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Author Topic: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction  (Read 4963 times)

sanfairyanne

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Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« on: January 04, 2016, 06:28:58 am »

I had the chance to take a few shots with the new Leica SL teamed with a F0.98 Leica 50mm lens. Without jumping in and writing my thoughts about camera build etc I wanted to question the apparent inability to turn off the in camera noise reduction. Taking a long exposure image of say 30 seconds requires an additional 30 seconds for the camera to complete the black image. This of course ties up the camera for a minute which potentially means you can miss the shot. A prime example would be a night pano' or taking a shot of the moon bursting (like a sunburst) over the horizon, invariably you'll need to fire a few shots and choose the best frame.

My way of thinking is that by forcing in camera noise reduction we're in some ways restricted in the same way Jpeg shooters are i.e. all the work is done in camera. There's no way we can work the image with our personal noise reduction in post later.

Perhaps this is a DNG thing, after all the Leica does not have its own proprietary RAW file.



I just wondered what people think?
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razrblck

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2016, 09:36:01 am »

Unless the noise reduced image is saved in the raw file instead of the real raw data, I don't see why this would make any sense. Noise reduction should apply only to processed jpegs.
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AlterEgo

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2016, 11:10:21 am »

There is no RAW file only DNG and there is no way to turn it off
DNG is Leica's raw in this case, as it is written by camera's firmware
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AlterEgo

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2016, 11:15:07 am »

Perhaps this is a DNG thing
this is a camera/sensor + firmware thing = Leica feels that long exposure will lead to a lot of noise/hot pixels and makes it mandatory through firmware to take a dark frame to try to address that... the similar situation exists with other (non Leica) cameras.
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pegelli

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2016, 11:40:09 am »

this is a camera/sensor + firmware thing = Leica feels that long exposure will lead to a lot of noise/hot pixels and makes it mandatory through firmware to take a dark frame to try to address that... the similar situation exists with other (non Leica) cameras.
In all my cameras you can switch this off and when you shoot a whole series of night shots at similar conditions this gives you the option shoot one manual dark frame (with the lens or body cap on) and do the subtraction later as part of your PP workflow.
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AlterEgo

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2016, 11:41:53 am »

In all my cameras you can switch this off
yes, I had to write in "some other" cameras.
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sanfairyanne

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2016, 01:36:15 pm »

Well if was my camera I'd send it back and good riddance, I can well understand having it as an option, just like having the option to shoot in Jpeg but being forced to have it is outrageous. My guess is that someone wrote the computer coding and deliberately left this out so they can introduce it as a 'new feature' in the next generation Leica SL.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2016, 02:41:19 pm »

Hi,

That is not noise reduction but dark frame substraction. Very much a recommended solution. It doesn't relate to DNG.

On my camera, a Sony A7rII, I don't use dark frame substraction as it forces the camera into 12 bit mode.

Technically, it is possible to just shoot one image for dark frame substraction and do it in the post using software made for astronomy.

Best regards
Erik

I had the chance to take a few shots with the new Leica SL teamed with a F0.98 Leica 50mm lens. Without jumping in and writing my thoughts about camera build etc I wanted to question the apparent inability to turn off the in camera noise reduction. Taking a long exposure image of say 30 seconds requires an additional 30 seconds for the camera to complete the black image. This of course ties up the camera for a minute which potentially means you can miss the shot. A prime example would be a night pano' or taking a shot of the moon bursting (like a sunburst) over the horizon, invariably you'll need to fire a few shots and choose the best frame.

My way of thinking is that by forcing in camera noise reduction we're in some ways restricted in the same way Jpeg shooters are i.e. all the work is done in camera. There's no way we can work the image with our personal noise reduction in post later.

Perhaps this is a DNG thing, after all the Leica does not have its own proprietary RAW file.



I just wondered what people think?
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Erik Kaffehr
 

sanfairyanne

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2016, 04:42:24 pm »

Hi Erik,

Ok so it's dark frame subtraction, I understand this but there doesn't seem to be any way to get the Leica SL to stop doing the dark frame.
I contacted Leica a week ago but they haven't bothered to reply.
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #9 on: January 07, 2016, 05:15:51 pm »

That is not noise reduction but dark frame [subtraction]. Very much a recommended solution.

Single dark frame subtraction reduces frame-to-frame correlated noise at the expense of increasing frame-to-frame uncorrelated noise by a factor of 1.414.

You can achieve the same correlated noise reduction by subtracting a averaged dark frame (say, 16 shots) in post, without getting anywhere near the uncorrelated noise boost. In addition, you wont have gaps in your image sequences. Apparently, the SL doesn't allow this workflow, which will be a bummer for astro folk.

Jim

kers

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #10 on: January 07, 2016, 07:29:12 pm »

That is not camera noise!
it is just a beautiful photograph ;)
Thanks for posting it!

Pieter
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Pieter Kers
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eronald

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Re: Leica SL debating in camera noise reduction
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2016, 08:21:45 pm »

It's annoying, the shots posted here keep getting better.

Edmund

Thanks Jim,

The gap between exposures isn't something you think of until it becomes a problem. I shot this (atttached) image a few months ago. I wanted to capture the moon bursting on the horizon just like a sunburst. In order to do this I fired off as many shots as I could just as the moon settled on the horizon. I did this so I could choose the best out of the set. I wouldn't have been able to do this with the Leica SL.

I shouldn't be too concerned the camera belongs to my ageing father who's highly unlikely to be out in the mountains.
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