Canon 1D-X: "Full" 2-Stops ISO Improvment...only in JPEG??

[wockawocka]

But then this is where the 5D3 comes in.

[Viggo]

I would take clean high iso to get my shutterspeed fast enough over twice the mp any day, and that is just common sense;

If your image is fantastically high res, you will see every bit of that juuuust to long shutter speed you used, and you'll have a useless image. I can tell you, going from mk3 to mk4 with the same size sensor but 60% increase in res, I had to double my shutterspeed, giving me the exact same noise under the same exact light. Now, the pictures that did stick with the mk4 had much better detail, but I had a lot of shots I kept, but can't use for anything due to (unexpected) motion-blur.

The 1d X will be the ultimate camera for me, no matter what I am shooting, and I can shoot things I could never dream of with the mk4. After trying this new AF, I had chills for the first time using a camera. It is just astonishing...

But if you do landscape, why would you buy a Worldclass AF-system and 12 fps? Buy a 5d2 for your landscapes, very little will surpass it.

[wockawocka]

Any pro looking to replace an aging 1Ds mkIII should be very careful if they seriously think the 1Dx is a possible replacement.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. For me I cap out at ISO 3200 on the 1Ds3, so two stops improvement over the 1D4 is quite jump for me. ISO 12800 is more than enough. The only reason I didn't move to the 1D4 is because it wasn't full frame.

[moreorless]

Any pro looking to replace an aging 1Ds mkIII should be very careful if they seriously think the 1Dx is a possible replacement.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. For me I cap out at ISO 3200 on the 1Ds3, so two stops improvement over the 1D4 is quite jump for me. ISO 12800 is more than enough. The only reason I didn't move to the 1D4 is because it wasn't full frame.

Your potentially looking at a superior ISO 3200 though I'd guess if previous ISO upgrades are anything to go by.

[Viggo]

Any pro looking to replace an aging 1Ds mkIII should be very careful if they seriously think the 1Dx is a possible replacement.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. For me I cap out at ISO 3200 on the 1Ds3, so two stops improvement over the 1D4 is quite jump for me. ISO 12800 is more than enough. The only reason I didn't move to the 1D4 is because it wasn't full frame.

Your potentially looking at a superior ISO 3200 though I'd guess if previous ISO upgrades are anything to go by.

I very much felt the 1d X @ 3200 were very close to 800 on the 1d mkIV, so yeah, the two stops is probably correct. Besides, now with the new Lightroom 4, you're looking at 0,5 to 1 stop extra over the Lr3. And also MUCH better DR.

[briansquibb]

Any pro looking to replace an aging 1Ds mkIII should be very careful if they seriously think the 1Dx is a possible replacement.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. For me I cap out at ISO 3200 on the 1Ds3, so two stops improvement over the 1D4 is quite jump for me. ISO 12800 is more than enough. The only reason I didn't move to the 1D4 is because it wasn't full frame.

Your potentially looking at a superior ISO 3200 though I'd guess if previous ISO upgrades are anything to go by.

The 1Ds3 is hands down the best to iso 800 but by iso3200 I feel my 1D4 is better.

The 1D4 seems (relatively) noisy at low iso but only slowly gets worse as the iso increases, whereas other bodies get worse quite quickly

[scrappydog]

Don't a number of pro sports photographers (football, hockey) shoot jpeg, due to the large number of images they take during games and the push to get them out to the newspapers immediately (especially for late games)?

I watched an interview with a pro sports photographer for Getty Images.  He stated that he only shoots jpeg.  In the interview, he mentioned shooting football and basketball.

[nightbreath]

If I turn on NR in my camera I see difference even in RAW images. I used Irfan View to convert them from RAW to JPEG format and here's what I've got when ISO was set to 12'800.

If Digic 5+ is so powerful comparing to Digic 4, we might see similar NR applied in 1D X image processing, but without blurring the image. Or am I missing something?

P.S. I shot painting on my wall to compare RAW image noise.

[wockawocka]

The thing with Noise reduction is you lose detail, which you're trying to capture.

But I guess it depends on how much detail you need. I guess that's what keeps forums so active!

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I would take clean high iso to get my shutterspeed fast enough over twice the mp any day, and that is just common sense;

If your image is fantastically high res, you will see every bit of that juuuust to long shutter speed you used, and you'll have a useless image. I can tell you, going from mk3 to mk4 with the same size sensor but 60% increase in res, I had to double my shutterspeed, giving me the exact same noise under the same exact light. Now, the pictures that did stick with the mk4 had much better detail, but I had a lot of shots I kept, but can't use for anything due to (unexpected) motion-blur.

The 1d X will be the ultimate camera for me, no matter what I am shooting, and I can shoot things I could never dream of with the mk4. After trying this new AF, I had chills for the first time using a camera. It is just astonishing...

But if you do landscape, why would you buy a Worldclass AF-system and 12 fps? Buy a 5d2 for your landscapes, very little will surpass it.

+1

The high MP bodies do need a tripod, good IS lens, or a faster shutter speed to actually realize the increased resolution.  Even Canon mentioned this in one of their articles about shooting with the new high mp bodies.  Of course, you can get lucky and hit on one of 8 or 10 at lower shutter speeds.

A higher ISO rating at existing MP lets you keep the same shutter speeds you are using and get better resolution, or it lets you increase shutter speeds if your current one is too low.

I'm expecting to hear the Nikon users scream as they adjust to a 36 mp sensor and find they need to double or triple shutter speeds to get the high resolution.

[jrista]

I would take clean high iso to get my shutterspeed fast enough over twice the mp any day, and that is just common sense;

If your image is fantastically high res, you will see every bit of that juuuust to long shutter speed you used, and you'll have a useless image. I can tell you, going from mk3 to mk4 with the same size sensor but 60% increase in res, I had to double my shutterspeed, giving me the exact same noise under the same exact light. Now, the pictures that did stick with the mk4 had much better detail, but I had a lot of shots I kept, but can't use for anything due to (unexpected) motion-blur.

The 1d X will be the ultimate camera for me, no matter what I am shooting, and I can shoot things I could never dream of with the mk4. After trying this new AF, I had chills for the first time using a camera. It is just astonishing...

But if you do landscape, why would you buy a Worldclass AF-system and 12 fps? Buy a 5d2 for your landscapes, very little will surpass it.

+1

The high MP bodies do need a tripod, good IS lens, or a faster shutter speed to actually realize the increased resolution.  Even Canon mentioned this in one of their articles about shooting with the new high mp bodies.  Of course, you can get lucky and hit on one of 8 or 10 at lower shutter speeds.

A higher ISO rating at existing MP lets you keep the same shutter speeds you are using and get better resolution, or it lets you increase shutter speeds if your current one is too low.

I'm expecting to hear the Nikon users scream as they adjust to a 36 mp sensor and find they need to double or triple shutter speeds to get the high resolution.

Excellent points, both! I think you guys hailed the consequence of higher resolution on the head, at least for photography where you can't or don't necessarily use a tripod.

[traveller]

A few points:

1. According to DXO Mark, the D3s reaches its "acceptable" signal to noise value of 30dB at 3253 ISO (whilst keeping dynamic range at >9 EV and colour depth at 18bits), whereas the 5D MkII achieves this at 1815 ISO.  So 3253/1815 = ~1.79; i.e. the D3s is 79% better than the 5D MkII, which is basically just over 3/4 of a stop. 

2. Nikon is implying that the D4 manages to achieve the same high ISO performance as the D3s, but with a higher pixel count.  Thus, the 1D X would need to be between 3/4 and 1 stop better than the 5D MkII to match the D4. 

3. I've got a suspicion that the D3s 'cooks' its raw files at high ISO, based upon the SNR 18% graph from DXO Mark having a strange kink in it after ~ISO 9787 (also note the performance of the D3). 

Anyone want to check these calculations?

[cpsico]

The exact same story came out when the 1D MK IV was announced.  Chuck Westfall said the 1D MK IV was 1-1/2 to 2 stops better than the 1D MK III in JPEG, but about 1/2 stop better shooting raw.  It was due to the more sophisticated in camera processing that could be done using the Digic IV processor.  Processing has improved, and Digic V is more powerful than Digic IV.  Jpegs will improve over the 1DS MK III and 1D MK IV. 

The question I have, is how much improvement in raw over my 5D MK II?  1/2 stop or 1 stop?  If I can get clean raw images at ISO 12800, thats about 1/2 stop or slightly more than my 5D MK II, but if they are clean at ISO 25,600 then there is a significant advance, which I somehow doubt.

When I bought my 5D MK II in 2008, using LR 2 allowed me to shoot at ISO 3200, but results were noisy.  Now, with LR 4, I shoot ISO 6400 images and with no NR at all, they are remarkably clean.  Processing software has improved noticibly in the last three years, so I've gained about 2 stops when using raw, just by spending a few dollars on software upgrades.

1/2 a stop in raw with a 60 percent increase in resolution is amazing if you ask me, of course it goes to show if canon would pull there head out of there hind part they could build a a camera with amazing low light image quality, but I am not sure the average consumer would buy a camera with amazing image quality over a high resolution camera.

[JR]

A few points:

1. According to DXO Mark, the D3s reaches its "acceptable" signal to noise value of 30dB at 3253 ISO (whilst keeping dynamic range at >9 EV and colour depth at 18bits), whereas the 5D MkII achieves this at 1815 ISO.  So 3253/1815 = ~1.79; i.e. the D3s is 79% better than the 5D MkII, which is basically just over 3/4 of a stop. 

The Nikon D3s being only 3/4 of a stop better then the 5DmkII seems low.  If your calculation are right, the hill the climb is much less then I thought...but I recall seeing some very high ISO sample from the D3s that just destroy the 5DmkII at 12800 and above.  Not sure how these charts works, but something is weird here...

[traveller]

A few points:

1. According to DXO Mark, the D3s reaches its "acceptable" signal to noise value of 30dB at 3253 ISO (whilst keeping dynamic range at >9 EV and colour depth at 18bits), whereas the 5D MkII achieves this at 1815 ISO.  So 3253/1815 = ~1.79; i.e. the D3s is 79% better than the 5D MkII, which is basically just over 3/4 of a stop. 

The Nikon D3s being only 3/4 of a stop better then the 5DmkII seems low.  If your calculation are right, the hill the climb is much less then I thought...but I recall seeing some very high ISO sample from the D3s that just destroy the 5DmkII at 12800 and above.  Not sure how these charts works, but something is weird here...

Yes, there is something weird here and I think that it relates to my last point (3).  If you look at the SNR 18% graph, the D3s line is higher than but parallel to the 5D MkII's line until at above ISO 6400 the D3s suddenly starts to pull away (from the D3 as well).  Either the sensor's drop off in performance suddenly gets better at this point, or Nikon is starting to apply some noise reduction to their raw files.