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Capture Integration 1st Takes on IQ3 100 Trichromatic and XF Feature Update #4

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
As EJ mentioned, it will be a very hard sell to the previous owners of the IQ3100 unless the color difference is significant and the upgrade price is very attractive.
I'm pretty happy with my IQ3 100 and it's color rendering. The issue of using it on a tech camera remains, and I can't see anything in the description of the tech that would improve this and perhaps entice me to at least check into upgrading.

Is this a replacement back for the current IQ3 100, or is this "another" optional back that is perceived more useful for some types of photography?
 

aztwang

Member
I'm pretty happy with my IQ3 100 and it's color rendering. The issue of using it on a tech camera remains, and I can't see anything in the description of the tech that would improve this and perhaps entice me to at least check into upgrading.

Is this a replacement back for the current IQ3 100, or is this "another" optional back that is perceived more useful for some types of photography?
I'm curious as well. The other questions I have are, is this back/sensor/technology proprietary to Phase One?...OR should we expect Hassy, Pentax, Fuji e.t.c. to have an offering?

Is the Trichromatic going to be the only 100MP back that Phase offers or will they be offering both the Tri and the predecessor , the IQ3100?
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
I'm curious as well. The other questions I have are, is this back/sensor/technology proprietary to Phase One?...OR should we expect Hassy, Pentax, Fuji e.t.c. to have an offering?

Is the Trichromatic going to be the only 100MP back that Phase offers or will they be offering both the Tri and the predecessor , the IQ3100?

IQ1 100 and IQ3 100 remain current products. Phase One tends to maintain product models in their lineups longer than just about any camera manufacturer I am aware of. You can still purchase IQ180 product new, and it was introduced 6.5 years ago. Both IQ1 100 and IQ3 100 models were reduced by $2,000 each with the launch of the IQ3 100 Trichromatic. And IQ3 100 refurbs are now available for $14,000 less than what a new IQ3 100 cost last week.

https://captureintegration.com/phase-one-4th-quarter-promotions/


Steve Hendrix/CI
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Hi Steve,

A 35 ISO rating on the Trichromatic would be consistent with the normal IQ3-100MP rated at 50 ISO, if the filters are less permissive.

Best regards
Erik

I was simply noting the models that have offered an ISO 35 choice, not assessing the actual transmittance, but thank you for mentioning, Erik. Back when 22mp was the hottest thing ever, the base ISO for Leaf, Eyelike, and Sinar was 25. And Jenoptik told me the Dalsa 25 rating from the Eyelike M22 actually was closer to 16.


Steve Hendrix/CI
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi Steve,

I would have expected to have some better information from Phase One on the new CFA design. They essentially claim a great step forward in image quality. But they don't offer any really usable information. Also, they offer a single raw file for download, this one:

Untitled.jpg

That picture says very little. They could have posted a raw image shot on the IQ3-100MP and the new sensor, preferably with a ColorChecker included for reference. But a single raw image without context is simply utterly irrelevant.

My impression is that the new CFA/sensor design may be a major step forward, but information about is just a lot of hype and no context.

Adding insult to injury, Phase One is suddenly talking about color science. But I don't see a spur of science, just marketing BS. Science is about reproducible data, measurements, full disclosure, sources, critical review. Phase One web site has exactly zero of that.

Best regards
Erik


I was simply noting the models that have offered an ISO 35 choice, not assessing the actual transmittance, but thank you for mentioning, Erik. Back when 22mp was the hottest thing ever, the base ISO for Leaf, Eyelike, and Sinar was 25. And Jenoptik told me the Dalsa 25 rating from the Eyelike M22 actually was closer to 16.


Steve Hendrix/CI
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Hi Steve,

I would have expected to have some better information from Phase One on the new CFA design. They essentially claim a great step forward in image quality. But they don't offer any really usable information. Also, they offer a single raw file for download, this one:

View attachment 129187

That picture says very little. They could have posted a raw image shot on the IQ3-100MP and the new sensor, preferably with a ColorChecker included for reference. But a single raw image without context is simply utterly irrelevant.

My impression is that the new CFA/sensor design may be a major step forward, but information about is just a lot of hype and no context.

Adding insult to injury, Phase One is suddenly talking about color science. But I don't see a spur of science, just marketing BS. Science is about reproducible data, measurements, full disclosure, sources, critical review. Phase One web site has exactly zero of that.

Best regards
Erik

Erik, as I mentioned, I am not going to defend how Phase One markets their products. Feel free to criticize their marketing, it doesn't really matter a lot to me, since we are going to tear apart the product anyway and see what makes it tick and get our information and present it.

Regarding color science, I accept that they have a substantial pedigree for color science, going back years and years. The only reason you're hearing terms like color science from them now is because there isn't anything else really different about the IQ3 100 Trichromatic compared to the IQ3 100. The color is the only story. You're extending it that they are meaning to say they are scientists and doing scientific work and should present their findings and measurements, etc. And no one does that in our industry. They adopt a scientific approach in their work and technology, always have. Just like Canon, or Apple, or Space X or whoever. You're reading too much into it and asking them to satisfy your naturally curious scientific mind. They're not going to do a good job with that. They make cameras, here is the camera. See what it does. That is their primary objective. Again, I'm not defending it, just setting the reality.

As far as sample files are concerned, few manufacturers provide good raw samples, and with Phase One's reliance on their dealer channel, helpful raw samples are expected to be provided by dealers as well.


Steve Hendrix/CI
 
Last edited:

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Erik, as I mentioned, I am not going to defend how Phase One markets their products. Feel free to criticize their marketing, it doesn't really matter a lot to me, since we are going to tear apart the product anyway and see what makes it tick and get our information and present it.

Regarding color science, I accept that they have a substantial pedigree for color science, going back years and years. The only reason you're hearing terms like color science from them now is because there isn't anything else really different about the IQ3 100 Trichromatic compared to the IQ3 100. The color is the only story. You're extending it that they are meaning to say they are scientists and doing scientific work and should present their findings and measurements, etc. And no one does that in our industry. They adopt a scientific approach in their work and technology, always have. Just like Canon, or Apple, or Space X or whoever. You're reading too much into it and asking them to satisfy your naturally curious scientific mind. They're not going to do a good job with that. They make cameras, here is the camera. See what it does. That is their primary objective. Again, I'm not defending it, just setting the reality.

As far as sample files are concerned, few manufacturers provide good raw samples, and with Phase One's reliance on their dealer channel, helpful raw samples are expected to be provided by dealers as well.


Steve Hendrix/CI
Hi Steve,

As you know, I have great respect for your writing.

The view I take on this is that Phase One claims they have a new revolutionary colour filter arrangement. It is a very tall statement, by any means, and anyone interested in colour science would be curious about that. Let's check the information:

P1_1.jpg

So you have a lady in pink shot in artifical light at dusk illustrating the advance made. So you press the learn more button.
P1_2.jpg
And you are rewarded by some more images, that say little about the great advance made. There is some text describing the new sensor, the page ends with an "explore the science" button.

P1_3.jpg
So this is the science, non overlapping spectral curves. Problem is that it would not work, at least it would not work with spectral colours. Yellow, for instance would excite both red and green channel. But, with non overlapping filters a yellow colour would either show up as red or as green. Most of the yellows we see are mixes of colours, of course.

That illustration has raised a small discussion on the "Photographic Science and Technology" sub forum, see here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60114036

Just to say, CFA design does matter. This was written a few years ago on Fred Miranda forums by "The Suede". The Suede is known as one of the giants in the colour industry.

"The color rendering of say a H4D or a P65+ is close to impossible to mimic with certain smaller cameras, Canon uses a totally different filter strategy, and so does Oly. It EXTREMELY hard to get the same effect in manual PP work, and actually impossible to do it fully automated even with the best camera color profiles.

Some of the main parts that are hard to mimic is the way noise and luma detail contrast relate to the underlying color. In a Canon, that has very low green-orange separation in raw, luma detail and noise on green, orange and red colors will behave a certain way. They tend to get "flat", and hue tends to get rather flat too. Trying to increase color separation in the camera profile increases chroma noise in the file, and it also has negative effects on luma - giving lots of false detail.

But, Canon did this for a reason - this CFA strategy gets the smallest possible penalty for shooting in fluorescent and stadium lights, something you actually do in quite a lot of sports, as a reporter, or indeed as a private user shooting your kids with the kit lens. And they get very even and flat skin tones, stuff like red rashes and so on are covered up automatically by the lowered hue resolution.

Medium format, Leica, Kodak - they all err on the "other side" of that fence. They're too well resolving in orange, and this isn't good either. The camera then gets extremely "sensitive" to the lighting conditions. Try shooting informal portraits with a P45+ in an office space with normal office lighting fixtures, without flash or natural light - the results are horrific. People look like they're in second stage corpse decomposition no matter what PP or camera profile you use.

Nikon does some stuff right, but they have an over-sensitivity to yellow, and that makes the balance very hard to nail down in people photography. But they're (IMO) the best landscape cameras, since no other camera can touch them for green hue resolution. They have extreme resolution in green-yellow, something you can see when shooting large landscapes - every bush and tree can be identified by the amount of chlorofyll-A vs Chlorofyll-B mix the plant uses. The camera can easily pick out extremely small hue differences between two very similar greens standing next to each other.

The best color "balance" for general usage that I've ever seen is actually the older Sony cameras (like the 850/900). They had their weaknesses, but they were better balanced than anything I've seen since - not counting the 15k€ specialist SML-filtered cameras we've used next to the hyperspectrals when doing art and craft history, but they're special cases."

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1234124/2&year=2013#11744473

This posting is also quite interesting:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1234124/2&year=2013#11744630

What is obvious from theSuede's writing is that thrichromatic colour rendition is a compromise. The Bayer pattern actually allows for two different greens, Sony has done that on a bridge camera long. That technology may have had some benefits, but was probably not well supported by raw converters.

I don't expect a camera vendor to share their technology in scientific papers, although that is quite feasible once a patent has been acquired. But, I would expect more and better information when a vendor claims new and revolutionary technology.

Best regards
Erik
 

Phase V

Member
Is there a way to upgrade a normal IQ3 100 ? If they only need to change
the filters and firmware i guess it could be done.
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Hi Steve,

As you know, I have great respect for your writing.

The view I take on this is that Phase One claims they have a new revolutionary colour filter arrangement. It is a very tall statement, by any means, and anyone interested in colour science would be curious about that. Let's check the information:

View attachment 129193

So you have a lady in pink shot in artifical light at dusk illustrating the advance made. So you press the learn more button.
View attachment 129194
And you are rewarded by some more images, that say little about the great advance made. There is some text describing the new sensor, the page ends with an "explore the science" button.

View attachment 129195
So this is the science, non overlapping spectral curves. Problem is that it would not work, at least it would not work with spectral colours. Yellow, for instance would excite both red and green channel. But, with non overlapping filters a yellow colour would either show up as red or as green. Most of the yellows we see are mixes of colours, of course.

That illustration has raised a small discussion on the "Photographic Science and Technology" sub forum, see here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60114036

Just to say, CFA design does matter. This was written a few years ago on Fred Miranda forums by "The Suede". The Suede is known as one of the giants in the colour industry.

"The color rendering of say a H4D or a P65+ is close to impossible to mimic with certain smaller cameras, Canon uses a totally different filter strategy, and so does Oly. It EXTREMELY hard to get the same effect in manual PP work, and actually impossible to do it fully automated even with the best camera color profiles.

Some of the main parts that are hard to mimic is the way noise and luma detail contrast relate to the underlying color. In a Canon, that has very low green-orange separation in raw, luma detail and noise on green, orange and red colors will behave a certain way. They tend to get "flat", and hue tends to get rather flat too. Trying to increase color separation in the camera profile increases chroma noise in the file, and it also has negative effects on luma - giving lots of false detail.

But, Canon did this for a reason - this CFA strategy gets the smallest possible penalty for shooting in fluorescent and stadium lights, something you actually do in quite a lot of sports, as a reporter, or indeed as a private user shooting your kids with the kit lens. And they get very even and flat skin tones, stuff like red rashes and so on are covered up automatically by the lowered hue resolution.

Medium format, Leica, Kodak - they all err on the "other side" of that fence. They're too well resolving in orange, and this isn't good either. The camera then gets extremely "sensitive" to the lighting conditions. Try shooting informal portraits with a P45+ in an office space with normal office lighting fixtures, without flash or natural light - the results are horrific. People look like they're in second stage corpse decomposition no matter what PP or camera profile you use.

Nikon does some stuff right, but they have an over-sensitivity to yellow, and that makes the balance very hard to nail down in people photography. But they're (IMO) the best landscape cameras, since no other camera can touch them for green hue resolution. They have extreme resolution in green-yellow, something you can see when shooting large landscapes - every bush and tree can be identified by the amount of chlorofyll-A vs Chlorofyll-B mix the plant uses. The camera can easily pick out extremely small hue differences between two very similar greens standing next to each other.

The best color "balance" for general usage that I've ever seen is actually the older Sony cameras (like the 850/900). They had their weaknesses, but they were better balanced than anything I've seen since - not counting the 15k€ specialist SML-filtered cameras we've used next to the hyperspectrals when doing art and craft history, but they're special cases."

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1234124/2&year=2013#11744473

This posting is also quite interesting:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1234124/2&year=2013#11744630

What is obvious from theSuede's writing is that thrichromatic colour rendition is a compromise. The Bayer pattern actually allows for two different greens, Sony has done that on a bridge camera long. That technology may have had some benefits, but was probably not well supported by raw converters.

I don't expect a camera vendor to share their technology in scientific papers, although that is quite feasible once a patent has been acquired. But, I would expect more and better information when a vendor claims new and revolutionary technology.

Best regards
Erik

I understand what you're wanting Erik. From their standpoint, they are going to provide marketing information (to market the product, not explain the product) and a product that (they hope) achieves the results they claim. They're a sales organization and their objective is to sell products. From our standpoint, whatever they claim only serves as the propulsion for us to test and determine if the product meets or exceeds those claims.

We are concerned about the information they provide only for the purpose of proving whether or not the product performs as claimed, and if not to quantify how it differs. You want to prove whether the product will perform as claimed by reviewing the limited provided technical information to assess whether that adds up to what they are claiming. Unfortunately, Erik, for what you're after, my sense is that you're bound to be frustrated.


Steve Hendrix/CI
 

jerome_m

Member
This was written a few years ago on Fred Miranda forums by "The Suede". The Suede is known as one of the giants in the colour industry.

"The color rendering of say a H4D or a P65+ is close to impossible to mimic with certain smaller cameras, Canon uses a totally different filter strategy, and so does Oly. It EXTREMELY hard to get the same effect in manual PP work, and actually impossible to do it fully automated even with the best camera color profiles.

Some of the main parts that are hard to mimic is the way noise and luma detail contrast relate to the underlying color. In a Canon, that has very low green-orange separation in raw, luma detail and noise on green, orange and red colors will behave a certain way. They tend to get "flat", and hue tends to get rather flat too. Trying to increase color separation in the camera profile increases chroma noise in the file, and it also has negative effects on luma - giving lots of false detail.

But, Canon did this for a reason - this CFA strategy gets the smallest possible penalty for shooting in fluorescent and stadium lights, something you actually do in quite a lot of sports, as a reporter, or indeed as a private user shooting your kids with the kit lens. And they get very even and flat skin tones, stuff like red rashes and so on are covered up automatically by the lowered hue resolution.

Medium format, Leica, Kodak - they all err on the "other side" of that fence. They're too well resolving in orange, and this isn't good either. The camera then gets extremely "sensitive" to the lighting conditions. Try shooting informal portraits with a P45+ in an office space with normal office lighting fixtures, without flash or natural light - the results are horrific. People look like they're in second stage corpse decomposition no matter what PP or camera profile you use.

Nikon does some stuff right, but they have an over-sensitivity to yellow, and that makes the balance very hard to nail down in people photography. But they're (IMO) the best landscape cameras, since no other camera can touch them for green hue resolution. They have extreme resolution in green-yellow, something you can see when shooting large landscapes - every bush and tree can be identified by the amount of chlorofyll-A vs Chlorofyll-B mix the plant uses. The camera can easily pick out extremely small hue differences between two very similar greens standing next to each other.

The best color "balance" for general usage that I've ever seen is actually the older Sony cameras (like the 850/900). They had their weaknesses, but they were better balanced than anything I've seen since - not counting the 15k€ specialist SML-filtered cameras we've used next to the hyperspectrals when doing art and craft history, but they're special cases."
The astute reader will also notice that this post answers many recurrent questions on this forum, like "do MF cameras have special colours or not?", etc...
 

Oren Grad

Active member
The general principles that TheSuede explained in that post are important to understand. But Canon's filter array specifications, and for all I know those of the other manufacturers mentioned, have changed quite a bit over the years since that post went up. So do keep in mind the general lessons, but don't assume that the specifics that he mentioned then still accurately describe the color recording behavior of newer models from the various manufacturers today.

As for the Trichromatic, I agree that the marketing material from Phase One doesn't tell us much and I look forward to real-world tests - and maybe, if we're lucky, knowledgeable commentary from someone like TheSuede.
 
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