Messages

1171

EOS Bodies / Re: DXO vs Reality

« on: March 31, 2012, 05:39:45 PM »

It would depend on what your observing. First off, most "good" computer screens these days are 8-bit screens, and the best of the best are 10-bit screens (which require a matching 10-bit video card to fully realize). That would mean that on a computer screen, the best you could "observe" in terms of DR is about 8-10 stops worth. The bastion of additional dynamic range is not really in what you can see, its in how far you can push exposure and what you can recover. I'd be willing to bet the 7D has more highlight headroom than the D70, and I'd be willing to bet the same thing about the 1D IV vs. the 1DsIII. Canon does kind of suck on the shadow DR end of things, but I've been able to push their exposures extremely far to the right (compress the highlights) such that when I have a histogram that is riding up the right-hand side and would seem to be fully blown, I can usually recover everything...and at worst, I might blow out a tiny bit of one color channel. My Canon 7D has more highlight headroom than my 450D did for sure (which according to DXO Screen DR has about 10.47 stops of native DR), and I've noticed much greater highlight recovery when exposing the moon or a sunset than I did before.

I only use the histogram in DPP. I find the 1Ds3 has about +/- 5 so it meters in the middle - which I am happy about as it leaves room for level adjustment

I'll have to poke around with DPP, see what it says about my cameras. I wonder if Nikon has any similar software that offers the same kind of DR insight.

1172

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon hurry up! Nikon's face-detection & Sony's Exmor sensors are killing us!

« on: March 31, 2012, 05:27:04 PM »

Perhaps there is something I am missing. Please enlighten me with a proper technique how I can get a
decent exposure of a bride using e-ttl bounced flash indoor, without needing to do a test shot.

That would be called PRACTICE. You know the old saying: Practice makes Perfect! An intuitive knowledge of exposure and lighting is something that results from continuous, real-world, boundary-pushing use and experimentation.

Technology can make things easier, but face detection it is most assuredly NOT necessary to properly expose a bounce-flashed portrait. People were doing phenomenal flash-lit portraiture with film and mechanical cameras for decades before digital cameras were even conceived, and it was a good decade more before face recognition found its way into digital cameras at all. Don't get so rialed up over what is arguably a MINOR feature of a camera where a significant percentage of users will probably operate in full manual mode, and the rest will operate in a priority mode (which is still largely manual.)

1173

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon hurry up! Nikon's face-detection & Sony's Exmor sensors are killing us!

« on: March 31, 2012, 05:22:00 PM »

well EXMOR is not EXMOR R.

the sensor in the D800 is not backlit.

EXMOR:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/cmos_01.html


EXMOR R:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/exmor_r_01.html

I can't believe D800's sensor is not backlit, seeing its high ISO score on DXOmark...
When 36MEG is scaled down to 8x12, or 8MEG, its noise performance is vy close to D3S.

Well, Canon has to double hurry up, if Sony can achieve this kind of ISO without backlit technology.
Astro, do u have a reference quoting D800 is not using a backlit sensor? Tks!

You have to take DXO data with a grain of salt, and since the advent of D800 print DR results, you have to be EXTREMELY skeptical about it. You also have to realize that "Print DR" is an image that has had post processing. We don't know exactly what DXO is doing to those images, but the idea that you can magically gain additional DR above and beyond what the senor itself is capable of (which is what their Screen DR rating is representative of) is extremely fishy.

Riddle me this: If the D800 SENSOR itself is capable of 13.23 stops of DR, and the scene you are trying to expose has 14.4 stops of DR...will you be able to capture the full scene DR in a single shot? The obvious answer is no. The sensor is only capable of 13.23 stops of DR, and trying to expose all 14.4 stops in one shot is going to either blow highlights or block shadows. There is also the simple math problem. A 14-bit sensor is a 14-stop sensor...you would have to go to at least a 15-bit sensor to achieve more than 14.0 stops of native DR with the sensor itself.

The D800 is NOT as amazing as it sounds, and referring to it as "unbelievable" would be about as accurate an exclamation you can get...it literally is unbelievable. The Canon 1D IV has 11.46 stops of DR. The difference between the D800 and the 1D IV is 1.77 stops, or roughly 1 2/3rds of a stop, of dynamic range. Not 2 stops, not 3 stops. The physical hardware differences are far more moderated than DXO, of whom Nikon is a paying customer and Canon is not, would like you to think.

Print DR == BIIIG Grain of Salt (or a big TUB of salt, whichever tickles your fancy...just make sure you really salt it good.)

1174

EOS Bodies / Re: DXO vs Reality

« on: March 31, 2012, 05:11:38 PM »

Having owned a Nikon D70 waaaay back in the day (my first DSLR - I've still got it somewhere, because it'll get me nothing if I sell it) I can say with absolute confidence that the notion that this camera has better Real World DR than my current Canon 7D is utterly, utterly risible.

So much for DxO, then.

Having owned a Nikon D70 waaaay back in the day (my first DSLR - I've still got it somewhere, because it'll get me nothing if I sell it) I can say with absolute confidence that the notion that this camera has better Real World DR than my current Canon 7D is utterly, utterly risible.

So much for DxO, then.

+1 Not convinced the 1D4 is better than the 1Ds3 either

It would depend on what your observing. First off, most "good" computer screens these days are 8-bit screens, and the best of the best are 10-bit screens (which require a matching 10-bit video card to fully realize). That would mean that on a computer screen, the best you could "observe" in terms of DR is about 8-10 stops worth. The bastion of additional dynamic range is not really in what you can see, its in how far you can push exposure and what you can recover. I'd be willing to bet the 7D has more highlight headroom than the D70, and I'd be willing to bet the same thing about the 1D IV vs. the 1DsIII. Canon does kind of suck on the shadow DR end of things, but I've been able to push their exposures extremely far to the right (compress the highlights) such that when I have a histogram that is riding up the right-hand side and would seem to be fully blown, I can usually recover everything...and at worst, I might blow out a tiny bit of one color channel. My Canon 7D has more highlight headroom than my 450D did for sure (which according to DXO Screen DR has about 10.47 stops of native DR), and I've noticed much greater highlight recovery when exposing the moon or a sunset than I did before.

1175

Lenses / Re: What lens are you patiently waiting for?

« on: March 31, 2012, 02:20:38 PM »

EF 14-24 2.8L

This.

+1

+2

+3

+4

+5

+6

+7

+8

+9

+10 count me in! i don't really want this for myself, but hope you guys get what you want

+11 ... sounds awesome ... whatever it is

+12. Not really interested. I just want to see how far we can go before the internet breaks.

It's like a crazy mat job!

+13 When it's gets to +20 I'm going to take a picture

+14 Actually this is probably not the best way that Canon should be gaining market info from 

+14.5 She can't take it!  She's breaking up!

+15 or I'm buying the Nikon one + the 16-9 converter!

+16 I would rather this than a new body.

+17 I have never hoped that Canon reps read this board as much as I do right now.

+18 On a 7D - fantastic 

+19 What lens were we talkin' bout again?

I see scrollbars! I think the INTERNET is breaking! (We need one more for +20!!)

1176

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D III RAW @12800 w/ NR in LR4

« on: March 31, 2012, 02:18:47 PM »

Here is an image I took this past week... ISO 25,600... Processed the RAW in LR4 just now. Just my standard sharpening/NR... Which is something like 50/0.9 for sharpening and 20 for NR. Very light NR. Click below to view full resolution. Great detail for such high ISO.

... img clipped ...

Nice! The improved SNR can really be seen at these high ISO's. While the dimmer parts of the scene does show noise (very nice "grainy" noise, almost like film grain if you ask me!), the brighter tones are very clean. Personally, I find that far more valuable than increased maximum DR at ISO 100 and 200.

Hmmm I noticed that when processing some high ISO RAW images on the lightroom 4.1 pre release. Im not sure if thats to do with the MKIII sensor or something clever in Lightroom, probably a combination of both.

JPEG's strait out of the camera have the same look and feel to the noise. I'm thinking its a hardware characteristic, not a software trick. Once you get rid of electronic forms of noise, the only thing left would be random noise produced by the physical nature of photons.

1177

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D III RAW @12800 w/ NR in LR4

« on: March 31, 2012, 02:17:09 PM »

Why can't we stick to the 5d mark iii.
Every topic always the D800 with his 36mp and high DR.

We all know this by now.
Now I am interested in only 5d mark iii performance on this CANON forum.

Um...this topic is entirely about the 5D III...talk about it all you want!

1178

EOS Bodies / Re: DXO vs Reality

« on: March 31, 2012, 02:15:47 PM »

I'm just wondering, alot of people get REALLY worked up over these dxo tests, however theire numbers relating to various cameras (to me anyway) dont appear to reflect real world results take the medium format digital backs for example, these are simply amazing yet score lower than a sony or a nikon?

Personally i dont put any faith in this sort of analysis

Note: lucky i cant get smited to death by the DxO brigade

I take DXO results with a nice, big, honkin grain of salt most of the time. I like the ability to include consistently-generated (hmm, grain of salt there?) low-level hardware statistics as a factor in comparing like-brand cameras (i.e. I am looking forward to seeing if they measure any hardware-level improvements between the 5D II and III), as most of the time I figure that stuff should be pretty accurate. However when it comes to some of their numbers and some of their customers (i.e. Nikon), I become more and more skeptical. With their claim of 14.4 stops of "print" DR for the Nikon D800, some 2/3rds of a stop better than the sensor itself is capable of, I've become extremely skeptical of their numbers, and usually try to have a few big, honkin grains of salt handy at all times.

Not what you said before they posted D800 results....

I may not have "said" it before, but I always take DXO results with a grain of salt. I think most of their statistics ARE accurate...within the context of DXO, relative to each other. I think their numbers are valuable for comparing cameras, however I have never thought their numbers should be used in isolation (I've referenced DPR results as much as I've referenced DXO results in my posts, often in the same posts). Since I may also not have said so before, let me say so now: I find DPR results, even though I believe they are more subjective and less accurate, to be just as valuable as DXO results, and in some respects, much more valuable...since they represent a real-world context better. I DID actually think their Print DR (normalized) DR results were decent before, as I fully understand the value of normalized IQ comparisons. I thought that their normalized print results, since for most cameras your downscaling...which minimizes noise and multisamples source data for each pixel, was "exhibiting the full capabilities of the native sensor DR." However I entirely expected them to come out of the gates claiming the D800 scored 13.97 on their Print DR tests, not some mysterious, magical nonsense like 14.4! I REALLY expected them to say the D800 nailed 14 stops right on the head, but instead they are basically making a claim that the D800 and only the D800 offers photographers the magical ability to GAIN ADDITIONAL DR simply by DOWNSAMPLING. Then Mt. Spokane came along posted a DXO link indicating that Nikon...but not Canon...was a big time paying supporter. Sorry, but I go where the evidence leads, and there is some evidence of very fishy behavior about DXO and Nikon these days.

For arguments sake, lets assume there is some magical gain in DR simply by downsampling. That is an ALGORITHMIC process done on DIGITIZED pixel data. The physical sensor, according to DXO's Screen DR value (which at the moment I am not suspicious of...we'll see if they claim that a future 14-bit SoNikon sensor is capable of 14.1 stops...) can produce 13.8 stops of DR strait out of the camera, no processing of any kind outside of amp and ADC. If you run into a real life scene with MORE than  13.8 stops...the theoretical possibility of using a digital algorithm to "stretch out" 14.4 stops from your RAW file isn't going to help you. A real life scene with 18 stops of DR is going to outpace even the D800 sensor, and your only option is going to be to compress the blacks into less space (and therefor less recoverability)...or use an ND filter, just like all the rest of the photographers on the great and beautiful earth.

Thanks to DXO's new D800 rating of 14.4, I am now a firm believer that Print DR is a useless measurement. Digital wizardry can not and will never be a replacement for native, hardware-level dynamic range. I now believe DXO's sole "accurate" measurement of actual hardware-level DR is their Screen DR measurement. I'm unwilling to accept Print DR measurements for any camera now as being even remotely realistic. As such, I believe the following are accurate dynamic range estimates for Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras:

Brand	Model	DR Stops	Notes
Canon	1D IV	11.46
Canon	1Ds III	11.25
Canon	5D II	11.16
Canon	7D	11.12
Nikon	D7000	13.35	Still the best from a non-magical DR standpoint
Nikon	D800	13.23
Nikon	D4	12.58
Nikon	D90	12.21	DXO "measured ISO" closer to ISO 200, listed as ISO 200 rather than ISO 100 in chart
Nikon	D70	11.85	DXO "measured ISO" closer to ISO 200, listed as ISO 200 rather than ISO 100 in chart
Nikon	D3s	11.66	DXO "measured ISO" closer to ISO 200, listed as ISO 200 rather than ISO 100 in chart
Sony	NEX-7	12.59	Mirrorless
Sony	SLT-A77	12.35
Sony	A-900	11.5

NOTE: I was pretty sure DXO listed the Screen DR for the D800 at 13.8 stops before. It is currently listed as 13.23...which makes their claim of 14.4 stops "Print DR" even more insane. That would be 1.17 stops of MAGICAL DR gained by the simple act of DOWNSAMPLING?!?!? BULL SH*T! BIG, STEAMING PILE OF BULL SH*T!

Print DR == worthless tool for comparison.

Given the table above, briansquibb's numbers of a about 10 stops of real-world DR for his 1DsIII seem pretty spot on. It would be very difficult to actually utilize the full 11.25 stops without at least blowing out one color channel. Its tough to determine how much shadow DR you might be capturing as well, since you can't really "clip" shadows...you just might not actually gather enough light to measure as a reading in a pixel. Real-world 10-stop DR with an 11.25 stop camera seems entirely valid and realistic to me. I would suspect something similar with the D800...you might get about 12-stop real-world DR with the 13.23 stop megapixel flagship camera if you really pushed for it.

1179

EOS Bodies / Re: DXO vs Reality

« on: March 31, 2012, 01:55:21 AM »

When it comes to DR, if you "expose correctly" in-camera for the scene you'll never actually use 12 stops, let alone 14.

The histogram in DPP seems to show DR - is that correct and accurate?

I aim for maximum DR of the shots I am taking with the 1Ds3 and max out (DPP reading) at around 10, getting mostly over 9 for iso 100/200

The equivalent for the 1D4 and 7D are about 9 max with average about 8

These are for shots that should have high DR

Those sounds like entirely reasonable numbers to me...

1180

EOS Bodies / Re: The 7DmkII will it be a revolution or an evolution

« on: March 31, 2012, 12:17:29 AM »

I guess I wasn't very clear.  I'm not saying that the 5Diii ionic had minor changes, but as a whole it w only a minor update, especially after three years.

Major improvements would have been much higher MP while still having great low light capabilities.  It would have also included things like 1080p 60 fps.

So like I said initially, the new 5D is in no way revolutionary.  It has had some very nice improvements, but it's been three years, nice improvements are the minimum to be expected.

Either way, it's an awesome camera.  There probably isn't much that really needs to be done to it, but the iii was basically just an update and not a revolutionary release.

First off, not sure I agree its not revolutionary in some ways...but we'll get to that.

For that matter, why is a revolutionary update necessary? The ONLY thing about the D800 that is revolutionary is the megapixels in the sensor. Its video features are not revolutionary, its AF system is not revolutionary (and not even new...its the same 51pt system the rest of their cameras use), the sensor capabilities (i.e. hardware noise reduction, CP-ADC, etc.) are nothing revolutionary, we've all seen that before in the likes of the D7000 and company... If you want revolutionary, the D800 literally has ONE thing that it could call revolutionary: 36.3mp.

The 5D III makes some revolutionary improvements itself. Everyone seems to forget that the 5D III is one of the top two most sensitive cameras in the world now, with its native ISO 25600...and its got a significantly improved SNR in the sensor to make that ISO setting actually usable. It doesn't quite have the "thunder" that the D800 has because the 1D X literally one-ups it with ISO 51200, but that doesn't change the fact that the 5D III is capable of working with four times less light than its predecessor.

The 5D III and 1D X make a more important revolutionary leap, however...one that I think will have a very significant impact to its customers: Canon LISTENED to their customers input, and built cameras that addressed their customers needs! It wasn't until the actual announcement & release of the D800 that I really heard that many people screaming and hollering for Canon to release a higher resolution camera than the 5D II. Before the announcement of the 1D X last year, about the only thing I heard from most Canon users I know was "Lower Resolution (or no more increases in resolution), Better ISO, Cleaner Noise!", and in the case of the 5D line specifically... "Better AF!!!!!" I think some people were hoping for 26-28mp out of the 5D III, but I don't think anyone who will actually use the camera really has anything to complain about with 22.3mp, since all of their other real-world requests to Canon have been answered. (Now, admittedly, Canon has probably boofed the price at $3500...but thats easily corrected.)

If Canon does the same thing with the 7D, I think most 7D users will be very happy campers. And the one thing 7D users really want, based on the currently existing complaints, is Better ISO, Cleaner Noise! Being a 7D owner myself, that is quite literally my sole complaint. I certainly have other wants, like more AF points and f/8 AF (and perhaps AI Servo AF subject recognition...like "Thats an Elk! I'll track that!" or "Thats a Bird! I'll track that!"), but noise characteristics at higher ISO is really the only actual complaint I have about this camera. Evolutionary improvements (and a reasonable price!) in the 7D II will make me a very happy camper.

1181

EOS Bodies / Re: DXO vs Reality

« on: March 30, 2012, 07:38:40 PM »

I'm just wondering, alot of people get REALLY worked up over these dxo tests, however theire numbers relating to various cameras (to me anyway) dont appear to reflect real world results take the medium format digital backs for example, these are simply amazing yet score lower than a sony or a nikon?

Personally i dont put any faith in this sort of analysis

Note: lucky i cant get smited to death by the DxO brigade

I take DXO results with a nice, big, honkin grain of salt most of the time. I like the ability to include consistently-generated (hmm, grain of salt there?) low-level hardware statistics as a factor in comparing like-brand cameras (i.e. I am looking forward to seeing if they measure any hardware-level improvements between the 5D II and III), as most of the time I figure that stuff should be pretty accurate. However when it comes to some of their numbers and some of their customers (i.e. Nikon), I become more and more skeptical. With their claim of 14.4 stops of "print" DR for the Nikon D800, some 2/3rds of a stop better than the sensor itself is capable of, I've become extremely skeptical of their numbers, and usually try to have a few big, honkin grains of salt handy at all times.

When it comes to DR, if you "expose correctly" in-camera for the scene you'll never actually use 12 stops, let alone 14. DXO's DR ratings are only useful if you are shooting a scene with extreme DR to start with, and you push the "expose to the right" (ETTR) technique to the absolute limits. Even then, human error and caution will prevent you from actually achieving the maximum possible DR as indicated by DXO. The only way to actually use all of a camera's available DR is to expose a scene you simply can't expose properly no matter how much headroom it has, in which case you'll always end up with unrecoverable blocked blacks and blown highlights.

1182

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D III RAW @12800 w/ NR in LR4

« on: March 30, 2012, 07:29:50 PM »

People love my bird shots...and most of them see mere PRINTS, which probably have about 6 stops of DR at most!

Who cares about prints? It's all about blowing your images up to 100%, and popping wood over all the detail you can see

A good night in is turning the tevision off and pixel peeping a 36mp landscape 

Now Landscapes are an area where I honestly believe the D800 will really shine. I would love to have 36mp at my disposal for my landscape work...that would be amazing.

But, but, prints only have DR of 6 and I who is going to have time to scan through the picture for unnecessary "details"? My facebook album can show enough detail on my iphone!

When it comes to landscapes, it IS about the shadow recovery. You ETTR as much as you can to capture as much DR as possible. Highlights will look clipped on screen, but they should be recoverable so long as you didn't actually clip them in-camera. With the low read noise of Sony sensors, you can still recover additional shadow detail, and compress it into a narrower dynamic range (i.e. 5-7 stops for print.) I do this with my Canon 450D and 7D, and it works quite well (Canon cameras have greater highlight headroom in most cases than Nikon cameras do), however shadow recovery is definitely more limited than with a Nikon camera.

I would indeed expect the D800 to excel as a landscape camera, and even if Canon released a 40mp+ competitor, unless they reduce read noise to lower levels, I would still expect the D800 to be a superior landscape photography camera.

1183

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D III RAW @12800 w/ NR in LR4

« on: March 30, 2012, 01:33:57 AM »

People love my bird shots...and most of them see mere PRINTS, which probably have about 6 stops of DR at most!

Who cares about prints? It's all about blowing your images up to 100%, and popping wood over all the detail you can see

A good night in is turning the tevision off and pixel peeping a 36mp landscape 

Now Landscapes are an area where I honestly believe the D800 will really shine. I would love to have 36mp at my disposal for my landscape work...that would be amazing.

1184

EOS Bodies / Re: Any thoughts on how the 5d3 will compare on dxo mark to the Nikon D800?

« on: March 30, 2012, 12:23:22 AM »

that is the difference and if you care more about highlights then you expose less and save more, if you care more about shadows you expose longer and lose more highlights

Yes, but this hasn't got anything to do with the issue I'm talking about. Even in an optimally "exposed-to-the-right" capture, the very bottom end of DR will be quantized beyond repair. Which is why the "12-stop DR vs 14-stop DR on a 14-bit signal" path argument is pointless.

and don't forget that DxO "print" numbers are based on a normalization to 8MP so you can things like 14.5 stops on a 14bit camera

Not really. Anything above 14 stops in 14-bit signal path is zero. *If* the ADCs use dithering, *some* light below EV(-14) might register into the output, but in the end you will never know if it's a EV(-14.4) or EV(-13.7).

yes, really, normalization means you can effectively get higher numbers at a certain scale

and use the cams yourself and compare and tell me you don't see a large, noticeable, usable difference

Your missing the point. Downscaling can only make more effective use what is already there or eliminate information, not create additional information. You can improve noise characteristics by averaging noise from multiple pixels (elimination of information), and you can improve the detail of each pixel relative to each other by multisampling (make more effective use.)

To increase DR, you would have to fabricate information, since it does not exist to start with. You can certainly do that...you can reduce contrast, which will "stretch" tones across a greater range, however if you stretch too far, you'll get "holes" between bits of real information that have to be filled in with generated relative values. However, if  you do that with Nikon images to produce a "print" that has 14.4 stops of DR, you could certainly do the same thing with Canon images to produce a "print" that has at least 12.5 stops of DR, and if you really wanted to push the envelope, you could easily massage a "print" image to have any level of contrast you want stretched across as great a dynamic range as you want. Fabricating information in post, however, won't prevent you from clipping highlights when you literally don't have enough DR to capture a scene with wide dynamic range...so even if you can somehow finagle 14.4 stops of print DR, it won't help you in-camera.

DXO has shown their colors, and I think Mt. Spokane is entirely correct in his assessment: Nikon is a paid member of DXO, where as Canon is not, so it's no surprise that Canon cameras fair so poorly against Nikon cameras, when a few simple side-by-side eyeballed comparisons indicate that outside of resolution and ISO differences, both cameras produce stellar IQ, and differ not in the context of real-world photography.

1185

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D III RAW @12800 w/ NR in LR4

« on: March 29, 2012, 11:50:13 PM »

Here is an image I took this past week... ISO 25,600... Processed the RAW in LR4 just now. Just my standard sharpening/NR... Which is something like 50/0.9 for sharpening and 20 for NR. Very light NR. Click below to view full resolution. Great detail for such high ISO.

... img clipped ...

Nice! The improved SNR can really be seen at these high ISO's. While the dimmer parts of the scene does show noise (very nice "grainy" noise, almost like film grain if you ask me!), the brighter tones are very clean. Personally, I find that far more valuable than increased maximum DR at ISO 100 and 200.