Still loving the M6II, even more with new DXO

Larry Rexley wrote:

R2D2 wrote:

Larry Rexley wrote:

Deep Prime XD seems to be able to keep detail and eliminate the grain better, leaving an image that looks more like it was shot at a lower ISO, with less grain than the original Deep Prime could.

Yes, I figure all in all I'm getting an extra stop out of DPXD. That is darn substantial.

I just did some of my own tests, based on your comments and Alastair's assertion that he feels the M6ii is capable of usable ISO 25k shots.

I haven’t been quite brave enough to go that high yet (on any regular basis), but would now be confident to give it a try!

My findings support what you both say: My feeling was that with DPP4 I could only go to about ISO 3200... I was getting pretty messy results at ISO 6400.

Yup, that was exactly my limit with DPP.

With DxO PL4 and PL5's Deep Prime I felt that I could get consistently good results to about ISO 12,800 -- about two extra stops.

2 stops.  Right on.

With PL6 I think you're right --- I'm getting usable full-resolution images at ISO 25,600 or so! Above that the shadows start losing too much detail --- although Deep Prime XD can still clean up the noise, amazingly, and if you're careful, you can still get images that don't look like they were shot at such extreme ISOs with an APS-C camera.

Amazing what software has been able to do for the M System!

I've been having fun going back to some "challenging" previous images and reworking them with XD.

However, the settings to get to that optimal 'balance' point seem to be with less aggressive sharpness and Deep Prime intensity settings.

The actual settings are indeed completely different. It's fascinating finding the right balance. Some types of photos such as birds and bugs can be slammed hard. Others such as people need a gentler approach (as MAC pointed out).

With further tests I found the DeepPRIME XD settings at 'full pixel resolution' weren't as different as I thought. I was getting good results by switching from DeepPRIME to DeepPrime XD, bumping the DeepPRIME luminance down by 5 points, and changing to Wide Gamut color space. I did not change my sharpness or any other settings.

My DPXD settings are still all over the place.  People shots are the hardest, as you don’t want to turn them into “Groots” (ala GOTGalaxy).  MAC was right on about that.

The fact that you can use a lower luminance setting might reflect that the DeepPRIME XD is capable of a wider range of denoise, so they readjusted the scale?

Definitely.  Now each of us has to “adjust” that little scale in our heads!  

R2