Monday, April 1, 2013

HS50EXR and F900EXR – Review Part 11 — Noise Reduction and Sharpening Bracketing

Sorry about this, but this is an HS50EXR test again. A forum member asked to have a test run bracketing sharpness and I thought I would add a test bracketing NR as well.

The usual shtick with tripod etc ….

It’s after midnight, and I wanted it lit brightly. I could have tried flash, but just yesterday, I had picked up a super powerful 42W daylight balanced fluorescent bulb, so I whipped up a setup with a light stand and silver umbrella and a clamp on lamp shining the bulb into the umbrella.


F900EXR  14mm  640iso  f/4.6  1/60

The result is a very bright light that spreads beautifully. The images are vibrant and colorful, so I am very pleased. The intent was to provide bright light for video, and I tested that yesterday with amazing success with the GH2.

The subject is a Venezuelan 5000 bolivares bill. Rather lovely and very colorful. Anyway, back to the test. Nightwings asked to have a dollar bill (or other currency) shot filling the frame edge to edge and to have the sharpness bracketed. I decided to whip up the test and add noise reduction bracketing as well.


F900exr  92mm  2500iso(!)  f/5.2  1/30

You are in for a real treat, because I am posting full sized images. Now, I cannot post the images straight from the camera because Gallery 1 rejects the Fuji JPEG format (weird.) So I exported full sized images from Lightroom at high quality. The files are around 1.5MB, which is more then enough for an M sized file.

So, onward.

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness standard, noise reduction standard (i.e. factory defaults)


HS50exr  59mm  100iso  f/7.1  0.6

Looks terrific, doesn’t it Smile

The exposure is identical for them all, so look at the headings to get the pertinent info and I won’t comment until the end.

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness standard, noise reduction LOW (i.e. factory defaults)

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness standard, noise reduction HIGH (i.e. factory defaults)

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness low, noise reduction low (i.e. factory defaults)

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness low, noise reduction low (i.e. factory defaults)
This one is sharpened to my taste in Lightroom, starting from no sharpening and no noise reduction

Color standard, contrast standard, sharpness high, noise reduction low (i.e. factory defaults)


And there you have it. But wait … there is more.

Even though you have access to the full sized images, I still want to create crops so I can feel useful Smile

Pretty stunning how similar they all look, isn’t it?

I am pretty sure that Fuji backs almost everything off when there is a lot of clean light. Which is why these various tests from different people so often seem to have very different results. There is simply no way to compare tests from person to person with any consistency.

Anyway, my conclusion is that this camera can take brilliant images. Look at the colors and clarity of these …