Who cares about moire?

[CAcreeks]

Looking at the past year's camera introductions, you would think moire is the biggest photographic problem facing mankind.

X-Trans seems to have been designed primarily to show that Fujifilm could devise something Kodak didn't (Bayer sensor) and secondarily to reduce moire.

Nikon and (later) Sony introduced models that come with either AA filter to reduce moire, or without to increase resolution.

Pentax devises a whole new way of shaking the sensor to reduce or eliminate moire without an AA filter.

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Otherwise it seems camera vendors are solving a non-problem.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

CAcreeks wrote:

Looking at the past year's camera introductions, you would think moire is the biggest photographic problem facing mankind.

X-Trans seems to have been designed primarily to show that Fujifilm could devise something Kodak didn't (Bayer sensor) and secondarily to reduce moire.

Nikon and (later) Sony introduced models that come with either AA filter to reduce moire, or without to increase resolution.

Pentax devises a whole new way of shaking the sensor to reduce or eliminate moire without an AA filter.

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Otherwise it seems camera vendors are solving a non-problem.

It can be a real problem, especially with cameras with a small number of megapixels, and when downsampling an image.







I think you might be misunderstanding the industry trends. As far as I can remember, all digital cameras incorporated antialias filters to prevent moiré effects; once high megapixel cameras were developed, manufactures started removing antialias filters — Nikon D800E, some medium format backs, etc. It simply is less of a problem these days; formerly, moiré was quite common.





--

The Refracted Light

A website about the Art and Science of Photography

therefractedlight.blogspot.com

 

[CAcreeks]

Mark Scott Abeln wrote:

It can be a real problem, especially with cameras with a small number of megapixels, and when downsampling an image.

Thanks for the nice examples.

These would be problematic whether the original image had moire, or not. Here is an interesting discussion:

Reducing moire when downsampling

Also this one by Nicoholas Robidoux and his famous ImageMagick filters. Photoshop is possibly bottom of the barrel when it comes to downsampling. Were your examples from PS?

Search this for moir (avoid e acute)

I think you might be misunderstanding the industry trends. As far as I can remember, all digital cameras incorporated antialias filters to prevent moiré effects; once high megapixel cameras were developed, manufactures started removing antialias filters — Nikon D800E, some medium format backs, etc. It simply is less of a problem these days; formerly, moiré was quite common.

Well, the Pentax model goes counter-trend (based on the trend you describe) and I-R.com has stated that they believe removal of the AA filter is a mistake.

Hardly anybody views images at 100% zoom nowadays, so the downsampling is far more important than camera hardware.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

CAcreeks wrote:

Mark Scott Abeln wrote:

It can be a real problem, especially with cameras with a small number of megapixels, and when downsampling an image.

Thanks for the nice examples.

These would be problematic whether the original image had moire, or not. Here is an interesting discussion:

Reducing moire when downsampling

Also this one by Nicoholas Robidoux and his famous ImageMagick filters. Photoshop is possibly bottom of the barrel when it comes to downsampling. Were your examples from PS?

Search this for moir (avoid e acute)

The first image was simply a crop of my original image. The second was downsampled in Photoshop using nearest neighbor — and so is a worst case. Both of these are from an article I wrote a while back:

http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com/2010/12/problem-of-resizing-images.html

By the way, I can’t read the links you shared — I’m on a Mac.

I think you might be misunderstanding the industry trends. As far as I can remember, all digital cameras incorporated antialias filters to prevent moiré effects; once high megapixel cameras were developed, manufactures started removing antialias filters — Nikon D800E, some medium format backs, etc. It simply is less of a problem these days; formerly, moiré was quite common.

Well, the Pentax model goes counter-trend (based on the trend you describe) and I-R.com has stated that they believe removal of the AA filter is a mistake.

Hardly anybody views images at 100% zoom nowadays, so the downsampling is far more important than camera hardware.

Well, there are good reasons for having an AA filter, but not having one does make an image appear to be sharper. Of greater importance, or at least I’ve been told, is the demosaicing algorithm used.

 

[brianj]

CAcreeks wrote:

Looking at the past year's camera introductions, you would think moire is the biggest photographic problem facing mankind.

X-Trans seems to have been designed primarily to show that Fujifilm could devise something Kodak didn't (Bayer sensor) and secondarily to reduce moire.

Nikon and (later) Sony introduced models that come with either AA filter to reduce moire, or without to increase resolution.

Pentax devises a whole new way of shaking the sensor to reduce or eliminate moire without an AA filter.

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Otherwise it seems camera vendors are solving a non-problem.

I haven't had a problem with moire for years, it would rate way behind the need for more DR in my list of must haves. I must add though that any feature that we crave must not come with other baggage that is worse than the thing it tries to cure.

Brian

 

[Glen Barrington]

But to tell the truth, I've never encountered it in my photos, so it isn't something that is high on my list of things to worry about. And when selecting a camera, if all other things are equal, I would select a camera with a reputation for minimizing it, but if things aren't equal, I might opt for some other feature first.

 

[Basalite]

Mark Scott Abeln wrote:

CAcreeks wrote:

Looking at the past year's camera introductions, you would think moire is the biggest photographic problem facing mankind.

X-Trans seems to have been designed primarily to show that Fujifilm could devise something Kodak didn't (Bayer sensor) and secondarily to reduce moire.

Nikon and (later) Sony introduced models that come with either AA filter to reduce moire, or without to increase resolution.

Pentax devises a whole new way of shaking the sensor to reduce or eliminate moire without an AA filter.

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Otherwise it seems camera vendors are solving a non-problem.

It can be a real problem, especially with cameras with a small number of megapixels, and when downsampling an image.





I think you might be misunderstanding the industry trends. As far as I can remember, all digital cameras incorporated antialias filters to prevent moiré effects; once high megapixel cameras were developed, manufactures started removing antialias filters — Nikon D800E, some medium format backs, etc. It simply is less of a problem these days; formerly, moiré was quite common.

Sigma cameras with Foveon sensors have never had moire.

--
http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com

 

[kixigvaq]

Back in the 60s there were all sorts of posters utilizing moire patterns. Staring at them made you feel like your dope was better than it actually was.

 

[hjulenissen]

CAcreeks wrote:

Looking at the past year's camera introductions, you would think moire is the biggest photographic problem facing mankind.

I think it is the other way around. Looking at the recent camera introductions, it would seem that moire is quickly becoming something that mankind does not care about.

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Otherwise it seems camera vendors are solving a non-problem.

How can the color accuracy of catalogs be an indicator of how important moire is? Perhaps those images were shot by caring pros, but the economy of printing caused color variance. Would things have been any better if moire/aliasing was thrown into the mix?

Moire is not a problem for most of us, but then 1:1 sharpness at 16MP is not critical for most of us either. I think I can live with OLPF or without, but I'd sleep just a little easier with.

The big techno-economic issue is (perhaps): now that DSLRs have gotten so god, compact cameras have gotten so good and even up-scale cellphone cameras have gotten so good... what should camera manufacturers do to convince me and you and our mothers to part with our hard-earned cash for new cameras? More MP? Less moire? Better AF? Integration of social media?

-h

 

[Tom Axford]

Moire patterns may not be very common, but they can be quite annoying when they occur and they can occasionally ruin an otherwise good image.

However, Moire patterns are just one manifestation of the sorts of errors that occur in images captured without an AA filter (assuming the lens has a resolving power greater than that of the pixel array in the sensor). Such images contain a very large amount of false detail. Moire patterns are the only very large scale errors that occur, most of the other errors are just in the detail and only really visible to pixel-peepers. However, the only point in using a camera without an AA filter is if you are a pixel-peeper and want more detail than you see with images taken with an AA filter.

Another type of error that occurs is the appearance of jaggies on straight edges. However, there are many other errors of detail that are not obvious even to pixel-peepers unless you know what the subject actually looked like at that level of detail.

Personally, I would much rather have an image that is slightly blurred (i.e. contains less detail) rather than one that appears sharp but has a very large amount of false detail and errors such as Moire patterns.

 

[ray s james]

Those were the days!

 

[TFergus]

CAcreeks wrote:

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

The fact that your understanding of "pro" ends with catalogs and web pages, tells me you probably have no grasp on what may or may not be a problem for photographers.

 

[Bill Robb]

CAcreeks wrote:

Maybe pro photographers care about moire, but judging by the extremely poor color accuracy we see in product catalogs and on the web, I would have to question how pro the pros really are.

Consider that anyone with a couple of hundred dollars to spend can be a "professional" photographer. It's not like as if there is any sort of certification program. If the medical profession worked the same way, anyone with an X-Acto knive could be a surgeon.

 

[Mike CH]

Regards, Mike

 

[CAcreeks]

Mark Scott Abeln wrote:

By the way, I can’t read the links you shared — I’m on a Mac.

My apologies, it was a copy & paste error. But seriously, you can't read Microsoft websites on a Mac? Jeesh!

These would be problematic whether the original image had moire, or not. Here is an interesting discussion:

Reducing moire when downsampling

Also this one by about the famous ImageMagick filters.

Nicholas Robidoux on downsampling

 

[CAcreeks]

brianj wrote:

I haven't had a problem with moire for years, it would rate way behind the need for more DR in my list of must haves. I must add though that any feature that we crave must not come with other baggage that is worse than the thing it tries to cure.

Do you think X-Trans is too much baggage? Poor and/or belated support from Adobe, green detail smudging at times, etc.

A previous poster mentioned Sigma. I am extremely impressed by Foveon images, but not so sure about color rendition.

 

[CAcreeks]

hjulenissen wrote:

How can the color accuracy of catalogs be an indicator of how important moire is? Perhaps those images were shot by caring pros, but the economy of printing caused color variance.

It just seems weird that a whole industry was built up around printing, and catalogs still cannot show the right color. It might be worse on the web than in printed catalogs.

There are many other things I dislike about pro photography, such as showing off shallow DOF, and blurred waterfalls, and B&W ... but these are largely a matter of taste. Inaccurate color in product descriptions is actually a commercial problem.

The big techno-economic issue is (perhaps): now that DSLRs have gotten so god, compact cameras have gotten so good and even up-scale cellphone cameras have gotten so good... what should camera manufacturers do to convince me and you and our mothers to part with our hard-earned cash for new cameras? More MP? Less moire? Better AF? Integration of social media?

Better highlight detail (dynamic range) would be my choice. Fuji already solved it with EXR but few people cared.

The items you suggest, and WiFi (maybe that's under the rubric of social media) are in progress. The WiFi implementations I've seen are atrocious, however.

 

[CAcreeks]

Mark Scott Abeln wrote:

The first image was simply a crop of my original image. The second was downsampled in Photoshop using nearest neighbor — and so is a worst case. Both of these are from an article I wrote a while back:

http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com/2010/12/problem-of-resizing-images.html

Excellent essay - 2 thumbs up. Thanks for directing my attention to it.

I wonder how the B&W brick wall would look if downsampled by Lanczos3 (Sinc) ?

 

[Bill Robb]

CAcreeks wrote:
Better highlight detail (dynamic range) would be my choice. Fuji already solved it with EXR but few people cared.

Cameras exist that have a 14 stop dynamic range. Consider that most scenes won't encompass more than 7 stops. If DR is a problem for you, you really need to learn how to expose properly.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

CAcreeks wrote:

http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com/2010/12/problem-of-resizing-images.html

Excellent essay - 2 thumbs up. Thanks for directing my attention to it.

Thanks. Usually I try to include analogies whenever I’m dealing with difficult theory.

I wonder how the B&W brick wall would look if downsampled by Lanczos3 (Sinc) ?

One of the images was downsampled using Lanczos, although it was done with an old integer version of ImageMagick:



A little bit of moiré remains.

This photo was taken in one of the oldest remaining neighborhoods in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. I think that is an old horse stable.

--
http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com