-2EV shadow noise ~ further comments

After I posted something on Push-Processing from -2EV yesterday I realized I hadn't even said the most obvious and potentially most important things.

Ugh.  I'm getting old.

To review, here's the image I comment from.

[As always, click and view at 100% to see whatever there is to see]

 

 

Obvious/More-Better Comments -

Here's what I _should_ have said yesterday, and didn't:

The ISO100 -2EV 5 image stack looks nearly as good as the single shot ISO100 properly exposed image.  Image information recovery in the Push-Processed -2EV  5image stack looks good to my eyes.

The single image ISO400 properly exposed image noise looks very nearly as good as the properly exposed single ISO100 output.  Taking just this observation alone, the Sony A6300 has a very nice, clean, quiet sensor between ISO100 and ISO400.  Have a look at the A6300 and A7 Sony cameras on Photons to Photos. [Update: The APS-C A6300 sensor actually does better than the original A7 over ISO400.]

Now here is the "Doh!" part.  The -2EV Push-Processed 5 image ISO100 image noise looks nearly as clean as the single properly exposed ISO400.  There.  That is what I was looking to see.  This is what I wanted to experience.  Image stacking can "work."

One more tidbit of yesterday's missed opportunities are the ISO3200 noise reduced comparisons.  The single properly exposed noise reduced ISO3200 image looks better than the Capture Sharpened 5 image stacked -2EV Push-Processed ISO400 and the Capture Sharpened single shot ISO400 images.  

Lastly, the -2EV Push-Processed noise reduced Capture Sharpen turned off 5 image stack ISO3200 output looks better than any of the -2EV Push-Processed noise reduced Capture Sharpen turned _on_ ISO400 images.

So why bother doing such things?  It seems like a lot of Monkey Motion, and for what?  Well, think about a situation where you want to protect the highlights in very high contrast situations.  Here's a way to guard overall image quality under extreme image processing situations.  It's a way of potentially expanding the dynamic range of a scene.