots at 20 seconds:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=22962710

How can you look upon the very rings of Saturn, or the colors of a distant nebula and not be moved!

I would say that longer higher ISO shots are simply more grainy than the longer ISO 100 shots, but generally I have not had cause to shoot shots beyond 30 seconds that required more amplification of light. Even real night-time stuff with lights works well at less than 30 seconds...

I do wish Sigma would lift the 30 second limitation though, as you can tell the camera could go farther and at 30 seconds you would never get long star trails without rotating the camera manually. It may be a technical issue related to data gathering though, I don't know.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home