Did you mean Sony noise or Panasonic noise? (since they seem to be the only two sensor suppliers to Olympus) Or do you mean whatever the sensor manufacturer, Olympus' jpeg engine does something to it to introduce said noise?
[Tech] Surprise : EM-1 Uses a Panasonic Sensor, not a Sony Sensor !
- Thread starter Agrivar
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Did you mean Sony noise or Panasonic noise? (since they seem to be the only two sensor suppliers to Olympus) Or do you mean whatever the sensor manufacturer, Olympus' jpeg engine does something to it to introduce said noise?
Olympus. Panasonic image processing gives a different signature.
Both olympus raw and jpeg give the same signature.
heh, well, u won recognition of your skills in deciphering meaning from a image
Aww. Was hoping to win an EM-10
Same noise signatures irrespective of sensor used, whether Panasonic or Sony?
Not doubting you had issues with your E-M5 but just that I haven't been able to find anything similar in my 1 year of shooting with my E-M5. But I only shoot RAW and use a third party converter. Noise, certainly yes, especially in lower EV areas dominated by one colour channel. But no blotchiness though.
Why would two different imaging engines give the same noise signature? The sensor is one thing, but both companies handle noise very differently.
If you look at the shadow areas, these become evident. Try shooting high contrast scenes and you will get those.
I agree with that, of course Panasonic and Olympus' image processing would look different. Just as within the same manufacture's processing engine should produce different noise characteristics when there's a completely different sensor used in the camera. So the notion of this poor shadow noise handling ability for Olympus cameras despite completely different sensors doesn't make a lot of sense to me and hence the need for clarification.
You raised this in another thread a few months ago so I had a look through my files then to no avail. So when you raised it again especially when implying it's common for all Olympus cameras, it piqued my interest again. I looked at more recent files and I still can't see it, yes high contrast ones too. Just wondering if you ever used the tone curve adjustment and was boosting shadows when you had your E-M5?
A quick Google search of the E-M5 for blotchy shadows only returned results comparing it to previous generation problematic Olympus cameras and not the E-M5, or JPEG results when noise suppression has kicked in. So I can't really find evidence of this claim at all.
I'm not sure but wonglp also reported the same issue. Might it be the way you expose your shots? One thing for certain is that one might avoid this problem if one chooses to expose for shadows rather than for highlights.
Boosting for shadows should not mean much at all because the noise will remain there irregardless. It just means it's less obvious. These problems turn up more when one does high contrast scenes which you do not get often in Singapore but do so abroad.
Everywhere I read it's stated EM10 is using EM5 sensor and EM1 processor. But unless someone breaks open the camera for the confirmation, that's all we have.
I haven't seen the specific wonglp posts you're referring to so it may be hard to comment. But at least the one example in this thread is from a E-M10 and is almost certainly an OOC jpeg (a bit more on that later). Furthermore it is also a long exposure shot so we're not comparing the same things. Wonglp points out in his post that there are other issues at play here such as heat dissipation but generally being from an E-M10, there are too many unknowns for now. But I do agree with you that the shadows in the E-M10 sample does exhibit the blotchy noise you speak of.
Boosting shadows is significant. Yes the noise it there regardless. It is there in the shadows and it is there in the highlights and midtones, everywhere basically. But in shadow area there is little actual data (signal) so your ratio of signal to noise is low. When you boost shadows you amplify the little signal you have as well as the noise so it makes it very obvious. Basically same as raising the ISO except you're amplifying the signal purely digitally but Sony sensors are known for their low read noise so this shouldn't differ hugely to raising ISO in-camera.
Now what's unknown here is whether that is triggering noise suppression in Olympus cameras. All the examples so far has been from OOC jpegs but you said it is present in RAW files too. If this is from OlyViewer, does Olyviewer not import the in-camera settings for conversion by default? (I don't use OlyViewer so can someone help confirm this?). Then it is possible the same noise suppression is carried forward in PP conversion? Forgot to ask, which RAW converter did you use and still observed the blotchy noise?
My suspicion is that this is an Olympus software issue, whether from the in-camera jpeg engine or Olyviwer. But more specifically NR and perhaps sharpening of NR artifacts.
I can get something a little similar by introducing fairly extreme shadow boosting (amplifying the noise first), aggressive NR then sharpening it in LR. It looks a bit different but you'd expect that with a different converter. Note that just boosting shadows in LR just makes it noisy but uniform, not blotchy. The NR parts introduces funny artifacts.
Coming back to what you said about high contrast shots. In the past year I've used it in Sg, Aus, Indo and Japan in a wide enough variety of light. I don't think the contrast is the issue. But as you said if you expose for shadows it helps the problem. That's because you're essentially exposing to increase the signal to 'drown out' the noise so to speak. Same principle as ETTR to increase your SNR. The fact that you see it in high contrast shots may suggest you're boosting shadows if the meter gets fooled into exposing more for the highlights leaving you with darker areas than you want. Hence why I asked if you may be boosting shadows, which may be triggering some NR??
Again, I don't doubt the problem exists in some situations since I can see your example. But I think the culprit may be Olympus software NR and perhaps sharpening of that. I have no interest in OOC jpegs so haven't shot as such and maybe why I haven't seen any examples personally. I highly doubt the sensors in all Olympus cameras have inherently blotchy shadow characteristics, especially in light of the fact there are multiple sensor suppliers.
I hope this helps. Only a best guest on my part but think I've taken this OT far enough (bad habit of mine LOL). Happy to discuss this elsewhere if that interests you so we don't block up this thread.
Wow, thanks for the info.
if that is true, then EM10 will be the best sensor + best processor camera currently available.
Here's the post I did for E-P5 preview a last year. You can see ISO200 vs ISO100, the blotchiness as mentioned by NazgulKing can be seen ISO200 (he can't accept the blotch while I can), while ISO100 is alot cleaner. The shot I did above with EM10 was ISO200 with NR off. Certainly with ISO100 on EP5, it was a great feature for me as the shot was cleaner and I can get away with not using ND filters at times, though the highlight does clip quite easily, as the base ISO remains as 200. It's all about personal preference.
PDAF has nothing to do with the sensor itself, it's just a different micro lens filter. You could make on-sensor PDAF happen even with an old CCD.
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