IQ3 100MP technical camera tests: color cast, mazing artifact, tiling issue, DR etc

[Wayne Fox]

Yunli are you ever happy or satisfied with anything?
Some of Wayne's issues with his particular IQ180 were mainly due to his back requiring calibration which was easily solved. Other's were fixed or greatly reduced with proper workflow.

In my case, the file in question while processed aggressively wasn’t over the top, and after the back was re-calibrated I haven’t seen the issue again.

 

[Cindy Flood]

OK Lets make something completely clear.
Images are owned by their creators unless made under a contract that says something different.
We assume though that folks that post images own them and thus control their usage.
We encourage the posting of images, after all it is not all about gear but about the images we make with it. Some images are intended as art, some to illustrate some aspect of gear, processing or technique.
It is perfectly fine to ask to use an image for a test or some other purpose such as variations on processing, but the key point here is that you MUST ask and get permission and furthermore your request MUST say what you intend to do with them.

Any questions?
Good, now carry on.
-bob

Bob has made this clear. Let's move on before more moderation is required.

 

[GrahamWelland]

I expected this reaction from an amateur not a professional. I can see that you have no clue on the merits thus I'll ignore anything else from you as it's now suspect.

Continue with your "tests" and have a good life.

Don,

To be fair to Yunli I think that this is perhaps just naivety vs anything beyond that (and he did fix it). I appreciate the work he does and I'd hate for us to shoo him away. As per Cindy, I think that the message from Bob covered it.

Now if he'd used one of my images ... (just kidding). Btw, Yunli if you want some other tiling problem images from the 260 to illustrate the point I can send you some.

 

[voidshatter]

Hi Void,

To my eyes the IQ3 100MP is quiet a bite more noisy than the IQ250. My eyes wrong? I have seen it Doug's round tower shot too.

Best regards
Erik

Hi, I am now looking into the darkframe shots. I have found the following:

a) The shadow of the IQ3100 has been pushed a tiny bit harder than the IQ250. This is probably due to the algorithm implemented for Capture One when you take exposure compensation into account in post processing.

b) I have opened the RAW files by RawDigger 1.2.4. As you can see for the same small region of deep shadow, the standard deviation (noise) is about the same for both the IQ3100 and the IQ250. The IQ380 apparently falls behind a lot, which is consistent with what we see in the real pictures.

c) Then I checked my darkframe test shots by RawDigger 1.2.4 (black level = 0). I have found that the IQ250 loses the scoring (higher standard deviation) due to some higher luminosity in the corners (possibly due to light leakage of the lens cap).

d) If I abuse the high ISO darkframe shots I find the tiling of readout noise for the two fullframe sensors even with Capture One's calibration as shown below (see the tiling of these two fullframe sensors).

e) By manually selecting a sub-region in each darkframe to avoid the tiling partitions I expect to be able to calculate un-skewed standard deviation of readout noise (which presumably affects dynamic range in real-world usage).

Simple words: these two Sony sensors perform quite similarly.

 

[voidshatter]

Thanks to Bart's input, I have analyzed the darkframe shots I made. For the IQ3100 case it was shot in 16-bit mode. I used RawDigger 1.2.4 (black level=0) to manually select a sub-region in each darkframe to avoid tiling of readout noise. Then I used the following to calculate the dynamic range:

DR = ln( (65535 - mean(darkframe)) / std(darkframe) ) / ln(2)

It appears that the DR of this new sensor is really great!

 

[voidshatter]

I have just downloaded Capture One v9.0.3. When I try the color cast correction of LCC, WTF??? I might even prefer the v9.0.1 result for this image...

Note: "Pick White Balance Tool" on the same spot (center of the frame)

 

[dchew]

We've probably beaten this horse enough, but I have a 3100 over the weekend. Lenses I have are 40hr, 60xl, 90hrsw, 150xl.

If anyone wants anything specific let me know. I can compare with an IQ180 but that's it. Max I can shift is 18mm. Sorry Torger, there is snow everywhere so finding you color for a good crosstalk test might be difficult.

I could find a red barn or some evergreen trees if that helps.

Dave

Edit: Forgot about a 70hr and 100hr I also have.

 

[voidshatter]

Just tried another: IQ3100+40HR 15mm up - still the same red-ish color cast after LCC correction with Capture One v9.0.3.

 

[voidshatter]

Capture One v9.0.3 seems to have improved suppression of mazing artifact. Below shows when the 40HR is shifted outside the official image circle what happens when demosaicer attemps to counter crosstalk issues. This is good news - it means Capture One v9.0.3 has improved usable movement range a little bit (despite the red-ish color cast after LCC correction).

 

[voidshatter]

It appears that the purple glow has been fixed (or better suppressed) in Capture One v9.0.3 - good news!

 

[torger]

Capture One v9.0.3 seems to have improved suppression of mazing artifact. Below shows when the 40HR is shifted outside the official image circle what happens when demosaicer attemps to counter crosstalk issues. This is good news - it means Capture One v9.0.3 has improved usable movement range a little bit (despite the red-ish color cast after LCC correction).

View attachment 115909

As I've noted in some other thread it's very easy to remove the mazing artifact 100%, I do it in my own LCC algorithm, so I'm surprised they don't do it in Capture One. However it's not a big deal, and in a way it's good to have it there as it's a strong indicator that you're pushing it too hard. Removing the mazing artifact it becomes a larger risk that one passes an image that one later regrets due to color issues one missed the first time.

 

[tjv]

Thanks for posting these Void.
I agree that the 9.0.3 LCC corrections look, well... bad... Colour cast is very pronounced with the 40HR, which pretty much kills this back for me. Not that I could afford one now anyway, but confirms that the Dalsa 60 is the sweet spot for me.

 

[Paul2660]

Maybe Phase will also address the faint blotchy banding that happens with shifts on both the 50 and 100 mp chips. They have known about it at least 1 year now for sure on the 50 mp. Just look at the first Alpa tests where you see the blue sky. You can also see it in many of the dealer provided LCC shots.

You can clearly see the issue in any of the test shots that have shifted past 5mm.

It is very faint and jot as hard as microlens ripple. Phase corrects microlens ripple very well currently.

The fact that they have addressed the mazing gives me hope for the banding.

But the current LCC a process does not address it.

Paul C

 

[dchew]

I did a simple test this morning using the 3100, IQ180, 40hr and 60xl-with center filter. Dropped the back down 18mm with the back mounted vertically and horizontally. This is not a test designed to push everything to "expose" problems. These are tests for me to see how the back reacts to my normal shooting (A little ETTR).

These are the 3100 images with LCC applied, dust spots and all:
3100-40hr-NoShift (just pointed the camera up a bit)

3100-40hr-HShift18

3100-40hr-VShift18

3100-60xl-VShift18

3100-60xl-HShift18

They look fine to me. I did notice some faint tiling.

If anyone wants the raws from this and/or from the IQ180 to compare, let me know.

 

[Paul2660]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for posting.

Question, I am confused as you are calling it shift, is it not rise? as it appears you did not shift L or R, but moved the back down or up to pull in more sky on top. But I may have this incorrect. The reason I ask, is that I found the banding more problematic on L and R shift, not Rise/Fall movements (in the 50MP chip)

Just looking at the shots on my NEC, the 40 HR-W on the 2nd shot, shows just a bit of red color cast in the upper left corner, at least to me. Not that it would not be correctable in CI

The 40 HR vertical rise, seems less prone to any cast, and just begins to show the IC vignette.

The 60XL to me is overall red cast, but again may be my monitor. The last 60XL shot to me also has just a bit of red on the left side.

Congratulations on the new back.

Paul C

 

[dchew]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for posting.

Question, I am confused as you are calling it shift, is it not rise? as it appears you did not shift L or R, but moved the back down or up to pull in more sky on top. But I may have this incorrect. The reason I ask, is that I found the banding more problematic on L and R shift, not Rise/Fall movements (in the 50MP chip)

Just looking at the shots on my NEC, the 40 HR-W on the 2nd shot, shows just a bit of red color cast in the upper left corner, at least to me. Not that it would not be correctable in CI

The 40 HR vertical rise, seems less prone to any cast, and just begins to show the IC vignette.

The 60XL to me is overall red cast, but again may be my monitor. The last 60XL shot to me also has just a bit of red on the left side.

Congratulations on the new back.

Paul C

Yes sorry "rise" on all of them (actually back fall, but same thing). So why would it matter if I have the camera oriented horizontally and shifted horizontally, vs. oriented vertically with rise? Isn't that the same thing? Or do these backs know where Heaven and Earth are??
:loco:

I did not white balance these nor do anything else with them except apply the LCC, so the red may just be the difference between the lenses. Camera WB was set to Daylight, and the ICC profile is "Phase One IQ3 100MP Flash." Switching to Outdoor Daylight does remove a small bit of red cast.

Oh and one other tiny bit of info: I am just testing the back as a demo. It's not mine! I wouldn't upgrade for image quality. Just doesn't seem very different, and in fact there are some things the 180 does better besides just color cast. For example, specular highlights on this back still show some purple blooming. I don't get that at all on the IQ180.

But OOOhhhh that Live View...

Dave

 

[dchew]

Paul,
As for red color cast on the 40hr shot: If I hover in CI in the upper left, RGB ~110/150/200. If I move in to where that second dust spot is just above the skinny cloud, I get ~110/156/204. So you are right; the image is a little brighter moving in but the red doesn't really change.

Honestly I think the jpg has exaggerated the difference. I can't really see much difference on my NEC. But my NEC is long in the tooth (PA241W).

 

[Paul2660]

Hi Dave, you are right, I guess it's the same thing.

It just looked like in the first couple of shots, you had the back horizontal and the movement was downward/fall and thus created more sky in the image. The only reason I was curious, is that I found the 50Mp back easier to use (back horizontal/with rise fall) than with the back horizontal (shift L/R). I tend to do more L and Right movements, with tilt in my work. The older Sony showed the faint banding more when the back was horizontal/landscape and shifted left and right. I did not find it a problem enough not to keep the back, but other reasons, kept me at the 260.

Interesting on the highlights issues, but that seems to be the case with CMOS, in general in that I tend to expose for highlights and realize I have more shadow room in post, just the opposite of how I work with the 260.

Thanks again for the images.

Paul

 

[dchew]

Just to be clear, I set up the camera with 18mm of back fall. Then I mounted the back in both vertical and horizontal positions so I could see the difference between the back being shifted both in its horizontal direction and the vertical direction.

So all the images in landscape orientation had the back horizontal and moved down 18mm (like you thought). All the images in portrait had the back vertical and moved down 18mm.

So you are seeing the two different movement directions. I did it this way on purpose so I could compare the same blue sky/white clouds.

What I haven't shown here is mounting the back in portrait orientation and shifting left/right. That does not stress the image circle as much as what I did here. I did some of that yesterday, but it was a dull blank cloudy sky so it wasn't much of a challenge for the LCC.

Dave

 

[dchew]

Here is what I mean about the highlights. I don't think this is any different that what others have shone before (Voidshatter's security camera). This is v9.0.3, and perhaps Phase will continue to make improvements.

Not that this is a deal killer, just something the 180 handles better. I agree it seems to be a CMOS thing. In general they seem more sensitive to purple. I'm sure there are 50 technical reasons why that is not the case, but it sure is my perception.

Dave

Edit: note that the 3100 image was even 1 stop under the 180 image. I matched exposure and color on the wall to the left. These are both 100% crops from the upper left of an image (40hr).