JPEG XL

macOS sequoia now finally supports HDR photo quick-view!

no more having to use Thorium to view them!

I haven't tested RC. Is animated JXL supported now?

still no 😦

HDR is fixed for all formats not just JXL

first noticed when looking at a downloaded JPEG from Instagram

Then Thorium still has its essential usages– animated JXLs

i guess

although im still using apng for those until `cjxl` gets more interframe optimisation

Tested: hdr also fixed on iOS RC

No animate JXL

Cool! How about Safari?

still seems to be broken

at least for loading local files

yeah, seems like it. my macbook doesn't have real HDR display (it's "EDR") so not very sure

what model? never heard of "EDR" before

MacBook Air (M3)

so not proper MiniLED?

what's the distinction between EDR and HDR?

apple calles their MiniLED panels "XDR"

they have more headroom i think

EDR (extended dynamic range) is an Apple term, it uses extra headroom above current display brightness to render HDR to some extent

macbook air display has max brightness of 500 nits, it's bright enough to have 1 stop above SDR in usual condition

so if I go into a dark room and turn the brightness down, I'd get basically actual HDR

I think

I think too

hmm no, it's tonemapped on my mac

but lightroom still shows actual "HDR" content

What version?

Try in Preview

15.0 sequoia (public beta)

Release candidate?

not sure, it's `15.0(24A335)`

same

the display actually supports max 1 stop above SDR (it's the maximum, doesn't go very bright even when I turn the brightness down)

which is expected because the display doesn't do local dimming

Is there a version of that panel in not adobe?

What would be a good camera to buy today, if you want something with a good bang for buck? I am mostly interested in HDR, and I know little about photography...

depends on exactly how much buck we’re talking about but I believe I’ve heard good things about the EOS R50

or depending on the difference in local prices, stretching to an EOS R10 might make sense

> Over the R50, the R10 adds a second command dial, joystick, additional on-body buttons, an AF/MF switch, a faster burst rate and buffer, a faster mechanical shutter and support for faster memory cards, all in a larger body. (dpreview)

dpreview has a few buying guides, could be worth having a look https://www.dpreview.com/buying-guides

in Nikon land, the Z50 could also be worth a look

I'd assume for HDR the main thing you want is a good sensor size to avoid noise in dark areas, although that applies to any photos really. I know my friend spent a few months testing and ended up on a camera that matched his production quality DLSR at 230 bucks or something. Was said in a voice call though and neither of us can remember what it was a year later....

a huge sensor is not necessarily needed if you bracket and merge (it can more than make up for the difference in “native” dynamic range)

from what I understand, Canon has a mode that automatically does that and merge to a PQ HEIC

(I have a Canon camera but haven’t actually tried that mode – I do my own merging)

this one https://discord.com/channels/794206087879852103/1065165415598272582/1284539005119103110 was a single frame, though

if I had bunches of money, I'd be so tempted by Sony's recent global shutter camera

incidentally, that one has slightly lower dynamic range because of the global shutter mechanism https://www.dpreview.com/articles/6717086661/sony-a9-iii-image-quality-dynamic-range-analysis

its base ISO is 250

aye

the main benefit (over just “very fast readout” à la Nikon Z8), as far as I can tell, is the very fast flash sync speed

they should make a medium format one for more light collection and maybe I'd be able to afford one after saving up for 70 years

https://www.techradar.com/cameras/mirrorless-cameras/the-sony-a9-iii-is-the-best-camera-ive-ever-used-for-flash-photography-portraits-heres-why

previous cameras (other than those using leaf shutters, such as some medium format cameras) would have to use a slow enough shutter speed to ensure that the whole sensor is exposed when the flash fires

in bright light, that could mean having to stop down significantly (so that the slow shutter speed doesn’t saturate the sensor), and then require a lot of flash power (to compete with the rest of the light)

are those fast enough in practice that rolling shutter issues just, aren't a problem?

the Z8’s readout speed is similar to the travel time of a mechanical shutter

(~1/250s)

oh, HLG instead of PQ https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-z8-review

oh, it only does pre-capture / pre-burst in JPEG

hardly the most important feature it being limited to JPEG is a bit lame

if HDR performance is important, how much of a difference does 12 bit vs 14 bit readout make?

(obviously assuming the sensor is good enough for that to matter. I saw people online complaining about the Z8's 12-bit readout since supposedly it should be good enough for 14-bit)

according to the review, it seems to use 12-bit readout for video only

> the Z8 offers a very impressive spec and, like the Z9, backs it up by delivering that spec: no nasty rolling shutter surprises in e-shutter mode, no dropping to 12-bit readout when shooting bursts.

oh oops I misread 😅

how do i tag an image as HDR?

I make these with just a single capture with my phone. I only adjust the exposure down one or two stops, then take the DNG file to Lightroom and play with the sliders until it looks good to me. It's kind of cool that you can do this with just a mid-range phone (this is a motorola edge 40, was around EUR 400 or so when I bought it a year or so ago).

i have a Linear EXR

i'm using Affinity Photo and DNG, and exporting as Linear EXR

probably easier if you export to 16-bit PNG with a proper color profile, if Affinity Photo allows that

i can, i just wanted to avoid the roundtrip cost of using PNG

affinity doesn't let you change the compression speeds

ah. Does it produce EXR files that are tagged with a WhiteLuminance level?

ill check

```File Size : 195 MB File Type : EXR EXR Version : 2 Flags : (none) Channels : A float 1 1, B float 1 1, G float 1 1, R float 1 1 Compression : None Data Window : 0 0 4031 3023 Display Window : 0 0 4031 3023 Line Order : Increasing Y Pixel Aspect Ratio : 1 Screen Window Center : 0 0 Screen Window Width : 1 Image Size : 4032x3024 Megapixels : 12.2```

the image looks fine with HDR processing with Finder

but when encoding to JXL it clips

there's an `exr_to_pq` tool in the libjxl repo, maybe that can be useful

``` exr_to_pq IMG_3138.exr IMG_3138_2.exr WARNING: found colors outside of the Rec. 2020 gamut. The resulting image should be compressed with --intensity_target=803.693. JPEGXL_TOOLS_CHECK: jpegxl::tools::Encode(image, output_filename, &encoded, pool.get()) ```

is this normal?

it didn't output a file

It's suggesting to use `--intensity_target=803.693` in cjxl

is there any way to tell cjxl to tag the image output?

macOS doesn't treat Linear transfer function as HDR for JXL

like a rendering intent or something?

I would try doing something like `exr_to_pq input.exr output.png` and encode from there

or if you want to avoid png encoding, use ppm and then use `-x color_space=RGB_D65_202_Rel_PeQ` when encoding the ppm with cjxl (that's needed since ppm cannot store colorspace info)

i have to go eat dinner now, ill look further into this later

yes, `exr_to_pq` isn’t really intended to write another EXR file (linear)

writing to a PNG will tag the PNG as using PQ, so then `cjxl` will recognise that when reading it and tag the output jxl as well

What is the exact criterion we expect browsers/viewers to use to decide whether or not to render an image in HDR? Is it just "HDR if transfer function is PQ or HLG, otherwise SDR"? Is there a threshold on `intensity_target`?

as far as I know, in Chrome, it currently is “is it PQ or HLG?”

I looked into making it support linear as well but encountered some hurdles

In trying to work out how to tag the JXL as PQ instead of Linear

which file are you compressing from?

if you produce a PNG using `exr_to_pq` and then encode that, it should be automatic

Probably it would be useful to have an option in cjxl to tag the output jxl file differently from the input...

some more stuff from my garden:

"d1" stands for "distance = 1.0"?

yes

at least usually

yes, I'm encoding at d1 to share here

The photos are a bit dark

HDR?

how are you viewing them? not a lot of software is currently showing HDR images properly

XnView

plus I don't have an HDR capable display

Thorium, Lightroom, and the Apple Photos app show the images correctly (Lightroom and Photos only in full view mode, not in the gallery where they show only SDR versions). Most other things (Safari, Preview, most image viewers) don't render HDR properly.

XnView doesn't support HDR nor tonemap to SDR

krita also works, but currently only on windows apparently

Preview renders HDR mostly properly in the latest update but it's not out yet

Good to hear it's getting fixed — I wonder about Safari though, getting it fixed there would be nice because then we can start actually using HDR images on the web

i can test

what site?

has hdr test

https://sneyers.info/hdrtest/

still broken

I hope they fix it soon, so strange that they're not prioritizing this more — they ship very nice HDR screens in most of their devices, yet it doesn't work in their own browser (while it does in Chrome)

yeah

they finally fixed the quick look nfs bug

very broken in Sequoia safari right now...

I can't distinguish what should be correct

my life ||<:ReeCat:806087208678588437> ||

In your country, Pepsi is low resolution ?

The truth of life <:bayer:1284515744981450824>

I can confirm this, macOS Preview shows HDR with MacBook Pro

but not with MacBook Air, which is a little bit disappointing

Safari still doesn't show HDR jxl in HDR

Does MacBook Air support HDR?

EDR

So it uses display headroom to pseudo HDR

up to 1 stop above SDR, https://discord.com/channels/794206087879852103/803950138795622455/1284530413393678367

QuickTime Player played AV1 video in HDR for example

There's this new website with a really cool Glossary: <:Hypers:808826266060193874> https://jpegxl.info/resources/glossary.html#edr-(extended-dynamic-range)

To be clear, Safari doesn't render any image in HDR (that I can find). Still only video.

Video explaining it well from WWDC a while back: https://discord.com/channels/794206087879852103/803574970180829194/1238191790667071499

I wonder if it's because the of the notciable flicker and pause as the display kicks into HDR mode. It's really noticaible on my MacBook Pro M1. Don't know if it's gotten better on newer models.

I'll do some actual processing later on, but a lot of the photos I took last night look like game screenshots rather than a Saturday night at the pub

Since I've been digging through my old vacation photos for images to test with, I came across a few I quite like. This one I took in NY in 2022. By happenstance, I was there on one of the few days when the sunset is aligned with the Manhattan street grid.

Do you have it in RAW?

If so you could do some nice HDR rendering

As the shadows have some jpeg artifaxting

I should have it in raw, but now I can't find the file...

What software for working with raw files on Linux do y'all recommend?

darktable, rawtherapee, something else?

Yes

Both are nice

Darktable handles photos at night better in my experience

And Darktable can export JXL directly :P

Was poking around JXL DNG files when I realised I was looking at the separate RGGB planes. Half an hour later and I imagine this is roughly what a JXL would look like if using the CFA channel for RAWs. Although, this is entirely raw image data, so the CFA would probably look better compared to just adding the values and halving G. JPEG for comparison

Discord butchered the JPEG, but it's mostly just for color accuracy anyway

As a side effect of it being a greyscale 10-bit CFA Plane, the lossless file is actually smaller than the d 0.5 lossy one (From TinyDNG, since I was hoping it didn't use tiles, and thankfully I was right)

Does anyone have any info on what JXL bitstream features Apple is using for lossy/lossless JXL RAW?

For lossless it looks like they use e3

so are they just using cjxl?

cjxl maps to libjxl, so they're just using the API to set effort 3 instead

any physical cameras that have full **dng 1.7** support or generate such files ?

The only "mainstream" camera to shoot straight DNG is probably the Zeiss ZX1, but it is not DNG 1.7

I think some Leicas use DNG, but I believe none support 1.7 yet

not even with firmware updates? those get barely any notice

A cursory search through multiple firmware realeases of Leica cameras shows nothing pertaining to JXL DNGs. I may of course have missed it, but I strongly assume that no camera shoots JXL DNGs yet

Except for smartphones of course

"country is a space superpower" moment

Looks like mushrooms growing on the buildings

https://embed.moe/https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/803950138795622455/1293144735044604027/IMG_4117.jxl?ex=67064e62&is=6704fce2&hm=c3457ebb44c681333683b3fea15245d9d2f04cb83c1bd9b8d7feb693bd1e7ded&

its in hdr it shouldn't be that dark irl

Nice!

Except for the not nice tone mapping ;)

Yeah, I’m writing a HDR RAW capturing App for iPhone which dumps JXL DNG 1.7 directly. Each DNG is 16 bit and about 9-12MB.

Just a small info, but at least most samsung smartphone camera sensors are only 10bit. Capturing RAWs from that in 16bit is rather wasteful I'd say

I don’t even integrate the legacy DNG compression. Just no compression or JXL inside.

My app captures brackets raws and merge them to one HDR raw, so 16bit is needed here. And JXL compression works quite well. Very fast (less than 1s) and small file output.

Very nice, so similar to Halide I presume?

I don’t know if Halide captures HDR bayer raw.

I think they do, if I remember correctly

More info here: https://archive.is/adjeH

This article is about ProRaw, but written by the author of Halide

The article is about ProRAW…

As I know, the only one App captures HDR bayer raw is Lightroom

So I made my own HDR bayer raw App. Which is 5 times faster than Lightroom’s capture

Even with the JXL lossless compression

Nice nice

I bought a somewhat decent camera (Canon EOS R100) and it can export 12 bit raw and JPEG (in sRGB or Adobe RGB). It has a 24 MP sensor. How can I tell if JPEGs saved at the highest quality are fit for converting them to JXL without lossless JPEG recompression?

The only artifacts I see are color banding in dark shots, like of the night sky. But I assume that's a limit of the 8-bit depth, and not a compression artifact that would make lossy recompression perform poorly?

Likely JPEGs coming out of that camera can be safely converted to d1 jxl (or higher distance).

Kind of a shame I'm either going to have to edit and develop my raw files or deal with color banding. If only it had an option to export to 12 bit lossless while still applying the camera's image processing so I don't have to try to match it when developing the raws

Though part of the problem is probably that this lens isn't in the Darktable database yet

you can use imagemagick to get a **ESTIMATE** quality preset

`identify -format '%Q' <image path>`

maybe you can grab the embedded preview from the RAW?

Which tool would you use to develop your raws? And yes, this kind of problem is why it would be so great if cameras would just produce a very high quality JXL file instead of a JPEG. You then get the best of both worlds: the JXL would look as good as the JPEG in terms of having all the camera's image processing applied already, but without the issues of JPEG (banding, limited precision so you cannot adjust colors in post), and at about the same file size as the JPEG, and with almost the same flexibility as the raw (sure, the actual raw will still contain more information, but the gap would become basically insignificant for most use cases).

can a JXL store a RAW and a compressed image?

actually no a container like DNG would be better

hmm, why do cameras create 2 files when in RAW+JPEG mode when it could just embed the JPEG as the preview frame of the RAW?

and then the preview frame could be extracted

that could work especially with JPEG XL

Because most applications don't accept raw files assuming there's a jpeg available

you don’t have to match anything if you use Canon DPP; its default output is like the out-of-camera JPEGs except you can export to lossless TIFF instead

I wish I can set the jpeg to be different

I always shoot in -1 EV

if Canon, why not use the “D+” feature instead?

(https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0090.html)

Does Sony have something similar

I can't find anything about that

Similarly, my android phone seems able to produce HDR photos... But can only export to jpeg, and I don't want to spend years developing raws... It should be easier to export to jxl here, since the software is much more accessible, but android is lagging

Well, most 'HDR' photos are just combined exposures anyway without any more bitdepth

Kinda weird HDR modes don't use the actual bitepth of the sensor and then tonemap it to SDR instead

some newer Android phones do produce actual HDR photos, but using the JPEG+gainmap approach which is kind of... suboptimal

Not regarding HDR, but one thing I noticed (also discussed in [3867](https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/issues/3867) and [3882](https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/issues/3882) is that multiple samsung phones produce partly invalid JPEGs with the normal Photo mode. My S23 produces such files at 50MP and 200MP, 12MP work fine. Pro mode JPEGs are not affected by this. These JPEGs have to be fixed with jpegtran before they can be transcoded to JXL. Error message by jpegtan is always something like this: `Corrupt JPEG data: 1 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd2`

There's a JPEG file, then multiple megabytes of unknown extra data that ends in another JPEG EOF marker, suggesting it's some kind of secondary JPEG that only their stack understands

It does not happen for the regular 12MP JPEGs, which is why I find this weird. If it affected all produced JPEGs then that's just that. And Pro mode JPEGs are also not affected.

OH. Perfect. thanks! I'll have to try that

Yeah, I agree completely. Canon do have some cameras that shoot HEIF already, I can only assume JPEG XL becomes an option some time in the future As for my editing software, I've been using Darktable, it was the first Linux compatible option I came across

I still have a key for Affinity Photo, I wonder if I could get it running on Linux with Proton

Dang it looks like `cjxl` can't take TIFF files as input, I guess I can convert the lossless TIFF to a different lossless format and have it create JXLs from those

You can do it via ImageMagick, no need to create temp files. `magick INPUT png:- | cjxl [...]`

Or ffmpeg, or turn the DNG into a JXL one and just extract the JXL file like I did

might be worth passing `-define png:compression-level=0` to not waste too much time trying to compress the in-memory PNG

Or use ppm if there isn’t any metadata you want

Appreciate all the advice

Nice!

thug life

<:Gigachad:1098190854977495142>

This feels like forced perspective

Tiny scooter supremacy

What kind of modern camera is good at shooting at night?

My 15 year old Nikon D5000 is quite far from good

pretty much any modern camera on which you mount a lens with a large entrance pupil for the angle of view it captures (this is a somewhat long-winded way of saying “with a bright equivalent aperture”)

image stabilisation further helps for static or slow subjects

pretty much any modern camera? Excellent

light and lens attachments make massive difference and have huge compatibility. a tripod and remote shutter help stabilize shots since nighttime demands long shutter times to prevent blurring. rest is manual tuning and developping the raw

there’s a misconception that larger sensors automatically give you better low-light, but more accurate is to say that larger sensors unlock the _possibility_ of using brighter lenses

sacrificing depth of field for light

(https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.57.11.110801 is a good resource on the subject)

meaning, you can more easily use a lower f-stop lens, assuming the loss of DoF is fine?

hm <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAstrophotography/comments/11mbu37/aperture_vs_fstop_and_there_effects_on_image/>

the lower bound on f-stops is similar across formats (theoretical absolute limit of f/0.5, practical limit close to f/1 or slightly lower), but 24mm f/2 means a larger entrance pupil (24mm ÷ 2 = 12mm) than 12mm f/2 (6mm), and therefore more light collected from a given angle of view (for example the angle of view that 24mm captures on FF, or 12mm on Micro Four Thirds)

makes sense

https://clarkvision.com/articles/low.light.photography.and.f-ratios/ has nice illustrations that confirm what the OP of your reddit link says

a lot of confusion around the subject is due to the fact that there is an implied “all other things being equal”, but all other things can’t be equal at the same time

so one needs to agree on what is kept equal (f-number? DOF?)

the “anti-equivalence” crowd usually insists on keeping exposure / f-number / ISO equal, for no clear reason

so if I understand correctly, for my f/5.6 300mm telephoto lens, the entrence pupil is 53mm ?

I shall read this

correct, so despite the seemingly high f-number, for a subject that fits the frame with this lens, you would get more light per unit of time (and therefore less noise at a given shutter speed) than if you were to crop a 100mm f/2.8 to the same angle of view

_if_ you were in a position to get closer to your subject to make it fill the frame with the 100mm as well, and you were fine with the change in perspective, then the 100mm would “win”

ic ic

(the effect that this has on DOF forms the basis of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenizer_method)

(tl;dr: use a long lens with a large entrance pupil to shoot and stitch a panorama, end up with a shallow-DOF wide angle shot)

👀

Spending the money on a large aperture lens will make a world of a difference

I did the math on my other two lenses, as well as that telephoto lens when it isn't zoomed to the max, and they all have a smaller aperture apparently

The fastest lens I have is f3.5 😭

I want to get my grubby little hands on a f1.8 lens

Maybe even f1.4 if I can

going from 300mm to 70mm on the zoom telephoto lens takes it from 5.6 to 4.5, so an aperture reduction from 54mm to 16mm. non-telephoto zoom lens is 105mm/5.6=19mm or 18mm/3.5=5mm, and my macro lens is 35mm/1.8=19mm

(why do I have all these expensive lenses if I don't know much about photography? My dad bought them and the camera 15 years ago, and 4 years ago I borrowed it and the lenses. While I had them, my dad blew a bunch of money on a mirrorless camera and now he doesn't care about getting the lenses back and grumbles about Nikon breaking lens compatibility)

did they? the F-to-Z adapter works well as far as I’m aware

I don’t have first-hand experience with it (I shoot Canon) but I haven’t heard many complaints

I tried telling him that but he doesn't like the idea of having to buy an adapter when they had previously been keeping lenses compatible for 50 years or something.

I tried telling him that mirrorless cameras sorta by necessity will be different from SLRs in this respect but he didn't seem to care 🤷‍♀️

But hey, free lenses for me, I ain't complaining.

is it this one? https://www.dpreview.com/products/nikon/lenses/nikon_70-300_4p5-5p6g_vr

yeah

maybe good to keep in mind, though, that being mainly focused on astrophotography, the site is kind of biased towards the “can’t get closer to the subject” case

brb gonna do night time photography with my macro lens

though I do think that the sensor in this camera just isn't good enough

yeah, that’s a distinct possibility as well

I tried taking photos of clouds illuminated by the moon at maximum aperture size and I couldn't find a setting that didn't result in more noise than signal

Yeah what you need is newer sensor + ibs

I only carry a compact ultra wide now because everything looks fine on it

IBIS may not be that important if the lenses are themselves stabilised

and in Nikon mirrorless, it takes at least a Z5 to have IBIS

I was thinking about what kind of camera to buy for maximum ease of use for casual photo snapping during travel

Lets you take 3s shutter handheld

newer Sony apsc probably would fit that

(if you can deal with Sony’s ergonomics)

but yeah, good specs and many lens options in Sony land

This Nikon is the only proper camera I've ever used, so I don't have any opinions on what is or isn't nice to use. Not sure if there is any point in staying with Nikon. I think my Nikon SLR lenses can be suitably adapted to any mirrorless brand?

travel tbh dump all those lenses and get a new compact

truly fire and forget

Don't need to think about zooming or framing

yes

I was thinking earlier with the talk about sensor sizes and aperture and stuff, whether it makes sense to get an as big as is reasonable sensor, and then get an as small lens as is reasonable that will cover the whole sensor

And I think the Sony apsc kit lens is already perfect for travel

Then as long as the lighting conditions are good enough and as long as the sensor has enough resolution, you can just point randomly and crop later for decent results

incidentally, I’ve now gone the exact opposite direction: I’ve switched my walk-around lens from a 35mm f/1.8 to an 85mm f/2 as an experiment

While still having the abiltiy to swap out to a nicer lens for less casual shooting

this photo was taken with it

My compact is an SEL24F28G

I tried out carrying a fat boi but it just takes up so much space

And it's so heavy

that is a nice photo

sounds a bit like the philosophy of the Leica Q3 (although it’s expensive and the lens is fixed)

weight is a huge factor for travel so that's why I recommend the Sony apsc

(60MP sensor + 28mm f/1.7 lens)

I took all my lenses with me when I vacationed in the US, that was fun 😄

But the Nikon D5000 is bulky even with a small lens, so in practice I only took it with me a few times while out and about.

All the other times, I had to use my phone camera, which sucked in a lot of ways.

oh you weren't kidding...

That's my current setup

61MP 24mm

what camera do you use?

a7cR

Leica is kind of a running gag in /r/photographycirclejerk

(I’ve joined in on the fun myself https://www.reddit.com/r/photographycirclejerk/comments/h0j06k/ms_optics_introduces_an_affordable_1100_body_cap/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photographycirclejerk/comments/m72xr7/leica_will_increase_prices_across_nearly_its/)

if they made a flat lens with AF I'd be on that

dang modern sensors are crazy. my dslr has a range of 200 to 3200 with a few "lo" and "hi" options that don't give an ISO number, meanwhile I'm looking at camera reviews now and they're like "here's how it compares at iso 100k"

yeah they go up to 320k now

but they don't go above 6400 in practice

oh, yeah, I should have thought of DPReview’s still comparison tool

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=lowlight&attr13_0=nikon_d5300&attr13_1=sony_a7cr&attr13_2=nikon_d5300&attr13_3=sony_a7cr&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=raw&attr15_2=raw&attr15_3=raw&attr16_0=3200&attr16_1=3200&attr16_2=25600&attr16_3=25600&normalization=compare&widget=1&x=0.00965785996671984&y=0.18999949798714524

they don’t have the D5000 but here is the D5300

“comp” at the top (as opposed to “full”) means that the higher-resolution image from the α7CR is downsampled to the lower-resolution image, for a more relevant comparison

(comparing at 100% zoom is a typical mistake that makes higher-resolution sensors look worse than they are)

damn why don't my pictures come out as sharp as this

I'm guessing it's not the same lens for the comparison?

if you hover over the “i”, you can see that they shot the α7CR image with the 85mm f/1.4 GM at f/5.6

lenstip found that lens to be quite sharp https://www.lenstip.com/484.4-Lens_review-Sony_FE_85_mm_f_1.4_GM_Image_resolution.html

damn Nikon lens mogged it has so much more CA

I took at a look at the selection of Sony APS-C cameras and other than being cheaper they don't seem compelling compared to the a7CR. Not that much smaller, not that much lighter. The smallest and lightest of the recent models (ZV-E10 II) doesn't have IBIS. The the one that seems best in terms of features (a6700) is basically identical to the a7CR in terms of dimensions and weight. So I guess I would buy an a7CR right now if I had the money.

broadening beyond Sony, I searched for APS-C and Full Frame cameras that have at least 24MP and IBIS, and weigh under 600g, it's basically just Sony and Fujifilm (plus one Panasonic Lumix model), and I've only heard bad things about Fujifilm lately, especially about buggy firmware on their recent cameras.

lmao I'm finding reddit threads full of people who had the exact same idea I had, many bringing up the Leica Q3, who all settled on the a7CR

My phone has a 'Leica' and goes down to ISO 50 which is nice, although thanks to bad firmware updates I *have* to take RAWs for anything other than Telegram thanks to all the post processing layered on... They also removed all resolution and aspect ration options other than `JPEG, JPEG-L, RAW` with `-L` being 20 MP instead of 12

🤔

oh new apscs are heavier wtf

i only compared it to the a6000 which is almost 2x lighter than they are now

another thing to note is that there are more lens options for APSC than FF

the a6000 was fun to carry since it was so light

would snap 1000+ photos a day

the a7cii might be more suitable

how is your storage

the old camera's files were a lot smaller

Why so we need jpeg xl then

Took some pictures, naturally I wanted to convert them to JXL. They're pretty high quality, no visible artifacts, so I use `--lossless_jpeg=0` and I was like "why are my JXLs 60% bigger?" turns out it was doing modular lossless mode. It's honestly really impressive it can losslessly encode that pixel data and only make it 60% bigger than a lossy JPEG

I saw one person on Reddit who asked if there are any downsides to using APS-C lenses on an a7CR 😄

oof

"Storage is cheap" rings especially true for photography. Just doing a short calculation on what I would have spent with even the cheapest filmrolls and I will gladly buy more harddrives

I will keep that one in mind too. If I'm reading the reviews right, the main differences are lower price, lower resolution, better video, and lack of pixel shift.

and who's this in the review comments? 🤔

Yeah, the last thing they want is loss, so disabling reconstruction defaults to lossless (for both JPEG and GIF)

oh, yeah, the usual shortcut that “better DR” necessarily means “better SNR”

(counterexample: https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Olympus-OM-D-E-M1-Mark-II-versus-Canon-EOS-RP___1136_1302 )

Can someone tell me what "DN" in this article stands for? <https://www.strollswithmydog.com/sub-bit-signal/>

no idea what it stands for but it seems to mean something like the unit of an integer representation after converting analog to digital. Maybe "digital number" or something?

yes

https://photonstophotos.net/GeneralTopics/Sensors_&_Raw/Sensor_Analysis_Primer/Gain.htm > Therefore we need to know how electrons are converted to Analog to Digital Units (ADUs also known as Digital Numbers or DNs).

by knowing the ratio of DNs to electrons, you can convert the measured read noise in DNs (https://photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm#Canon%20EOS%20RP_14) back to equivalent input electrons (https://photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm#Canon%20EOS%20RP_14)

thank you!

Random cat pics, because... yes™️

I don't believe the cats are random, it looks like the same cat in both pictures which would be highly unlikely if it was truly random

</silly joke>

But what if they're not the same cat?

they still have an unlikely similar fur color/pattern

Fun thing, they're different cats <:KekDog:884736660376535040>

🐈\🐈

Sir-Taki on the left and Snickers on the right. Not my cats sadly, they live in a cat cafe

https://www.kattencafedespinnerij.nl/english-version.php#ourcats

my youtube suggestions have turned into this

Watched that one and huh, the Leica Q3 apparently has no IBIS and the lens stabilization is only like 1 or 2 stops. So even if you didn't care about the price, and even if you don't care about it being a fixed lens, the Sony is probably a better performer in almost all situations.

where the Q3 likely wins is in weather sealing (IP52)

On the one hand, crazy price premium just for an IP rating. On the other hand, crazy that a $3000 camera doesn't have an IP rating.

I’ve read that IP tests are not really suited to cameras, but I don’t remember the details

something about the first level already being quite a lot of water

ah

(1mm/minute for 10 minutes iirc)

that is quite a lot of water

level 2 (like the Leica) is 3mm/minute when tilted 15°, also 10 minutes in total (2.5 minutes per direction of tilt)

dang

that thing must be quite sealed

here is something unrelated that I stumbled across. Apparently Viltrox just released the first pancake lens for full frame Sony cameras. Only available on Indiegogo right now though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbzimUlO9P4 (longer more comprehensive review: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMct_kh-Kaw>)

If the performance drawbacks aren't too much for it to be a go-to lens, this is small enough that you could totally have a pocketable full frame camera.

a lens that’s quite niche, but which I’ve found rather fun to play with, is https://ttartisan.store/products/tilt50mm

https://youtu.be/nPxvnTgpX5E

Ooh a tilt lens

A fun project idea for the future I have is to build a digital version of one of those old timey large format folding cameras, for a lot of tilt and shift flexibility.

this feels like a really niche combination (pancake lens + anamorphic mod) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLRUqPeDnKE

I tried out that ttartisan one, it's interesting but it made me find out I can't deal with not having AF

I just remembered this camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3pBp12r-m0

He’s leaking the new iPhone 30

haven't watched this video yet but I wanna say that you can get one of these factory new off of ebay for like $150 (haven't checked in a year or two) and also it runs android and you can sideload apps onto it

I uh lost the charger for mine :(

I know what building it's in just not where within said building

this repo is useful really as well since it has updated firmware and stuff: https://github.com/helloavo/Light-L16-Archive

they used to cost like $1900 in 2019 when the company was still around

two anonymous jxl devs high-fiving after they managed to get something to work

both in focus thanks to the tilt (I guess you’ll have to take my word for it)

too bad the framing is barely not wide enough to contain the whole hands

I didn't think there would be a world of cursed lenses to explore until you posted that tilt lens

Moritz and Luca?

yep

you can tell I've been collaborating with the Google Zurich folks quite a bit, I recognize them based just on clothes and pose 🙂

Not so anonymous anymore now <:KekDog:884736660376535040>

Hand reveal <:Poggers:805392625934663710>

I can share a fully or partially uncensored version if either or both consent to it

You are very GDPR compliant!

they agree, so here it is

very cool effect

> two anonymous jxl devs high-fiving after they managed to get something to work Is this old or do we have something to look forward to? xD

28 November 2023, I’m afraid

Ahh

I had just received the tilt lens and couldn’t help trying it out while still in the office

I aligned the focus plane with them and they just happened to high-five in that moment, so I instinctively pressed the shutter button

it’s a very lucky shot (not posed / planned)

(and it explains why I accidentally cut off the very top)

I didn't know such a thing existed, a lens with a tilted focus plane. Cool!

There is an entire subreddit with this topic even

https://www.reddit.com/r/tiltshift/

Such a convincing effect, if I didn't know better I'd think most of those were miniature models

Oh, right! For some reason 'tilt lens' didn't immediately make me think of 'tilt shift' haha

yeah, but this one doesn’t shift

and conversely, some lenses shift but don’t tilt

When I grow up I want to work on something like AV6 or something

Nice! I'm still waiting for the skies to clear to take a picture of it as well. No luck yet

<@604964375924834314> what lens did you use? My camera came with a 18-45 mm lens, I don't know if it's going to be able to zoom in enough to really resolve it well enough for it to be a nice photo

Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4

maybe I should have tried the 70-200mm

oooh

I should walk for an hour in the direction opposite of the air port and see if I can see it...

it’s quite difficult to see with the naked eye

do you reckon my d5000 with the 300mm zoom lens could get a decent shot of it?

If you have a tripod, yes

I'll have to find it

Though I wonder if I'll have a hard time finding it 🤔 Imaging pointing the camera in the right direction and getting nothing out, not being able to tell whether I did something wrong or set it to the wrong direction 😄

the above was a stack of somewhat short exposures; here is a single 4-second exposure:

(whew, the banding in Discord’s previews is awful)

webp my behated

Less than 4K colors in 600K pixels, well done Discord

this is me if I can't see the moon as a focus reference 💀

rip

for some reason the lens doesn't communicate its focus distance and I can't set it to infinity because it focuses just beyond infinity at its maximum

thanks to the pointers from spider-mario, I now understand camera ISO, apparently to a greater degree than 95% of camera reviers whose videos and articles I've watched and read

if you ever try to correct some of the misconceptions around it, be prepared for many people not to believe you

I thought I knew what it was but now I'm starting to doubt myself...

ISO 100 and be there👌

ISO 50 and be double there

It's effectively just scaling up the values from the sensor, no?

I know there's misconceptions about ISO *causing* noise and whatnot

its formal definition is basically just “10 lx·s ÷ _H_” where _H_ is the focal plane exposure of a mid-tone (whether that means the “average exposure recommended by the manufacturer”, as in REI, or the focal plane exposure that results in an 8-bit value of 118, as in SOS) in cameras, it’s often coupled with analog gain, and digital scaling of raw values, but it’s not mandatory, and the mapping with gain is often not 1:1 (which at least refutes the usual unnuanced claim that ISO “is” gain)

and yeah, a lot of misconceptions as to what that gain means for noise

I just watched an astrophotography review in which the reviewer said that Sony cameras are iso-invariant, which according to him means that you can increase the ISO without making the image noisier, unlike other cameras, which he said is magic.

higher-ISO images _correlate_ with higher noise, but it’s because of the lower exposure (with the main consequence being the comparatively higher photon shot noise), not because of the higher gain

the higher gain reduces the relative contribution of read noise (that’s why the manufacturers increase the gain in the first place – why would they do it otherwise?)

at the cost of clipping the highlights sooner

This may be interesting regarding this, although not directly related to photgraphy https://youtu.be/UAeJHAFjwPM

I love how figure 6 of https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/8/11/1284 illustrates it:

(this is based on a Canon 50D; the exact curves will vary by camera)

my understanding of iso invariance is that it lets you get away with reducing your ISO without needlessly introducing read noise, while his takeaway was that with a Sony camera, he could pump the ISO up, which I think is quite backwards.

😄 indeed

I understood until the mention of read noise

and to make that claim even more ridiculous, Sony cameras are deliberately _not_ completely ISO-invariant (→ dual gain)

https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm#Sony%20ILCE-7M4_14,Sony%20ILCE-7RM5_14,Sony%20ILCE-7SM3_14 the exact point where the higher gain kicks in varies, but the pattern is clear

(if you click the name of a camera in the legend, you get this nice table: )

I really enjoy the process of exploring photography, stuff like this is interesting, but I especially like reading into things my camera does that seem weird

those are the exact three cameras he was looking at, hah

A lot more read noise in my current camera vs the ones I'm looking at

yep, although incurred over fewer pixels, which slightly makes up for it (although it is said that noise reduction algorithms work better with higher-resolution input, so that might tip the scale again)

The a7IV / a7CII sensor has almost the same pixel pitch as the D5000 sensor, so an APS-C crop of those cameras would be pretty 1:1 comparison with it. I think?

I'm trying to determine whether the a7CII or a7CR would be a better pick for me. The former is cheaper, and its only downsides are lack of pixel shift (not sure how useful that would be) and being 33 MP instead of 61, but the upside (beyond the price) is superior dark light performance due to the larger pixels.

the low-light advantage, when images are compared at the same size, is mainly just the aforementioned slightly lower read noise per surface area

light collection per surface area is similar due to the use of gapless microlenses

(at least in Sony land, as far as I’m aware)

(the Nikon Z7 uses a slightly less than 100% fill factor, to increase sharpness)

aye

https://www.dpreview.com/videos/7940373140/dpreview-tv-why-lower-resolution-sensors-are-not-better-in-low-light https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5365920428/the-effect-of-pixel-and-sensor-sizes-on-noise/2

Every review I've looked at so far (mostly astrophotography rather than general dark shooting though) have found the a7SIII (12MP) as incredibly good, and the a7IV as a decent bit better than the a7RV.

you can pretty much multiply the read noise values from the α7CR by sqrt(61/33) and that’s more or less the read noise you would get after downsampling to 33 MP

hm

35% higher read noise after downsampling?

This goes way over my head. I just hope I made the right choice going for a discounted Canon EOS R100 over a non-discounted Canon EOS 2000D (aka Rebel T7)

At least the R100 comes without a low pass filter installed which I found out later is actually pretty nice for astrophotography

I still have some time to figure out of I made the right call before the 30 day return period ends <:KekDog:805390049033191445> but I'm pretty happy with it

that’s probably what matters the most 😊

probably something like that

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=sony_a7cr&attr13_1=sony_a7c&attr13_2=sony_a7cr&attr13_3=sony_a7c&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=raw&attr15_2=raw&attr15_3=raw&attr16_0=6400&attr16_1=6400&attr16_2=25600&attr16_3=25600&normalization=compare&widget=1&x=0.04309183973298946&y=0.30795757974383003 shows the α7CR as noisier _but_ the raws seem to have been developed with more contrast, which would do that

Pixelshift is not a bad feature, but requires the horrible sony software to process I believe.

either looking at the raw numbers directly, or comparing after denoising, might give more information

(for example “denoising to the same amount of noise” and comparing which camera retained more detail)

Guess I'll have to buy both cameras, compare myself, and return whichever one I end up liking less 😄

You are also able to rent cameras, not too expensive and temporary

good point

An arguably important piece of kit for astrophotography are astro trackers

they allow you to reduce ISO and not get star trails

I need to buy one tbh

there’s a local camera shop that also let me take a camera outside for a little bit to try out with my own SD card in it

so I could bring a few shots back home

hm

Camera shops are generally quite willing to temporarily hand out gear to test, although only if you stay in the vicinity