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IQ260 at Focus on Imaging Yesterday

Looks like I was one of the first to see this guy yesterday.

I've also seen raw files from it and they are startling. I could see absolutely no noise - I mean zero noise, even in deep shadow areas, and even on 1 hour + exposures. Really, ZERO noise! The images were taken with the DF+ so I couldn't see the full quality of the files that we'd get with a tech cam but they looked pretty good in all other respects.

I also heard from a Phase One dealer that Phase had their best year ever last year. How else could they afford all this R&D for new products?

 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Making money does not sound too dead to me unless they have a very good estate administrator.
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
From the samples I've seen these statements are a bit optimistic.

If you saw the image with "Zero noise" then most likely noise reduction was on in the software (probably at the beta's default values).

Realistically any image taken at the max of a system is going to have noise. If it didn't then they would list the specification of the max-exposure-length as being higher.

Now from the samples I've seen the inherent noise at an hour at ISO140 cleans up very nicely in the software with only moderate impact to detail/color/texture etc. Which is a pretty freaking amazing statement.
 

gazwas

Active member
Now from the samples I've seen the inherent noise at an hour at ISO140 cleans up very nicely in the software with only moderate impact to detail/color/texture etc. Which is a pretty freaking amazing statement.
While some will want to push the IQ260 to its 1hr limit, I assume most like me will max out at 10-20mins exposures. Within these sort of times are we to expected to have to use large amounts of NR for clean images or will minimum settings still be ok? I personally prefer my files a bit more crunchy and luminance noise doesn't bother me but colour NR (longer exposure on P65) just look smeared to my eye.
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
While some will want to push the IQ260 to its 1hr limit, I assume most like me will max out at 10-20mins exposures. Within these sort of times are we to expected to have to use large amounts of NR for clean images or will minimum settings still be ok? I personally prefer my files a bit more crunchy and luminance noise doesn't bother me but colour NR (longer exposure on P65) just look smeared to my eye.
Can't say for sure at this point. At that range I suspect very good results without the smearing and without the need for overly aggressive NR. But I want to examine real world raw files before I say definitively.
 

gazwas

Active member
What they do stick a cable in every orifice?
Don, not being from the UK you probably don't understand the "type" of photographer that attends this show. The people who are generally interested in this sort of exotic kit get drowned amongst the people who pretend they do. You know the type, call themselves "semi-pros" and walk around the exhibition with their longest/biggest lens and flash gun attached to their cameras.

I bet all those cables look really cool to them!
 

robertwright

New member
what kills me is that it is 2013, we have 50,000$ worth of tech and it still can be brought to a dead standstill by the :banghead: squiggly wire.

must.be.a.better.way
 
Wait, I think it figured it out. Each of those cables is going from the back, straight into Doug at various entry points, so he can download all the info about the new back and finish his write-up!!! That would explain his vast knowledge on them...
 
It's a Linhof Techno.

And as regards NR, the ISO 50 Raw files I saw were at the default NR settings in C1 7 ie. 50/50/0 and super clean. Then there were a number of long exposure night shots at ISO140 - the only change was the 'Single Pixel' setting put up to 80. There was a little smearing evident but that could also have been camera shake in wild conditions - difficult to see, especially as the files were on the DF. The Beta firmware was recording every long-exposure shot as nearly 13 hours when they were plainly less than that judging by the short star trails so I estimated the exposure time.

But there really was no noise visible in any of the shots. They looked a great deal cleaner than P45+, 1DsIII or 5DII files and closer to - possibly even cleaner than - D800 files shot at low ISO in good light. Sorry to mention it but just passing on what I've seen so far.

I'll be very interested to see the back tested on a tech cam in good light and calm conditions. I've seen no high ISO results yet - clean high ISO files would certainly be a great step forward.
 
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