LLO-Explanation

[Steve DiMaggio]

Thinking about grabbing up a LLO for when I shoot dancefloor footage. I am noticing more noise than what I would like. So I understand what LLO means. But how does it do what it does, and exactly what does it do? Give you extra DR down low? Help with noise floor? Let me light onto the sensor?

steve

 

[Anton Shavlik]

LLO is the least opaque filter for the sensor, so while 800 iso on LLO will match the exposure for 800 iso on any other OLPF, it will blow out a little sooner and its noise will be a little less. It doesn't affect total dynamic range, just how it's distributed for a given iso. It has some negative effects like a pattern appearing at very small apertures and a slight veil on bright sources of light.

If you're using STD I don't know if you'll notice a significant difference with LLO. I think STD more or less made LLO obsolete. Both work best at 5600 K and ~800 iso, STD has the same flaws as LLO but lessened.

STH is about a stop slower, but has better saturation and filtration, and no pattern at small apertures or veil. While LLO/STD have really balanced red and blue channels at 5600 color temperature, STH has a slightly more noisy red channel and works best around 4000. With STH your noise floor and clipping point are shifted by about a stop so it works best ~400 iso

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

thanks for the detailed response!

steve

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

Both work best at 5600 K and ~800 iso, STD has the same flaws as LLO but lessened.

Quick note that the Epic-W (Helium sensor) has even highlight/shadow protection with STD when rating at 1280. Graeme has chimed in on this a few times.

Thanks for this Anton, helped me learn some stuff as well.

Edited for num-pad typo