E-3 noise control musings

[Paul Shields]

The weather's so horrible at the moment that I found some time to play around with the E-3 and try out the various JPEG and NR features. Overall I'm impressed with the improvements Olympus have made. You can find my musings in my blog, linked below.


PhotoCamel - Your Friendly Photo Community - Paul's blog

[Olyirrisistity]

Thanks for very nice and easy to read articles Paul!

In the article comparing the E cameras, Paul mentioned that the E-3 exposed a bit compared to the E-1. This seems to be borne out in my limited experiement: the E-3 seems to over-expose a bit under specific conditions (= not always).
In my room, I pointed the camera at a light source (light bulbs) and I almost consistently got 1 stop over, compared to the reading from my E-1. Similar things happened when I took photos of street lights at night. This is however, only in ESP metering mode. When in spot metering mode, the 2 cameras gave almost identical results. Under normal lighting conditions (outdoors, in typical shooting light), the two cameras again give similar readings.

So, I think that the two cameras would give similar readings in most cases but in unusual lightings, the ESP readings of the two cameras seem to be based on different algorithms/logics.

Now, I've got a question: Is it possible to set the camera to underexpose a bit without the minus mark showing up in the viewers or monitor screen? In film cameras, we can alter the film speed and completely forget about it but we can't do this and forget about it with digital cameras, can we ?

[Paul Shields]

Interesting Oly. I too have noticed that ESP seems to be a common factor for the over-exposing. I need to try the other modes a bit more myself to see how easy it is to factor in. I don't think there's any way to not show the -ve adjustment, though of course the camera will remember any exposure adjustment so you could just leave it at -7 EV (for example) and forget about it. I do expect this could be 'fixed' in a firmware update if indeed this over-exposure turns out to be a problem.

[jan56]

I'm very interested in your chat and testings, as I also got my E-3 very recently, but so far I'm very fine with the exposure... You made me aware of a might be problem, so I'll test it out the next possibility as well...

[Paul Shields]

I'll be interested in what you find out Jan. I do think the E-3 pushes a bit too far to the right in ESP mode when there is a very bright/white object in view. I think it's just a case of learning to work with it, and use other exposure metering or use the LV histogram if it's convenient.

[toddbee]

Hello Everyone. i just joined the board. I have a question pertaining to the noise reduction setting on the e3. Where is everyone running there noise filter and NR settings?

[Paul Shields]

Welcome toddbee (Todd?).

I have NF (noise filter) set to off for my E-3. It's only applicable to JPEG's anyway, and I find you get much more control over noise handling via a proper noise control software and RAW files. I don't find it an issue up to ISO 800 normally, and even ISO 1600 looks good to me. I'd rather have the image 'warts and all' and process it later than have the camera do it for me.

NR (noise reduction) is I think just dark frame subtraction in the Olympus definition of things. You can leave that turned on at all times as it shouldn't kick in unless for very long exposures, in which case you'd probably want it on anyway.

[toddbee]

Thanks Paul. Yeah i agree. I have had both turned off because i was not sure which did what. One of the things I like is that there is no smearyness to the images since there in no in camera noise reduction. I saw alot of this even at low iso's with my canons. I will try putting NR back on. I see you have a nice collection of lenses. im about to purchase a few and would love to get your feedback. Any clue when the 50-200 SWD comes out?

[Paul Shields]

I believe the 14-35mm SWD is due at the beginning of March, so I expect the SWD 50-200mm to be available any day between now and then .

[bitslizer]

I don't have the E3, have the E510

can this be attribute to the ESP vs ESP+AF mode?


also for the 510, many people say use -0.3 EV compensation at ISO100

[Paul Shields]

TBH bitslizer, I pretty much always dial in -0.3V. With the recovery available in RAW I see it as a reasonable safety device for protecting blown highlights.