On 3/10/06, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Joel's full pixel samples of his daughter are more like what I saw. Not
> awful, and not a problem at all reduced for the web, but significantly
> limiting the cropping and large print options.
I ran the printer this morning and made prints of the samples I posted
yesterday, with variations. Yesterday's samples are crops of the
original ISO 200 and 800 RAW files. I'm not sure what percentage was
actually cropped, but I would estimate that the printed portion of the
5x7s are the equivalents of letter-size prints had I not cropped.
I printed:
1) the original ISO 200 reference
2) ISO 800
3) ISO 800 with 50 lum NR
4) ISO 800 with 50 lum 60 color NR
Bearing in mind that #1) is a different photograph from the others,
the pose is virtually identical among them all. Without knowing the
difference between #1) and #4), it would be extremely difficult to
tell them apart, despite the fact that they actually different
photographs!.
It would be difficult for a person off the street to tell #2) the ISO
800 print with no NR from #4) the one with the greatest amount of NR.
I can easily see more graininess in the shadows under the chin, but I
know what to look for.
For some reason, #3), which was the best ISO 800 version for web
viewing IMO, was the worst when printed.
I discovered two things by doing this:
1) Not only are the ISO 800 captures "not awful," as Moose says, they
are potentially very good -- provided you do due diligence by getting
exposures right and possiblity shooting RAW, etc. A little
post-process NR is OK.
2) I am forcefully reminded by this experiment that printing and web
viewing are different worlds. I remember back in the days when Epson
was producing printers with smaller and smaller dots, people would
makes prints and then take a magnifying glass or lupe to see how the
dots looked, or even whether they could see the dots at all. They
would express satisfaction with the printer on the basis of this kind
of viewing. If this ever had meaning, it got to the point where
printers were so good that this kind of thing became meaningless.
We're in something of a similar circumstance with digital cameras,
it's just that we use our monitors as magnifying glasses in addition
to normal viewing. My beef is when too much magnification starts to
be considered "normal."
I don't mind viewing at 100% pixels to sharpen, but at 100% nothing
looks very good to me, no matter what the source. Even after
sharpening I like to shift everything down to 50% to look at details.
That's where my monitors seem to do best.
Why is 100% correct for viewing? Why not 200% or 400%? Does anyone
actually print at 100% pixels? Is this a target for sensor designers?
Just as we went through this about 10 years ago with inkjet printers,
I think we're experiencing a little bit of silliness about noise.
I'm not putting this out there to discredit anybody or their
decisions. It's a positive challenge to all you E-thingers: Don't
shy away from your higher ISOs, as I did, because we're being
bombarded with noise hype. If you do, you're missing out on features
that your camera does a lot better than you may have been lead to
believe. And don't take my word for it. Test for yourself.
Joel W.
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