E versus non E. Splitting hairs

[Guy Mancuso]

Okay playing around here with sharpness in C1.

I pretty much settled in on -15 Clarity for the E and for the D800 its a plus 15. From all that I am seeing here these are really good clarity levels without kicking mid level contrast into over drive.

Now I thought my settings for sharpness on the D800 was a great 240 setting without getting into much trouble. On the E version its pretty high and i thought 120 was pretty good but as you can see here given the subject matter you could float between 120 and 240 although 240 is just flat out sharp as you can see. I'm kinda leaning as my default to be maybe180 or so and adjust as needed. That will require more testing of different subjects to see what works best and again sharpness is subjective but as you can see its a pretty big difference between the setting. Obviously people you want to keep this low but landscape type shooting you could really punch it if you want. I did leave the clarity at -15 for these and that Im pretty dead set on as a setting but it may go lower for people. Just a sample of 120 vs 240 here at 100 percent crops

Full Image

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Oh shot with the 35 1.4 G lens at F8. Love this lens.

What I like here is the elbow room between these two settings. You can really jump on a image if you wanted. This may help in larger prints

 

[Pingang]

I think the question can be simplified to individual work flow. There are some people shoot primary JPEG, for their professional reason, and there are those who only shoot RAW - like myself.
I order directly the D800E not because there is no difference in moire handling between the two but because I am aware that it could be an issue with D800E but since I only shoot RAW so I can have the powerful computer to deal with it in process.
I have use digital backs for 10 years now, moire is always there in certain degree but still the overall crispness outweight the possible and occassional moire, while they are slowly improve by the increase capability of software, also because of increase of pixels.
But I would not consider the D800E if I primary shoot JPEG, I don't, but I have some friends shooting weddings with JPEG only and in that case, I think D800 is a better choice.

BR,
Pingang

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Myself if I only shot weddings than I would have stayed with the D800 . Although I have hit very little moire with non AA filters for years on Leicas and MF backs. There is a very small percentage of jobs I shot jpegs only and recently shot about 5 k in images and nothing popped up. Bottom line I am not afraid of moire at all.

 

[weinschela]

Myself if I only shot weddings than I would have stayed with the D800 . Although I have hit very little moire with non AA filters for years on Leicas and MF backs. There is a very small percentage of jobs I shot jpegs only and recently shot about 5 k in images and nothing popped up. Bottom line I am not afraid of moire at all.

I posted a shot of a screen that would have been a moire disaster if you listen to the critics. It wasn't. I am used to M9 without AA so this was not a surprise.
I think Guy's original point here was to customize your defaults in your raw developer. The D800E may need dialing back for some, and the D800 may need cranking up, but in the end this is a personal decision about what you want your files to look like (and that may depend on your subject matters too). For me the D800E is fine with zero sharpening -- but I do not have a D800 to compare. The point for me is not whether the D800E can be made to look like D800 but whether I like the files it produces, both at "default" and after suitable tweaking per image. So far, the answer is yes.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Exactly Alan for me first having the non E it's a natural to try and match up with the E than make default adjustments after that to taste. Basically get it at something I was familiar with at first make that comparisions than forget that and make what makes sense to each person. Being a reviewer and tester for me I like to post this info for everyone. I believe these kinds of threads with some detail on the numbers help give folks some starting points to try and make adjustments to taste. Also when I'm faced with portraits than of course I will dial back even more like clarity may drop to the -35 number and sharpening much less too.

One other major thing too as time marches forward raw converters will most likely change to better profile the E much better. This is clearly today the D800 profile in C1.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Rumored C1 version 7 may actually have the E profile built in. That we don't know yet but here's hoping it does.

 

[Wayne Fox]

That's the incorrect assumption creating the confusion. The sensor itself creates the raw file and the camera's processor has nothing to do with it.

... but it does not directly alter the raw data streaming off the sensor.

Any source on this? I've heard otherwise, that there is indeed some work done on the "raw" data stream in the conversion to making the actual raw file. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to do ... however, I personally have no quotable source, just speculation and rumors I've stumbled onto a few times even though I've looked for some definitive sources in the past with no success either confirming or refuting.

I can remember reading speculation in the past that one camera maker actually applied some noise reduction to the shadow regions before rendering out a raw file

 

[Jack]

CCD has a user-added processing engine behind the sensor that generates the raw file. In this you can alter the gain curve to generate differing values than the linear values would be straight off the chip. But the data off the sensor is identical. By contrast, CMOS sensors are essentially self-contained. The only place you can alter the readout data is in your debayering algorithm and then with whatever gain curve you pack in your raw format designation.

Hence, Phase and Hasselblad that use the same CCD in respective cameras will have identical data off the sensor, but by their onboard processor can render distinctly different results, further altered by choice of debayering methods, rendering curves and profiles in the respective proprietary raw processors. But nonetheless, data off the sensor itself is identical between these cameras and only altered by the manufacturer-added processing engine.

Sony and Nikon cameras using the same CMOS sensor will get IDENTICAL data off the chip's included onboard processing engine. However, each of their proprietary raw processors will have different debayering algorithms, rendering curves and profiles for it. It's why a D800 (or any other cameras) raw file converted with the proprietary converter, C1 and LR all look different. And in fact many times it's difficult to get one of those to look exactly like the other primarily because the debayering algorithms and/or profiles are so different.