iso 100, F4.5 1/1.7 sec
I did a few boring test shots with the Fuji X10 yesterday. The motivation for this activity was very simple: after seeing some pictures of very nasty orbs on metal service (musical instruments) on the web I decided to check if it possible to fix this problem considering that shooting inside a building allows a greater control over the light. So, I put a red T-shirt on our dining table and used available light (fluorescent lamp mounted on the wall). The X10 was attached to the old Manfrotto 785B "digital" tripod and mounted on the table. The pictures were shot as JPEG with Auto white balance. The images displayed here were shot at medium resolution (2816 x 2112 pixels). Another set of pictures were posted earlier.
I tested several objects, and changed some parameters during shooting. I took a couple dozens photos, and have not observed the monstrous white orbs in any image. There were regions of very harsh highlight clipping, with sharp border, and there were several baby orbs as on the silver earring in the image above. The 100% crop is provided. Dialing down the exposure compensation to -1.0 has very little / no effect on the orbs. Some highlights were clipped quite well, for example on the watch. Keep in mind that the Fujifilm X10 is a compact camera.
Crop from the iso 100 image
Crop from the iso 100 image
The photo of the same scene taken at iso 400 and dynamic range 400% has no baby orb on the earring. Harsh highlight clipping on the spoon is almost gone. The same true for the 50 cent coin. I am not sure if the difference in the white balance is linked to high iso/high dynamic range but the colors in iso 400 shot are somewhat better (compare the watch).
It seems to me that in situation of controlled light Fuji X10 can take orb-free pictures of shiny metal objects. I guess I can get obrs in similar test photos using a stronger light but I am not interested in that. I already saw pictures of metal objects with enormous white orbs. My point is that in some cases it is quite easy not to have the white orbs on shiny surface in images from the X10. It is also very easy to get some.
Obviously, in a situation with a limited control over the light it would be harder to control the white discs, so shooting of cars in bright sun can be problematic. As far as I am aware, there is no obvious solution for this issue so far. Fujifilm has confirmed to dpreview that the firmware update aimed on fixing the orbs issue will be released soon (early February, according to dpreview).
Fuji X10, iso 400, dynamic range 400%, F4.5, 1/4 sec
Crop from the iso 400 image
Crop from the iso 400 image
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