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D3 Anti Aliasing Filter Removal

D

DougDolde

Guest
Out of curiosity (I don't own one) I asked the people at maxmax.com if they can convert the D3 to HR, ie remove the anti aliasing filter. Their response:

"Yes, we can convert the Nikon D3 to HR for $450 + return S&H ($20
UPS ground insured domestic USA)"
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
I wonder how much it would help. My guess would be that the Anti-Aliasing filter is supposed to mainly reduce jaggies and moiré. And you could say that here some blur is intentionally added.
The sensational improved high ISO performance with increased Noise Reduction might mainly be caused by some kind of in-house software processing, maybe again (only this time as an unintentional impact) adding some blur to the NEF files ? If that's the case, maybe you will still get some rather soft NEF files to begin with that need a lot of sharpening, even if you remove the AA filter ? I'm just guessing here, and I suppose the only way to find out is to try out the removal of the AA filter. Not sure I would dare do it to my own camera though .-)
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
I wonder how much it would help. My guess would be that the Anti-Aliasing filter is supposed to mainly reduce jaggies and moiré. And you could say that here some blur is intentionally added.
The sensational improved high ISO performance with increased Noise Reduction might mainly be caused by some kind of in-house software processing, maybe again (only this time as an unintentional impact) adding some blur to the NEF files ? If that's the case, maybe you will still get some rather soft NEF files to begin with that need a lot of sharpening, even if you remove the AA filter ? I'm just guessing here, and I suppose the only way to find out is to try out the removal of the AA filter. Not sure I would dare do it to my own camera though .-)
I agree with you. I would like to try it with your camera. :ROTFL:
-bob
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
eh, yes maybe, Bob, if you are good at surgery :shocked:
I actualley just bought a D300 but I'm going on a travel tomorrow morning and I need to go pack now and get some sleep
so I only have time to show you a very quick example
I think it looks interesting though so far I haven't got a clue on how to process those files in Capture NX ...
night / strongly backlit scenery / lightened by some very strong spotlights
four 100 % crops + the total frame resized
see you in ten days, cheers
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Sorry if I shouldn't have posted the above quick D300 example in a dedicated D3 thread. It has just been my impression that the CMOS + strong AA characteristics were similar for both these two new camera models, anyway I am not quite sure about this ?
By the way, the four crops were originalley a bit larger than 900 pixels wide, but when I uploaded them they automatically were resized to 900 pixels wide and about half the amount of Kilobytes. Their quality would probably have been a bit better if I had resized them to the right size in the first step. Though they were automatically reduced to 'thumbnails' they don't seem to get larger when you click on them ?
I have to catch a plane now, so I haven't got time to upload smaller 100 % crops in a better quality.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Those D300 crops are impressive! (Better than the few 100% crops I've seen come out of the D3.)
 
A

asabet

Guest
I wonder how much it would help.
Check out this thread at DPReview comparing D3 and 5D images each processed using Aperture 2.1. The low ISO (ISO 200 and ISO 400) 5D images show more aliasing effect and more shadow noise than the corresponding D3 images; however, the 5D images also show significantly more detail. Putting it together, it seems the D3 has a stronger AA filter and would capture noticeably more detail with AA filter removal. That's not to say that it would be a good tradeoff. It would really depend on what you shoot, and how sensitive to aliasing you are.

The sensational improved high ISO performance with increased Noise Reduction might mainly be caused by some kind of in-house software processing, maybe again (only this time as an unintentional impact) adding some blur to the NEF files ?
Can't remember if it was Emil Martinec or John Sheehy, but I've seen an analysis strongly suggesting that there is no in-camera noise reduction being applied to the D3 RAW files. John has attributed the superior high ISO/low light performance of the D3 to low read noise. Either way, there is no doubt that identically processed RAW D3 files show both much more detail and much lower noise than corresponding 5D files at high ISOs. The DPReview thread linked above shows this as well.

Regards,
Amin
 
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