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No I dont mind at all, I cropped in to see how far the E-M1 files could be pushed and to see what detail remained.
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OK I know this is really pushing it for Micro Four thirds, but I wanted to see what the new Topaz Labs AI software could do on really high ISO images from Micro Four thirds.
So I went out at lunchtime armed with the EM1 MK II and the Leica 100-400, and did some shots. This one is a big crop (5.3mp only) at ISO 8000 and to be honest I wasn't really expecting much, but it turned out much better than I thought. The original raw image was a right mess, but LR and DeNoise AI have done a decent job especially as Olympus NR (even though turned off in camera) still applies some noise reduction and thus smearing of fine detail. Not award winning by any means of course and yes, bigger sensor cameras could have done better but at 800mm hand held ?? You be the judge.
red kite day today , at NANT-Y-ARIAN mid Wales over 1300 to plough through so find a few more ..
kite flite by jeff and jan cohen, on Flickr
in flight meal by jeff and jan cohen, on Flickr
up and away by jeff and jan cohen, on Flickr
Robin, It's been well know over the years on a number of forums, that over a certain ISO (can't exactly remember if it's ISO 800 or ISO 1600), even when you turn NR off in camera still performs a certain degree of NR (even on the Raw files). If I recall correctly, both Nikon and Fuji also do the same thing, I can't find the link now, but I seem to recall someone doing a test on a raw file some years ago.
I also recall when I purchased the EM1 MK II 4 years ago (or so), Olympus were running a promo that you could attend a day out with an Olympus visionary in the UK. I chose the lake district with pro photographer Steve Gosling. After the shoot there was an extended Q&A session with both Steve and the Olympus representatives on hand. This very question was raised at the time, and the guys from Olympus UK confirmed this to be correct to the best of their knowledge.
The way I look at it is like this -
Off - OK camera perform the bare minimum NR that you will allow
Low - Camera allowed to do a little extra NR over the auto NR from camera
Mid - A bit more and starting to smear some fine details at the higher ISO's
HIgh - I've got rid of most of the noise but ruined your image by smoothing out all the detail.
it's like with the VW Golfs we used to chat about on the car forums, even turning Traction control off in car, doesn't turn it completely off.
I think I first got to know you on ukmkiv‘s then on Golf GTI. You might remember me under my old forum name “Norbreck21a” ?
If you really want to get the most out of high ISO then this experiment documented at e-group suggests you might be better to leave the initial processing to Olympus Workspace then export as TIFF from there into Lightroom.
I'm not that fussy myself but it's an interesting read
https://www.e-group.uk.net/forum/fo...troom-vs-olympus-workplace-a-quick-comparison
This Topaz business looks intriguing. What’s the work flow involve for a Lightroom user like me?
im doing it totally differently at the moment ,but I only downloaded it last night its producing good results so far . ,but like Andrew says /implies you still need a fairly good image to start with it won't help with crap ones .This Topaz business looks intriguing. What’s the work flow involve for a Lightroom user like me?
Well for me it's really simple (i like simple) and very similar if you are using LR or PS.
Basically this is my workflow (and I'm not saying this is necessarily the best way - but it works for me).
That's pretty much it for me. Hope it helps ?
- Import into LR then I cull the "bad" shots and colour mark the ones I want to work on later (the good ones).
- Open the image in the Develop module, then the first thing I do (regardless of which one of my 5 cameras I'm using), is change the colour Profile from the default "Adobe Colour" to the "Colour Matching " and use the manufacturer profiles provided (for my Olympus bodies I usually use the "natural" profile).
- I then mostly click the "Auto" button under the tone controls to get a starting point for the exposure. Sometimes I don't need to change it away from Auto, sometimes it might need some additional tweaking of exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows etc. Once in a while the Auto button results in a horrendous exposure so I then reset it and go fully manual.
- Once I'm happy with the exposure I usually look at the WB, and correct if necessary (but to be honest, I find the Olympus auto WB pretty accurate under most conditions, so might only need very minor tweaks).
- I then run a preset which sets all sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom to "OFF" (everything at Zero in that tab).You don't want double noise reduction or sharpening at this stage.
- Then Crop to suit (I tend to prefer the 3:2 aspect ratio).
- Once I'm happy with all that, if you have installed the Topaz Plug in correctly, you simply right click on the image, then select "Edit In" and from the pop out that shows, simply select "Topaz Denoise AI" from the list. LR will then ask "Do you want to edit a copy with lightroom adjustments" - select "Yes" (so that the edits you have made to the image thus far are exported to Denoise AI rather than the starting image). LR will create a 16bit Tiff file and automatically open Denoise AI and load the image.
- Do any corrections in Denoise AI as necessary (I tend to use the "AI clear" method from the "Engine" dropdown. When you are done click "Apply" and the corrections will be applied to the image and sent back to LR which will automatically re-open.
- That's pretty much it, but if I need a bit more sharpness than Denoise AI can serve, then I sometimes in addition run it though my "Sharpen AI" plug in the same way as above.
Well for me it's really simple (i like simple) and very similar if you are using LR or PS.
Basically this is my workflow (and I'm not saying this is necessarily the best way - but it works for me).
That's pretty much it for me. Hope it helps ?
- Import into LR then I cull the "bad" shots and colour mark the ones I want to work on later (the good ones).
- Open the image in the Develop module, then the first thing I do (regardless of which one of my 5 cameras I'm using), is change the colour Profile from the default "Adobe Colour" to the "Colour Matching " and use the manufacturer profiles provided (for my Olympus bodies I usually use the "natural" profile).
- I then mostly click the "Auto" button under the tone controls to get a starting point for the exposure. Sometimes I don't need to change it away from Auto, sometimes it might need some additional tweaking of exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows etc. Once in a while the Auto button results in a horrendous exposure so I then reset it and go fully manual.
- Once I'm happy with the exposure I usually look at the WB, and correct if necessary (but to be honest, I find the Olympus auto WB pretty accurate under most conditions, so might only need very minor tweaks).
- I then run a preset which sets all sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom to "OFF" (everything at Zero in that tab).You don't want double noise reduction or sharpening at this stage.
- Then Crop to suit (I tend to prefer the 3:2 aspect ratio).
- Once I'm happy with all that, if you have installed the Topaz Plug in correctly, you simply right click on the image, then select "Edit In" and from the pop out that shows, simply select "Topaz Denoise AI" from the list. LR will then ask "Do you want to edit a copy with lightroom adjustments" - select "Yes" (so that the edits you have made to the image thus far are exported to Denoise AI rather than the starting image). LR will create a 16bit Tiff file and automatically open Denoise AI and load the image.
- Do any corrections in Denoise AI as necessary (I tend to use the "AI clear" method from the "Engine" dropdown). When you are done click "Apply" and the corrections will be applied to the image and sent back to LR which will automatically re-open.
- That's pretty much it, but if I need a bit more sharpness than Denoise AI can achieve, then I sometimes in addition run it though my "Sharpen AI" plug in the same way as above.
just tried it your way ,then reverted to mine etc cant yet get it quiet right but getting thereI like to get the tonality of the image right first, as if i do severe pushing of highlights and shadows right after doing NR, then this can show up further noise. My methodology (rightly or wrongly) is that by doing all my tonal corrections first, I only have to do NR once.
It’s a good read and well written and more than proves the advantages of the Oly system out in the field.This weeks Amateur Photographer (Sat 8th Feb) has a six page article by David Tipling on how switching from Nikon to Olympus changed his wildlife photography.
Might be worth having a browse if you have the opportunity.
I'm in a newsagent probably four times a year, and it's years since I bought a magazine (except the BJ, which I often buy when I see one) so a strange coincidence that there was actually an article that interested me on one of the rare occasions I was able to have a browse.
I met him at Birdfair 2019 where he was representing Olympus and had produced a really good book ‘20 Ways’ which was produced to show the Olympus system working with wildlife plus a dedicated talk which proved he was very enthusiastic about his ‘switch’ from his beloved Nikon and vowed he wouldn’t be going back!
That was some endorsement given his level of expertise and creative talents.