Gain, Offset, Read Noise, Exposure time?! Let's clarify 

On a more serious note, your videos are masterful. I've worked professionally in photography and videography for many years, and every time I watch your videos I learn something. Lots of things. Very good info and very well presented.

Two years later, and this content is still golden! Thanks for teaching me these concepts - super useful for a new astrophotographer.

Best explanation I have ever seen. Just makes more sense now. Can't wait for your next video.

As Einstein used to say: "If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough yourself". Your explanation is LIMPID :) On behalf of all the noobs : Thank you so much!!!

Hi Cuiv, I find your videos both interesting and entertaining. You’ve got the knack! Congratulations and thank you for your thoughtful and helpful insights.

Thank you for explaining this. i was looking at these charts for sometime, not being exactly sure of how to interpret them. Now i can say i understand.

"...all about swamping the read noise...". Too funny. Thanks for the informative and fun videos

Wow! So well explained! Thanks so much for this master class!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this and all of your NiNa videos, thank you so much 🙏

Thank you for a logical explanation which I found to be refreshing instead of the usual " I used this value and look at my images.....?" No depth and only the message" Don't question just follow what I am doing". Thank you Kurt.

I've watched a lot of videos, some are so complex you have to have a doctorate to understand, some are so simple that when you are finished you know less than when you started. As the three bears would say, this is just right. Thanks so much.

Quand les choses sont expliquées clairement, on les comprend facilement ! Merci Cuiv pour tout ce travail très pédagogique, il y a tant à apprendre dans ce domaine !

Thank you so much for explanation and I love the great quality of your videos!

​TY for this complete, simplified and clear video explanation regarding relationships of component variables to exposure choices for image planning. Really helpful!

This is a definitive work. Thank you.

Always learn something when I watch your videos. Thanks!

Thanks so much. There's a lot to be gained from your videos! :-)

This is probably the best video explaining this I’ve ever seen. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I proudly wear your T-shirt

' extremely simplified ' he says : ' ) My head is spinning from all this information, well explained Cuiv, gonna have to come back to this video a couple more times!

That's probably by far the best video on that topic I've ever seen, thanks for that.

Excellent explanation. Thank you! I'm just starting out with my first astronomical camera (a nice simple, affordable one from Svbony), and this provided just the information I needed to understand unity gain, optimal exposure, etc. Great job!

This is a bunch of excellent explanations! Thanks!

Awesome video Cuiv! This is the best explanation of gain and read noise I've come across on youtube.

Thank you for the explanation, best I have seen so far!

The best and clearest explanation of what is going on with these f***ing cameras - thank you so much :)

Thanks for going through all this. To clarify, the Dynamic Range plot is the DR of the sensor, not your image. They are not the same. For example, in my typical dual band images of nebulae, 5 min exposures might give histograms with a main peak from say 250 to 1000 roughly. Now if I quadruple the gain, it’ll be 1000-4000. Note that the DR of my IMAGE hasn’t changed at all, it’s the same. The DR plot you show assumes that your histogram covers the full range of 1-65536, which absolutely never happens in reality. So as long as you don’t saturate pixels, you can crank up the gain and the DR of your image will not change.

Yet another GREAT video Cuiv, THANK YOU!! In particular, I like the level of detail you go into explaining things in lazy "layman's" terms. ;-) I often find other astro video producers don't go into nearly enough depth. I've been a subscriber for a while now, I think you've found the informational "sweet spot" for intermediate astrophotographers which I think most AP-ers fall into. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for going over this. Looking forward to the next vid. Keep it up!

Thank you, I understand a lot more now

I have always wondered what these graphs meant! Thank you SO MUCH! Your videos are so helpful.

This clears up a lot of question I have about dedicated astro cameras.

Got a second hand 294MC Pro which I can't wait for the life of me to try. Thanks for the video, it really helps understanding all the settings!!

Great info and very well explained Quiv 👍🏼👍🏼

Again a great video, Cuiv. As a beginner I have treated the topics this way so far: As long as there is a wall I don't need a door. Thanks for the many doors in your videos.

As always, another great video!

Just enough explanation to really help me along! Thanks, Cuiv! 👍

thank you so much for working your way through the camera data and charts in ZWO website; very very helpful.

Very well explained. Keep up the good work!

I endorse everything being said about the video- Great stuff,well explained and as others have said I,ve watched Richard Glover and listened to a pod cast etc on this subject and have an understanding but this video is like the cement between the bricks. It brings it all together. Keep on building !

As usual. Great work!!!! Very Happy to have find you on internet :-)

Thanks for explaining it so well and the "don´t worry too much about it" attitude! That´s very much apprechiated by a beginner, worrying too much about basically everything

Hi Cuiv, thank you very much for this great video. I finally understand how it works! Looking forward to your next video...

This is pure gold.

Thanks Cuiv, I just bought a 294MM Pro and couldn't get my head around all these values by looking at forum posts. You explained everything perfectly!

this video answered sooo many of my questions, thanks so much !

Well done! you seem to be a natural at making the complex simple to understand.

I am very new to imaging with the ZWO 294 MC PRO. what seemed very confusing, and i thought i'm never going to get this,now after watching your videos how you present them in an understanding point of view from you to the viewer makes things much easier to learn. I like the way you point out that you may not be the best or that you may make mistakes and to correct you if you do. To me you are doing everything right,and i know that from following your advice things can only get better for me. These videos are first class, thank you and keep up the good work

Thank you! This was very helpful.

Many thanks for these perfect explanations in simple words! I'm a beginner... and feel much more comfortable now! Kind regards, Markus.

Thanks Cuiv! Looking forward to watching this :)

Finally I get it. Thank you for this excellent explanation.

Thank you so much for your well prepared explanation.

I do miss your videos since you took your break. Hope you come back soon . You're quite the character. 👍

Nice one, and thank you. Just moving from DSLR to ASI1600MM so very good explanation. Just got to figure it in APT now.

Excellent info👌🏼 Even I wondered why my optimal exposure time was so low but I ended up thinking it was more like minimum exposure which you just confirmed. Thanks Cuiv👍🏼

Great video as usual Cuiv! None of this made sense to me until you made it so simple to understand.

What a great video. Thanks!!!!

Thx for this. Really easy to understand. Keep up the great content

Well presented. Enjoying the videos.

Thanks. This helps make sense of those graphs for my new ASI294MC Pro.

Great explanation. I have watched Robins videos several times (they are very good) in the past, but just wasn't crystal clear for me about all this offset, gain stuff since I used to use a modified Canon DSLR. Now I get it!! Logical step by step and the explanation how it all works always works for me.

Excellent video! Thank you for posting it. Very helpful! Cheers!

Amazing explanation, very clear. good job!

Really interesting and well explained. Thank you!!

Great explanation Cuiv. Thanks.

What a master class !!!! Thank you so much for your time and great explanations of these interesting detector concepts. I feel I've obtained a better understanding on gain and offset. All the best, clear skies and shine on from the "Cluster One Observatory" in Chile.

Thanks it really helped me to set my ZWO ASI 1600. Analyzing the noise graph I will be playing with a gain of between 75 and 100, since I am in an area with high light pollution, at least for LRGB. Then I figure that a 100 to 150 gain might be more suitable for narrowband imaging. The other thing is to run a preview for each filter combination of gain, exposure and filter and look at the subs historgram as you suggested on the time exposure video.

thanks for this video. I will try to adjust my next shots paying attention to this explanation. I see i can improve something in my image paying attention to this details. Thanks

Love your videos!! Soo informative!! Thank you so much :) Instant subscriber :)

You’re a fantastic teacher. Thank you (from a noob).

Thanks, this is well explained. Nice to see you using the asi533.

Great explanation! Thank you!!!

fantastic video. Very informative. Thank you :-)

Thanks for creating this video as it cleared things up a lot. I have been looking at the optimal exposure time and wondering how to use it so now I will wait for your video. I have two cameras (one a QHY 163C and a QHY 16200A CFW7 without any filters) and now I see the comparison with the ZWO 1600 and 163C as far as stats go. There is no dramatic change like the 533 so I will be staying mostly with the standard gain and playing with the exposures. Still waiting and waiting and waiting for my filters for the 16200A. Bortle 5 here.

Excellent. Thanks for sharing.

Extremely Beneficial for me. Thank you Cuiv

Best explanation on you tube.

Very nice presentation and very informative! Subscribed!

Thanks very much for explaining ADUs! I've never gotten a decent explanation before. (I'm a total beginner.)

Excellent!

Great job!!

That’s some really helpful info 👍🏼👍🏼

Chic, you are on fire lately, and I absolutely love your videos. For the past 9 months, I’ve watched and read everything I could find about imaging with dedicated astronomy cameras, and in particular, gain/offset and how it all relates to DR and noise. I’ve never understood what I should really be doing with offset until watching this video. Your explanations of everything in this video, actually, resonate with me more than any other explanations I’ve found. So, thank you again! Also, sounds like NINA might benefit from renaming it from “optimal exposure time” to “optimal minimum exposure time”, if it’s truly calculating how much time you need in order to swamp the read noise. Maybe?

If I may, at 31:40, "the camera becomes more sensitive" with lower gain... it doesn't. It will have exactly the same sensitivity, however the quantization error will be less the higher the gain setting goes. Regardless, your efforts are much appreciated Cuiv, great video, keep them coming!!!

Great video. Thank you.

Great video - I also add 1 to the Gain I use based on supplier graphs. In my case QHY600 where their website says Gain 0-55 uses LGC and Gain 55-100 uses HGC :) . I use Gain 57 just to be sure as they don't seem to understand boolean algebra. (I have written to them to get it corrected).

Thank you 🙏

Perfect explanation thank you

Thank you Cuiv, filled in alot much appreciated - took early advice develop my AP in broadband first (have ASI294C Pro) good pixel size for both my APO's ( F5 to F7 with reducer). Am learning N.I.N.A, love it over SGP, use Pegasus UPB2 & Focuser 2 etc. ☺️🔭

Just last week I received a 294mc pro, this video was incredibly helpful for understanding the terminology that comes with these astro cams! Quality content again! Keep at it! :)

incredible content! you're wicked smart

Super usefull video! Thanks for explaining this so well and taking your time to do it! Unity gain for my 1600 it is for nebula season, and pleiades and orion will get 75-100 :)

Cuiv…wow!! I will need to watch this episode at least ten more times to fully understand most of what you are teaching us!! My question is…as you increase gain (thereby shortening exposure time), aren’t you increasing RN?

Thanks for the education!!! 😜

Genki Desu Cuiv, You are breaking down all the technological jargon into small bite sized chunks that are easy to digest. Long may it continue and Arigato Gosai Masu many times over. I still don’t really understand the concept of sampling and Rayleigh criterion pixel size to aperture etc That’s me being a bit dim and not putting enough time to understand it. What is worse is that I have a degree in Maths and physics. What that has helped me is in my job as an IT person. But Astrophotography is my first passion followed by Liverpool Football Club.hmmm. Take care and many many thanks.

Thank you.

Well, that explained it easier than others have, mentioning no names

RE: 100 vs 101 gain, I get it. All it takes is one developer somewhere in any of your apps to have coded it as “through 100” vs “to 100”...and it’s an easy mistake for one to make! I’m going to always use 101 gain with my 2600 from now on (it has that same jump at 100 that your 533 does). I’ve thought this ever since you mentioned that you use gain 101, several videos. Thank you! 😊

that was great, I think where a lot of people (me included) go wrong (especially photographers) is we think of gain as a sort of ISO, which makes it difficult to get your head around then as the lower the ISO the less noise. Using the 1600 if I put my gain at 139 take an image then put my gain at say 30 or 50 the image is a lot less grainy so (in my case i cant speak for anyone else) You cant help then by having that stuck in you head that reducing gain makes for a cleaner image. Hope i make sense.

I use mainly HDR with F/2 scopes. Keeps it simple, Great presentation!