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Best OLPF for low light

T

Tim Sessler

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Hi everybody -

I was wondering if anybody has done a comparison between the Low-Light OLPF and Kipperties Full Spectrum OLPF.

I am looking to push the camera as far as possible and would be curious if there is any benefit going Full Spectrum.
In terms of lights everything is lit with 5600K balanced LEDs. Color is not a main priority - its really about getting the most out of the sensor in terms of exposure.

Thanks!
Tim
 
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I’m not on Monstro, but I have both the LLO and Full spectrum for my Helium if you wanted to test those side by side. I should have my Helium back from Red by end of week. Feel free to PM me if you’re interested.
 
Thanks a lot for the offer. I actually got both for the Monstro and have been shooting a bit with the FS. I just haven't gotten around to do a side by side test to see if the Full Spectrum actually gives me a significant advantage in terms of low light exposure.

@John-Marchant might actually have some good input. Wonder if Kippertie has done any tests comparing the two!

Cheers!
Tim
 
I'm quite sure full spectrum will only make you other (unwanted) colors visible but not increase your F stop.
It's time to test it ;-)

Pat

PS: But I wonder how a LLO works VS a Skin tone Olpf?
 
Patrick Tresch said:
I'm quite sure full spectrum will only make you other (unwanted) colors visible but not increase your F stop.
It's time to test it ;-)

Pat

PS: But I wonder how a LLO works VS a Skin tone Olpf?
Click to expand...


Definitely gonna get a lot of IR contamination. But I guess it also depends on the light source.

Shooting B&W in a cave, thats why I said accurate color isn't necessarily a priority.
Check out this test with an a7s vs. Full Spectrum a7s:


I'll have to do a proper test comparing all 4 OLFPs some time :)

Cheers!
 
Doubt ther


Doubt it's beneficial to shot full spectrum. Invisible light / ir got a different focus mark. So among other things your images becomes slightly soft if capturing full spectrum. Sure camera is hit with more light but colors are also way of. So only benefit would be slightly less noise.
 
Tim Sessler said:
Definitely gonna get a lot of IR contamination. But I guess it also depends on the light source.

Shooting B&W in a cave, thats why I said accurate color isn't necessarily a priority.
Check out this test with an a7s vs. Full Spectrum a7s:


I'll have to do a proper test comparing all 4 OLFPs some time :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...


Very intersting test!

I wonder if you put an additional IR filter it would cut less visible light than the standard olpf?
How did you get your A7 to be Full spectrum? I'm trying to get an A7 3 to be BW only and am looking for a solution with maxmax.com to perform the modification.
 
Tim Sessler said:
Definitely gonna get a lot of IR contamination. But I guess it also depends on the light source.

Shooting B&W in a cave, thats why I said accurate color isn't necessarily a priority.
Click to expand...

Hey Tim, you’re definitely right about it depending on the light source.
From a lot of the tests I’ve done, I’ve found colored LED’s on most non-organic objects seem to keep their natural color, although I didn’t test skin tones with that so you’d want to do a test on skin tones before using those.

I’ve also found that certain lights found in parks (and by extension streets) seem to be very heavily IR coated and barely affect color (especially skin tones) at all. Lights like that I don’t think add much to lowlight capability.

Handheld IR emitter leds, ones that work for about an hour on battery, do a decent job at lighting things up in the dark but you’ll get that ghost hunter night-vision look. I haven’t tested the standalone LED’s you can buy that produce different wavelengths of light to see what the color differences are.

The dual focus issue probably is the biggest one with shooting Full Spectrum as areas of high contrast can experience some pretty nasty halos, although in low light that might be less of an issue.

In the thread I posted on Fujifilm‘s Eterna Film Simulation there was a sample image I posted of a girl lit by candlelight in Full Spectrum that Aaron Lochert posted a sample grade where the skin tones looked fairly normal. I’ll link those down below.
fujilight20.jpg

45061483882_0cdcc39281_h.jpg


Ultimately, I’d just test your lights on people in Full Spectrum and see if you like the look. The main thing that might affect things in the cave is vegetation looking white instead of green.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Very intersting test!

I wonder if you put an additional IR filter it would cut less visible light than the standard olpf?
How did you get your A7 to be Full spectrum? I'm trying to get an A7 3 to be BW only and am looking for a solution with maxmax.com to perform the modification.
Click to expand...

KolariVision does conversions to Full Spectrum or stand-alone IR. They’re priced pretty reasonably around $250. The main thing is that they’re one time conversions and I’m not sure if they ship to Switzerland.

It looks like the company that did the conversion in that video was a Japanese company: http://www.geocities.jp/invisiblelighttech/index.html
 
Also wanted to follow up and share the finished piece that I shot with Kippertie Full Spectrum OLPF.

Ended up pushing it super high - for some shots all the way to ISO 12,800. Some light Resolve denoising and added grain made it look absolutely stellar.
Very happy that I went that route and happy with the results - given how hard the camera and sensor were pushed!!



Here is some more info and BTS material: http://brooklynaerials.com/blog

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Tim
 
The end result looks fantastic, Tim.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
PS: how was the look of the nature shot with the Full spectrum? Do you have any R3D? Thanks
Click to expand...

Haha! ;)

Unfortunately only have those two R3D stills uploaded and with me:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9azlsz311wxejim/B001_C015_112991.0006964F.R3D?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nbphoephrddxssj/D003_C015_12055P.0004965F.R3D?dl=0

They are both fairly natural. Some of the other mine shots where daylight and the daylight balanced LED mixed, I got some really funky, deep purple contamination.

Cheers!
Tim
 
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