Phase One IQ250 Low Light ISO & Long Exposure

[anthonyfesta]

Hey Everybody,

It's been a wild few days around here between new products, an ice / snow storm that shut down our city and an open house, so I am sorry for not following up as quickly as I had hoped. We put together our next test for you and finally have it ready! We took the IQ250 out to test long exposure as well as the ISO in low light. A bar lit by candlelight seemed an excellent choice. Take a look at our findings and let us know what you think!

IQ250 by candlelight



More tests to come after the weekend.

[Theodoros]

Hey Everybody,

It's been a wild few days around here between new products, an ice / snow storm that shut down our city and an open house, so I am sorry for not following up as quickly as I had hoped. We put together our next test for you and finally have it ready! We took the IQ250 out to test long exposure as well as the ISO in low light. A bar lit by candlelight seemed an excellent choice. Take a look at our findings and let us know what you think!

IQ250 by candlelight



More tests to come after the weekend.

Performance up to 1600 Iso seems to be impressive for an MFDB, it also seems to have better colour than DSLRs (although this is difficult to judge from the post) which is a traditional value for MFDBs and many would fear that it could be affected by using an Cmos sensor instead of a CCD… The question still remains though, why should one use an MFDB at high Iso, instead of using an FF DSLR, open the aperture to match DOF and even shoot at lower Iso? …IMO, high Iso performance isn't a factor that a possible MFDB user should consider, all the rest are… DR seems to have great latitude too… now that is something if it is combined with "Dalsa-like" colour… I expect the IQ250 to handle HLs better than CCD oriented backs and it seems in your post that LLs hold lots of information too.

[Paul2660]

With the 1600 and 3200 both examples on this site show the effects of pretty heavy noise reduction.  To me very clear in the CI sign (blue) and the table cloth.  1600 does look very promising however and I am sure Phase will possible tweak the firmware or software over time.

3200 on the side by side face shots (in the blog article) look pretty much gone as far as much detail.  Especially the 3200 one.  Skin, beard, especially areas under the hat around eye and top of hat. 

The long exposure at 100 ISO looks very good and I would like to see a comparison to the IQ260 at ISO 140 for same time or equivalent. 

The 6400 shot with fireworks appears very good for what it is 6400 ISO, but the image shown is not a full size crop (at least I believe it's not)  Sky in background is showing signs of noise and maybe a bit of banding. 

Glad to see you guys were able to have some fun in the snow down in Atlanta.  Thanks for the post.

Paul Caldwell




 

[anthonyfesta]

With the 1600 and 3200 both examples on this site show the effects of pretty heavy noise reduction.  To me very clear in the CI sign (blue) and the table cloth.  1600 does look very promising however and I am sure Phase will possible tweak the firmware or software over time.

3200 on the side by side face shots (in the blog article) look pretty much gone as far as much detail.  Especially the 3200 one.  Skin, beard, especially areas under the hat around eye and top of hat. 

The long exposure at 100 ISO looks very good and I would like to see a comparison to the IQ260 at ISO 140 for same time or equivalent. 

The 6400 shot with fireworks appears very good for what it is 6400 ISO, but the image shown is not a full size crop (at least I believe it's not)  Sky in background is showing signs of noise and maybe a bit of banding. 

Glad to see you guys were able to have some fun in the snow down in Atlanta.  Thanks for the post.

Paul Caldwell




 

Paul,

I was most impressed with 1600, in the tests I have done I haven't been very excited with the how 3200 looks. However, were purposefully shot in such a dark low light location in order to really push what the camera can do. Some of the Phase sample RAW files we received looked better at 3200, so it could be a situation based and post processing based thing. More tests we will see for sure.

Our camera was actually running a pre-production firmware, we just got a new one yesterday. We are doing a little more testing this weekend so we'll see if it is any different.

I wasn't too surprised with how clean the long ISO 100 test looked. CMOS chips have always done a good job in my opinion. As for a heads up versus the IQQ260, Definitely a good call. Will see if we can arrange that soon.

Yeah, the 6400 shot is what it is. I didn't shoot that frame, so I would have to ask Zac to be sure if it is a crop.

While the snow and ice was not fun for most folks, Zac and I actually didn't attempt to get home so we slept at the office, we did get to enjoy it a little. Stumbling across fireworks right near the office was a good end cap.

[anthonyfesta]

Performance up to 1600 Iso seems to be impressive for an MFDB, it also seems to have better colour than DSLRs (although this is difficult to judge from the post) which is a traditional value for MFDBs and many would fear that it could be affected by using an Cmos sensor instead of a CCD… The question still remains though, why should one use an MFDB at high Iso, instead of using an FF DSLR, open the aperture to match DOF and even shoot at lower Iso? …IMO, high Iso performance isn't a factor that a possible MFDB user should consider, all the rest are… DR seems to have great latitude too… now that is something if it is combined with "Dalsa-like" colour… I expect the IQ250 to handle HLs better than CCD oriented backs and it seems in your post that LLs hold lots of information too.

1600 for MFDB is very impressive, and I have been quite excited about the color out of this camera than some other DSLRs. A heads up comparison with show a little more definitive in that respect.

We have a bunch of customers who are thrilled about the idea of high ISO MFDB, but every end user has different needs.

I was very please with DR, HL and LL information retention. As well, very happy with the color here.

[mikeyam]

Thanks for sharing, Anthony.

While it was the first thing on my mind when the IQ250 was introduced, I haven't seen any new findings in the CCD vs CMOS debate. Some people talk about CCD color and quality and how much it contributes to the medium format "look", but how does this new CMOS sensor compare? Does it give up anything to the CCD backs for the sake of high ISO?

[henrikfoto]

Hey Everybody,

It's been a wild few days around here between new products, an ice / snow storm that shut down our city and an open house, so I am sorry for not following up as quickly as I had hoped. We put together our next test for you and finally have it ready! We took the IQ250 out to test long exposure as well as the ISO in low light. A bar lit by candlelight seemed an excellent choice. Take a look at our findings and let us know what you think!

IQ250 by candlelight




More tests to come after the weekend.

To be honest I think these pics look bad.
30.000$ to get this iq???
Maybe my hopes were too high..