M9 and Moire

[GroovyGeek]

With all the hand-wringing in the Nikon forums about potential Moire issues with the D800E I thought I'd ask the people most likely to know - the M9 owners.

Is Moire a note-worthy problem on the M9? I am sure that it appears in specific circumstances, and is probably close to non-existent in wide-angle landscape shots, but what about "general usage"?

Your insights are much appreciated.

 

[Godfrey]

I haven't seen any yet. But I've only had the M9 for about two-three weeks, and haven't really had much time for shooting!

 

[sirimiri]

Frankly moire isn't so much an issue for me, as the funky magenta color blobs the M9's sensor can impart to obscure parts of the human body, such as dimples or the inner nook of the eyelid.

At those contrastive locations, under artificial light I frequently get unworkable magenta artifacts and it's a pisser.

Moire, so far it's not an issue. But then again, I don't photograph tartan kilts at Midsummer with an M9, either.

 

[ced]

Magenta fringes around trees at a middle distance is as bad as moire for me.
Any sensor not using an AA filter is prone to moire somewhere in the image depending on the interference pattern generated by the subject's structure.

 

[Double Negative]

It does happen from time to time. But it's usually rare. Depends on your lens and the texture of what you're capturing (e.g. fine detail in fabrics or other materials). You need a sharp lens... It can be seen here in this 100% crop of distant(!) buildings:

 

[GroovyGeek]

Thanks for the comments and sample images!

 

[4season]

Moiré is sometimes a problem for me particularly when shooting fine details under contrasty conditions: Bird feathers, side-lit blades of grass and so forth:

But to be fair, the above is a 100% crop, and who in their right mind uses an M9 + 40mm Summicron to go birding anyway

I was (casually) pondering the D800/800E and thought that if I were to buy one, I'd stick with the standard-issue model because (1) it's cheaper, and (2) mild optical AA is exactly what the Sharpness controls in Aperture and other software is designed to deal with. Not camera shake, not lack of focus, but the softness due to AA. And so long as it's not too heavy-handed, the software does a good job of dealing with it.

 

[ced]

If the problem cannot be overcome in LR are you familiar how to deal with it in PS?

 

[4season]

If the problem cannot be overcome in LR are you familiar how to deal with it in PS?

I only started dabbling in Lightroom a few days ago, and only because Aperture doesn't currently support the raw files from Sony's NEX-7. I don't currently have Photoshop, but what's the technique?

 

[Double Negative]

Maybe this article will help, hot off the presses...

"Anti-Aliasing Filter Primer"

 

[Jan Brittenson]

I have a perfect image that should show moire on the M9. Not in a web format though since it doesn't work well in a small size. But basically it has a roof tile pattern going from near to far, and I would have bet my shirt that somewhere along that stretch I would see a region of moire. But not with LR3. Instead, there's a range where it's slightly softer (if you know to look for it) but there's no moire. So as it goes from near to far there's a certain distance where it's ever so slightly soft. It's barely noticeable, and then because I was looking for it. But no hint of moire.

 

[ced]

4season the image is taken and converted to Lab then the ab channels selected and gaussian blurred till the colour artefacts are reduced enough to disappear (locally masked to protect the rest of the image) when converted back to RGB the colour saturation may need to be increased somewhat.
2nd method mask the area and blur on a copied layer and change the layer overlay blend to colour and the colour artefacts will be removed and adjust colours if needed.
Hope this is interesting for you. There are probably other methods that others can advise.

 

[baudolino]

I had a lot of moire with the M9 when I was using the Summicron 50 lens; interestingly I had much less or almost none when I switched to the Summilux 50 asph. Could be that the resolution of the former lens was too high for the sensor or something.

 

[Double Negative]

As it turns out, I'm going to do a comparison/shoot-out of:

ACR (current)
Aperture
Capture One Pro
Lightroom 4 Beta
RPP

...in terms of processing a DNG file that exhibits moiré to see the handling in each. If anyone has any wishes, ideas or what-not I'm all ears. I'll post the results when it's done.

 

[4season]

4season the image is taken and converted to Lab then the ab channels selected and gaussian blurred till the colour artefacts are reduced enough to disappear (locally masked to protect the rest of the image) when converted back to RGB the colour saturation may need to be increased somewhat.
2nd method mask the area and blur on a copied layer and change the layer overlay blend to colour and the colour artefacts will be removed and adjust colours if needed.
Hope this is interesting for you. There are probably other methods that others can advise.

Thanks! I downloaded a demo of Photoshop in order to try it out, but it doesn't work on case-sensitive file systems, so I am out of luck unless I reformat my hard drive (I don't want to). But I found other software which did the trick, at least for eliminating the false color.

 

[Knorp]

I'd love to see the results of your comparisons, Michael.

Now whatever I tried in C1P this one drove me almost mad ... :loco:

But I still like it, though ... :wtf:

 

[MGrayson]

Moire? In MY M9? It's more likely than you think!

No, really. It looked like that.:ROTFL: You can get rid of the color and pattern, but only by turning it into a smooth blue or gray shirt.

--Matt

 

[Double Negative]

^ Well that's pretty hardcore Matt!

 

[ced]

Removed in Lab maybe the shirt could be blurred slightly too.
I think removing the moire before sharpening would be easier.
One gets an idea of what needs to be done to deal with the colour artefacts.

 

[Jan Brittenson]

Make sure the moiré filter is enabled in the processor.