Reading mode: Light Dark

Three new SD9 pics - all for now

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phil Askey
  • Start date Start date
Go to last post
Adam Trachtenberg said:
Maybe it is the lens, but the SD9 is clearly resolving more
detail--most apparent in the roof tiles which are completely
smeared in the D60 image.
Click to expand...
If you resize the D60 image to match the SD-9 size, it's not quite so appearent, particularly given the lens differences. Certainly Geir's spires (does that rhyme?) show up in both.

And why is it than when the SD-9 is criticised, we are taken to task for pixel picking but it's always fair when it's to the SD-9's advantage? ;-)

--
Erik
 
ResIpsaLoquitur said:
.

Why? We can look and judge these images for ourselves. I'm sure
Phil will do a careful review as always, but I don't need any
review to tell me what I can see from the examples myself. I am
impressed by the technology and its potential, but there are
issues, and the quality is just a tad short, in my view, of the
D100/D60/ S2.
Click to expand...
The reason I say wait is because the same pictures are argued by different people with totally different views. Who is to say who is right?

I know what my eyes see and I see mainly extremely sharp detailed images.

CA is an issue with a lot of cameras including the D60. You will see the CA in most shots where CA is conducive irregardless of the camera.

Noise is another issue and thd SD9 may be limited in that regard. I cleaned up a couple of the SD9 night pics and they looked great to me. If night shooting is a must then get another camera. For me it isn't an issue.
ResIpsaLoquitur said:
RIL
Click to expand...
--
Regards,
Gavin
Canon Pro90IS, B-300 Canon Pro 70
 
Probably not. Foliage looks noisy as it is. :-)

The SD9 may be the ideal outdoor, sunshiny, woodsy, daytime camera. Heheheheh...

I'm just hoping it can do at least okay in the dark just to at least keep in the running.
Karl Guttag said:
It is really hard to know without seeing several side by side shots
of the exact same set up. The SD9 appears to be noisy in the
Green channel, but this may not be noticable in foliage.

--
Karl
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Repository of Some of My Stuff
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4291269101

I'm an uncle!!!

 
The purpose of the reviews like these is not only in the impressions of the reviewer, but the hard data that they produce, as well as the galleries of images that come from experienced photographers such as these. The sum total of all of that carries a certain weight, just like anyone's qualifications for a certain job help to make a hiring decision that much easier.
ResIpsaLoquitur said:
Why? We can look and judge these images for ourselves. I'm sure
Phil will do a careful review as always, but I don't need any
review to tell me what I can see from the examples myself. I am
impressed by the technology and its potential, but there are
issues, and the quality is just a tad short, in my view, of the
D100/D60/ S2.

RIL
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Repository of Some of My Stuff
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4291269101

I'm an uncle!!!

 
...I have been working with some fresh images from Phil, and made an experiment with fairly similar pair of shots (SD9 and Fuji S2), "give-or-take".

SD9 image was upsampled to 3600x2400 @ 314 dpi (11"x8"), whereas the S2 image was down-sampled to the same resolution, in order to exactly match the vertical resolution and density of the Olympus P400 printer.

Both crops are shown below, side-by-side, @100%, with no other post-processing except the Bi-cubic re-sampling (left SD9 and right is S2):



My conclusion, besides the substantial resolution advantage of the S2, is that SD9 surprisingly scales up fairly well, as we can see from the above example. You may not be able to go detailed enough to 20x30, but it may hold its own, if you can not afford other cameras that will, indeed, help you get closer, with higher amounts of captured detail.

Kind regards,

Ferenc
Peter Gregg said:
The 70-200 EX HSM 2.8 lens is as sharp as Canon's L lens. That lens
and the 50mm both come in with the same kinds on numbers as the
Canon L lenses. This should make the lens issue a nonissue and see
what this sensor means for our pictures.

I am interested in how big you can make salable prints?

Will it function like a 9mp sensor for enlargements or will it
function like a 3mp sensor for enlargements?

Can we regularly sell 20x30's from this sensor as a pro print?

Is the camera itself good enough to shoot weddings with?

Will the Sigma 500 flash with it's AF assist work with the SD9 to
help in low lighting?

Is the auto focus at least as good as the Canon D30/D60?

Will the camera work with other flash units like an Auto Thyristor
flash?

Peter Gregg
Click to expand...
 
Rather subjective on both our parts, wouldn't you agree? I like what I see in the x3. You're entitled to your opinion.
Peter G said:
With double the pixel total and qualtiy recover algorithms, Bayer
cameras do a very nice job and quite comparable to X3.

In fact in direct comparison so far, it looks better than X3.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=3711448
Michael OHara said:
Peter G said:
There is no advantage to have more detail/pixel when you are printing.

3mp with 100% optimal detail and 6mp with 50% of optimal detail
will print the same.

Peter
Michael OHara said:
Peter G said:
Michael OHara said:
Peter G said:
The camera gets a tremendous psychological edge because when
looking at 100% size image, it looks better than everything that
has preceded it. I don't know how this takes anyone by surprise, it
is pretty much expected.
Click to expand...
Thank you for helping make my point. People do sometimes get up
close to look at my work in a gallery or installation but most
often they're interested in the subject matter and how it looks
displayed as a finished image.

Apparent softness in an image or part of an image is often
intentional and can be advantageous to the meaning of the image.
There is way too much emphasis placed on absolute sharpness in all
DSLR discussion as far as I'm concerned. I have some exceptional
images made with a 480x680 Hitachi MPEG 1A digicam several years
ago, the original digi point-n-shoot that Hitachi never marketed
correctly. Pixelated a bit? Sure. Thrilling images? I and others
seem to think so. It's a classic debate between technology and art
as far as I'm concerned. I'm more interested in the creative side
of photography. The 'good SD9' images that have been posted so far
show me enough to know this camera will be an exceptional creative
tool. Other's may disagree depending on their needs and wants.

--
Michael OHara / WetPlanet / Honolulu
http://www.DiveSlates.com
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Michael OHara / WetPlanet / Honolulu
http://www.DiveSlates.com
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Michael OHara / WetPlanet / Honolulu
http://www.DiveSlates.com
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Michael OHara / WetPlanet / Honolulu
http://www.DiveSlates.com
 
And on the last picture?

If it is just DOF out-of-focus-ness, the this lens has unattractive bokeh.
Karl Guttag said:
When you take a close up, the Depth of field gets very short unless
the aperture is very small (high F-number).

On something like the shot of the leaf, the DoF was probably about
1 inch (2.54 cm).
Click to expand...
 
Karl Guttag said:
What I was hoping for was that X3 would perform better than Bayer
in low light applications rather than worse.
Click to expand...
Cant help but agree with this. So far, the low light images from the SD9 are a real deal breaker for me. There is no way I would get a camera that performs so poorly in these conditions. Hopefully Foveon can fix this.
 
yes, it's a ridiculous comparison to make. the d60's shot is obviously more side-lit. whereas the sd9's shot seems to have been shot in slightly more overcast conditions. the spire will, of course, show up better when being side lit rather than flat lit.

i'm only a casual observer of these forums. my interest has been piqued by the foveon. although i recently cancelled my order with ssd due to other circumstances. karl, it's becoming increasingly obvious that you must still own a lot of TI stock for you to be constantly and unfairly bashing the foveon sensor. the only good thing you can find to say about the technology is a backhanded compliment. do you really believe that EVERYBODY else who likes the sd9 images are just philistines or don't have the "eyes" for it? personally, i am an art director by trade, and i find the sd9, especially at its price point, to be an amazing value.

your technical knowledge is fantastic, but you seem to have the maturity of a child.
 
Well I'd say those are very impressive looking images.

I've gotten used to evaluating images on my computer
moniter, which is something like 72 dpi (depending on
screen resolution).

One thing I can say about all SD-9 samples I've seen -
they look very good on my monitor. When I set my
monitor to 1024x768 they look very detailed. On
a pixel by pixel basis they are clearly more detailed
then any bayer sensor produced image I've seen. No
need to blow things up or do side by side comparisons.

A camera like the canon 1ds has very impressive resolution,
but its images still look softer when viewed at the same
DPI - by looking the images on ones monitor for example.
No doubt you get get a better print from the 1ds because
of its higher intrinsic resolution, but the SD9 appears to
have an advantage in producing a higher quality 'pixel'
in the first place.

There are some issues with noise, and
more importantly strange image (purple fringe demons)
artifacts - but nothing I've seen has been bad enough
to destroy the Foveon as a concept - it looks very
promising.

-Eric
 
Eric Bazan said:
[...]
A camera like the canon 1ds has very impressive resolution,
but its images still look softer when viewed at the same
DPI - by looking the images on ones monitor for example.
No doubt you get get a better print from the 1ds because
of its higher intrinsic resolution, but the SD9 appears to
have an advantage in producing a higher quality 'pixel'
in the first place.
Click to expand...
I don't mean to be blunt, but if the print is better, there is less noise, and the operation of the camera is better, how is this an advantage? OK, price versus the 1Ds certainly.

In the future this ought to be more of an advantage, when the mosaic sensors start having to get obnoxiously small pixel spacing to increase MP (past 16MP I think this will be an issue), and Foveon-type sensors can then step in. A 16MP full-frame Foveon would be pretty cool.

It's funny since I am always seeing people say, "the final print is the only measure," and so far I've actually disagreed somewhat -- otherwise I'd be using a 4x5 film camera, but there are host of reasons why I prefer 35mm digital. Hmm -- I could argue that the D30 has better quality per "pixel" than an 8x10 film camera. Of course that 8x10 has just a few more pixels.
 
Ulysses said:
Probably not. Foliage looks noisy as it is. :-)
Click to expand...
Yes, that is why it is hard to tell much about the camera quality from foliage.
Member said:
The SD9 may be the ideal outdoor, sunshiny, woodsy, daytime camera.
Heheheheh...
Click to expand...
Direct Sun shine is probably one of the most demanding conditions for photography, particularly digitals and the evidence so far is that the SD9 has problems with bright light. The SD9 seems to have problems with bright to dark contrast and gets purple blowouts and then there are bright saturated Reds/Oranges turning white (such as the picture of the traffic cone turning white in the horse track shot).

It would seem that the SD9 would do best on low contrast days like overcast conditions.

I have a lot of problems with the SD9 as a general use camera based on my experience with a D30. I think there are way too many conditions where the SD9 would not be usable. Such as:

Sunny days - blown out colors and purple blowouts

Night time - blown out lights and noisey at higher ISO

Sports - Even kids sports are best shot at 1/500th or faster shutter speed to cut down motion blur. On sunny days you have to worry about blow outs (this is an issue for any digital and even film, but seems particularly bad on the SD9). Most longer zooms which are often used to capture sports are F5.6 (at the long end) and on cloudy days, late afternoon or early morning you will have to be at ISO400 to ISO800 to keep the shutter speed up. The performance of the SD9 at high ISOs it not good compared to other cameras. So I can't see shooting kids sports except on bright overcast (thin clouds).

Flash - I often shoot at ISO400 with flash to reduce the harshness of the flash and to take advantage of available light (to keep it from looking like people are standing in the dark). This would not be an issue with studio lighting, but with typical candid shots it is a big issue.

So the way I see it, an SD9 would sit in the closet waiting for the "right" conditions. Most amatuers need a general purpose camera and not one for just taking still lifes on overcast days.

Karl
Member said:
I'm just hoping it can do at least okay in the dark just to at
least keep in the running.
Karl Guttag said:
It is really hard to know without seeing several side by side shots
of the exact same set up. The SD9 appears to be noisy in the
Green channel, but this may not be noticable in foliage.

--
Karl
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Repository of Some of My Stuff
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4291269101

I'm an uncle!!!

Click to expand...
--
Karl
 
admactanium said:
yes, it's a ridiculous comparison to make. the d60's shot is
obviously more side-lit. whereas the sd9's shot seems to have been
shot in slightly more overcast conditions. the spire will, of
course, show up better when being side lit rather than flat lit.
Click to expand...
Geir Ove postulated that Bayer camera could not capture the spike, but a D60 taken from the same place could. That was flat not true and typical of some of the comments about Bayer sensors. I would agree that it is not a "fair" test since too many conditions are different.
admactanium said:
i'm only a casual observer of these forums. my interest has been
piqued by the foveon. although i recently cancelled my order with
ssd due to other circumstances. karl, it's becoming increasingly
obvious that you must still own a lot of TI stock for you to be
constantly and unfairly bashing the foveon sensor.
Click to expand...
What an absurd statement. To begin with, nothing that Foveon did good or bad (or their partnership with National) with the X3 would have any measurable effect on TI stock price.
admactanium said:
the only good
thing you can find to say about the technology is a backhanded
compliment. do you really believe that EVERYBODY else who likes the
sd9 images are just philistines or don't have the "eyes" for it?
personally, i am an art director by trade, and i find the sd9,
especially at its price point, to be an amazing value.
Click to expand...
The X3 was much overhyped in Februrary of 2002. The technology has a lot of seroius problem for practical everyday use by most photographers when compared to the other DSLR offering. The "Everybody" you refer to seems to be limited mostly to some of the people on this forum. Discussions of the X3 concept have largely died out on the other forums including the "Pro Digital."

Most of the "eyes" you are talking about are from people that have been using consumer digital cameras and not higher quality DSLRs. I think this also goes for their experience in what to expect from a DSLR.

I'm not a pro photographer, but I have taken about 20,000 pictures with my D30 under a wide variety of shooting conditions and subject matter. Based on what I have seen from the SD9, the SD9 would only be usuable a fraction of the time. Under ideal lighting the SD9 would likely do better than a D30 but often a photographer cannot control the lighting.

There are a lot of OBJECTIVE problems with the SD9 and it seems best used in only limited conditions where the lighting does not show up one of its issues -- purple blow outs, Reds disappearing, low ISO, noise in flat colors even at ISO100.

Certainly non of the digital cameras today is perfect, it certainly seems that the SD9 is vastly more limited in the conditions under which it can take good pictures. If all you want to take is pictures of still lifes under overcast conditions, the SD9 may be fine, but it leaves a lot to be desired as a general used DSLR. There are way too many conditions were it cannot compete with the other DSLRs.

--
Karl
 
As I get to see more samples I'm beginning to get a feeling for the Foveon "look". Like everyone else I check out the obvious things like the spires on Tower Bridge, and I'm impressed by the existence of real edges (look at the cab of the crane in the SD9 shot and compare to the D60). But more important for me are the areas of low contrast that define surfaces. The stonework on the bridge and the embankment of the far side of the river show the advantage (to my eyes) of the Foveon. The D60 image is typical of the usual digital look: broad areas of subtle tonal variation have a mushy look and there's no way to recover the sense of "surface" in post processing. The SD9 stone just seems stonier and more clearly localized in space to me. It seems that each pixel knows what color and brightness it wants to be without hedging. In film terms the difference reminds me of the difference between using a high-acutance (crisper, grainier) versus a fine-grain (softer, smoother) developer. Very subjective I know...John K.

--
JLK
 
Karl Guttag said:
Direct Sun shine is probably one of the most demanding conditions
for photography, particularly digitals and the evidence so far is
that the SD9 has problems with bright light. The SD9 seems to
have problems with bright to dark contrast and gets purple blowouts
and then there are bright saturated Reds/Oranges turning white
(such as the picture of the traffic cone turning white in the horse
track shot).
Click to expand...
But in general, overall, that horse track picture isn't really so bad.
And Phil's "Tower Bridge" picture is fine too. And, in fact, during
the last 5 weeks I have seen plenty of pictures taken on sunny
days with the SD9 that were perfectly fine, pretty much.

Another thing I just noticed is over at State Street Direct, their
"package number 1" prices. For myself I've never owned any
SLR, so I would probably get one of their package deals... if I
were in the buying mood.

The Canon D60 comes, in their package #1, with a 28-200mm lens.
And the Sigma comes with a 28-135mm lens, in package #1.
So it's not exactly comparing apples to apples, but just the same,
for the Sigma the package price is $1989. For the Canon D60 the
package price is $2689.

A $700 difference is a lot of money. And I really think to say the
SD9 has problems in sunlight is going a just a bit too far. Maybe if
you wanted to say "the SD9 sometimes has minor problems
in sunlight", then we could agree, but... your statement, as it
is, is going too far in my opinion.
 
Paul,

I'm not sure exactly what your are refering to. In the shot of the leaf the DoF was very small.

There does seem to be a problem with the X3 sensor with colors separating as the radius increases. Many on this forum try to write it off as lens aberations and while some of it may be due to lens aberations, I think there is another effect caused by the angle of the light hitting the X3 pixels.

As the image radiates out from the center, the light hits the pixels at ever steeper angles. There are several potential problems that Digital sensors can be prone to. The optical properties of various optical coating and interfaces (air to glass say) varies with the angle of the light. Secondly there are physical issue with the structures of the device. And third there are issues of the light entering and an angle. And in the case of the X3 there may be issues of how the light penetrates the silicon based on the angle.

Bokeh is always a tough thing to judge on a random picture unless it is very bad (like a mirror lens).

Karl
Paul Callahan said:
If it is just DOF out-of-focus-ness, the this lens has unattractive
bokeh.
Karl Guttag said:
When you take a close up, the Depth of field gets very short unless
the aperture is very small (high F-number).

On something like the shot of the leaf, the DoF was probably about
1 inch (2.54 cm).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Karl
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top