Think I may have a problem - any answers?

[robertwatcher]

I shot away happily with my E-510 yesterday at a very dark and mixed lit "Gold Museum" in San Jose Costa Rica. I was quite happy with the few web images I put together for the journal - but had not viewed them at full rez as that was unnecessary for my immediate needs.

However on close inspection this morning, I was stunned to find white spots (obviously sensor) all over the images. These were shots taken at 800ISO hand held. The ones I have posted are taken with exposure of a second and 0.6 seconds - however I did notice several white specs with shots that were 1/8 and 1/4 second range.

I'm hoping someone has some answers or suggestions so I can rectify this before I do much more. Unfortunately for the over 200 shots that I took yesterday at this place, any that I want to use will have to be cleaned up - - - but I will want to have this problem solved before the next set of shots I take.

* I have had dirty sensors with my Nikons - large black blobs
* I have had stuck pixels with my Nikons - one or two white specs in the same place on every exposure
* I have never had anything of this density

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These are just straight out of the camera with a cut out below each to show the density of the spots:

Olympus E-510 with 12-60 2.8/4 lens @ 12mm - ISO 800 - f5.6 @ 0.6 sec





Olympus E-510 with 12-60 2.8/4 lens @ 12mm - ISO 800 - f8 @ 1.0 sec





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The full unprocessed 4 MB JPEG image file:
http://asifweknow.com/images/E510spotsfullrez.JPG

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[printmaker]

sensor or spirits?

I'm thinking the place is haunted!!

 

[David Sutton]

I'm certainly no expert, but I haven't heard of sensor dust or jpeg artifacts being white, so that leaves hot pixels. Is it the same pattern in the same region of each photograph? David

[Harold]

[span style=\'font-size:14pt;line-height:100%\']Do you think that it could be salt particles?[/span]

[Ken Bennett]

It looks like long-exposure noise. On the Canons that I use, I keep the long-exposure noise reduction turned on all the time. At shutter speeds below about 1/15 sec, the camera does an automatic dark-frame subtraction to totally eliminate this problem. This means that for every shot, the camera takes a second photograph without opening the shutter, and uses the noise pattern it generates to eliminate the noise from the actual photograph.

Not a big deal until you are shooting 20 second exposures, and you have to wait for the second 20-second NR exposure. But it does a great job.

This is (or should be) a universal feature of d-SLRs. Check your menus or your user's manual.

--KB

[robertwatcher]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

The Olympus E-510 does have a Noise Reduction feature which is turned ON. In reality I don't believe that it comes into effect until much longer than 1 second (there is also a Noise Filter setting which I have turned OFF). Last night I did a Pixel Map and it does not seemed to have helped much. I am suspecting now that I may have a faulty camera and so will have to limit the images I am taking for future use in publication, to my Nikon - and return it to Henry's Camera when I get back to Canada next month.

I posted this also on www.fourthirds-user.com and the same conclusions as you have here are being drawn:
http://www.fourthirds-user.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1561

[Mark D Segal]

Robert,

I don't know that camera so this suggestion may be off the wall, but I'm wondering whether it could be the result of JPEG artifacts from in-camera sharpening, or some other aspect of JPEG processing in-camera. If you have been shooting JPEGs, I would suggest making a series of shots including dark objects in raw format with all sharpening and noise reduction turned off both using and not using time exposures, then inspect the results at 100% magnification on your display. If you still see the white spots regardless of exposure it would seem to indicate a hardware issue; if you see the spots only with the time exposures that would indicates sensor or firmware behaviour which may or may not be normal for that camera; if you don't see such spots in either set of exposures, that would indicate a JPEG processing issue, which may be a combination of long exposure with heavy sharpening, or something else that may or may not be normal for that model. At least this little test would give you an initial tentative analysis.

[mcbroomf]

I agree that it does look like the noise from long exposure and high ISO I've seen in some reviews.  However I looked at the review on DPREVIEW and I don't see  the same artifacts in the review or their samples.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse510/

http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/olye510_samples/

You can download their complete jpegs to inspect them.  For example this ISO 200 0.5 sec image.

http://dpreview-img.fotki.com/gallery/olye...ls/sj211647.jpg

I'd suggest you send it back.

Mike

[robertwatcher]

but I'm wondering whether it could be the result of JPEG artifacts from in-camera sharpening,

It is definitely not in camera sharpening as I turn all sharpening off.  I think that I have my E-510 set at minus (-) 2.

I only shoot in Jpeg format and have had no such issues with other cameras - and am suspecting that I haven't with this camera up until recently. I shot 2 weddings in December and January, just after I purchased the E-510 - - - and being it was winter with short days, many of the shots were taken with the couple in dark night street scenes using 800 & 1600 ISO with longer exposures. I do wish that I had the files with me at this time so that I could look closely to see if the issue was there then - - - but I don't so will have to wait until April when I get home to see.

These were some of the shots from the December wedding where these artifacts would be sure to show up:

http://rwoutsidethebox.com/?p=95

And this was the January one - indoor shots were natural light 800ISO slower shutter:

http://rwoutsidethebox.com/?p=96



I will take your suggestions seriously however as I continue to try and figure out if it is a temporary problem or permanent issue with the camera processing engine or sensor. Thank you.

[Misirlou]

I only shoot in Jpeg format and have had no such issues with other cameras[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=179821\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Even if that's the case, it would be useful to run a raw test to eliminate the jpg conversion process as the potential cause. If you do a shot in raw, and get the same results, we can all eliminate jpg conversion as the source. Assuming nothing conclusive comes out of a raw test, at least you've learned something, and you can go back to shooting jpgs.

You can try all kinds of other things, like changing ISO, changing lighting conditions, etc. Noise can even come from the sensor getting hot, by using live view or just leaving the camera in a hot car. Anything you check helps to isolate the problem.

I'd also be interested to see if the location of the spots changes with each shot, or if it's always correlated with sensor element location (which I doubt).

[Colorado David]

How long was your camera powered up when these shot were taken?  Do you notice the same problem with exposures shot when the camera was just turned on?  Hot pixels tend to show up brighter the longer the camera is powered up.  I have a high-end Sony professional video camera with a single hot pixel.  I need to send it in to have the pixel re-mapping done.  However it is a $1000 fix.  I am able to get away with it for the time being by not letting the camera warm up and shutting down between takes.

[robertwatcher]

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP AND SUGGESTIONS - I HAVE TRIED TO FOLLOW THEM ALL IN TRYING TO TROUBLESHOOT MY PROBLEM

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I have done a test as suggested by a few of you photographers. I kept the lens cap on and took some shots with different settings.

For this series someone suggested that it may be JPEG conversion issue and so I shot this same setting in both JPEG and RAW (plus I did one with NR set to OFF). The RAW exhibited some noise when it first opened in Lightroom and then obviously Lightroom was doing some magic on the file because it went away:

NOTE : while the camera had been turned on for some time when I took the shots at the Gold Museum, the camera had been off for some time and sitting in comfortable indoor conditions before doing these tests (again this was a suggestion).

800 ISO : f8 @ 1 second : Noise Reduction ON : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072254.JPG

800 ISO : f8 @ 1 second : Noise Reduction OFF : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072255.JPG

(the specs are in different areas with NR OFF and ON)

800 ISO : f8 @ 1 second : Noise Reduction ON : RAW
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072256.ORF


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For this series I decided to run through ISO's 100 to 1600 and use a longer exposure of 2 seconds - - - which greatly magnified the problem and I believe that there are specs in all ISO's although 100 ISO is hard to tell being  it will be so underexposed (I increased the contrast and upped the exposure and the specs show glaringly on the 100ISO shot also):

1600 ISO : f8 @ 2 second : Noise Reduction ON : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072264.JPG

800 ISO : f8 @ 2 second : Noise Reduction ON : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072257.JPG

400 ISO : f8 @ 2 second : Noise Reduction ON : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072258.JPG

100 ISO : f8 @ 2 second : Noise Reduction ON : HQ JPEG
http://watchergraphics.com/E510/RW072259.JPG

(the specs are in the same areas with the same settings at different ISO's)


This is the 100ISO one when exposure was boosted and contrast increased:



I DO BELIEVE I HAVE A CRAP CAMERA - UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME!! ticks me off.

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I have emailed Olympus Canada this afternoon to ask for some input on this problem. I kind of doubt that I will hear back from them - - - but provided them with a link to this thread on www.fourthirds-user.com in order that they have access to the files and see the problem first hand. We'll see

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[Mark D Segal]

I examined your raw file in Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 every which way and it does not exhibit the white specs one sees in the JPEGs. It would also have been helpful to see a raw image of a normal scene with dark areas. Anyhow, based on what you show, it would seem that the problem is more likely with JPEG processing rather than with the sensor itself. Either way, I think raising this with Olympus is the best way to proceed.

[robertwatcher]

I examined your raw file in Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 every which way and it does not exhibit the white specs one sees in the JPEGs.

Thank you for that info. As you say, it doesn't matter whether the issue is stemming from the camera processing, sensor, whatever - the camera is the culprit and has to be dealt with.  I'll put this to rest now. Thanks all.

[Leethal]

I examined your raw file in Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 every which way and it does not exhibit the white specs one sees in the JPEGs. It would also have been helpful to see a raw image of a normal scene with dark areas. Anyhow, based on what you show, it would seem that the problem is more likely with JPEG processing rather than with the sensor itself. Either way, I think raising this with Olympus is the best way to proceed.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=179927\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

   
 
 If I remember correctly, Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 has a feature that eliminates hot pixels.
 I have some files from one of my Canon cameras that hot pixels show when converted in Canon DPP, but not in ACR.
 Robert, if you have PhotoShop CS3, and have the latest updates, maybe try converting your Raw file through ACR. That works for my Oly 510.
 Good Luck,   Lee

[robertwatcher]

Thanks Lee - I'll try that when I get back home in April. Unfortunately I am restricted to Lightroom on my Macbook down here in Costa Rica. That is a little much for Hot Pixels though I'm afraid. Your solution will help with the shots I've got I hope - - - but the camera is going to have to be replaced as I cannot deal with that annoyance with all of the extreme and long exposure shots I take ever week.

Oh - and here I am at work!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWNkRejRNvU


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[David Sutton]

Oh - and here I am at work!:[/b]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWNkRejRNvU
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[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=180480\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

A filthy job, but someone's got to do it.

[robertwatcher]

UPDATE FROM OLYMPUS CANADA

Surprisingly (and pleased), I heard back from Olympus Canada this morning and their response is this:

Dear Rob,

Thank you for your email. What you are experiencing is noise. I  am not sure of how
you have the camera setup but I can make some suggestions that I feel will minimize
the issue.

First I would set the SHARPNESS to –2.  And then set NOISE FILTER to STANDARD  or
LOW

Shoot some test images set like that then go back and set the camera as you had it
setup previously, I think you will see an improvement.

The SHARPNESS setting can be accessed under the PICTURE MODE then under the
particular mode like NATURAL, VIVID or MUTED

The NOISE FILTER is under the CAMERA 1 menu

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I have replied that I have a hard time imagining that this issue is SENSOR NOISE - but if it is, it is unacceptable for my use as a serious photographer. I also informed them that the settings that they have recommended, are the exact ones that I use on  my E-510. So i guess that I am no farther ahead at this point and if the concensis is that it is indeed Noise, then my choice of using Olympus DSLR is not the best for me and  I  may have to revert to Nikon again.

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[Mark D Segal]

From what you saying here, it sounds as if either the camera is generically an under-performer or your particular copy of it is defective and they aren't yet prepared to admit that you may have a lemon. If there is any difference of settings between what you are using and what they are recommending on this particular unit I would recommend doing a comparative test, and if the "noise" remains unacceptable to you at their recommended settings, in your position I would ask either the retailer or Olympus to take the camera back and refund the money.