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Quattro & Merrill Moon Shot
- Thread starter rick decker
- Start date
R
Raist3d
Guest
Thats not needed ;-) it’s not wishful thinking but basic truth Even one of the originalFoveon engineers said that much - color resolution it’s rather straight forward ;-) But to qualify that a bit further - under many color variation- scenes there’s some the Quattro would do betterSo much wishful thinking! Tell you what: you say it often enough, and who knows? It might come true!Well to be clear: I have seen this a lot. So much that it stopped me from ordering a refurbished Quattro. Not saying I have seen it on every Quattro shot. And on Merrill. Seems like a very narrow band of operation to get the good look. I also after looking over and over, overall, think under good light the Merrill has the best overall IQ. The Quattro has more reasonable IQ at higher ISO.
The DR of both is similar- you can shift the exposure up or down to match with Merrill more in highlights, and Quattro more in shadows.
The Merrill when it comes to color, under good light, it is the most detailed sensor
Yes, good question and the moon is a pretty bright object so it should help both foveons
R
Raist3d
Guest
Yup but the missing perspective here is how that cango both ways ;-)
It is also neutral grey, so colour resolution doesn't apply in this case.Thats not needed ;-) it’s not wishful thinking but basic truth Even one of the originalFoveon engineers said that much - color resolution it’s rather straight forward ;-) But to qualify that a bit further - under many color variation- scenes there’s some the Quattro would do betterSo much wishful thinking! Tell you what: you say it often enough, and who knows? It might come true!Well to be clear: I have seen this a lot. So much that it stopped me from ordering a refurbished Quattro. Not saying I have seen it on every Quattro shot. And on Merrill. Seems like a very narrow band of operation to get the good look. I also after looking over and over, overall, think under good light the Merrill has the best overall IQ. The Quattro has more reasonable IQ at higher ISO.
The DR of both is similar- you can shift the exposure up or down to match with Merrill more in highlights, and Quattro more in shadows.
The Merrill when it comes to color, under good light, it is the most detailed sensor
Yes, good question and the moon is a pretty bright object so it should help both foveons
The color blotches are for sure not due to the 1:1:4 architecture. This may impact pictures at pixel level, not large areas.
I think that the Quattro does worse than the SD1 simply because the luminance layer has smaller pixels. That doesn't help with noise and, therefore, also not with the color in gray areas due to the color transform from the layers to RGB.
In addition, the sdQ is less exposed (f8 vs. f5.6).
And both are taken at ISO400, which amplifies the noise of both cameras.
R
Raist3d
Guest
Yeah def.
Are you referring to Richard F Lyon? If so, he was the Chief Scientist - a cut above engineer level.
Indeed it is :-D
1P2P3M90
Active member
Aha, auch Merrill Kamera / Merrill Sensor besiedelt Dunst, oder?
Und Quattro Kamera / Quattro Sensor nicht, oder?
Und Quattro Kamera / Quattro Sensor nicht, oder?
richard stone
Veteran Member
Yes, sort of, but before we extrapolate the moon shot images to buying and use decisions...Well to be clear: I have seen this a lot. So much that it stopped me from ordering a refurbished Quattro. Not saying I have seen it on every Quattro shot. And on Merrill. Seems like a very narrow band of operation to get the good look. I also after looking over and over, overall, think under good light the Merrill has the best overall IQ. The Quattro has more reasonable IQ at higher ISO.
The DR of both is similar- you can shift the exposure up or down to match with Merrill more in highlights, and Quattro more in shadows.
The Merrill when it comes to color, under good light, it is the most detailed sensor
I bought the sdQ because it produced, as far as I was concerned, a more accurate image in most situations, and better/more accurate color, relative to the Merrill cameras. And it was virtually guaranteed (as a technical matter...) to more generally focus properly and with reasonable speed relative to the earlier Sigma/Foveon cameras. I still think that decision and the basis for it was substantially correct.
A LOT (a vague term, I know) of the look of the images we see from the Foveon sensor(s) relates to what amounts to PP. Some of that PP issue is obvious, like when we goose the whole image with higher contrast or vibrance or saturation. Or all three, and use "haze removal" by unsharp mask techniques. Some of it (what amounts to PP) in SPP is not obvious or may even be even hidden from view in SPP.
A separate issue exists in terms of the "hidden charm" of the Merrill sensor in that it seemingly converts what amounts to noise into an enhanced image. This often looks like enhanced surface detail. It may only be aliasing. But it gives a striking immediacy to the Merrill image.
I have now shot several hundred decent images with the sdQ and it is both exquisite and sometimes difficult. In my view it produces in general a more "realistic" image (more like what people see) compared to the Merrill sensor. And it focuses quite accurately. And as Gate Bois has shown, repeatedly, with RT as a PP program the effective ISO of the Q is from 100 up to about 800, and possibly up to 1600 with decent light. It is unlikely that SPP is fully developed in terms of getting all there is from even the current Q sensor, but it's still very good.
The sdQ also produces excellent jpg files right out of the camera and gives good RAW files up to about ISO 400, without requiring PP in RT. And in theory, and generally in practice, it will produce a more "detailed" image than the Merrill. This particular example seems to be perfectly designed, although I think not intended, to show some remaining issues with the Q sensor and current SPP.
ToasterFlyer
Veteran Member
Anyone who picks the Q over the M needs their eyes checked and or a new puter screen...honestly now. Q has wacky color blotches not too mention I had no idea the Moon was made of sand..
Sigma needs to seriously work on their Q sensor or re-release a new M sensor.
R.
Sigma needs to seriously work on their Q sensor or re-release a new M sensor.
R.
rick decker
Forum Pro
2 and 2 - taken that evening and about the same time. On dropbox so if you are interested, sed me a PM with your email.
Rick
Rick
TN Args
Forum Pro
I didn't realise until opening the raws that the photos are taken at ISO400 (although it rings a bell now that someone mentioned it somewhere).
A pity as both raw files are quite deeply underexposed (or pre-amplified). Shoot at ISO100 and fill those wells.... the Moon is a really bright subject.
Anyway I will look more closely, but I usually avoid Foveon forensics above base ISO -- just not what they are made for.
A pity as both raw files are quite deeply underexposed (or pre-amplified). Shoot at ISO100 and fill those wells.... the Moon is a really bright subject.
Anyway I will look more closely, but I usually avoid Foveon forensics above base ISO -- just not what they are made for.
TN Args
Forum Pro
Always make judgements like that at base ISO. If you want to use your camera off base ISO for critical IQ applications, don't get Foveon, simple.
The problem is you cannot wake up someone who is pretending to be sleeping.
There is no need to work on this flawed design. It can never achieve the True Foveon quality. It has been almost 4 years since it was introduced, but still struggling with a lot of issues. Sigma should go back to the original 1:1:1 format.
--
FOVEON X3® (2003-2014)
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TN Args
Forum Pro
OK I have looked at the two 500mm photos (raw files, thanks Rick), and applied what I would call my basic processing in SPP, which is minimal sharpening and noise reduction except for colour noise -- which was excessive in the Quattro pic -- then resized in RT to match.
Nothing changes in terms of preference: the Merrill is far preferable to the rather ordinary Quattro image in this ISO 400 comparison. No matter what the reason, it is not even close.
Rick's Merrill bottom left, Rick's Quattro bottom right. ISO 100 Quattro at 1200mm (budget 150-600 zoom +2x TCV) top centre © Kazua on flickr
But reasons do matter. I have no idea if this is typical of the two cameras at ISO 400. Like I said in my post above, I don't really bother above ISO 100. But it is not typical of what ISO 100 delivers in terrestrial photos -- or in the third-party moon image above. So there must be a reason -- either the ISO/exposure, or something about technique, because no doubt the Quattro was not delivering at its limit. I don't know enough about non-terrestrial photography to speculate on other reasons.
cheers
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rick decker
Forum Pro
Hi TN:
The first Quattro shot was shot at 1/500 f8 ISO400/500mmx1.5.
Plug in f8/ISO400/500mmx1.5, and day2 after full moon. I think it was day 1 which would have meant an even faster shutter speed. It calculates 1/1000 sec.
What did you use to evaluate the correct exposure?
The first Quattro shot was shot at 1/500 f8 ISO400/500mmx1.5.
Loading…
xjubier.free.fr
Plug in f8/ISO400/500mmx1.5, and day2 after full moon. I think it was day 1 which would have meant an even faster shutter speed. It calculates 1/1000 sec.
What did you use to evaluate the correct exposure?
R
Raist3d
Guest
I am not extrapolating buying and use decisions, I spoke for myself and myself only.Yes, sort of, but before we extrapolate the moon shot images to buying and use decisions...Well to be clear: I have seen this a lot. So much that it stopped me from ordering a refurbished Quattro. Not saying I have seen it on every Quattro shot. And on Merrill. Seems like a very narrow band of operation to get the good look. I also after looking over and over, overall, think under good light the Merrill has the best overall IQ. The Quattro has more reasonable IQ at higher ISO.
The DR of both is similar- you can shift the exposure up or down to match with Merrill more in highlights, and Quattro more in shadows.
The Merrill when it comes to color, under good light, it is the most detailed sensor
I don't quite agree that the theory dictates that. But the rest, sure. But I to be clear, I only spoke for myself for a buying choice.
Going back to the moon shot, the Quattro should do well here too.
Was there some particular reason for selecting 400 ISO, Rick?
I would have used RawDigger and checked for no more than about 1/2 EV down in the brightest layer, excluding outliers.
At 400 ISO both cameras would have failed that input-referred test, eh, Arg? ;-)
This was interesting:
ftp://ftp.nist.gov/pub/physics/lunarproject/References/Lunar_Measurements/2003_Lun_Plan_Sci_Lawrence.pdf
It seems like a full-spectrum shot might be a good thing **, going by the graph at the end of the link. Or maybe not ...
** converted to gray-scale of course.
--
Ted
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TN Args
Forum Pro
That is, indeed, the question.
Correct. And of course, you simply won't get within -2 EV, shooting at ISO 400.
Badly.
After cropping out most of the black space. Approx 2.5 stops of 'headroom'.
TN Args
Forum Pro
As a matter of small interest, here is the top layer Quattro from the above image, with a bit of PP since they tend to be low-contrast. As you can see from the "Blue" Rawdigger histogram above, this image could have been exposed +3EV to greatly reduce noise.
sdQ+500mm Top layer, added contrast and minor sharpening. Original © Rick Decker
sdQ+500mm Top layer, added contrast and minor sharpening. Original © Rick Decker
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