What happened to all D100 softness posts??

[alfred_schiele]

Hi

Does this exposure variation occur with the centre weighted mode?
Is it possible it is caused by the matrix system? I've not used
modern nikon cameras before the D100 so I'm not that familiar with
matrix systems. One thing I have noticed is that my old E10 was
more consistent...

It occurs with each metering characteristic, especially center weighted and spot on a gray (or comparably even) subject.

I own a AF-D 2.0/35 and it seems to be the only lens that creates a histogram as expected, well centered without any EV compensation...

Possibly this lens is made by sigma? (-;

Regards, A. Schiele

 

[alfred_schiele]

Hi

Unfortunately I don't have PowerShot G2 anymore, I traded it for
D100. I wonder sometimes if I made a BIG mistake.

Don't know. The G2 has - as said - other weak points. I love the speed and AF of D100 but the images out of the box from G2 are more "pleasing" my eye.

None of both cameras is perfect... but D100 is harder to excuse for the 6x higher price...

Regards, A. Schiele

 

[Vtie]

By its nature, the "naked" JPEG encoding (to make sure I don't
conflict with other people's definitions) really can't account for
the blur. This is evident if you look at how it works.

In principle, it could indeed be that some digital low pass filter
is applied before the JPEG encoding. However, since the
image that comes out of the Bayer interpolation undergoes a
decent amount of sharpening (at least according to the names
of the modes), this would be absurd in my opinion. A low pass
filter and a sharpening filter are more or less each others counterparts,
and they counteract each other's impact. The end result is a
loss of quality (due to rounding problems) and something you could
have obtained with one single (less intense) filter.

As far as I know, any image that comes straight out of the Bayer
interpolation needs a fair amount of sharpening before it looks "sharp".
This is partially due to the hardware filter in front of the CCD, and
to the Bayer interpolation, which acts like a low pass filter on itself.
My opinion is that the sharpening filter in the "default" mode is
rather conservative (which is a reasonable design choice), and that
the sharpening filter of the "high" mode is more aggressive but of a
poor quality. Maybe they made some shortcuts to achieve
higher speeds. Unfortunately, the quality of a filter has a major
influence on its computation speed.
If you convert RAW data afterward, the software on the PC is easily
capable of applying a much better filter than the one the camera
is using.

Vtie

I don't know if this make sense :->
There are probably too much unknown factors to come to a
final conclusion. And, although I know my way reasonably well
in digital image processing, I hardly know anything about the CCDs
themselves and the hardware filter or things like that.

Hogan ruled out hardware low-pass filtering, which he originally
judged unusually "aggressive", in favor of blaming the JPEG
encoding scheme. It is possible that he (and some others) are
lumping together software low-pass filtering and the JPEG
compression scheme.

However, you've said that this is a bizarre and unlikely answer,
too. Do you have any other theory that might make sense?

 

[Octopuzz]

Thom,

I think you are too humble to say that Nikon doesn't know you exist. Maybe they have some kind of marketing strategy to look only for specific poster childs like Galen?

Or is it that you have been hidden by Galen's shadow, as in the name of your article "Chasing Galen?"

Why didn't Nikon ask you to write their D100 Guide like Fuji did?

Fuji didn't ask me to write an S2 Guide. I wrote one, Fuji has
licensed it for a specific purpose (registration premium).

As for Nikon, sometimes I wonder if they know I exist.

--
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide
author, Nikon Flash Guide
author, Complete Guide to the Nikon D100
author, Complete Guide to the Nikon D1, D1h, & D1x
http://www.bythom.com

 

[Joachim Gerstl]

Dear Gabriele,

I just posted my opinion. I DID NOT say nor did I mean that anyone is an idiot. My D1 takes wonderful pictures BUT the images need some kind of post processing. This is because if the camera will do it all for you space for picture improvement for different purposes ( web, puplishing, printing, .. ) may be limited.

I don´t know why you are so agressiv. Maybe because you were not smart enough to test a $4000 equipment before you bought it. You should take a cold shower and use your brain before you write another useless post.

Joachim

You really don't need to put words in peoples mouths. You are the
one who ASSUMES they are idiots, by reinterpreting his words.

May be you don't get it, but if someone assume that I spend 4000$
in gears and I cry because isn't sharp without knowing that is
possible to set in-camera sharpening he is insulting me OK?!

I'm not putting word on anybody mouths I just say it as it is!

--
Regards
Gabriele Sartori

--
joachim

 

[Nefrodite]

TIFF reportedly comes out of the camera with significantly sharper images, closer to the NEF images you get by the same level of "sharpening" using Nikon Capture.

If true, that suggests that the sharpening algorithm is not what's at fault here. Which runs counter, I believe, to the theory you're setting forward, if I understand you correctly.

Unless there's a different sharpening scheme at work. Hogan has written about Application Specific ICs that handle multiple tasks in parallel, and conterintuitively, it is conceivable I suppose that there is a difference between the sharpening applied to TIFFs and JPEGs. But perhaps unlikely? Lord knows.

In principle, it could indeed be that some digital low pass filter
is applied before the JPEG encoding. However, since the
image that comes out of the Bayer interpolation undergoes a
decent amount of sharpening (at least according to the names
of the modes), this would be absurd in my opinion. A low pass
filter and a sharpening filter are more or less each others
counterparts,
and they counteract each other's impact. The end result is a
loss of quality (due to rounding problems) and something you could
have obtained with one single (less intense) filter.

As far as I know, any image that comes straight out of the Bayer
interpolation needs a fair amount of sharpening before it looks
"sharp".
This is partially due to the hardware filter in front of the CCD, and
to the Bayer interpolation, which acts like a low pass filter on
itself.
My opinion is that the sharpening filter in the "default" mode is
rather conservative (which is a reasonable design choice), and that
the sharpening filter of the "high" mode is more aggressive but of a
poor quality. Maybe they made some shortcuts to achieve
higher speeds. Unfortunately, the quality of a filter has a major
influence on its computation speed.
If you convert RAW data afterward, the software on the PC is easily
capable of applying a much better filter than the one the camera
is using.

Vtie

I don't know if this make sense :->
There are probably too much unknown factors to come to a
final conclusion. And, although I know my way reasonably well
in digital image processing, I hardly know anything about the CCDs
themselves and the hardware filter or things like that.

Hogan ruled out hardware low-pass filtering, which he originally
judged unusually "aggressive", in favor of blaming the JPEG
encoding scheme. It is possible that he (and some others) are
lumping together software low-pass filtering and the JPEG
compression scheme.

However, you've said that this is a bizarre and unlikely answer,
too. Do you have any other theory that might make sense?

 

[Jack310]

What is Fuzzy Mask in NC3???

Jack

the test of Phil indicated that the images in RAW were sharper but
had more noise. This could let think of a in camera sharpening with
threshold value to 0, which unfortunately seem to practise much of
people, what increases the noise. A test of an image RAW with
"normal" sharpening, then the same image sharpening "off" + fuzzy
mask in NC3 (to find same sharpness) but with a threshold valus to
3 , confirmed my intuition.
images test :
onthe left: RAW "normal" sharpening
on the right:the same but sharpenind deactivate in NC3 and usm
withi threshold: 3

I understand that u can get sharp image out of NEF, but NEF
transfer to JPEG or TIFF also have higher noise than straight JPEG
or remove sharpening in NC3 and the save as JPEG or TIFF. What is
your workflow to reduce noise?

jack

1. Chromatic abberations (CA) and

With what lenses are you seeing the CA? This may be a function of
the lens more than the CCD. Athough, the CCDs can introduce some CA
problems as well (see Rob Galbraith's 1Ds article).

2. The soft focus issue (thus the post here)

Uh, I don't think it's a soft focus issue. I haven't seen anyone
complain about the autofocus module (those complaints are in the
Fuji S2 forum ). The problem is that the in-camera JPEG engine
generates somewhat soft images when set to normal sharpening and
too sharp images when set to high sharpening. So the solution is to
shoot in NEF and deal with the sharpening in post processing. I'm
coming around to the conclusion that shooting in NEF all the time
is basically the right way to

 

[Vtie]

TIFF reportedly comes out of the camera with significantly sharper
images, closer to the NEF images you get by the same level of
"sharpening" using Nikon Capture.

If true, that suggests that the sharpening algorithm is not what's
at fault here. Which runs counter, I believe, to the theory you're
setting forward, if I understand you correctly.

Unless there's a different sharpening scheme at work. Hogan has
written about Application Specific ICs that handle multiple tasks
in parallel, and conterintuitively, it is conceivable I suppose
that there is a difference between the sharpening applied to TIFFs
and JPEGs. But perhaps unlikely? Lord knows.

I don't know, honestly. It may be that Nikon implemented a better
sharpening filter when saving TIFF's, because the sharpening filter
is never going to be the limiting factor in that case. They may have
implemented a shortcut sharpening for JPEG's in order to improve
the overall JPEG save time (because the digital filter may be a
determining factor for the overall processing time).
A small pre-defined P2 sharpening filter (the ones that are used in such
devices) is only a few instructions. So it may very well be that
different filters are implemented along the JPEG path and along the
TIFF path.
But this is getting very speculative, obviously!

Vtie

 

[R. Bond]

This thread is a gas.

RB

 

[Casey Cheung]

You're welcome. Now I recognize this forum again! I was afraid I had lost touch after a couple months away!

Casey

This thread is a gas.

RB

 

[Negative287]

I agree somewhat... I thought the F707 metering was excellent and never lost highlights on me. However, that camera wasn't as flexible as this one and I really like the D100 a lot in spite of the minor flaws.

--
http://www.pbase.com/elterrible

I agree. I have both the D1x and the D100, so I can speak from
experience. The D100 is certainly a capable performer in its own
right.

I didn't say the D100 can not take good pictures but I am
dissapointed by the metering and exposure.

One big point of an D-SLR is exchanging lenses but at this price
point I don't expect variations of one stop. In addition using
values from a handheld meter set to ISO 200 does not work as well...

Experience is ok but not if a system does not behave as expected.
Then it gets at least uncomfortable. The only thing I can do is
check each lens and put a sticker on it, reminding me on the needed
basic EV compensation...

As a matter of fact, my D100 will continue shooting with its
loooooooong battery life, long after all 3 of my D1x batteries have
pooped out on a long assignment!!

Might be, but it doesn't solve this basic flaw...

I belive we will never find out the real reason for it and Nikon
won't tell us what is going on there...

Just my experience,

Regards, A. Schiele

 

[Negative287]

I just want to say that I appreciated that tribute to Galen Rowell in outdoor photographer and think he had a good eye and caught some great images. I think a lot of people will be chasing Galen for some time to come and it is sad that he's now gone.

--
http://www.pbase.com/elterrible

I think you are too humble to say that Nikon doesn't know you
exist. Maybe they have some kind of marketing strategy to look only
for specific poster childs like Galen?

Or is it that you have been hidden by Galen's shadow, as in the
name of your article "Chasing Galen?"

Why didn't Nikon ask you to write their D100 Guide like Fuji did?

Fuji didn't ask me to write an S2 Guide. I wrote one, Fuji has
licensed it for a specific purpose (registration premium).

As for Nikon, sometimes I wonder if they know I exist.

--
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide
author, Nikon Flash Guide
author, Complete Guide to the Nikon D100
author, Complete Guide to the Nikon D1, D1h, & D1x
http://www.bythom.com

 

[Rich Gibson]

I mis-attributed the remark to you, sorry. Your sarcasm isn't appreciated though. May others be kind to you when you make your first mistake!
Regards, Rich

You're the one calling it a Toy. I take offense at such an
exageration.

here what I wrote:
"I have the same situation. Nothing that is not fixable with PS but
clearly is also bothering me. I don't think that this camera is a
toy but if you consider the cost they should have done a better
job. "

Can you read english? Now go to lenscraft they may have a special
offer for you!

--
Regards
Gabriele Sartori

 

[hansg]

Well, good for you!

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a complete amateur and I
bought D100 as a toy camera to play around and perhaps learn
something about photography. I don't think I would consider it at
all for professional work...

 

[Gabriele Sartori]

However, it sounds like a very exotic design to me if they would apply
a sharpening filter to the data (like most of the modes are doing, at
least according to their names), and then again a low pass filter
prior to
encoding! Do you think Nikon would do that kind of strange things?
It's a waste of quality anyway!

In your post and my apologie if I offended you; going back your post I agree that low pass+sharpening seems weird but I wouldn't be surprise in "japanese SW".

There is a high probability that their SW is modular they keep the low pass in order to avoid jpeg troubles+moiree and then they do sharpening, (a bad sharpening) in a separate module. I don't know that for a fact and mine are just speculations but a fact is that something is less than perfect with this camera in the jpeg department. As you know there is no reason why the in-camera sharpening is not a good as the PS sharpening, there is clearly some screw up somewhere. As you well know the high quality jpeg should be almost as good as NEF (although without preserving the nice "go-back" functions).

--
Regards
Gabriele Sartori

 

[Philo Calhoun]

Any comments please? Don't you think the picture is sharp? I'm talking about the one of the small child with his dog. OK, my child and my dog. He gets his feelings hurt if you don't like his picture, by the way. I shot it with a D100 Nikon with a 10-800 Nikon Silent focusing f1.4 zoom. I did not even have to use my Bogan tripod or my new carbon fiber Gitzo that I keep in the closet. Yes, admittedly the first three hand held available light photos were fuzzy, but you can see that this time I used on camera flash pointed straight at them. You can see that from the strong shadows below their chins, because I alays shoot horizontally. Yes, I might have inadvertently focused on the couch with AF and had the f stop on 1.4 in program mode, but I put the jpg image in photoshop (the full version) and used unsharp mask set on maximum without even a sharpening mask and pulled in the levels sliders almost so they were touching to up the contrast. I didn't overdo it, did I? I am really enjoying the $2000 camera with $3000 lenses (and $1000 tripod that is in the closet). But please comment on the photos. The camera takes sharp pictures, right? Honestly? PS. I've ordered a Canon 1Ds and can hardly wait to show off my new pictures.

 

[ajs2107922]

If you saw the lens test post recently you would have seen the JPG's were soft compare to the RAW ones produced by the D100.

Guess the bottom line don't use on camera JPG's and I guess that was all those D100 users have figure too.
Alex

Any comments please? Don't you think the picture is sharp? I'm
talking about the one of the small child with his dog. OK, my child
and my dog. He gets his feelings hurt if you don't like his
picture, by the way. I shot it with a D100 Nikon with a 10-800
Nikon Silent focusing f1.4 zoom. I did not even have to use my
Bogan tripod or my new carbon fiber Gitzo that I keep in the
closet. Yes, admittedly the first three hand held available light
photos were fuzzy, but you can see that this time I used on camera
flash pointed straight at them. You can see that from the strong
shadows below their chins, because I alays shoot horizontally. Yes,
I might have inadvertently focused on the couch with AF and had the
f stop on 1.4 in program mode, but I put the jpg image in photoshop
(the full version) and used unsharp mask set on maximum without
even a sharpening mask and pulled in the levels sliders almost so
they were touching to up the contrast. I didn't overdo it, did I? I
am really enjoying the $2000 camera with $3000 lenses (and $1000
tripod that is in the closet). But please comment on the photos.
The camera takes sharp pictures, right? Honestly? PS. I've ordered
a Canon 1Ds and can hardly wait to show off my new pictures.