Macro with Fuji X10

Damselfly Ischnura sp? Victoria park, Herston | January 31, 2012 | flickr

F4.0, 1/280 sec, iso 100

Finally I figured out how to make money with photography: I go to a small local park with the camera during lunch time instead of spending cash at canteen :-) Today the weather was very good, without bright sun, and I captured several images on Fuji X10. I used Macro mode at maximal focal length, or Supermacro mode, handheld. The first and third images were cropped, and second and fourth just resized. The Unsharpen mask was applied for all images after resizing.

Long-jawed Spider, Tetragnatha sp, Victoria park, Herston | January 31, 2012

F5.6, 1/320 sec, iso 200, supermacro

It can be T. bituberculata, T. demissa, Brown Long-jawed Spider, T. nitens.

 

Not identified yet, and it is not a macro :(

F4.5, 1/640 sec, iso 200

Exuvia, Victoria park, Herston | January 31, 2012 | flickr

F5.6, 1/250 sec, iso 200, exposure compensation -0.7 

The exuvia above apparently belongs to cicada but there are several cicada species in Brisbane. The 100% crop from the original JPEG is below. 

I wish the X10 had an additional supermacro mode on the long end of the zoom. The supermacro at wide end is rather limited in use, especially if you want to take pictures on dragonflies or spiders.

Samsung NX20 is coming...

Yesterday I visited a site (forum?) outside of English blogosphere dedicated to Samsung cameras and noticed that it got a new thread for upcoming NX20. It seems that the site is maintained/moderated by people somehow linked to Samsung, so I see it as a very promising sign. There are some bits and pieces of various rumors, mainly from "general public". It seems that the NX20 will have a build-in WiFi, the sensor will be the same as on NX200, non-fixed AMOLED (I translated it as tilted but am not sure if it is correct). There are some info on buffer but it was unclear if "10 images buffer" is for raw or JPEGs. It seems that the processor will be better? faster? than in NX200. Unfortunately, no specs for EVF. It seems that Samsung will have it ready for sale in May but the announcement is expected in February. Obviously, it is just a rumor.

Fuji X10 at night

Photographers | Brisbane, January 20, 2012 | flickr

A few more night shots from the Fuji X10. First two pictures were taken at medium resolution and high sensitivity / low noise mode. The picture above was taken at iso 1600, F2.2, 1/50 sec, and the photo of the pub below was made at iso 800, F2.2, 1/80 sec. The noise filter was set to low. I used a spot metering and auto white balance. It was pitch dark, so the photos are noisy. As I wrote earlier, the orbs / white discs are quite rare in images shot in the high sensitivity (EXR) mode.

I don't have any other high end compact cameras such as the Olympus XZ-1, so I cannot compare the X10 to other compacts "head-to-head". For me the night photos are noisy but still usable at small size. The orbs do present in some images taken in Aperture priority mode, at high resolution, but I don't feel that it is a major issue for me. Obviously I would prefer not to have the highlights clipping in shape of the white discs, especially in photos taken at low iso / long exposure, but the orbs are rather irrelevant to me. Again, it depends on personal perception, and I do understand that for some people the white discs are not acceptable.

Royal Exchange pub | Toowong, January 20, 2012 | flickr

The image below is shot at high resolution, aperture priority mode, iso 400, F2.8, 1/40 sec. The image was cropped and resized in GIMP. It seems to me that in this image the highlights clipping is quite acceptable.

 Performing Arts Center, South Bank | Brisbane, January 20, 2012

South Bank at night

South Bank, Brisbane | January 20, 2012 | flickr

The Wheel of Brisbane and Performing Arts Center, South Bank, Brisbane. The picture was taken on Fuji X10, 12 megapixels, iso 400, F2.8, 1/52 sec, handheld. I also included the unedited 100% crop from the original JPEG. Click on image to see the bigger version.

100% crop from the original image

People's Palace, Brisbane

 

Base Brisbane Central | January 20, 2012 | flickr

I like old buildings like this one. It was build in 1910-1911, so it is very old by local standards. You can get more info about the building from the John Oxley Library blog.

The picture was taken with Fuji X10, in high sensitivity / low noise mode, six megapixels, iso 800, F2.2, 1/56 sec, exposure compensation -0.3. The image was rotated and resized in GIMP. The 100% crop from the unedited image is below.

Fuji X10 at night

Reminiscence | January 20, 2012 | flickr

Shot with Fuji X10, iso 200, F4.5, 1/1.4 sec, exposure compensation -2.0, at 12 megapixels in aperture priority mode. I like "ghost" pair walking along the river. The image made up a story in my mind, and it somehow associates with Amarcord.

And yes, the orbs do present in this photo :-) The whole image was ruined by nasty white discs.

Just in case: I bet similar photo can be made with many other cameras including compacts. Do not consider it as "an advertising" for the camera. In these days the cameras are so good compared to what was available just a few years ago. Thom Hogan wrote a nice text on quality of modern mirror-less cameras which also can be extrapolated to some degree on advanced compacts.

The wheel of Brisbane

The wheel of Brisbane, South Bank. January 20, 2012 | flickr

May be next time I should take a ride, not just take the pictures :-). It is about 60 meters high. The wheel is located at South Bank parkland, near the Performing Arts Center.

Fuji X10, iso 400, dynamic range 400%, F4.0, 1/56 sec.

Next picture was taken later, so the sky is black. iso 100, F3.6, 1/25 sec, tripod

The picture below was edited in GIMP, and the levels were changed.

great year for new cameras

The tide is coming : ) I mean new mirror-less cameras : ) It started at the end of 2011, and the announcement  of V1 and J1 cameras by Nikon was one of the promising signs. The more I think about their new sensor standard, the more I like it. IMHO, Nikon hit a sweet spot with this sensor in term of the image quality and sensor size. I wish they use it in a compact camera. 

Canon came out with G1 X big sensor compact. Either Canon was impressed with success of the Fuji X100 camera, or just decided to upgrade their famous G camera line... I wish Canon would use a smaller sensor in such camera, something similar to the sensor used in Nikon 1. First, the lens can be brighter (and I suspect significantly brighter than current F5.8 on the long end of the zoom), and the macro can be better. IMHO, in it's current form the G1 X lacks the most attractive features of advanced compact cameras such as very bright lenses (think Olympus XZ-1 or Fujifim X10) and ability to take pictures at very close distance. Anyway, the release of such camera is great news, and I hope that the other companies will produce something similar (truly compact camera with zoom lens and big sensor).

Fujifilm announced a new "premium" interchangeable lens camera, X-Pro1. Preliminary reports suggest that the image quality is very good, but the price will be high compared to other mirror-less interchangeable cameras. The camera has the hybrid optical viewfinder as the famous X100 (the viewfinders on these cameras are not identical).

It seems that Olympus finally decided to release the advanced  micro 4/3 camera. The announcement is expected within the first week of the February. The rumors and speculations about the new camera are quite wild. It seems that Olympus will use a new sensor in the camera. The camera is expected to be weather-sealed because of recent release of weather-sealed M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-50mm F3.5-6.3 EZ lens. I don't like F6.3 on the long end, but I am curios about the camera because it was rumored that it might take 4/3 lenses... Anyway, the addition of new series of cameras is very welcome development, and I am curious to see "OM-D"-style products.

Hopefully, Samsung will bring the new NX20. The NX10/NX11 look like a very nice cameras to me, so it would be really good to have an updated version. But to be fair, I am not interested in cameras with high number of pixels. I hope Samsung will use an updated viewfinder on their new model.

There are rumors about new line of mirror-less interchangeable lens camera from Pentax. Maybe Sigma will release new compact camera(s) with their Foveon sensor. They just need to crop their new sensor from SD1 and use it in a cheaper DSLR body and a compact camera : ) I hope Nikon will release more things for Nikon 1 system including a small body with knobs and dials :-) The rumors say the company has more than just D800 to announce next month....

I hope that one of the camera makers will produce a camera of my dream: something like Fuji X10 with manual zoom lens and bigger sensor (similar to the size of the Nikon 1 sensor). Make it 10-12 megapixels, use good battery, put two supermacro modes, on both wide and tele end, as Minolta did on A2. Make lens bright and collapsible as on Fuji X10. The optical viewfinder on the X10 while nice is not that useful for me, and I would prefer to have either EVF of hybrid viewfinder. Keep knobs as on mid-range DSLRs: some people like to change the parameters a lot.

Hopefully at some point the camera companies will break the camera stereotypes established with 35mm film cameras. I mean the T shape inherited from film days that is reproduced in essentially every digital camera. The only "improvement" is a collapsible lens, so some cameras look like - (soapbox). It is always puzzled me why digital cameras cannot be build around lens instead of body, with electronic viewfinder on top of lens and tilt monitor on one side, as digital video camera. I think with such design a camera will be quite portable / compact even with bright lens and relatively big sensor.

Fuji X10: macro at iso 800

Beehive Ginger, Zingiber spectabile, Roma street parkland, Brisbane. January 9, 2012

Hanheld shot in supermacro mode on Fuji X10. The position was very uncomfortable for shooting, and it was windy, so I used iso 800. It was possible to use a lower iso because the shutter speed was 1/800 sec. Other tech for this shot: F3.2, supermacro mode, 12 megapixels mode, noise reduction low. The original OOC was cropped in GIMP, and the unsharpen mask was applied to the flower. Unedited 100% crops from the original image are at the bottom of this post.

My first digital camera, Olympus C2020, had maximum iso 400, maximum shutter speed of 1/800 sec, and just 2 megapixels. It was able to take 320x240 movies at 15 fps. The lens was bright, 2.0-2.8, and it had on optical viewfinder, very much like the Fuji X10. By memory, the price was double of the Fuji X10...

 100% crop from the original JPEG

 100% crop from the original JPEG

Fuji X10 at night: how to deal with the orbs

Brisbane at night. January 20, 2012 | flickr

I think the best title for the photo above is "Watching the orbs" or something like this :-) And yes, the photo has orbs in it, but I would not call the orbs obtrusive in the image of that size. Actually, I like the picture. The colors might be too yellow, but it turned out that I like these OOC colors. The image was rotated ~2 degree, and I cloned a tiny strip in one corner to fill in the background. 

I went to the city this Friday night to take some pictures with the Fuji X10. Generally I do not do a night photography, but I was curious about orbs, or white discs, appeared in photos taken at night as  a result of sensor blooming around overexposed areas. I wrote a few posts on the orbs issue, but till now I had just a few snapshots taken at dusk in my first days out with the camera.

It seems that the orbs do not appear at twilight but only present in photos taken at night, with bigger contrast between lights and background. I am talking about subtropical night in Brisbane, so it is very dark. The photo below was taken at iso 200, dynamic range 200%, F4.5, exposure 0.77 sec, exposure compensation -2.0, 12 megapixels. The photo was resized, and the 100% crop is provided below. 

test for orbs at iso 200

100% crop from the image above

The same scene was taken in EXR mode. I think I used high sensitivity/low noise option for the photo below.  In this mode the pictures are recoded at 6 megapixels.  The tech: iso 1600, F2.8, 1/27 sec, exposure compensation -2.0. With such exposure time it might be possible to take this shot without a tripod. Moreover, the highlight clipping areas do not have sharp borders anymore!

test for orbs: EXR mode, iso 1600

100% crop from the image above

So, it seems that it is possible to get rid of orbs in night shots by using EXR mode (high iso/low noise). It comes at price of  reduced resolution and visible noise at high iso. On positive side: it is possible to take such shot without tripod. Usually I use the lowest level of noise reduction in the camera, so the results can be better. I guess it is an interplay between contrast and the camera's ability to handle it, so it it possible that in harsh conditions even EXR mode would not be able to combat the orbs.

I have not tried to shoot the same scene with iso 1600 in standard Aperture priority mode at 12 megapixels. I suspect the noise will be very high but the orbs might be still there. I tried iso 400 with dynamic range 400% and the orbs were still visible.

Fuji X10: zoom during exposure

Brisbane at night. January 20, 2012. | flickr

Zoom on Fuji X10 lens is controlled manually, and it is possible to change the focal length during long exposure. The picture above is "out of camera" JPEG taken with such "changing" focal length. The image was resized in GIMP and the unsharpen mask was applied. The exposure time was 1/1.3 sec, at iso 100 and F3.2. I used spot metering and exposure compensation was set to -1.0. The camera was mounted on tripod.

It is possible to use the same trick at day light with neutral density filter.

How Fuji X10 clips highlights on glossy leaves

Umbrella tree, Schefflera actinophylla, in Victoria park, Herston. January 9, 2012.

I am still looking into the orbs issue, or WDS, on Fuji X10. This time I checked how the X10 behaves in bright daylight on glossy natural objects. For this purpose I took pictures of Umbrella tree with glossy leaves. The shot above was made shortly after midday, at very bright sun, to exacerbate the highlights clipping. The camera was in Aperture priority mode, iso 100, 12 megapixels.

The 100% crop from the original JPEG is posted below. As expected, the highlight clipping is quite pronounced but the clipped areas do not look like white discs. In some places the borders of the clipped areas are very sharp but I would not expect much from a compact camera.

I took several pictures of the tree, and for this post I used one with the highest level of clipped highlights. I also want to point that in such conditions I prefer to use a polarizer even with DSLR camera. 

100% crop from the image above

Update: I added the photo of the same Umbrella tree taken on the same day. In this image the highlight clipping is not pronounced. Keep in mind that the photos were taken around noon. The original image was cropped and resized.  

Umbrella tree, Schefflera actinophylla | January 9, 2012 | flickr

Fujifilm X10: on-board flash

Asian House Gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus. January 11, 2012

The picture was taken through the glass with Fuji X10 using on-board flash, and the shadow is on the ceiling. Tech: iso 400, max focal length, Macro mode, spot metering, F5.0, 1/56 sec. The image was cropped and levels were adjusted in GIMP. The unedited 100% crop from the original JPEG is posted below.

When the night comes to Brisbane

 Brown Huntsman Spider, Heteropoda jugulans. January 11, 2012 | flickr

Night life is very prolific during wet season in the South East Queensland, including Brisbane. Giant spiders wander inside houses, cane toads are coming in great numbers, and numerous Asian House Geckos stay close to windows in order to catch insects.

All pictures were taken with the Fuji X10 in Aperture priority mode using on-board flash. The upper image was taken in Macro mode at maximal focal length. The JPEGs were cropped and resized. The image with Brown Huntsman Spider (above) was processed in GIMP a little bit, the levels were adjusted, and unsharpen mask was applied. You can click on the images to see a bigger picture.

I am very pleased how the X10 works with its tiny flash including the metal door/window frame on the photo below. The highlights were clipped very nicely in this picture.

Brown Huntsman Spider and three Asian Hause Geckos, January 11, 2012

Brown Huntsman Spider and Asian Hause Geckos, January 11, 2012 | flickr

Portuguese Man o' War

Portuguese Man of War, Alexandra Headland. January 14, 2012.

Portuguese Man o' War, or Blue Bottle, Physalia physalis, on rock on Alexandra Headland, between Mooloolaba and Maroochydore. Very often people call these creatures "jellyfish" but in fact it is a colony made of several types of different organisms. It has a "balloon" filled with gas to stay on the surface of the water and tentacles up to to 50 meters long. The colony use the tentacles to catch small fish. The tentacles are equipped with stinging cells which venom can paralyze a pray. People are also sensitive to the venom. 

Physalia cannot swim but float passively, and occasionally can be thrown on shore by wind or waves as on the picture. 

The photo was taken on cloudy day with Fuji X10 as a medium resolution JPEG, F7.1, iso 200, exposure compensation -1.0, 1/75 sec, supermacro mode, handheld. The different types of polyps are visible on 100% crop below. I included the biggest clipped highlight area on this crop in order to illustrate the absence of orbs on natural objects.

Another blue bottle picture is on my flickr page.  

Orbs in Fuji X10: Q&A for newbies

Posts on orbs now are the main source of traffic on my blog. I suspect people search for orbs because they want to buy Fuji X10 camera, or they already got the camera and looking for additional info on this issue. So, I decided to summarize what I know about the orbs for people who don't have a personal experience with the X10.

I have bought the X10 as a family camera, and we took over 2000 pictures with it. The X10 is the first Fujifilm camera I use. The photography is my recreational hobby, as well as this blog.

Q: What are the orbs?
A: Orb(s) is a nickname for white discs appeared in some images from the Fuji X10 as a result of highlight clipping. In some situations the clipped areas appeared as white discs with very sharp border.

Q: What is the highlight clipping?
A: Sometimes amount of light coming into a camera exceeds the capacity of censors in some areas. This results in appearance of completely white spots in photographs. The scenes with very big difference in brightness, such as clouds in landscapes shoots on sunny days very often produce clipped highlights. The highlight clipping occur in all cameras you can buy. Generally compact cameras with small sensors and high pixel count are very prone to highlight clipping.

Q: Does the Fuji X10 always produce orbs in highlight clipping?
A: No. Orbs appear in certain situations such as shiny surfaces in bright sunlight or in some night pictures, and even in such situations only some areas with highlight clipping appear as white discs. In different conditions the camera clips highlights quite well. 

Q: Is it batch issue or design flaw? Is is common issue for all Fuji X10 cameras?
A: Hard to say, but it looks like a design flaw resulting in such unusual "sensor blooming". So, the orbs are expected to be in images from any X10 camera with current software/hardware.
Update February 28, 2012: recent test by dpreview team indicates that the size of the white discs varies between different cameras.

Q: How often orbs appear in images from the Fuji X10.
A: It depends on what you shoot and the light. For example, the orbs are very common in night shots but (essentially) absent in pictures taken in nature. The shiny objects under bright light also produce the white discs, e.g., cars in bright sun.

Q: How bad are the orbs? 
A: It depends on the type of pictures and individual perception. In some pictures the orbs are quite pronounces, in some you need to know about the white discs problem in order to find them. In extreme cases the orbs are quite unnatural. Some people say the camera is faulty and does not work, the others enjoy it a lot. Once I learned about orbs existence and examined my photos at 100% resolution, I found about a dozen pictures with white discs from about 2,000, but only in one photo the orbs were quite big and clearly visible.
Update February 28, 2012: careful pixel-peeping had revealed orbs in other images including ones from the Olympus E-30.

Q: Is it possible to minimize the orbs problem during shooting? 
A: Yes, to some extend. Shooting at higher iso (iso 400) and with high dynamic range (400%) enabled will reduce orbs size and eliminate some of them. However, it would not solve all problems with the orbs. It seems that with the current camera firmware the white discs will appear in some situations, so you might need to adjust your shooting style, or just live with it.

Q: Is it possible to reduce orbs by shooting RAW?
A: I have not tried it yet. I don't like the SILKYPIX raw converter from Fuji, and at the moment the X10 is not supported by UFRaw /GIMP.

Q: Can Fujifilm fix the orb issue somehow?
A: The company have promised to release the firmware update addressing the orbs issue at the beginning of the February but it is hard to say to what extend the issue can be fixed through the software.The quote from the dpreview: "The firmware update ... will reduce but not completely remove the effect".
Update February 28, 2012: the orbs issue is not fixed by  firmware 1.03. 

Q: Do orbs occur only in Fuji X10?
A: It seems so. However, another Fujifilm camera with the same/similar sensor, X-S1, is the next thing to watch for the orbs. But all cameras from any manufacturer do clip highlights.
Update February 28, 2012: shooting shiny chrome motorbike with Fuji X-S1 will produce orbs in images.

Q: I want to buy the camera but I am scared by the orbs problem. Can you help me to decide?
A: No. It seems that the orbs are unacceptable to some people but quite irrelevant to other folk. The X10 camera can take beautiful pictures in one situation and produce (quite nasty) orbs in another. Some people including myself would not bother about orbs in their pictures at all, but for others even small white discs visible only at 100% magnification in very noisy 12 megapixel picture without any details and ridiculous color shift is a major issue.

Shooting shiny metal objects with Fuji X10, again

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

Shooting shiny metal objects with Fuji X10

Fuji X10, iso 100, dynamic range 100%, 1/1.7 sec, F4.5

It  seems that the orbs will eventually ruin my life because now I am taking mainly different test images with the Fuji X10. It is well known that the X10 can produce so called white discs with sharp border, or orbs, on shiny surfaces and in photos taken at night. I have posted some examples in one of my early posts. Today I made several pictures under artificial light (fluorescent lamp through something that looks like a frosted glass). The photos were taken as JPEGs, with auto white balance.

The photo on the top was taken at iso 100, the best conditions for orbs. As you can see, the highlights on the watch and paperclips are clipped. The highlights were clipped even with exposure compensation below -1.0. Below I posted 100% crops from this image saved at high quality in Olympus Master. As you can see, the clipping is very strong but there are no white orbs. 

 Crop from the iso 100 image

 Crop from the iso 100 image

Next, the same scene was taken at iso 400, dynamic range 400% (see image below). As expected, the clipping was less pronounced and the borders of blown highlights were not so abrupt. I have not used compact cameras for several years, and I must say that I am quite amazed with the quality of iso 400/dynamic range 400% shot from the X10.

I tookmore photos using different setting. It seems that in such conditions the orbs do not pose a (significant) problem. There were some round clipped highlights on shiny plastic toy but I can see white dot on this object with my eyes. But for me these images are quite acceptable, if we are talking about highlights. This is a compact camera, not Nikon D700 :)

I am not trying to prove that the orbs do not exist in images from Fuji X10. I am trying to figure out in what conditions the X10 can be used safely. To be honest, I have expected to see orbs in these images at least on the paperclips. Maybe the light was not very harsh. Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise. Be aware that the orbs do appear at bright sun on cars or in night shots.

Fuji X10, iso 400, dynamic range 400%, 1/6 sec, F4.5

Crop from the iso 400 image

Crop from the iso 400 image

Update: I posted a couple other images from this test.

Fuji X10 at night

Royal Exchange pub in Toowong. December 12, 2012.

This picture was taken on one of my first outings with the Fuji X10. The Royal Exchange Hotel / pub is very popular among students from the University of Queensland and local folk. The picture was shot as a high quality JPEG at iso 1250, 12 megapixels, 11.3 mm, F3.2, 1/43 sec, handheld, with standard noise reduction, aperture priority mode. The image was resized and saved at standard quality in Olympus Master software. The 100% crop is below.

I have checked my pictures taken with Fuji X10 at night for orbs, or white discs. To be fair, I have very few photos taken at night with the X10, and all were taken in my early days with the camera, generally at default settings. These were snapshots. It turned out that some images are orb-free (see above) while other do have orbs, for example the car lights on the picture below do look like orbs, especially if you check the image at pixel level. I have not done any post-processing for these images except resizing and cropping. You need to click in image to see the bigger size.

 Sherwood road, Toowong. December 12, 2011.

 100% crop from the image above

IMHO these images have several other acute quality issues such as high noise and loss of details, and for me the orbs in the latter image are just one of the many issues, and definitely not the biggest problem. I noticed the orbs on this image only after I searched for these abnormalities. On computer screen these white discs look OK to my eyes. May be I need a bigger screen:-)

I would really appreciate if the readers of this blog can answer some questions for me.
First, how would you estimate the impact of the orbs on the last photo?
(e.g., the image is bad anyway, the orbs had ruined the image, the picture is acceptable at low resolution etc)
Second: do the white discs look unnatural on the resized/smaller photo of Sherwood road?