Camera Hardware / Settings for optimal reconstruction

[beardless2]

Hi,

Is anyone able to give any advice on the following?

1) Will using a full frame mirrorless camera give any tangible loss of quality compared to full frame DSLR? (Both equivalent spec, such as the Nikon D850 vs Nikon Z7)

2) Image Stabilzation - on or off?

3) Will walking round the subject in 'burst' mode lead to any tangible quality loss opposed to walking round taking single shots (i.e. its a lot faster to take 50 photos in burst mode with the shutter speed set to fast)

4) Use JPEG or RAW images for reconstruction?

5) Electronic vs Mechanical shutter - any tangible loss of quality in an urban outdoor environment using silent electronic mode? (i.e. no strobe lighting etc)

[Andrea Alessi]

Hi beardless!

Here are my thoughts:

1. They should be more or less the same - make sure you're comparing the same sensor type/size also! Prefer a bigger sensor when possible.

2. On!

3. yes, you should probably avoid the burst mode unless you're trying to reconstruct something that changes its shape or that isn't still (e.g. a human) in which case you should prefer faster acquisition over sharper images. Taking your time to take a photo with the correct depth of field is always preferrable in terms of quality.

4. They should lead to very similar results. JPG compression is negligible and processing times will be much faster (it takes much less time for zephyr to load a jpg in memory than a raw) so i would say JPG.

5. As far as i know, theoretically the electronic shutter should be better, but i think that for the majority of cases there shouldn't be a tangible difference (unless you're taking images of something that changes very, very fast) - fair warning, i'm not a photographer though

[beardless2]

Thanks Andrea - very helpful.

One more question if you don't mind, do you know if white balance settings has much of an effect? Should I auto leave that on auto?

[Andrea Alessi]

You're welcome all questions are always welcome

I personally leave it on auto unless i'm in a very different lighting condition (e.g. neon lights). Shooting raw is good because you can adjust white balance in your camera software (and you can always export to JPG as well) so i guess it really depends on what you're shooting and your workflow

[beardless2]

aha in that case a few more!

Obviously lower ISO is better, but sometimes it is required to increase for low lighting conditions for a given aperature / shutter speed - do you have a rule of thumb for "try don't go above this value" for ISO?

I've also found a setting called "diffraction compensation" on the camera that is set to auto - is that ok or should it be off for Zephyr?

[Andrea Alessi]

personally I try to keep it to 100 (but i also have a quite old camera). I would consider 200 or MAYBE 400 on very new hardware, but i'm always skeptical. Personally, rather than increasing the ISO speed i use a tripod and a longer exposure time to compensate - but I understand this isn't always possible.

I'm not sure how the diffraction compensation is done, but I assume it's a sharpening filter. I would probably leave it off or auto - i think that should fire only for very small apertures but i have no experience on it. Maybe a more expert photographer like cam3d with access to the latest hardware can chime in?

[beardless2]

Ah wow that low, i'm currently using Panasonic G9 which only goes down to 200......but I have been up as high as 8000 to keep the shutter speed above 1/500 (i don't have a tripod) to avoid blur. I will try to reduce.

The recommend aperture of F8 to F16 on the help guide (http://www.3dflow.net/zephyr-doc/en/...aphyGuide.html), is that assuming a full frame camera? As i'm using a micro four thirds hardware would i be right in saying since the sensor size is smaller, I don't need quite that high a F value?

If you could pick any two cameras available right now, firstly money no object and then "best bang for buck", which two would you go for? (One for Cam3d too if your about)

[cam3d]

Greetings from Tokyo! (I recently landed at Narita and have now checked into my hostel. Time to talk cameras


1) Will using a full frame mirrorless camera give any tangible loss of quality compared to full frame DSLR? (Both equivalent spec, such as the Nikon D850 vs Nikon Z7)
- No, I don't think there is going to be any real world difference if the only variable is mirror/mirrorless. Naturally each camera will have nuances. Typically mirror = longer battery life because you don't have to illuminate a screen. This is important for me, but it may not be important for you!


2) Image Stabilzation - on or off?
- Adding to Andrea's comment, I typically leave image stabilization OFF unless it's optical stabilization - Digital stabilization can lead to image cropping to compensate = bad. You never want to change your image dimensions because the image calibration will be slightly off and cause strange results.

3) Will walking round the subject in 'burst' mode lead to any tangible quality loss opposed to walking round taking single shots (i.e. its a lot faster to take 50 photos in burst mode with the shutter speed set to fast)
- Burst/Single doesn't really matter, though with single you're forced to stop to take the shot. Stationary capture minimizes motion blur, but if your shutter speed is high enough, burst away!

4) Use JPEG or RAW images for reconstruction?
- Definitely JPEG or TIFF. Shooting in RAW is good because you can make adjustments in post, and you keep a bit more of the photos dynamic range. Processing in RAW is a slow slow nightmare. Shoot RAW - Process in JPG. I use lightroom for my tweaks and JPEG export. Don't forget to keep your EXIF data on your JPEGs especially if you're mixing different lenses/cameras!

5) Electronic vs Mechanical shutter - any tangible loss of quality in an urban outdoor environment using silent electronic mode? (i.e. no strobe lighting etc)
- Not sure about this one TBH, though I think that Electronic shutter can sometimes cause flickering depending on the frequency of the lights (LED iirc?)


White Balance - If you're shooting RAW this doesn't matter so much because you can adjust in post, so auto is fine, BUT if you're shooting JPG I'd pick one which looks good and stick with it, that way you'll have greater colour consistency between shots.

Diffraction - Don't worry about diffraction! - I worried about it for so long, but it's the last thing you need to think about. It depends on your lens and sensor - FF sensors have even less to fear, and smaller sensors it only really becomes a thing to worry about after f/22 - it theoretically kicks in much sooner but unless you're working on high end commercial stuff and every pixel is $$ then don't sweat it

For ISO it really depends on your camera sensor and what the scan is for. I can push my Canon 6D Mk2 to 3200 iso and still get something like this: https://skfb.ly/6D79x



The lower the ISO the better, but sometimes you simply don't have the time or the option to use a tripod!

Hope this has helped a bit and not made things more confusing for you!

[cam3d]

Also, 1/500 is quite a high shutter speed - great for reducing motion blur but it chokes your other settings - Try and bring it down to 1/320 1/250 or even 1/160. Practice keeping your hands steady and you'll have greater flexibility with other settings when shooting handheld

[beardless2]

Thanks Cam3D - i'll try 1/160 and see how long i can bring the ISO down.

If you have time, would you mind answering the extra questions from post #7?

And wow that's a really good reconstruction, how many photos did you use to make that? Was that with Zephyr at high/ultra settings instead of default presets to get that much detail or was that mostly from the camera hardware / good quality photos?(i.e. can i get that kind of reconstruction with my G9 with a 1/4 of the sensor size or will i have to upgrade?)

[cam3d]

Hello again!

I've been in the Canon camp for a while so I'm a bit biased, so I'll give you a few answers:

Canon Expensive: 5DSR
Canon Bang for Buck: 200D

Nikon Expensive: D850
Nikon Bang for Buck: D5600

Sony Wildcard: A7R III - Looks amazing but I have no real world experience with it!

[beardless2]

Thanks Cam3D - with the Canon 5DSR being capable of 50MP, would you actually shoot at that super high resolution for Zephyr? Or would you deliberately choose a lower res, say 20MP, to increase the pixel size to give Zephyr an easier time to reconstruct?

[sam3d]

cam3d

I didn't realise RAW images might slow things down so much and had assumed that being uncompressed and higher bit depth was helpful - good to know, thanks.

Also good to see you find higher ISO levels okay albeit with nice new gear.

Do you sharpen the RAW images in Lightroom? In normal use the RAW (Canon) files usually need a lot of sharpening adding - do you do the same for Zephyr?

[cam3d]

beardless2 - I'd shoot at the full res and let 3DF Zephyr downscale for me because of the resolution the shots would need to be perfect - most of my work is done in a controlled environment (studio) so this is not a problem.

sam3d - I remove all sharpening most of the time, as it is 'false data' - but with some lower quality photos it makes sense to sharpen a bit to compensate. It's a constant battle of variables!!