Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: jing q on November 26, 2007, 07:55:57 am
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I'm getting purple blotches on my files shot in tungsten lighting. I tried 200 ISO and 400 ISO. appears on both settings. This was shot tethered.
I'm attaching the file. I upped the exposure by 0.5 on the brightness scale in Leaf Capture 11. Even without any exposure adjustment the purple blotches aer obvious, and you can see it in the midtone white of the profoto box
Is there a fix for this? It happened a month ago when I was testing it (direct to CF card) and seemingly went away, and today it came back again.Seems pretty serious
I also had a problem where the top half of the image is purple and bottom half is green, when shot in sunlight with strobe fill, 100 ISO
Is there a fix for this problem?
I'll post up more images if I see more problems on my shoot today
I would appreciate it if people who've experienced similar problems or have a Leaf back can chime in, and appreciate that this thread doesn't turn into a rant zone, thanks.,
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So my Leaf back was replaced by Leaf America, big shout out to Rick who was amazingly quick about it.
I went about testing it today and was blown away by the quality.
I tested in TUNGSTEN light because I wanted to see how well it handled such situations...
in ISO 200 with a 35mm Mamiya at f/3.5 wide open and at 1/40s and 1/80s respectively (it's not a scientific test ok so...take it with a pinch of salt) and processed in ACR, sharpening was left at default of 25 and radius 1, and no colour or luminance reduction.(sliders left at 0)
This is the image at ISO 200 without exposure adjustment
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest200full.jpg)
This is the image at ISO 400 without exposure adjustment
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest400full.jpg)
This is a 100% zoom of the shadow area ISO 200 image, without exposure adjustment
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest200.jpg)
This is a 100% zoom of the shadow area ISO 400 image, without exposure adjustment
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest400.jpg)
This is a 100% zoom of the shadow area ISO 200 image, with exposure adjustment of 2.00 stops
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest200n2.jpg)
This is a 100% zoom of the shadow area ISO 400 image, with exposure adjustment of 2.00 stops
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest400n2.jpg)
Those of you who keep harping on exposing to the right, I have to say that even I wasn't expecting this much latitude with the shadows on my back. My previous back had serious problems compared to this replacement one..
I don't see any strange colours or clumps even when I push the exposure up.
Pity the back wasn't available for my shoot yesterday...
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And if you exposed to the right, the noise would be even lower...
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for comparisons sake I pushed the ISO 200 image up by 3.00 stops and interestingly the noise structure seems finer than the ISO 400 image pushed up 2.00 stops...
(http://superhyperreal.com/leaf/leaftest200n3.jpg)
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And if you exposed to the right, the noise would be even lower...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158245\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
of course.
but just be aware that striations and clumps of strange colour are not necessarily directly related to underexposure.
Even if the image is underexposed on the Leaf back and brought up by a few stops the only thing that gets added to the picture is more noise, which is what I experienced with a hasselblad 39megapixel back also.
It would be helpful if some reps came and clarified the effects of underexposure on a MF DB image.
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of course.
but just be aware that striations and clumps of strange colour are not necessarily directly related to underexposure.
Even if the image is underexposed on the Leaf back and brought up by a few stops the only thing that gets added to the picture is more noise, which is what I experienced with a hasselblad 39megapixel back also.
It would be helpful if some reps came and clarified the effects of underexposure on a MF DB image.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158248\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Your back is doing much better than my P45+ which stripes all over the place in the shadows. I think there is zero reason to pay the Phase price and VA warranty add-on to get something that stripes and blooms, and a dealer who does not stand behind the product.
Of course my dealer (Prophot in Paris) thinks that now I have paid there is little reason in helping me, all they need is keep telling me everything is fine until I go away, after all I have already paid. The problem is that Phase has subdealers, I got my back from Le Moyen Format in Paris who are honest, and now suddenly have to deal with Prophot who are the reps and couldn't care less.
My recommendation to everybody on this forum is learn from the respective responsiveness of the two brands to complaints about high ISO issues, and avoid buying Phase if good ISO 400 performance is required.
Edmund
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My recommendation to everybody on this forum is learn from the respective responsiveness of the two brands to complaints about high ISO issues, and avoid buying Phase if good ISO 400 performance is required.
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158251\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Edmund, my P21 performs flawless at 400 or 800. I can't complain.
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Edmund, my P21 performs flawless at 400 or 800. I can't complain.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158262\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Wait, I will put up a Raw file of a 400 ISO shot similar to the gentleman's above, and you can examine the shadow areas yourself. Note that you have a P21, not a P45+, and probably a dealer who doesn't compete with his subdealers.
Edmund
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Maybe you want to buy my back from me at 20% discount ? I'm not going to be able to get warranty service on it from Phase here in Paris.
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158263\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It seems your dealer isn't helping you so much. Here in Sweden, it's been great so long. I'm planning to switch over to the new Phase One camera as soon is out and leave my H2 .But I won't move from phase one. Customer support and quality has been amazing. My first P21 had a fault, horizontal lines and problems writing to the card. My dealer was on a trip in Paris. I called him on his cell phone and told him about the problem. He said "call xxxx and tell him I send you this is the phone number". This was Friday, next monday the new P21 arrives at 12:00 to my door with return package to send back the original. What can I say?
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Here is the sort of mess (horizontal steaks in the shadows)you can expect at ISO400 pushed one stop in C1 when using my P45+ This crop has been resized with nearest neighbour. Bands are usually visible even without pushing, in shadow zones. I will post the Raw itself for inspection next.
Re. my dealer, he is a subdealer. Phase have a "dealer/rep" in France who competes with his own subdealers. This rep, Prophot obviously could not care less about people who have purchased from a subdealer, as he has had to share the profit. The dealer "Le Moyen Format" have in the past supported me well with other brands (Canon, Leica) which is why I like doing business with them, but they cannot stand up to the Phase rep, and cannot deal directly with Phase.
Edmund
(http://edmundronald.googlepages.com/WallISO400Plus1.jpg)
Edmund
It seems your dealer isn't helping you so much. Here in Sweden, it's been great so long. I'm planning to witch over to the new Phase One camera as soon is out and leave my H2 .But I won't move from phase one. Customer support and quality has been amazing. My first P21 had a fault, horizontal lines and problems writing to the card. My dealer was on a trip in Paris. I called him on his cell phone and told him about the problem. He said "call xxxx and tell him I send you this is the phone number". This was Friday, next monday the new P21 arrives at 12:00 to my door with return package to send back the original. What can I say?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158269\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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Samuel,
Here is the link to the Raw file, it has about 1 stop headroom, I believe, with the standard film curve. You can push it in C1 yourself and examine the shadow areas.
http://download.yousendit.com/D041A8CE06939BE1 (http://download.yousendit.com/D041A8CE06939BE1)
Edmund
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Edmund
if your dealer can't go directly to Phase you can... and you should. BTW let them know how act their rep.
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Here is the sort of mess (horizontal steaks in the shadows)you can expect at ISO400 pushed one stop in C1 when using my P45+ This crop has been resized with nearest neighbour. Bands are usually visible even without pushing, in shadow zones. I will post the Raw itself for inspection next.
Re. my dealer, he is a subdealer. Phase have a "dealer/rep" in France who competes with his own subdealers. This rep, Prophot obviously could not care less about people who have purchased from a subdealer, as he has had to share the profit. The dealer "Le Moyen Format" have in the past supported me well with other brands (Canon, Leica) which is why I like doing business with them, but they cannot stand up to the Phase rep, and cannot deal directly with Phase.
Edmund
Edmund, I still have a few test shots from my first p21 (the faulty one) at ISO 800.
0.3 seconds at f.22. H2 with HC35 mm. Standard settings in CO:
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/01.jpg)
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/02.jpg)
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/03.jpg)
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/04.jpg)
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/05.jpg)
Pushed shadows (faulty P21 see white dots)
(http://www.samuelaxelsson.com/images/LL/p21iso800/06.jpg)
/Samuel
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Edmund
if your dealer can't go directly to Phase you can... and you should. BTW let them know how act their rep.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158283\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
my sentiments exactly
my original dealer contacted the asia side of Leaf and they basically blamed me for the problems. (went along the lines of "there could be hundreds of reasons for what he's seeing..." without even agreeing to inspect it or noting any problems!!!)
It takes a blind man not to see the issues noted in my earlier files.
Leaf America was blindingly wonderful , looking at my MOS files and telling me straightaway to send it in. One day after they received it, I got my back.
A-star, absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend them.
All this talk about the joy of dealer support justifying the price of MFDB...and there are so many lousy dealers out there.
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my sentiments exactly
my original dealer contacted the asia side of Leaf and they basically blamed me for the problems. (went along the lines of "there could be hundreds of reasons for what he's seeing..." without even agreeing to inspect it or noting any problems!!!)
It takes a blind man not to see the issues noted in my earlier files.
Leaf America was blindingly wonderful , looking at my MOS files and telling me straightaway to send it in. One day after they received it, I got my back.
A-star, absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend them.
All this talk about the joy of dealer support justifying the price of MFDB...and there are so many lousy dealers out there.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158286\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I've just forwarded my file above to Phase, and hope they won't cry "underexposed" again this time. I just hope that I will in the end get a P45+ that matches your Leaf back in hi-ISO shadow noise quality.
Edmund
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You should always be able to go directly to the manufacturer. You & the manufacturer basically have the same interests. It is amazing manufacturers are quite shy of communicating with the actual users.
I must admit in a lot of areas Leaf is very helpful towards its customers. They seem to understand that's important.
I just send a question to Hasselblad instead of answering they ask me where I live and want to send a dealer. The same dealer that still hasn't send me the items I ordered from them 4 months ago?
My reponse was that if I have to deal with a dealer I prefer one I can select myself and even when I live in the Netherlands I would prefer Steve Hendrix.
I hope Phase will step in and fix whatever is wrong with your back quickly. Even if the back is perfect I am sure you feel too uncomfortable using it by now under the circumstances the problem occurs.
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hmm... actually I would like to see some ISO 400 and ISO800 files, I feel the noise level is really high in my aptus 65, I would like to know is this normal.
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hmm... actually I would like to see some ISO 400 and ISO800 files, I feel the noise level is really high in my aptus 65, I would like to know is this normal.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158737\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
hey ruey i'll be back in SG next week, if you want you can test mine out with yours
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hmm... actually I would like to see some ISO 400 and ISO800 files, I feel the noise level is really high in my aptus 65, I would like to know is this normal.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158737\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ruey if you want you can send me a RAW file and I believe I'll be able to tell you if it is normal or not
Yair
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I've just forwarded my file above to Phase, and hope they won't cry "underexposed" again this time. I just hope that I will in the end get a P45+ that matches your Leaf back in hi-ISO shadow noise quality.
Edmund
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158294\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Edmund, I've checked the RAW file. Actually, the stripes or striations can be seen in my monitor even before you push the exposure. It's more visible even when pushing about two stops but I can clearly see the the stripes at 50% magnification.
You should open a support case at phaseone.com. They will help you.
/Samuel
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Edmund, I've checked the RAW file. Actually, the stripes or striations can be seen in my monitor even before you push the exposure. It's more visible even when pushing about two stops but I can clearly see the the stripes at 50% magnification.
You should open a support case at phaseone.com. They will help you.
/Samuel
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158763\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Samuel,
Thank you for your confirmation of my own findings. I had a Phase One case open. They CLOSED my case as soon as I sent them that file !!!! They refused to acknowledge that this is a clear indication that the back has issues at 400 ISO, and pretend it's only a 800 ISO underexposed problem. I don't know what is the matter here but I'm feeling increasingly unhappy, even more so as I paid for the VA option. The rep agreed now to send the back to Denmark, we'll see if Phase actually does something to fix the issues, but if they are in denial maybe having some pro photographers using Phase products look at that file and chiming in might help ...
if this is back is defective, as I believe, then it needs to be repaired or replaced. If as Phase believe it is in spec and this is Phase P45+normal quality at ISO 400 then I think prospective buyers deserve to be shown what problems they can expect.
Here is what they wrote me:
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Hi thanks for the image - i have looked at the image and i have posted Olivier from Prophot some suggestions and answers. I have also suggestted him that you can try one of their P 45+ to compare.
What i have written Prophot is that a 1-2 f-stop under exposure and then at ISO 800 leaves the signal/noise ratio in a very low position where you will get difficulties. The sensor will only use a minimum of the dynamic range that way. Instead we recommend that you get a image correct exposed and then afterretouch whatever changes you may have. I have also written that maybe you should try a P 30+ or P21+ instead - these camerabacks are more optimized for higher ISO (P 30+ ISO 1600) and they both have microlenses in case you need to shoot in dark invironment.
About the 3.7.7 crash when processing can only be related to your local Mac - please ensure that RAM and CPU are performing well and the harddrive as well. The pattern noise supression will be supported in the final 3.7.8 version that will be release in the comming weeks.
Thanks
Customer Support
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Here is my previous message, when I sent them the file posted above.
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Here is another image @ISO400 with about 1 stop headroom. You will see the horizontal lines again. I suggest we do something about this, I have lines or blooming in a lot of my images even if they are not quite as visible immediately.
By the way, C1 3.77 is quite unstable when processing my P45+ files on both my comps, Mac Intel and G5, under 10.4.x, and also crashes predictably if I try to enable pattern noise reduction.
Edmund
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Jing what is the grain adjustment set to in LeafCapture? What happens when you drop it from th default 25 to 10 or 0 or even -10? Does sharpness suffer too much?
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Jing what is the grain adjustment set to in LeafCapture? What happens when you drop it from th default 25 to 10 or 0 or even -10? Does sharpness suffer too much?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=158878\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I haven't used that setting properly yet so I'm not sure... I do remember that I've been setting it down once in awhile because I thought the grain structure was pretty horrible (looks like some sort of weird watercolour pattern in the out of focus areas)
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Ric Agudelo was here in Paris, he's one of the guys using my profiles - looked at my P45+ back and didn't like what he saw on the display. The display maybe good, but those lines on the back ure look ugly. Ric tells me he too leaves some headroom during his use of his back.
I had agreed with my dealer that the best thing to do is send the back to the Phase mothership where it can be cared for, and maybe swapped; in the mean time the Paris rep ays that if he sends a back in and it isn't broken he gets billed thousands of dollars so he wants me to come in and prove to him that it's broken.
I'm tired. I like my dealer (Le Moyen Format) but see no need to argue with the rep. I will phone Phase tomorrow and see if I can get an RMA to send the thing directly to Denmark and bypass the locals. Why did I pay for the VA warranty to get all this aggravation?
Edmund
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I haven't used that setting properly yet so I'm not sure...
If you set the grain setting at +50 it's the equivalent of turning noise reduction off.
Not very intuitive.
Furthermore, it would be nice if Leaf would just call this what it is: noise reduction.
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Edmund,
Is this my impression, or they simply told you that you cannot use creative lighting/exposure with their back, in higher ISO, as you would in film, but rather, you have to rely on post-processing if you want it done? It's kind of shocking that they assume that, anyone who wants the photo to come out ready out of the camera, shouldn't be able to do it. It's simply like a guitar factory who has a crappy sound, and their response to the consumer, is that you digitally enhance the sound in the studio... despite the fact it's a US$35.000 + guitar :|
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hi Jessica,
I don't think it can be said this way. IMO, PO (or the dealer) did not yet aknowledge or recognize the seriousness of Edmun's problem (his back, not Edmund!). IMO the dealer does not know how to deal with this and what he is confronted with. It also depends which specifications and tolerances PO is having concerning the Kodak sensor. All it needs to do is to take the back ad run some basic tests to see what is wrong.
But as Michael says, Edmund should complain directly with the manufacturer, if the dealer does seem not to respond.
Best regards,
Thierry
Edmund,
Is this my impression, or they simply told you that you cannot use creative lighting/exposure with their back, as you would in film, but rather, you have to rely on post-processing if you want it done? It's kind of shocking that they assume that, anyone who wants the photo to come out ready out of the camera, shouldn't be able to do it. It's simply like a guitar factory who has a crappy sound, and their response to the consumer, is that you digitally enhance the sound in the studio... despite the fact it's a US$35.000 + guitar :|
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=160070\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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Edmund,
Is this my impression, or they simply told you that you cannot use creative lighting/exposure with their back, in higher ISO, as you would in film, but rather, you have to rely on post-processing if you want it done? It's kind of shocking that they assume that, anyone who wants the photo to come out ready out of the camera, shouldn't be able to do it. It's simply like a guitar factory who has a crappy sound, and their response to the consumer, is that you digitally enhance the sound in the studio... despite the fact it's a US$35.000 + guitar :|
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=160070\")
That's correct. Phase didn't like the brutal way I was underexposing the back originally, and the french rep -Prophot- didn't like the fact that I actually insist on shooting at ISO 400 at least. Their position is that 400 shouldn't be used and certainly not underexposed. The dealer's position -Le Moyen Format- is that the back should be at least usable at 400 and 800. Thing is, I actually prefer the pushed look around 400-800, the same way as James Russell likes it.
Thing is, it's ironic, because my tests indicate that if it worked, the back should be pretty good actually at high ISO, a definite selling point to many of us. The image shown in the [a href=\"http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21611]centerfold thread[/url] shows good color and minimal film-like grain at ISO 400, leave your Canon at home if you are lucky enough to have a working Phase P+ back.
Maybe we should concentrate this discussion in the centerfold thread (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21611) to avoid excessively polluting Michael's nice forum.
Edmund