Godd Bye FinePix S5, you are becoming extinct.

CS Gordon wrote:
There is one

CS Gordon said:

theoretical situation where I could see this not being the case, and
that would be a quantum-level sensor array... That is one that is so
accurate that it can register a single photon (an absolutely smallest
value of light) hitting the sensor, and have a bitdepth so great is
to be able to contian enough values to count each individual photon
hitting a photosite. Being realistic, that would be a very difficult
device to engineer.

Click to expand...

Now that would be the sensor to have!

Thanks for you explanation, it was well done. The nice thing is that you can SEE the difference you described in Fuji RAW files.

Cheers!
Crystal
--
http://www.crystalkeesey.com

I am interested in Nikon talking about vastly increased DR in their new models.

As we all know virtually all the current Dslr's have good DR at low iso's..probably nearly as good as the Fuji's. Where they fail is at high iso. The D2x is down to around 6.5 stops (1600asa?) whilst the Fuji is still holding out around 9/10 F stops because of their dual sensor design.

As we know, the DR is also ultimately limited by the noise performance of the camera as well as it's ability to record a scene with high contrast.

The Fuji's exceed the DR ability of both the 5D and 1DsMk11..and I know in my experience, left to it's own devices, the 5D clip highlights quite frequently and irretrievably...no good to me as a wedding photographer! Perhaps this is why many Canon 5D users set their meters to underexpose around half an F-stop?

I believe what Nikon may have done is enable the camera to modify the tone curve from the straight line natural of digital (0-1-255) to a variable toe and heel to compress the shadows and highlights to fit the scale...a bit like film did (and had to) do naturally?

This of course, regardless of marketing speak, is only an extension of what most Dslr's do when the "Contrast" setting is altered but with wider parameters. It might be useful if it sets the curve automatically from information gathered by the metering sensors and also takes into account it's iso setting and tonal balance of the subject. We know the meter understands the scene it is looking at and this would be a further good use of the information gleaned from what is clearly a world class metering system...Nikon have always been good at this.

Although not the same as recording a wider tonal range linearly as in the Fuji design, it could go some way to avoiding lost information. We will have to wait and see!

Fleming said:

I can't see why ISO 400 shots (if your subjects are properly exposed)
would be so noisy. Perhaps you did not meter off of the subjects and
have had to resort to pushing the "exposure" up a good bit in
post-processing. An aperture of f/20 is extreme overkill for most
portrait work -- assuming your subjects were in the same
neighborhood. Sounds like you might want to study up a bit on
portrait photography and ask for a reshoot. Since it's for a friend,
she shouldn't mind.

With kind regards,

Robert05 (AKA Fleming)
http://www.pbase.com/robert_in_sc

Click to expand...

I don't know if I've done this right, hopefully I have. Here is the exif data of the photos I took ..

Hmmmm. I take it that since Auto and Aperture appear in the Exif that this was shot in aperture priority with the aperture set at f/20. I'm afraid that what happened here is that the flash was unable to compensate adequately for the lack of light that resulted from the small aperture used. I know if you do this with the flash off on the S3 you get a LO warning on your shutter speed to indicate that there's not much light reaching the metering sensor. I'm not sure what happens when using a flash, but I think the camera will just do the best it can to get as good exposure as the flash can manage.

Was this your camera flash or an accessory one? If an accessory flash, what settings did you have the flash set on? Also, was the flash diffused or bounced?

Also, what converter are you using? Is that HUv.3, or another program?
--
With kind regards,

Robert05 (AKA Fleming)
http://www.pbase.com/robert_in_sc

Fleming said:

Was this your camera flash or an accessory one? If an accessory
flash, what settings did you have the flash set on? Also, was the
flash diffused or bounced?

Also, what converter are you using? Is that HUv.3, or another program?
--
With kind regards,

Robert05 (AKA Fleming)
http://www.pbase.com/robert_in_sc

Click to expand...

the flash I used was the Nikon speedlight SB-800, I'm afraid I'm not very experienced with flashes that aren't the camera flash so the only setting that I set it to was TTL and when it was turned on it was showing the settings that my camera was set at like the ISO and F stop, as to was it diffused or bounced it was both.. lol.. told you I wasn't very good, I attached a plastic diffuser hood and then also bounced it off the ceiling.. I bet all that I have wrote is all a no no.. :-(

nearly forgot the converer in this particular case is the Capture One Pro.. I usually use Bridge in Photoshop

acrystalball said:

acrystalball said:

theoretical situation where I could see this not being the case, and
that would be a quantum-level sensor array... That is one that is so
accurate that it can register a single photon (an absolutely smallest
value of light) hitting the sensor, and have a bitdepth so great is
to be able to contian enough values to count each individual photon
hitting a photosite. Being realistic, that would be a very difficult
device to engineer.

Click to expand...

Now that would be the sensor to have!

Thanks for you explanation, it was well done. The nice thing is that
you can SEE the difference you described in Fuji RAW files.

Click to expand...

After that all we would need would be an as good noise filtering as human brain is. The data our eyes transmit to our brain is noisy and not that perfect since the eyes do not have as detailed stuff as we feel we see, but the brain corrects that perfectly and has higher resolution output. To keep it simple it is something like our brain uses the input data like vectors of lines and filled surfaces and then we can see straight thin lines as perfect thin lines even our eyes can not record that line so perfectly (according to scientists).

Or perhaps it would be even better if we could keep the perfect record of that photon exact camera and then be able to transmit it directly into the brain. That would be the ultimate preserved image of anything.

--
Osku

OK. Unless I'm mistaken, you pretty well defeat the iTTL when you bounce the flash. At least I think that's the way the d-TTL works on the S3. In any case, you were definitely making it very, very challenging for your camera to produce a well-exposed image.

If a re-shoot is out of the question, I'd try opening the file in the Finepix Viewer that came with the S5 -- if you don't have HUv3. I believe you will find better control of the noise, which is a major obstacle to recovering your images at this point, since you will have to bring them up a stop or two. If you can, do the exposure correction in Finepix Viewer -- but I'm not sure you have that option.

Hopefully at this point, someone with actual experience with the S5 and the SB800 will pitch in to give you an idea about metering properly when using a diffused/bounced flash.
--
With kind regards,

Robert05 (AKA Fleming)

P.S. I guess we owe apologies to the OP for hijacking the thread! Perhaps it would be best to try starting a new one to address any remaining questions you might have. Worth a thougt.
http://www.pbase.com/robert_in_sc

uksweetheart said:

Greg Governale said:

All cameras are only as good as the person behind the camera.

Greg Governale

Click to expand...

I must be C* P then.

Click to expand...

I would not say that.

uksweetheart said:

I took some portrait pics yesterday for a friend of her 2 kids with
the S5 and every single one is useless, I haven't done portrait
photos before.

Click to expand...

Perhaps there is a correlation here. Portraits are not so easy as they look. A lack of experience and a new camera often lead to poor image quality.

I have looked at the image in the post you have provided. It is way underexposed yet there is a strong shadow from the right of the frame. Perhaps there is some recovery possible but I doubt it it will ever look like it was done in a studio. If you can get a chance at a reshoot, you might try the children seated near a window and try for some more natural lighting.

Practice, practice, practice is what is needed for good portraits. There are many on this forum who are much more qualified than I am to add comment to improve your portraiture skills. I do not think it is the S5, though.

--
Alan, in Montana
Photos are cached here,

http://radphotos.net/index.php?option=com_copperminevis&Itemid=33&place=gallery&cat=10069

The noise is the result of severe underexposure.

The severe underexposure is the result of stopping down to f/20 indoors. Indoors with a flash, around f/8 or f/11 should be enough at ISO 400.

You can try to recover by pumping up the sensitization setting in HS-V3. However, you'll get lots of noise. You'll then have to apply some noise reduction software to the image, like Noise Ninja.

Consider recovering and converting to B&W, where the grain will add something to the image.

Anthony

uksweetheart said:

Greg Governale said:

All cameras are only as good as the person behind the camera.

Greg Governale

Click to expand...

I must be C* P then.
I took some portrait pics yesterday for a friend of her 2 kids with
the S5 and every single one is useless, I haven't done portrait
photos before so set the camera to auto ISO which unfortunatly for me
set it's self to 400 and the noise is really bad I set the f stop to
F20 so that I thought I'd be able to get both kids in focus, I don't
know if it was the high ISO or whether I did something wrong
somewhere else but they aren't good pics, I'm struggling in
photodshop to try and get at least one decent pic but good old PS has
it's limitations.... Anyone want to buy a Fujifilm S5 Pro?

Click to expand...

--
check out my blog at http://anthonyonphotography.blogspot.com

uksweetheart said:

the flash I used was the Nikon speedlight SB-800, I'm afraid I'm not
very experienced with flashes that aren't the camera flash so the
only setting that I set it to was TTL and when it was turned on it
was showing the settings that my camera was set at like the ISO and F
stop, as to was it diffused or bounced it was both.. lol.. told you I
wasn't very good, I attached a plastic diffuser hood and then also
bounced it off the ceiling.. I bet all that I have wrote is all a no
no.. :-(
nearly forgot the converer in this particular case is the Capture One
Pro.. I usually use Bridge in Photoshop

Click to expand...

Try either of these set-ups as a baseline to start with:
*************************************************************
Aperture Prioity
ISO400 (and turn off auto)
f5.6
Matrix metering
Speedlight bounced and make sure "BLL" is turned off.

**************************************************************
Progam Auto
ISO400 (or leave it on auto)
camera will decide shutter, aperture and ISO
Matrix Metering
Speedlight bounced and make sure "BLL" is turned off.

****************************************************************

Any of these two should give you a starting point to work with. Watch your zooming as this can effect your exposure. If your photos is either still slightly over or under exposed, then just adjust the EV on the SB800 to compensate. Normally up to a plus or a minus 0.7 will do the trick. Do not use flash EV adjustment on the camera.

Lastly, learn your equipment thoroughly by constanly experiementing and asking questions before you put yourself in a important shooting situation where you are expected to deliver. Example: If you are totally unfamilar with a Grand Prix/Nasa car and it's workings....... then there isn't a hope in hell that you can drive it straight away in the first important race of the year without any practice or testing done or with incorrect knowledge being imputted by you into the car as well. This is a recipe for disaster on the day and will only leave you in the situation that you had. F20 was a ridiculous aperture and under-exposure was guaranteed as you cut out all the light by closing the "hole in the lens" so small with a f20 aperture. This aperture would mainly only be found in landscapes. Hope this points you in the right direction.

*****************************************
Packy

f20? That is your problem. Why would you shoot at f20?

Your flash loses at least one stop of power with the diffuser and at least one or two more bouncing off the ceiling. There is nothing wrong with using ttl in bounce mode but your flash can only put out so much power.

You need to understand the reasons behind choosing apertures before you start blaming your equipment.

Your APS-C sized sensor will not produce very good images at f20, it should be an aperture choice of last resort.

ThomasH_always said:

I love the competition Canon 40D versus Nikon D300 it is. Good news
to all of us!

Except to Fuji... With the arrival of other 14bit A/D resolution
cameras, the Fuji Finepix S5 has outlived its usefulness completely.
Fuji had the 14bit processor for years, and except for wedding
photographers, it failed to attract anyone. They did not progressed
with their sensors with better resolution and lower noise to be a
compelling competitor and a sizable alternative to owners of Nikkor
lenses.

And now its all over. The D300 is cheaper, dramatically faster, has
far better resolution and provides the same dynamic range. So which
camera would you chose? Oh gosh, its a hard one...... Shall I still
take the S5? Name just one good reason!

Thomas

Click to expand...

A. point of view I see !
--

Dsyletic hence function and disability in posting ie bad spelling and grammer sorry .

blackmore7 said:

ThomasH_always said:

I love the competition Canon 40D versus Nikon D300 it is. Good news
to all of us!

Except to Fuji... With the arrival of other 14bit A/D resolution
cameras, the Fuji Finepix S5 has outlived its usefulness completely.
Fuji had the 14bit processor for years, and except for wedding
photographers, it failed to attract anyone. They did not progressed
with their sensors with better resolution and lower noise to be a
compelling competitor and a sizable alternative to owners of Nikkor
lenses.

And now its all over. The D300 is cheaper, dramatically faster, has
far better resolution and provides the same dynamic range. So which
camera would you chose? Oh gosh, its a hard one...... Shall I still
take the S5? Name just one good reason!

Thomas

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

We all have seen now that in hindsight that this post is incorrect. The 40D despite having 14 bits, is still not in the same league as the S5 in DR. Doubt if the D300 is too for that matter. This is what you get when you dig up and try to use old information. Must be up all night going back to August to try and dig up some usless info to bash a few cameras. What a sad individual. I mean, I have taken thousands of photos with the S5 since this post and the D300 still haven't hit the shops LOL! So what's the point in dreaming of a camera that hasn't arrived yet when you can be using the one you have now, IMO.

And anyway, it's all academic really.......all a S5 user has to do is just buy a D300 body and it will fit onto all that lovely glass that S5 owners own. Same can't be said for crippled and dumbed down D40 owners. They will never be able to AF with all that sweet fast glass and if they upgrade they will have to splash out on that lovely glass. And I would say it would be a bit too much for their little budget. And on top of that, unfotruately some still won't be able to use that lovely glass because they can't hold the camera steady enough without the help of VR.

*****************************************
Packy

Obviously, you're nothing but a troublemaker. Get lost. Sheesh.

Anthony

blackmore7 said:

ThomasH_always said:

I love the competition Canon 40D versus Nikon D300 it is. Good news
to all of us!

Except to Fuji... With the arrival of other 14bit A/D resolution
cameras, the Fuji Finepix S5 has outlived its usefulness completely.
Fuji had the 14bit processor for years, and except for wedding
photographers, it failed to attract anyone. They did not progressed
with their sensors with better resolution and lower noise to be a
compelling competitor and a sizable alternative to owners of Nikkor
lenses.

And now its all over. The D300 is cheaper, dramatically faster, has
far better resolution and provides the same dynamic range. So which
camera would you chose? Oh gosh, its a hard one...... Shall I still
take the S5? Name just one good reason!

Thomas

Click to expand...

A. point of view I see !
--
Dsyletic hence function and disability in posting ie bad spelling
and grammer sorry .

Click to expand...

--
check out my blog at http://anthonyonphotography.blogspot.com

Anthony said:

Obviously, you're nothing but a troublemaker. Get lost. Sheesh.

Click to expand...

I never really understand why people get agessive and defensive of cameras, really. Anyone who uses cameras (film and digital) for more than - let's say - 1 or 2 years must know that all of them have their strenghts and weaknesses. Fuji, Canon, Nikon, none of them is an exception.

I understand that many - although they know the technical data by heart - are disoriented and frustrated, there are people who have "browsed" through 3-4 brands and systems before they know what best suits their needs, if any, because although tecnically possible, not one system puts it all together perfectly, at least up to now.

In today's modern globalised (and shareholder value- oriented) market Fuji is a strange company in many ways, they don't seem to be clear at all where they want to go in the digital world (you have to be blind not to see that), and having bought several DSLRs from them I think that they should better listen to the criticism if they want to stay in the camera business - but I doubt they really want to.

Isn't it obvious: Fuji had a "Fuji advantage", and it is starting to get very thin even in their stronger specs.

Once that gap has closed (in terms of noise, color and ability to handle contrast) or got so small in the perception of the consumers that it does no longer matter, Fuji will stop to exist in the camera market, they have nothing that will make people want their slower and lower resolution cameras, except a very small (too small in a commercial sense) niche of loyal customers.

I don't feel "emotionally" connected to any brand. I use 2-3 cameras (S5, 5d and Pentax 6x7) right now and I can clearly see their strenghts and weaknesses. Although I like the Fuji look, I see their balance of good and not so good to be on the problematic side.

So why not let some people freely express their feelings about Fuji and/ or the S5? It does no harm, and maybe once in a while a Fuji rep will read that stuff and then criticism will be just as important as the positive things people say about the FUJI cameras.

regards, Bernie

Usual nonsense before the D300 has even come out!!

But, No it does not have better DR and has no such extension in the highlights.

D-lighting "fills the shadows" and works by under exposing RAW files to keep highlight detail and then lifts the shadows.

Only the Fuji has around 11 F stops DR throughout its asa range.

And yes, the 12mp sensor does have a little more ultimate fine detail resolution...it always has, but we wait to see if the IQ is actually any better than the Fuji's.

Like has been said so many times before..it is not just about pixel count and there are very good reasons why professional social photographers would choose Fuji...and whilst we are on about resolution, check out the performance of the Fuji sensor (I only have s3's) at 1600asa processed in DxO V5...

Smooth, sharp and detailed..that's what I call resolution!! Outstrips the D200/D2x by a margin, so the D300 will have to be a huge step up in noise performance to come this close.

I installed the however what I see is that DxO seems to convert Fuji files exclusively to 2000x3000 pixels, so it is treated as a 6MP camera?

I also observe that the programm takes half an hour to start and it crashed once in the first 5 minutes.

Not a good start for me either....

Bernie

Bernie Ess said:

So why not let some people freely express their feelings about Fuji
and/ or the S5? It does no harm, and maybe once in a while a Fuji rep
will read that stuff and then criticism will be just as important as
the positive things people say about the FUJI cameras.

Click to expand...

Sorry Bernie but you should check Blackmore7's history before you ever replied. Anthony is spot on. In the last 24 hours Blackmore7's has dug up over five threads since August just to stir trouble mainly with me. So he his a troublemaker....and a brainless one at that.

He brought up old threads to attack the G7/9 and S5 just because I use those brands. Poor sucker (and wannabe D40 user) wouldn't even know how to use the features on a S5 if he was presented with one. Why, for years he thought that his Pannys FZ's was better than a dslr IN ALL ISOs!..... and he couldn't even use the 18-135mm lens with the the D40 because he gets blurry shots at 135mm in all kinds of lighting LOL!!. And he even brought up a thread from December 2005 (long before he was even a member on this forum) just to have a go off of me in the Fuji talk forum....purlesse!

--
*****************************************
Packy

I don't care about his opinions about the cameras. However, his posting history shows he's just a stalker/troublemaker who digs up old threads to harass people. Hence, my post.

Anthony

Bernie said:

Isn't it obvious: Fuji had a "Fuji advantage", and it is starting to get very thin even in their stronger specs.

Click to expand...

Specifically two cameras that you use, an observation...

Take out a couple on a fine, sunny, autumn day at least three hours before or after high noon, and shoot half of your photos with the 5D and the other half with the S5, both in raw and come back and develop the photos to the best of your ability. Don't spend extra effort on dragging color out of the 5D unless you really need it because you can just use the S5 shot.

More than half of your images with the 5d will have unrecoverable blown highlights, which of course you can ignore but you will know they are there, and there will not be a single shot with the S5 where there are unrecoverable blown highlights.

Not one.

Once you get past the blown highlights from the 5D, go ahead and work on the color. You can put some punch into the Canon 5D shots if there are no peoples faces in the photos but if the faces are showing, it is pretty hard to punch the color very much without messing with the skin color. I know I don't have to explain to you about the color advantage with your Fuji shots.

Bernie Ess said:

Once that gap has closed (in terms of noise, color and ability to handle contrast) > or got so small in the perception of the consumers that it does no longer > matter, Fuji will stop to exist in the camera market, they have nothing that will > make people want their slower and lower resolution cameras, except a very > small (too small in a commercial sense) niche of loyal customers.

Click to expand...

This is absolutely a true statement. However, so far, there is no camera out today that comes close to what the S5 can deliver on a sunny autumn day for shooting photos of people where skin is a major part of each photo.

If I am going out to take photos of things, buildings, walks in the woods , photos of lakes and reflections of life in said water masses, my 5D is in my hand. I can intentionally underexpose, boost up the color and I really don't care what the original color was, I can and will make that color suit what I want and it will almost drip off of the canvas. However, if you ask me to shoot photos of people, I will still bring the 5D but it will serve as a back up, fill in, spontaneous portrait camera and not as my main camera tool.

The S5 with its extended DR is still an amazing camera and so far, nothing can compete with it when extended DR and beautiful skin tone is required.