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Phase One IQ4 - Feature Update 1

Boinger

Active member
Finally, this is one of the reasons I had upgraded to the Iq4. I am looking forward to selling my filters!
 

SrMphoto

Well-known member
To quote our article on IQ4 Automatic Frame Averaging

"At its heart, this tool works by averaging two or more (often many more) sequential captures together, generating a single raw file. This has the effect of evening out noise in the shadows. With four samples the noise should be roughly half as much as a single capture (which is already extraordinarily low), with sixteen samples it should be roughly half as much again. In theory this technique can be used by anyone with any camera by capturing more than one image of the same scene and layering them with a low opacity in Photoshop or via specialized software. However, manual frame averaging requires capturing many gigs worth of raws, processing even more gigs worth of TIFFs, and minutes (or even hours) worth of computer time; just to generate a single output image. The IQ4 does exposure stacking internally, on the fly, and generates a single raw file ready for immediate use. Moreover, the IQ4 can do it entirely free of temporal gaps and entirely free of vibration."
Very nice. How much does it differ from multiple exposure functionality of Nikon’s D8xx cameras? Sadly, no mirrorless FF or MF cameras implement multiple exposure with raw image as result.
 

DougDolde

Well-known member
Kind of hard to believe that it could take the averaging exposures fast enough to eliminate any movement in the scene like wind blown tree leaves or flora
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
Kind of hard to believe that it could take the averaging exposures fast enough to eliminate any movement in the scene like wind blown tree leaves or flora
Doug, this question indicates you misunderstand the fundamental nature and purpose of the tool, which is understandable because it's a very new way of shooting! I would suggest reading our article; we're about to add additional sample images.
 

Boinger

Active member
Kind of hard to believe that it could take the averaging exposures fast enough to eliminate any movement in the scene like wind blown tree leaves or flora
For long exposures this is a non issue since you would have that movement anyway.

I don't know how it would handle brighter scenes where you just wanted to average for noise in shadows. Testing will show how it handles it.
 

Paul2660

Well-known member
The examples on the DT site/article are for much longer exposures 7 minutes, so if there is movement I would assume it's the same with an ND filter for one long exposure. Movement may be less since you are averaging, but from the article it seems they averaged several frames up to 7 minutes long, hard to tell. I assume for this to work you would take different exposures from around 30 sec to 7 minutes.

I am curious how it handles exposures in the 1/250 to 1 second range, which is where I would hope to see the same improvement in noise, especially at a higher ISO.

Example on DT's site is using 2000 ISO, which is not that user friendly in single exposures, where as in their example results seem very impressive.

Note, to Doug, would love to see the raws, especially if there are comparisons same scene, one shot with Frame averaging, one without.

Thanks
Paul
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
Example on DT's site is using 2000 ISO, which is not that user friendly in single exposures, where as in their example results seem very impressive.

Note, to Doug, would love to see the raws, especially if there are comparisons same scene, one shot with Frame averaging, one without.

Thanks
Paul
We're about to post comparisons of ISO 50 with-and-without and a download link to all raws.

I rarely say this, but I think you'll be very impressed. The ISO2000 examples are visually dramatic, but more useful to demonstrate the technology under the hood (that noise averages out). The difference at ISO50 is what would matter to 99% of people using this feature in practice.

Stay tuned...
 

Christopher

Active member
So I can shoot car light trails Gapless without using a single long exposure. Sounds great. Still would prefer better communication..
 

drunkenspyder

Well-known member
It works on any camera the IQ4 works on, including tech cameras and view cameras (e.g. Arca R)

Indeed, given how game-changing I expect this feature to be to landscape and architecture shooters, I'd expect a lot of use of this feature on tech cameras.
That would meet the definition of game changing. This was one of my motivators to go to the IQ4. So glad it's almost here.
 

SrMphoto

Well-known member
So I can shoot car light trails Gapless without using a single long exposure. Sounds great. Still would prefer better communication..
The gapless technique is implemented with the "best-in-class sensor-based Electronic Shutter system." Do other cameras with ES have a noticeable gap between exposure when using ES?
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Kind of hard to believe that it could take the averaging exposures fast enough to eliminate any movement in the scene like wind blown tree leaves or flora
FWIW, the Panasonic S1/S1R do an amazing job of handling movement in a scene when shooting in hi-res mode that combines 8 successive images into a single RAW file of twice the native resolution of the sensor.

Kind regards,


Gerald.
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
"Median stacking stacking"?

We'll have an article about the Automatic Frame Averaging tool posted shortly, which should answer any questions you have.
Yeah that didn’t quite come out right, did it!

And I got my averaging method wrong.

I dug back into when this was initially discussed - let me try again...

Can the averaging method be set by the user? Modal stacking (where the most common value for each individual pixel across multiple images is chosen) would enable the elimination of moving objects from an image. It’s the stacking method used to create images of empty street scenes where all (moving) people and cars are automatically removed from the scene.

(Your site seems to be having a few issues right now so I can’t read the article.)

Kind regards,


Gerald.
 

onasj

Active member
The DT website (and Doug’s link) is working again. It’s a neat advance, especially for landscape and other non-moving subjects.

I’m starting to believe the IQ4 is a few bug fixes away from being a “no compromises” best-in-class back. The upcoming firmware release moves us closer to that goal.
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Yup - site back up.

Ok, so I like the explanation of decoupling total time from shutter speed. Very cool.

This is absolutely amazing. Mind is racing with the possibilities, but again I would stress that the ability to have the user determine the method of averaging would open up even more possibilities.

Doug - you explain how with longer “total times”, moving cars would become a “sea of smoke”. This of course makes total sense. But with modal averaging, the cars would disappear completely and you’d have an empty road.

I can’t imagine this would be much of a technical challenge to implement, and am a little surprised Phase One didn’t include the option from the outset.

Kind regards,


Gerald.
 

Boinger

Active member
Yup - site back up.

Ok, so I like the explanation of decoupling total time from shutter speed. Very cool.

This is absolutely amazing. Mind is racing with the possibilities, but again I would stress that the ability to have the user determine the method of averaging would open up even more possibilities.

Doug - you explain how with longer “total times”, moving cars would become a “sea of smoke”. This of course makes total sense. But with modal averaging, the cars would disappear completely and you’d have an empty road.

I can’t imagine this would be much of a technical challenge to implement, and am a little surprised Phase One didn’t include the option from the outset.

Kind regards,


Gerald.
I am guessing it has entirely to do with the length of time selected. If for example the samples are a longer length the cars can disappear, but if it is short it would have an "effect" look.
 

edmundphoto888

New member
I am currently a IQ3 100T user. I have been following the comments for IQ4 since it announced. Does it worth to upgrade to IQ4 150 now? It seems all the function is not ready yet and IQ4 seems a testing product so far. Anyone can give me some comments?

Thanks!
 

Boinger

Active member
I am currently a IQ3 100T user. I have been following the comments for IQ4 since it announced. Does it worth to upgrade to IQ4 150 now? It seems all the function is not ready yet and IQ4 seems a testing product so far. Anyone can give me some comments?

Thanks!
If you are in no rush I would wait.

Lots of features are missing that were simply there in iq3 100.

But then again it really depends what you use on the current iq3100 and if you would miss that on the iq4150?

The image quality is great and movements with a tech cam are great (Main reason I bought and the frame averaging(What I have been waiting for)).
 

edmundphoto888

New member
If you are in no rush I would wait.

Lots of features are missing that were simply there in iq3 100.

But then again it really depends what you use on the current iq3100 and if you would miss that on the iq4150?

The image quality is great and movements with a tech cam are great (Main reason I bought and the frame averaging(What I have been waiting for)).
Thank you for your reply!

I am using my IQ3 100T with XF body most of the time. Not going to tech camera in short term. May I know how great the image quality compare to IQ3 100T? Is this a very huge improvement if I only use it in XF body? It seems a very good improvement in the tech cam!

Thanks again!
 
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