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Title: Shh... Turn down the noise please, I’m trying to take a picture here
Publication: NYI
Subject: Digital Imaging
Product: Olympus C2100 Ultrazoom
Written by: Michelle Chew
Noise is one of the most identifiable problems in any
digital image. It is the “grain” or “snow” in solid grays colours, especially
evident in areas where there is shadow. Depending on the construction
of the camera system, noise may appear as randomly distributed monochrome
or colored flecks.
Like any serious digital photographer on a ceaseless quest to combat noise for better digital, I have decided to put the latest Olympus C2100 Ultrazoom to the test. The Olympus C2100 Ultrazoom with a 10x optical 7-70mm (38-380mm equivalent) image-stabilized zoom lens consisting of 13 elements in 10 groups with 2 aspherical glass element, f/2.8 to f/3.5 iris with 7 bladed aperture bearing a normal wide focus range of 60cm to infinity and a macro mode of 10 cm to 60 cm.
Like any serious digital photographer on a ceaseless quest to combat noise for better digital, I have decided to put the latest Olympus C2100 Ultrazoom to the test. The Olympus C2100 Ultrazoom with a 10x optical 7-70mm (38-380mm equivalent) image-stabilized zoom lens consisting of 13 elements in 10 groups with 2 aspherical glass element, f/2.8 to f/3.5 iris with 7 bladed aperture bearing a normal wide focus range of 60cm to infinity and a macro mode of 10 cm to 60 cm.
Besides this, the
C2100 also boasts of other smart features such as a Popup multimode intelligent
speedlight with automatic flash activation in low light and backlight,
red-eye reduction, fill-in (forced activation), off (no flash) with a
working range of flash. All these functions strengthened further by the
Autofocus Illuminator feature, it seems set to give noise a sound beating.
The Autofocus Illuminator is one feature I just had to check out on this Olympus to see if it delivers it promise of producing sharp and focused images even in poorly lit areas. I took one shot using its default automatic setting i.e. without exposure adjustments and no edits. As it turns out, the shadowy areas of the picture are still relatively noisy and some of the middle tone areas have a fair amount of noise in them, appearing as light-coloured (yellow-green) speckles spreading throughout the shadow areas. This particular image that I took is however free of noise in the lighter areas such as the sky, a problem that sometimes preoccupies other digital cameras which I worked on.
The C2100 like many other digital cameras in its league cannot prevent the occurrence of noise in our pictures. It does however manage to produce noise with fewer colours in it, making it more visually appealing than those produced with other cameras. The C2100 cannot fully counteract noise which typically occur in darker parts of an image, it does however manages to ease the noise at the lighter parts of the image, making it look like nothing more than film grain.
We may not be able to eliminate noise entirely in digital imaging, yet we can enhance our photographs by choosing cameras than produce more visually appeasing noise than others. Noise, may not be muted at this moment but together with a good editing software and some editing tricks, it can indeed be smothered and hushed.
- May 2002 The Autofocus Illuminator is one feature I just had to check out on this Olympus to see if it delivers it promise of producing sharp and focused images even in poorly lit areas. I took one shot using its default automatic setting i.e. without exposure adjustments and no edits. As it turns out, the shadowy areas of the picture are still relatively noisy and some of the middle tone areas have a fair amount of noise in them, appearing as light-coloured (yellow-green) speckles spreading throughout the shadow areas. This particular image that I took is however free of noise in the lighter areas such as the sky, a problem that sometimes preoccupies other digital cameras which I worked on.
The C2100 like many other digital cameras in its league cannot prevent the occurrence of noise in our pictures. It does however manage to produce noise with fewer colours in it, making it more visually appealing than those produced with other cameras. The C2100 cannot fully counteract noise which typically occur in darker parts of an image, it does however manages to ease the noise at the lighter parts of the image, making it look like nothing more than film grain.
We may not be able to eliminate noise entirely in digital imaging, yet we can enhance our photographs by choosing cameras than produce more visually appeasing noise than others. Noise, may not be muted at this moment but together with a good editing software and some editing tricks, it can indeed be smothered and hushed.
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