1D X Mark III DR measurements up at Photons to Photos

Sharlin

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Bill Claff has posted dynamic range measurements of the 1D X Mark III and they show meaningful improvement at low ISOs compared to the Mark II, and a slight improvement over the 5D4/R sensor. High ISO performance is roughly the same, purely numerically, but it's likely that there's further improvement in noise quality (fineness and uniformity) like in the 90D/M6II sensor. When it comes to the competitors, the D5 is still a high-ISO king, although at the expense of a major, roughly 2 EV, disadvantage at ISO 100. The D850 is all but equal to the 1DX3, except for its native base ISO of 64, as are the Z6 and Z7. The α9 Mark II sensor has a tiny advantage at medium-to-high ISOs, but loses to the 1DX3 in the lower range. It also drops to 12-bit processing whenever you so much as look at it funnily, so there's that. As for the α7R Mark IV, its performance is again practically identical to the new 1DX. All in all, this seems to be a great sensor and should bode well for the R5 and R6, too!
 
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SecureGSM

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So they didn't break the law of physics. Nice, we wouldn't want them to get arrested by the Sony DR police :LOL:
no, they did not. however the low light ISO numbers seem quite backwards to me.. I hope it was an error :(

Camera ModelMaximum
PDR
Low Light
ISO
Low Light
EV
Canon EOS 1D X Mark II10.46518910.70
Canon EOS 1D X Mark III11.26491510.62
 
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SecureGSM

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A difference of a sixth of a stop or so? I wouldn't exactly worry about that…
nuh, not worried. It is unusual to me to have a great improvement at the Base ISO while sacrificing a bit at the Low light end.

numbers are very similar to 5D IV sensor. so.. very good:

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV10.83501110.65
 
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AlanF

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no

no, they did not. however the low light ISO numbers seem quite backwards to me.. I hope it was an error :(

Camera ModelMaximum
PDR
Low Light
ISO
Low Light
EV
Canon EOS 1D X Mark II10.46518910.70
Canon EOS 1D X Mark III11.26491510.62

See the note to the graph"Note that the x-axis is ISO Setting and not a "measured" value. Keep this in mind particularly when comparing to the Ideal lines." The isos are those read off from the camera and we know that those are different from the real ones. DxO plots graphs of measured vs camera reported isos, and they can be quiet a bit out. Also Claff doesn't report the errors in his measurements, and the low light isos are within 5% of each other, which I would guess is within experimental error the same.
 
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SecureGSM

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See the note to the graph"Note that the x-axis is ISO Setting and not a "measured" value. Keep this in mind particularly when comparing to the Ideal lines." The isos are those read off from the camera and we know that those are different from the real ones. DxO plots graphs of measured vs camera reported isos, and they can be quiet a bit out. Also Claff doesn't report the errors in his measurements, and the low light isos are within 5% of each other, which I would guess is within experimental error the same.
Yes, my impression that the low light iso number isn’t accurate. Thank you.
 
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Sharlin

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The 1DX3 sensor is also the most "ISO invariant" Canon CMOS sensor ever, with at most 1 EV difference in shadow noise between raising ISO in camera vs underexposing and pushing exposure in post-processing. From ISO 400 upward there's essentially no difference, except that the latter allows you to preserve highlights.
 
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Sharlin

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In that diagram Sony A9II has the same DR as Canon 5DMkIV at ISO 100! Very interesting!

Yes, the a9II sensor design definitely prioritizes high ISO over low ISO performance. It has dual-stage amplification which explains the discontinuity at ISO 640. The D5 does the same but to a greater extent. Interesting to see how the D6 sensor is going to fare.
 
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