EX2F ISO400 to ISO800 quality change and ISO800 RAW

Over all I think the EX2F is an excellent camera, and it is almost perfect for what I wanted. It does however have some drawbacks of which the high ISO quality drop is often the subject. After looking through all the sample photos I could find on the web I noticed that there seemed to be a sudden drop in quality from ISO400 to ISO800, but it looks to me like Samsung changes the noise reduction algorithm at ISO800 and above to something much more aggressive and the image quality suffers from that. I decided to test that idea and see if you could get some quality back from RAW. Also, the ISO800 images also looked over sharpened to me so I decided to test and see if adjusting the sharpness setting down would help. Here are some 100% crops and full size test photos to look at.

There is an ISO800 from RAW that I did some basic processing on it the Samsung RAW converter. With more time and skill I’m sure you could get an even better output.

There is also an ISO800, ISO400 and ISO200. The dash number at the end of the file name is the setting of the sharpness adjustment. They are all default of 0 except the one ISO800-2 which had the sharpness set to minus 2. I took many other photos I could post if you really want.

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My conclusion is that you can get much better quality out of raw and that Samsung should work on the noise reduction for high ISO. I will have to say though I had some trouble trying to quickly match the overall color, contrast, and noise that is in JPG done by the camera. That means the Samsung may have tried for image quality that looks best on a screen even though they lost some of the detail when you zoom into the photo. I hope that they adjust the algorithm to get that detail back.

Another interesting thing is how the moire pattern on the face almost goes away at ISO800. I don't for sure but since the change in the moire is so large between ISO400 and ISO800 I think that also points to the camera doing more processing above ISO400. The RAW also has very little moire pattern at iso800 so it could just be the loss of detail that causes the moire drop at ISO800. I don't know for sure or how to test that, but I do see how extra processing would change it. I took a close up just above the eye so you could see the pattern that caused the moire.

Overall, the high ISO JPG detail is not a big deal to me when you compare it against having the flip out screen, and lens mount thread, and RAW. You will never notice the detail loss until you make large prints. I mostly print my photos 4x6 and those prints are too small to see a difference. Also, if you really want the quality just use the RAW file.

P.S. Extra points go to those who can name the characters and other little items in the photo.