06/25/17 Examples of Pixel Shift with motion correction between Adobe LR and Silkypix
- At June 27, 2017
- By paul
- In Articles/Reviews, Pentax Cameras
- 0
The Pentax K1, has gotten some good and bad press lately, but one review on Dpreview over a month ago really started a negative chain reaction. This review has since been corrected, but as with many things, first impressions tend to be the most important.
I wanted to attach 3 images, from a test I was working on yesterday. Good lighting, and a bit of wind. The wind was not consistent and tended to hit different parts of my scene with more or less force. What is so impressive to me is just how bad the LR conversion is vs the one from Silkypix. If all you have is LR or ACR for the K1, you really need to look to Silkypix for now. I have no faith that Adobe will attempt to revisit their current conversion for Pixel Shift on the K1, and I base this on the fact that Adobe never has fixed their less than stellar conversion for the Fuji X-trans files. The problems with that conversion have been known about now for over 2 years.
There are three images attached, the first two are Silkypix conversions on image 724 and a follow on image 725. The third image is LR’s conversion of the same file. The point being that if you are only using LR for Pixel shift raw conversions, you are more than likely missing a lot. The LR image is totally blurred and basically worthless, where as the exact same raw file from Silkypix is very good, in fact amazing, when compare the two conversions. The other Silkypix conversion is from the next shot, 725. I included this to show how the shadow area to the left of center improves considerably. Both conversions have a bit of trouble on the same part of the file in image 724, however more than likely the Silkypix conversion of 724 would hold up.
These conversions were done only for the effect to show the differences in blur recovery. By default I feel Silkypix has too much sharpening applied and a bit too my saturation. But a small price to pay for recovery of the image. You can also see in first two files that the part of the tree just to the left of center, in the shade, is still having trouble, even with Silkypix, as it’s blurred. However I took several test files and in the very next frame you can see much more detail in this same part of the image.
So for now, if you are using pixel shift or testing it, outdoors make sure you work with Silkypix Developer’s Studio. You can download the software for a 30 free trial and it’s not inexpensive at $295.00. It’s a issue to take into consideration if you are looking at the K1 as the extra cost of this software takes the K1 into the $2,100.00 range. Still a margin compared to other cameras in this class.
I would like to see Pentax step and address this software issue, by at least giving a coupon or discount towards the full Silkypix software, as their version which ships with the camera might as well just be left out of the box.
Paul Caldwell
09_10_16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Sunset from Sam’s Throne
Taken with a Pentax K1 in three vertical segments of 4 exposures each, LR used for HDR conversion to 3 vertical segemnts, Stitched in Lightroom into single 3 part panorama, ISO 100, F11 Pentax 15-30mm Lens @ 17mm.
In the late summertime of September, the Arkansas skies can surprise you. Many times you will find a pure blue sky about 1 hour before sunset, only to see some light cloud cover roll right as the sun sets. On this evening, I was able to catch some of this at Sam’s Throne. I had hoped to have clear skies as I was going to stay for a while after dark and work the Milky Way with the Pentax Astrotracer feature, but the sunset was a added bonus for sure.
Sam’s Throne is one of the premier climbing spots in Arkansas due to the bluffs that run for over 1 mile. The rock is a type of sand stone and and during the sunset will take on an orange color. The rocks are also covered with a bright orange lichen, one that I have really only found in this part of Arkansas. So at the times of bright and intense light, the rock of the bluffs can really stand out. I like to work from a spot where you can catch both the true throne (the smaller peak in the center of the image) and pick up the bluff line. During the late summertime the sun will set just off the bluff through the trees and can add a wonderful effect as it will accent the pines at the top of the bluff line.
This photograph, is quite a composition as it was taken in 12 frames, 4 from each station in a short panorama. I then blended each segment with Lightroom’s HDR tool into a 3 dng files, that were then combined into a 3 part panorama. This allowed me to capture both the brightest highlights in the shot and keep the noise out of my shadows. The green of the trees was just perfect on this evening, just a bit of yellow starting to show up in the tops. There were a few trees already starting to go into a full color display, but these were more towards the top of the bluff.
You can pick any of hundreds of spots to work at Sam’s. In this shot, you can see on the left side the same bluff line as it has worked around the hillside. I sometimes like to work from that spot also as you can still capture the sunset and you have a different perspective of Sam’s.
It takes about 2.5 hours to get to this part of Arkansas from Little Rock, and the drive north from Russellville is well worth it, especially in the Spring and Fall when the trees take on very unique colors.
Pentax K1 White Dot Issue on Longer Exposures–Same as the other cameras using the Sony 36MP chip
With the introduction of the full frame Pentax K1, Ricoh Imaging appears to have made a giant stride forwards with technology, however it appears that they overlooked one critical issue with the 36MP Sony sensor–White Dots with longer exposures.
I have worked with the K1 now for several months and have found it to be an excellent platform for most photography, however one of my main reasons for the investment in the K1 was astro-photography. Night sky work, not telescope work. Photography of both the MilkyWay and star trails. Both of these forms of photography require long exposures and in most cases multiple stacked exposures for the best results. What you quickly find, that when used in this fashion, the K1 creates thousands to millions of fine white dots, as shown in the photo above. These are not traditional noise, as we know it, as that tends show up as stuck pixel (red, green and blue) or extra grain in the shot. This exact same problem was visible in early shots taken with the Nikon D810, and Nikon quickly recalled all the early shipping D810’s and made some type of a firmware and hardware fix. It was not a standard firmware fix, as the camera had to be sent to a Nikon service center for the fix. But it worked!!. The D800e also had the same problem, but Nikon did not fix these with a recall, they just fixed the problem on later shipping cameras. I know this because I owned 2 D800e’s and the first camera had the issue terribly and the 2nd camera was clean. My D810 also showed the problem immediately but was much better after the Nikon fix.
Read more about the Nikon recall here–Nikon Recall for White Dots.
Read more about the Nikon D800e Problem here–Nikon D800e White Dots.
I have noticed this issue in all my long exposures with the K1, from 30 seconds to 2.5 minutes, at ISO ranges from 320 to 5000. The issue becomes worse over time so it’s fair to state that it’s a temperature related issue from the sensor, just like Nikon noted. How does this issue effect your photography? Read more below.
Photographer’s Notes:
- The main concern here is that the millions of white dots are not easily removed in post. Currently Adobe Lightroom does nothing to remove them and Phase One’s Capture One with the single pixel noise reduction slider will take most of them out, albeit at a possible loss of details.
- Where will you see this issue? With any long exposure of 30 seconds or more and if the outdoor temperature is above 85 degrees F, expect the problem to be very severe.
- Will you see this issue with Astrotracer photography? Yes, with the Astrotracer feature of the camera enabled, you will see the white dots unless you turn on the “Long exposure noise reduction” feature in the camera
- OK, if I can remove them with the “Long Exposure Noise Reduction” what is the big deal” Good question and I will answer this in more details later on, but the main reason is that LENR (long exposure noise reduction) requires the camera to take another exposure the same length as the previous exposure so you are wasting battery life, shooting time, and heating the sensor up.
- Why do the White dots bother Stacking work? The white dots remain fixed throughout the exposures, however over time expect to gain a few thousands more. If you are stacking and want to remove gaps created by stacking, the white dots become very problematic.
Read more about why stacking for star trails is important here: Stacking for better night photography.
Why the White Dots are a concern for Night Photography:
There are many reason, but for sure 2 come to mind immediately.
If you stack for star trails. This allows you to use partial moonlight to illuminate the foreground of your subject which gives you a much more natural look to your image. Stacking requires a intervalometer to be used as you need to have a timer and control over the interval, which in this case is 1. The fact that the intervalometer will close the shutter between each stack, means you will have a slight gap in your star trails. This is easily fixed with the use of software that will slightly rotate your final image to cover up the gaps. Examples of this type of software are “Star Tracer” If you rotate the images with the white dots, they become dotted lines though out the entire file and contrast sharply with you star trails, in effect ruining the image. There is no easy way to remove all the millions of dotted lines either.
So this says you have to work up the images in a raw converter that will removed the dots to a good degree and so far the only software I have found that will do this is Capture One, by Phase One. You are eliminated from any Adobe product like ACR or Lightroom as both just seem to magnify the dots. Also any image work, where you might add clarity to help brighten the stars will also brighten the white dots.
If you use the Pentax LENR (long exposure noise reduction) most of the white dots are taken out, but this brings up some more issues.
The LENR takes an exposure that is just as long as the original, so if you just complete a 2 minute exposure, the camera will lock up while it takes a 2nd matching dark frame. You cannot make any other adjustments to the camera or view anything during this time frame. The resulting dark frame create a much larger gap in your star trails photography, and Star Tracer can remove them, but at a huge price since your image will heavily blurred by the rotation to fix this large a gap. Sure you cut back on the time from 2 minutes to 30 seconds, but then you more than likely will have to increase your ISO to a point that the increase in will degrade your details in the foreground portion of your image. But that still may be something I try with the K1 and Star Tracer to see if I can get an acceptable solution.
LENR is also very wasteful. Thing about it, you are just using up both battery life and possibly heating up your sensor due to extra processing going on. The use of LENR, also precludes using a intervalometer as it will throw off your sequence. If you are set to shoot at an interval of 1 for 2 minutes etc. then when the dark frame kicks in it will start to run into your actual next exposure time, and shorten it. This also adds up over time and creates unbalanced exposures.
If you are using Pentax Astrotracer for night shots of the Milky Way, odds are you should go ahead and enable LENR, as the max time you are going to kept out of the camera is 5 minutes and the difference in the images is most impressive. This also precludes you using Pixel shift for night work something I was curious about since pixel shift seems to give better results at higher ISOs with the K1. But if you are working traditional star trails, then LENR is not a great idea and thus you have to consider using Capture One for your raw. Make another note, do not capture as jpg as even Capture One won’t remove the white dots from jpgs, they are fixed forever in the image.
Here is an example from the same crop shown at the top of this article that was worked in Capture One. Click on the file to view at 100% and you can see that Phase One has done a very good job here on the raw conversion for the K1, as most the white dots are removed.
08/08/16 Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography–Milky Way over Buffalo Point, Buffalo National River
Taken with a Pentax K1 and 15-30mm lens @ 15mm and F 3.2 ISO 3200 for 2 minutes using the Pentax Astrotracer function in camera.
This was my first test for night photography with the Pentax K1, and overall I was pleased with the results from the Astrotracer feature in camera. This photograph is a combo from a 2 minute Astrotracer shot for the MilkyWay, and several different shots for the foreground at various times. I used a small lantern down by the bluff to add some local illumination.
Chris Kennedy and I worked for about 2 hours, starting with a very clear night sky and temperatures around 89 degrees with 100% humidity. 2 hours later the temperature was about the same, so I was sweating just standing around waiting on the camera. But there was little to no wind so I was able to pull a nice reflection of the bluff on the river and if there had been a bit more water or a better angle by me, I might have gotten a Milky Way reflection.
Buffalo Point is one of the more popular spots on the Buffalo River, and the only campground with full electric hookups, so it will always be crowded in the summer months. You can either reserve a campground in the lower camping loops or you can try to get a spot in loop A, where it is always first come first serve, and loop A is the original WPA worked sites. I hope to get back to work this place in fall, both for the Milky Way and later on for Star trails. Star Trails will be a bit more difficult due to the location of the moon and due north.
Paul Caldwell