Saturday, April 14, 2012

D800 Redeemed! Moire ain't no more, eh?

Thanks to David Cubanski of Mosaic Engineering (mosaicengineering.com), the downscaling insufficiencies of Nikon Engineering are being mitigated. See below the very encouraging results of a prototype test for an antialiasing filter designed specifically for the D800's sensor at video resolutions.


See that awful false color moire in the bricks on the house? The aliasing on the shingles and the particularly egregious issues with the window on the right?



And with the filter:


Without filter:

With filter:


Note the aliasing of the power lines--they nearly disappear in some cases, and that familiar rainbow on the house.

And with the filter:

These are screen grabs from 1080 24p footage recorded internally with a picture profile set halfway between default and ideal. By that I mean that contrast and sharpening are NOT set to 0 but neither are they set to their default positions. I split the difference. Reasons for this are that sharpening exacerbates the aliasing issues and I wanted to try the filter in a scenario common to what many people may shoot.

These tests, shot outdoors in changing light conditions with a prototype model, are primitive but promising. Couple with an external HDMI recorder (with compatible EDID, updated firmare, and range between camera and recorder conciding), we have ourselves a mighty fine D800!

Thanks Mosaic Engineering!




Sunday, April 1, 2012

Opening raw files from D800

Seems to be some confusion with regards to this, so just a quick tip to those trying to open Nikon .NEFs in Photoshop. No secret, just that the latest ACR processor (installed if you're trying the beta of PS CS6) won't do it...