p.1 #1 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
I have been wondering, what is the best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds?
I have been using the E420 for a while now, and have to say that I am loving the Olympus system. The camera layouts and lenses are just fantastic. However, one place that the camera fails is shutter speeds slower than 2 seconds. After that, the images just start to get quite a bit of noise in them, so I was wanting to know which camera in the system would work best for night photography? I have heard very good things about the E1, and was about to pick one up when I ran into this problem, and since this is a secondary system, I just want will work for fun.
Does anyone know which cams in the system work best for nights?
p.1 #2 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
scribble wrote:
Does anyone know which cams in the system work best for nights?
Thanks
Steven
The best systems for night shooting use actively cooled CCDs. Room temperature shooting with conventional CMOS and CCD doesn't even come close to keeping up with those imagers.
Within consumer SLRs of a common generation, all are relatively clustered together with respect to long duration performance. Fourthirds is below average in this group, but bear in mind that this whole group rides the short bus to start with.
That said, acceptable long exposure performance is possible with consumer SLRs if enough care is taken. Above all, shoot at the base ISO. 2 seconds at ISO 100 is much better than half a second at ISO 400. Next, on fourthirds cameras, turn on "Noise Reduction". This will perform an automatic "dark frame subtraction", eliminating "hot pixels". Also, if you haven't done one in a while, perform a pixel remapping, which will also eliminate hot pixels and some kinds of pattern noise even when NR is not active.
Finally, if you can, stack. Ten twelve second shots at ISO 100, each taken with NR on, and then stacked in software, will produce a result much superior to one two minute shot. The NR takes care of the patterning/hot pixels, and the stacking averages out much of the (random) thermal noise.
This is a multiple shot stack comprising several minutes taken with an E-330. If it weren't for the relatively strong IR cut filter some red nebulae would even have managed to peak through this modest, big city skies, exposure.
p.1 #3 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
Alright, I was aware of the cooled CCD option, however, there is no option for that in the 4/3 system. I was wondering if the E1 would work, due to the CCD sensor, instead of the LMOS sensor of the newer bodies. Kodak designed sensors seem to work with heat fairly well, or at least that was my impression with the SLR/c I had for a while.
Now, I am not fully aware of the process of stacking exposures, if you could explain that one a bit further, I would appreciate it.
p.1 #4 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
scribble wrote:
Alright, I was aware of the cooled CCD option, however, there is no option for that in the 4/3 system. I was wondering if the E1 would work, due to the CCD sensor, instead of the LMOS sensor of the newer bodies. Kodak designed sensors seem to work with heat fairly well, or at least that was my impression with the SLR/c I had for a while.
The E-1 is pretty long in tooth, and even with its relatively larger photosites it has a hard time keeping up with newer cameras. An E-400 is a possibility if there's something about Kodak's CCD that you like over Panasonic's NMOS, but I think most people would be hard pressed to find differences relative to your E-420. Both have relatively heat generating sensors buried inside a relatively insulating camera body. Also you'd have to give up live view for an E-400.
scribble wrote:
Now, I am not fully aware of the process of stacking exposures, if you could explain that one a bit further, I would appreciate it.
Steven
Stacking for noise reduction (versus stacking for DOF, stacking for resolution, or (explicitly) stacking for dynamic range) requires that there be a gap between the noise floor and the beginning of the meaningful signal (ideally the blackest black) in each frame of the sequence. It also requires that the frames align precisely. As long as these conditions are met, each additional frame allows the wanted data to grow stronger, while the mostly random noise stays about the same. As this gap grows, the desired image pulls away from the undesired noise, and the later can be safely discarded by levels manipulation. It's how I was able to lift stars which would be invisible in a single image off of a salmon coloured sky glow (a bigger problem than sensor noise in that kind of shooting).
It also allows a shooter to make images whose effective exposure would be impractical (hours or days) or impossible by single shots.
Many software packages are available to automate the process, though most are targeted at astrophotography. I used Iris for the above stack, but a search for "image stacking noise" will turn up more options.
p.1 #5 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
The E-1 is not very good at long exposures even with dark frame subraction enabled (Noise Reduction in Oly speak) - CCDs run hotter than L/CMOS sensors in long exposures, same was true with the Canon 1D mk1 I owned.
By comparison i have been quite impressed by the E-3 dark frame subtraction, it works really well. Exposures between 2s and 4s run somewhere between the optimum in-camera processing limitations, so I would suggest trying to have longer exposures rather than around the 1 to 2 second durations.
p.1 #6 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
Alright, here is another question for you guys here with more experience in the E system than me. Why is my Noise Reduction grayed out? I am unable to turn it on.
p.1 #7 · Best 4/3 camera for extended shutter speeds
scribble wrote:
Alright, here is another question for you guys here with more experience in the E system than me. Why is my Noise Reduction grayed out? I am unable to turn it on.
You may have sequential shooting mode enabled. For some reason Olympus chose to make auto drive and noise reduction mutually exclusive rather than just dropping the fps rate by half in such conditions as cause NR to activate.
