Can someone post an E520 low light FAIL?

I'm just curious what the threshhold is for the e520.

I'm 95% there with the e520, and the only things that would entice me to the more expensive e620 right now would be low light AF and the viewfinder

I have the E-510, with nearly identical low-light performance.

Here's a shot at ISO 1600, run through NeatImage with conservative settings.

EXIF (stripped by NeatImage): 70-300 @ 300mm f/5.6, ISO 1600, 1/800



This is about as bad as it gets for a properly-exposed ISO 1600 shot, until you start to get into seriously long (more than 1 second) shutter times, at which point banding starts to creep into images. But in that case you might as well go to ISO 200 and 8 seconds, since you're in tripod-land already.

At least, in my opinion....I guess YMMV, but at the size you have posted, it looks pretty good to my eye. But I have a bad habit of looking at the content, rather than the noise. If the noise was distracting, I would notice it. I'm not getting that from this image. Nice shot, by the way.

Regards,
Breck
--
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See Seven Forty UZ- Reach out and Capture someone!
E520 (14-42, 40-150 kit lens)

If you're only interested in producing images downsized to 1024x768 or basically tossing out 93% of the captured pixels, you really don't even need Neat Image, nor should high ISO performance be much of a concern in general.

Below is my standard "example". E-300 at ISO 1600, auto-resized to 800x600 by Pbase. Doesn't look too bad IMHO. Now click the "original" link to see the actual results. Again, if you're only posting for the web, the noise is a total non-issue. How it looks in print, and at what sizes, or if you need to crop heavily are totally different matters.

Also, high ISO on otherwise properly exposed scenes are going to be a whole lot better than if you're still underexposing even after maxing out on your ISO. Pushing those images up (for even higher effective ISO) will bring on more noise.

At the end of the day, it's the same answer -- if you live at high ISO in poorly lit surroundings, 4/3rds (and likely APS-C) probably isn't your best option.

http://www.pbase.com/inigmntoya/image/41464724/original

@ 800 x 600 - straight auto-resize by Pbase:



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Oldma-cdon-aldh-adaf-arm-EI-EI-O

Some hotlight studio portraits here before running them through Topaz Denoise:

iso 400, pushed +3 EV in Camera RAW



iso 100, pushed +3 EV in Camera RAW



i don't necessarily think they're bad, per se. They warrant noise reduction for my personal taste, but they are what they are. I might like the noise in the second more if it were less...patterny.

On the first shot I was using a manual lens (50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar). On the second shot, with kit lens, AF worked fine.

--
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There are some terrible metal-looking artifacts spoiling the face of the otherwise pretty girl.

I guess I should have explained myself better.

A common complaint I hear is that the e520 has trouble focusing in low light.

Can someone post a pic in low-light in which the AF simply couldn't get a lock on?

Gidday Adlai

adlai said:

I guess I should have explained myself better.

A common complaint I hear is that the e520 has trouble focusing in low light.

Click to expand...

ANY camera can be made to fail AF in even good light. My E-510 focuses fine in light where I have to use ISO800, f1.8 @ 1/20th second. That's pretty lousy light, Adlai.

You need to establish what your camera/lens "hates" or "likes" and work within that ... just IMHO, but I reckon I could get any camera to mis-focus, or fail focus lock, even in very good light. I sometimes do it with my own gear by failing to take care when focusing; AND the film cost is so high with digital ... rotfl!

Equally, almost all modern cameras (including every decent P&S with which I have had experience ... ) will successfully focus in light that is so low that you are not going to get a decent photo ... Even my wife's camera phone is pretty good at this (Nokia N95).

I know that some will tell you that their {Brand XX} camera will focus on a black cat in a coal mine with no focus-assist light or flash; AND will then take a "perfect" photo at a mere ISO12,800 ... Funny how they never post the image though ...

adlai said:

Can someone post a pic in low-light in which the AF simply couldn't get a lock on?

Click to expand...

Or even better, mate: a sound recording of a ' pregnant silence ' ... lol,

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

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If the camera is on the most common setting of focus priority, the camera won't take the picture if it can't get a lock, so you're unlikely to get many examples.

Also, unless you're very familiar with exposure (Eg. f8 at 1/100s at 800 iso), one will have no idea of what the light levels actually are.

John King said:

adlai said:

I guess I should have explained myself better.

A common complaint I hear is that the e520 has trouble focusing in low light.

Click to expand...

ANY camera can be made to fail AF in even good light. My E-510 focuses fine in light where I have to use ISO800, f1.8 @ 1/20th second. That's pretty lousy light, Adlai.

You need to establish what your camera/lens "hates" or "likes" and work within that ... just IMHO, but I reckon I could get any camera to mis-focus, or fail focus lock, even in very good light. I sometimes do it with my own gear by failing to take care when focusing; AND the film cost is so high with digital ... rotfl!

Equally, almost all modern cameras (including every decent P&S with which I have had experience ... ) will successfully focus in light that is so low that you are not going to get a decent photo ... Even my wife's camera phone is pretty good at this (Nokia N95).

I know that some will tell you that their {Brand XX} camera will focus on a black cat in a coal mine with no focus-assist light or flash; AND will then take a "perfect" photo at a mere ISO12,800 ... Funny how they never post the image though ...

John King said:

Can someone post a pic in low-light in which the AF simply couldn't get a lock on?

Click to expand...

Or even better, mate: a sound recording of a ' pregnant silence ' ... lol,

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

Gallery: http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php
Hints & Tips (temporary link, as under construction):
http://canopuscomputing.com.au/index.php?p=1_9



Bird Control Officers on active service.

Member of UK (and abroad) Photo Safari Group

Click to expand...

gidday to you too

eh, all I'm looking for is an example at the light conditions.

Amongst the gadget fetish, I agree that minute differences are blown waaaay out of proportion.

G'day again Adlai

adlai said:

gidday to you too

eh, all I'm looking for is an example at the light conditions.

Amongst the gadget fetish, I agree that minute differences are blown waaaay out of proportion.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Quite right .

Here are a couple of OoC JPEGs taken in very low light. If you do not have an EXIF viewer like KUSO or Opanda, go to my gallery album which displays the EXIF data under each photo here:

http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/v/main-page/Photography/HighISOdemoshots/





Most of these shots are at very high ISO (for an E-510; ISO1600), and very wide aperture with exceptionally low shutter speeds (e.g. ISO1600, f2.8 @ 1 second, handheld ... ). As a result of this, most are completely unusable. I like playing around with these sort of exposures so that I can work out what both my gear and myself can get away with.

Some are not in sharp focus; some have movement blur (mine ... ).Some are even redeemable (if they were important ... ).

AFAIAC, this is the best way to learn what you and your gear can do.

Hope these are the sort of examples you are looking for.

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

Gallery: http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php
Hints & Tips (temporary link, as under construction):
http://canopuscomputing.com.au/index.php?p=1_9



Bird Control Officers on active service.

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Gidday Entropy

That's one exceptionally nice shot, mate. I bet it prints beautifully. Does it?

Well seen, well captured. Nice and sharp over the whole frame. Well done.

I like it.

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

Gallery: http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php
Hints & Tips (temporary link, as under construction):
http://canopuscomputing.com.au/index.php?p=1_9



Bird Control Officers on active service.

Member of UK (and abroad) Photo Safari Group

Hi,

Even if someone posts a low-light picture which is out of focus, there's absolutely nothing you can conclude from this !

It's not the light level that defines AF performance but rather whether your focus point(s) detect an area that offers sufficient contrast. Of course, lowering light level reduces contrast and increases the likelyhood of not getting a focus lock.

But your focus pt can target an area offering insuffcient contrast under bright conditions too and vice-vera, you'll have no problems getting a lock in low (very low) light conditions as long as you got a spot offering sufficient contrast.. like see below:

http://www.pbase.com/och9230/edinburgh_military_tattoo_2009

These were all taken with my E-520 using 12-60 and sigma 50-200mm for close shots.

Used middle focus-point only for all my shots and did not have a single problem with it throught the night. Never had any focus issue in general since I own the camera (now over a year with approx. 10k shots in total - many night shots !)

I do have the E-620 as well and I've NOT noticed superior AF performance vs my E-520 .. mainly because the E-520 never failed on me.

I've not tried to print it -- I've been actually pretty lazy with printing. That shot might not look so hot blown up any more than that, and I have ISO 800 shots from the same series I'd probably choose to print instead.

But I have printed ISO 800 shots, and they look great. Thanks for the compliment!