Grainy EVF in low light

[SallyIV]

Hi fellows, here's something to discuss and maybe ask Fuji for a FW update !?

 

I have complained (fotosidan.se, Swedish) about the hopeless EVF in dark/musky rooms - I get a grainy view. Even with shutter speed set to seconds just to get the EVF brighter to be able to use the Focus Peaking (an issue mostly for my T1 and E2; the M1 just works and the 100S also works, well - after it have made 10 seconds AF work).

 

I use often manual focus lenses (Samyang, Canon FD, M42's) and find it hard to get the exact focus in dark/low lit rooms, it's more of a guess work.

 

But.

 

 

One thing, I learned some day ago - on http://www.boxedlight.com/XT1/index.htm

 

Here I copuld read:

" The EVF, while outstanding and probably class leading, has one issue that I find troublesome on very rare occasions. When shooting in extremely dark (almost pitch black) situations in manual focus mode with a lens wide open and focus peaking turned on the EVF and LCD will "sparkle". I call it Fireflies. If you have ever used night vision devices you know that some of them produce a firefly effect... sparkles of light in the viewfinder. It is very important to understand that the X-T1 does this ONLY under extreme circumstances using manual focusing and focus peaking... Turn off focus peaking and the Fireflies go away. Having said all that you might also say that the Fuji X-T1 can see in the dark. "

 

So, I tried, set the MF Assist to Standard and there - the EVF was bright as in daylight. Impressive.

 

Any other with my experience?

 

Would this not be a FW issue? Possible to take up as a poll, as I have had it, the grainy EVF was almost a dealbraker.

 

  -J!

 

[milandro]

No EVF will always have some noise, which is the sparkly grain that you see, when viewing an image in extreme low light conditions.

 

It is the nature of the beast.

 

Unlike mirror and prism image of a DSLR this is mage is created by the sensor itself (als you have in liveview mode) and it is largely hardware determined (so it cannot be much or at all varied with firmware changes or they would have done it in the first place). As you have experienced it also greatly enhances the vision of the real light conditions.

 

The conditions and comments that you quoted describe are precise and the way the evf will always work. 

 

I don’t have a problem with it and find it amazing how it amplifies light. I too use, mostly, manual focus lenses.

Edited September 13, 2017 by milandro

[bhu]

Shot noise is an inherent limitation in all sensors and can be reduced or eliminated using software filtering. The focus peaking may have interfered with the SW filter or worsened the effect of the shot noise.