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Low light S100fs vs Canon 450D (large pics)

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Ron777

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Just playing around with these two cams, I know it's not this close in all circumstances, but this really surpised me concerning chroma noise and fine detail.

Both cams ISO 800, just light from a lamp. both around F3.7 or so. Hand held so this also tested the built in stabilization. Took several shots each, used the best one from each cam.





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Ron777 wrote:

Well, you didn't put in EXIF and the images are huge ... most cannot display them without pressing zoom out twice, which is what I did.

So ... my opinion is that these are not close at all. The top one appears to be the small sensor image for two reasons:

1) The fur is clumped badly and detail removed, especially above his right eye (left eye to us) and the body near the tail.

2) The back end in in focus, yet not detailed in the first image, but is out of focus yet looks detailed in the second image.

Now ... if I guessed wrong and the first image is the Canon, then shame on them and bravo Fuji!

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Really? Man I can see the whole image if I scroll, I did that so we could see the whole thing at 100%. I left out the EXIF on purpose

You did guess right though,:) I noticed afterwards that the DOF was a dead give away. I was just amazed how close the fuji was to the canon. The sensor is a LOT smaller but the noise isn't a LOT worse, it's worse but not proportionally worse with reguard to sensor size differences.

No biggie though, for some reason no one ever finds my tests interesting on here. I would have thought two 100% images would be a good comparsion. No real major point to it, just that the fuji isn't as bad as I would have expected in low light compared to my DSLR. Carry on folks, I'll just lurk ;-)

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Ron777 said:
You did guess right though,:) I noticed afterwards that the DOF was a dead give away.
Click to expand...
DOF confirmed it for me. The loss of detail and 3-dimensionality if more obvious to me.
Ron777 said:
I was just amazed how close the fuji was to the canon. The sensor is a LOT smaller but the noise isn't a LOT worse, it's worse but not proportionally worse with reguard to sensor size differences.
Click to expand...
Fuji has always applied heavy NR ... and coupled with their better technology, it has always kept them within a stop or so in noise terms. But if detail retention is accounted for, they are several stops behind APS-C sensors ... no cheating the laws of physics.
Ron777 said:
No biggie though, for some reason no one ever finds my tests interesting on here. I would have thought two 100% images would be a good comparsion.
Click to expand...
They are ... and they confirm that, for subjects other than fine hair etc, the S100fs is a very fine camera at 800 ISO. But for hair, the difference is obvious.

By the way ... this is something Thom Hogan discusses in numerous posts ... people all see different levels of detail ... experienced eyes tend to see more than inexperienced eyes. So the responses to this kind of test will always be all over the map ...
Ron777 said:
No real major point to it, just that the fuji isn't as bad as I would have expected in low light compared to my DSLR. Carry on folks, I'll just lurk ;-)
Click to expand...
The S100fs is as good as it gets in small sensors ... but they cannot cheat, so they end up clumping hair and losing detail ... not bad at all, but enough to make the difference very obvious.

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I preume these were shot in JPEG? A realistic noise comparison should involve RAW capture from either camera with no in-camera noise reduction applied -- something you might want to carry out next.

From my subjective observations the S100fs sensor (without any integrated NR) is non-insignificantly noisy at anything above 100ISO, and thus significantly noisier compared to my D200 at the same ISO. Noise can creep in (esp. in shadow areas) even at 100ISO if there is even a slight underexposure.

I know this first hand -- because my usual shooting technique is to shoot handheld ISO100 raw in manual mode, using the lowest shutter speed practical with IS and the aperure I need, with supplemental lighting provided on the subject using a tiny flash with variable output -- Sunpak PF20XD. That way way I get proper lighting on the subject and the background is slightly dark (NOT black as in indiscriminate total flash shots). Shooting in this manner I frequently notice a little bit of noise in ISO100 shots where the background has been deliberately underexposed in this manner.

If the light is good this "known issue" just isn't there in ISO 100 shots. If I shoot JPEG under similar conditions the background is much cleaner thanks to built-in noise reduction but it takes a toll on fine detail.

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Arnab P Das
 
Arnab Pratim Das wrote:

Shooting in this manner I frequently notice a little bit of noise in ISO100 shots where the background has been deliberately underexposed in this manner.

Of course every camera will show noise when underexposed at base ISO.

The "increasing" of the sensitivity is nothing else than underexposing the sensor and turning up the amplifiers to maintain the brightness, so underexposed parts (when brightened up) have effectively a higher sensitivity than indicated.

Of course with a bigger sensor you can have more underexposure before noise becomes visible

SuperCCDs were always better than you may expect from the sensor size, but the difference isn´t that big and a lot of it is due to there clever NR-Algorithms.
 
yes, I agree for true noise comparisons, raw is best. I have done that test a few weeks ago, I'll post the shots below. this time though I was depending on fuji's jpeg NR as it's 'part of the package' in reguard to it's higher iso tricks.

here is the 'raw' truth so to speak.

tripod mounted, iso 400, timed shutter, IS off on both cams, natural light. Cropped, 100% shots





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Here is a real life example of how important it is to get exposure right on, and also the literal size of the fine details. The first shot I was a bit closer and the exposure was spot on. The second shot I was a bit further away and the light changes a little. Both those together caused the jpeg NR to kill the fine details of the bird





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To me the fuji blew the canon away on that one, but in fairness to the canon, it looks like it wasn't focused. There is just nothing about the dog that is close to the sharpness of the fuji ...so I have to conclude it just didn't focus, because that just shouldn't be.

jj
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I took quite a few with it, I think it's image stabilizer just wasn't up to those slow shutter speeds
jjlad said:
To me the fuji blew the canon away on that one, but in fairness to the canon, it looks like it wasn't focused. There is just nothing about the dog that is close to the sharpness of the fuji ...so I have to conclude it just didn't focus, because that just shouldn't be.

jj
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Click to expand...
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