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.
No comments:
Post a Comment