5D4 Sensor Defect Discovered

[Mikehit]

I'm not. But virtually all your posts have been about how Canon is patently behind the curve in areas that are so important to you and because the camera has already been released nothing is going to change that. On the other hand Sony seems to do everything you want - unless of course if it doesn't I presume Sony are equally incompetent and you are posting on the Sony boards as well to explain this.

But the OP in this thread does nothing to really address any concerns that anyone has ever made about this (or any!!) camera's real-world operations so how it is supposed to show anybody anything useful is beyond me. Unless you can explain to me how how the link in the OP can be interpreted and is relevant to taking photos...

 

[rrcphoto]

Well Michael the Maven made a post (http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=30990.0) that got me to do my own testing so see if it was an isolated occurrence, or something that impacted my 5D4 as well. Turns out, YES...my 5D4 sensors experiences the same phenomena that could actually impact real-world results. Also worth noting is just how poorly my camera recovers shadows at ISO 100 versus ISO 50.

actually how do you know it's the sensor versus LR's handling of the data when it attempts to extract information from the shadows.

You are aware that just about every sensor including the D810 bands at extreme pushes and no one seems to mind?

Do the math on what are you doing to digital photon data .. lol. you are taking ADC data which is very low precision and multiplying it digitally, which is why even the best sensors start to fall apart with extreme shadow pushes. the photon and ADC error is magnified by two orders of magnitude, and is simply less precise.

Heck the D5 starts to fall apart with serious banding after an EV +4 push.

But I do wish you luck telling Canon that their sensors have a defect when using a third party application that is manipulating raw data. also ISO 50 is more likely software clipped so it's pretty immaterial as a demonstration.

good god, give someone a piece of software with a slider .. and they are an expert all of a sudden.

 

[unfocused]

I expected myself to order the MKIV relatively quickly after announcement. However I'm somewhat heistant. Yes it is an across the board improvement but i'm having a hard time justifying the spend for the incremental performance.

That's a perfectly reasonable attitude. Many people feel the same way. But, most don't feel compelled to repeatedly post about it. Many of your posts are, at a minimum, borderline trolling and that's what aggravates people.

 

[Don Haines]

I expected myself to order the MKIV relatively quickly after announcement. However I'm somewhat heistant. Yes it is an across the board improvement but i'm having a hard time justifying the spend for the incremental performance.

Definitely a reasonable attitude.... I tend to skip models myself, unless met with catastrophic failure and the need for an immediate upgrade.....

 

[tron]

this camera's been out for 1 month and change wHY IS EVERYBODY TRYING TOO FIND AS MANY FLAWS as possible for the 5d4 smh :

Because before I spend 3k I want to be sure I get something better than I have today...

I see that you have 5DMkIII. Isn't 5DMkIV something better than what you have today?

i see that your really trying too troll and need too mind your business

I hope you answered to me by mistake. But in case you didn't (and only then!)
1st It is not your job to tell me to mind my own business.
2nd If you mean I am a troll try to formulate a correct sentence.
3rd He has a 5DIII. 5DiV is definitely BETTER!
4th FYI, I do have 2 5d3s and I have ordered a 5DIV and it is coming in 2 days from now!

 

[tron]

@romanr74 you can justify the cost if you sell your 5D3 afterwards. I have ordered a 5D4 to get the increased DR in low ISO and the increased Mp. As soon as it passes the tests I will put a 5D3 on sale...

 

[romanr74]

I expected myself to order the MKIV relatively quickly after announcement. However I'm somewhat heistant. Yes it is an across the board improvement but i'm having a hard time justifying the spend for the incremental performance.

That's a perfectly reasonable attitude. Many people feel the same way. But, most don't feel compelled to repeatedly post about it. Many of your posts are, at a minimum, borderline trolling and that's what aggravates people.

if only you didn't talk about what many people feel and what aggrevates people but if you talked for yourself, which i would consider credible...

 

[tron]

Although roman's comment borderlined with trolling I do not believe it was intentional. I see he has many specialized/top Canon lenses in his signature. More than many fanboys. So it is just the fear of new. I have ordered a 5D4 and I too fear a little. NOT for the specs which I like a lot, NOT for what someone discovered at the limits of ... (mis)use but just on focusing. I will put it to very good test and when all is well I will put a 5D3 for sale so as to make the cost easier to swallow. But it was the same with my 5D2->5D3 transition. Finally I sold my 5D2 and enjoyed my 5D3 ALOT!

 

[unfocused]

I expected myself to order the MKIV relatively quickly after announcement. However I'm somewhat heistant. Yes it is an across the board improvement but i'm having a hard time justifying the spend for the incremental performance.

That's a perfectly reasonable attitude. Many people feel the same way. But, most don't feel compelled to repeatedly post about it. Many of your posts are, at a minimum, borderline trolling and that's what aggravates people.

if only you didn't talk about what many people feel and what aggrevates people but if you talked for yourself, which i would consider credible...

Thanks for illustrating my point.

 

[ritholtz]

Although roman's comment borderlined with trolling I do not believe it was intentional. I see he has many specialized/top Canon lenses in his signature. More than many fanboys. So it is just the fear of new. I have ordered a 5D4 and I too fear a little. NOT for the specs which I like a lot, NOT for what someone discovered at the limits of ... (mis)use but just on focusing. I will put it to very good test and when all is well I will put a 5D3 for sale so as to make the cost easier to swallow. But it was the same with my 5D2->5D3 transition. Finally I sold my 5D2 and enjoyed my 5D3 ALOT!

Roman has $10k worth of Canon stuff. More than Neuro I think.

 

[privatebydesign]

Although roman's comment borderlined with trolling I do not believe it was intentional. I see he has many specialized/top Canon lenses in his signature. More than many fanboys. So it is just the fear of new. I have ordered a 5D4 and I too fear a little. NOT for the specs which I like a lot, NOT for what someone discovered at the limits of ... (mis)use but just on focusing. I will put it to very good test and when all is well I will put a 5D3 for sale so as to make the cost easier to swallow. But it was the same with my 5D2->5D3 transition. Finally I sold my 5D2 and enjoyed my 5D3 ALOT!

Roman has $10k worth of Canon stuff. More than Neuro I think.

Think again. He lists what he has and that includes a 600mm f4 IS MkII and a 1DX, combined over $10,000 for just those two.

 

[LSXPhotog]

Well first off, I'd like to say that about 90% of the posts made in this thread miss the point of why made this topic.

Secondly, to those that felt the need to bring my personal ability as a photographer into question: I invite you to actually research into my work and my clients before you make such an asinine statement - especially since the topic has no correlation to what I can or can't do behind a camera. To which I will humbly say is quite a bit.

The fact of the matter is this: I've never seen any digital camera I've ever owned (all CMOS) that have exhibited this sort of strange 'bleeding' to adjacent pixels. I included images from my 5D Mk III to show that even it's 4+ year old sensor didn't show this issue. It's weird. And, according to Michael the Maven, he's also never seen it either and he tests cameras for a living.

I made this post to say 'hey what a weird issue, what does everyone else think about it?' and apparently there isn't much thought on the issue...other than attacking me and saying I'm blaming the gear. Haha

Yes, I understand the level I'm pushing a file, but was curious if anyone knew what would cause this when no other camera does this. This isn't banding, folks.

Now if anyone would like to explain what's happening or why this weird phenomena occurs, I'm all ears.

 

[Alex_M]

LSXPhotog,

Can You plese see if the same fenomenon applies to DPRAW shots? idealy, you would like to use Canon DPP to process the file just to be on the safe side. I thank you in advance.

 

[romanr74]

Although roman's comment borderlined with trolling I do not believe it was intentional. I see he has many specialized/top Canon lenses in his signature. More than many fanboys. So it is just the fear of new. I have ordered a 5D4 and I too fear a little. NOT for the specs which I like a lot, NOT for what someone discovered at the limits of ... (mis)use but just on focusing. I will put it to very good test and when all is well I will put a 5D3 for sale so as to make the cost easier to swallow. But it was the same with my 5D2->5D3 transition. Finally I sold my 5D2 and enjoyed my 5D3 ALOT!

Roman has $10k worth of Canon stuff. More than Neuro I think.

Think again. He lists what he has and that includes a 600mm f4 IS MkII and a 1DX, combined over $10,000 for just those two.

Can you enlighten me on the relevance of this?

 

[Mikehit]

Well first off, I'd like to say that about 90% of the posts made in this thread miss the point of why made this topic.

I think the cynicism comes from your original post where you define it as a 'problem'. If you can't see it in your photos and it does not change the way you shoot it most certainly is not a 'problem'. You say it 'could' impact real-world results...but how? Woo on earth wold underexpose 4 stops then push 5 stops and push shadows 100%??
You say it 'shouldn't happen at all PERIOD' - do you really think that a sensor designer sits in their laboratory thinking 'hmmm, I wonder if anyone will ever need to do this....'.

There is a bit of a cliche in QC and safety circles that runs along the lines of no system being idiot proof....
(no slight intended on you personally but to point out you can make any system fail if you try hard enough)

 

[PhotoSimon]

WOW, people really do need to put the hatchets down. Chill folks. Maybe LSXPhotog use of the word defect isn't quite the right choice of word but no need to assassinate them for it and. For all you know English might not be their first language, even if it is it's still very easy to pick the wrong word.

So LSXPhotog, yes I've seen this issue too. When I first got my mkiv one the first test I did was to see how far I could push the files. And what became apparent once I started to push the files was the issue you see - horizontal colour banding. I've attached a file with a 5 stop push to show this but it starts to appear once you start to push more than 3 stops. I also did a direct comparison with a Nikon D750, which I was able to push 5 stops without seeing any banding. You start to get a slight colour shift with the D750 which is easily correctable but the banding on the mkiv files render them unusable.

There's some more info about this with more images on the review on my website. . .

http://simonbrettellphotography.co.uk/canon-5d-mk-iv-review/

At the time I was a little disappointed. A few friends had also bought mkiv and were not seeing the problem that I was. However, what I was doing was a very extreme push and they were only shooting in real world conditions. I posted some examples on DP Review and some people thought it looked suspect so I arranged to get a replacement camera. The replacement also does the same but it's not quite so severe - I've not had time to update my website review yet to discuss this.

Now we come to the crux of the issue . . . does this matter? And the answer is, for some people, maybe! Some people are shouting down why someone might want to push a file 4 or 5 stops. Ordinarily you wouldn't but there are a couple of cases where it might be useful such as when you are exposing to the right in order to capture as much dynamic range as possible or lets say your a wedding photographer and your flash fails to fire during a shot (maybe due to the recycle time) but you missed a killer moment. The wider the ability to push files before they experience degradation opens up more creative opportunities that might not otherwise be available. Just because you might not see any value in a 4 stop push it doesn't necessarily mean that this is a redundant discussion. I frequently run into issues with my 5D mkiii where you can only really push the files two stops when exposing to the right. I want as much headroom as possible. Is 4 stops enough - probably. Would I like more headroom? Yup. Am I really going to run into a real world scenario where I need to push a file 4 or 5 stops . . . I honestly don't know, I've not had the mkiv long enough to see.

What is interesting is that the Sony sensor in the D750 can achieve this. So what we can objectively say is that you can push the D750 files more than the mkiv. Please don't shout "Get a D750"!!!

So yes it appears that if you push the mkiv files more than 3 to 4 stops you can get colour banding. Does it happen to all mkiv cameras? This we don't yet know, it certainly happens to some. Does it really matter? To some people it might.

 

[Mikehit]

Ordinarily you wouldn't but there are a couple of cases where it might be useful such as when you are exposing to the right in order to capture as much dynamic range as possible

Is ETTR the same as pushing shadows? ETTR is there to give the light chance to override noise. What you are talking about here is the light competing with noise which is not the same thing.

The wider the ability to push files before they experience degradation opens up more creative opportunities that might not otherwise be available.

LXS described underexposing 4 stops, pushing image 5 stops then pushing shadows a further 100%. I don't shoot many sunsets but that sounds like shooting into full sun then making the foreground as light as the sunset itself. That is some creativity!


In your link you say that Canon replied on the phone that that this should not happen and they sent a replacement, and that replacement was 'mighty impressive' when you did a 'real world' dynamic range test. A shame you did not mention that here. So I would say it is not a design defect but a sample defect and that can happen to any product.
I recall when the 1D3 came out they had issues with AF and all sorts of posts were made saying how the 1D3 was step backwards. Canon fixed it quickly with a firmware and it was then lauded as being a great camera.

 

[PhotoSimon]

Hi Mikehit,

As I've noted in my posting above . . . I'm not necessarily calling this a defect and I'm not sure the OP used the correct word. Some people are simply trying to find what the performance envelope is of the 5D mkiv. How far can things be pushed? I know I can only push my mkiii files 2 stops so when I shoot I take this fully into account. I'm trying to find what the limits of the mkiv are. Does this allow me to widen my shooting envelope? And as I've kept stressing . . . is a 4 stop push valid in real world conditions? Maybe for some people., maybe not. I'm sure the OP was using the 5 stop push with a shadow push just to make the issue easier to see, there are unlikely to be real world situations where you're going to be doing this.

No I've not included every single detail from my blog posting on here . . . That's why I put the link in, so that those who want to read the full story can. Yes Canon replaced the camera but the replacement exhibits the same phenomena. I've not had chance to repeat the full test but it doesn't look quite as severe, but the banding is still there around the 4 stop mark. And as noted in the blog posting the real world conditions shot is excellent. So does it matter . . . I'll say it again . . . maybe, maybe not.

I think what we're seeing is the limits of how far the sensor can be pushed . . . it's not defect. Unless others can do similar testing and show they have no issue. So if you've got a mkiv do a test and show us what you get. Do you see the colour banding?

 

[Mikehit]

I take your point Simon, but LXS did say that this 'should not happen PERIOD'. All he has done is find the limit of the sensor (if this is indeed a limit) and his whole post implies defect. Why not push the Sony/Nikon sensor 8 stops and say 'this should not happen PERIOD'? People have been saying for years that Canon is behind Sony/Nikon in sensor technology so why is this such a big surprise (in comparison to Nikon)? The only thing I have heard from Canon users is how much an improvement they have made and this sensor reduces the gap considerably (unless, of course, you want to be 'creative')? The thing that surprises me is people get so emotional about this yet still buy Canon - if something like that causes me such upset I would ditch the brand. If it is all part of the compromise I would note it and move on.

I don't mind people finding a limit to a technology but to then imply the incompetence of the manufacturer because it does not meet what they want is what grates. On a forum the only thing we have to go on is words - no tone of voice, no body language. And if someone uses 'the wrong word' or gets carried away in their phrasing you can't be surprised if there is blowback.

 

[PhotoSimon]

All valid points Mike...I completely agree. I'd not noticed the 'this should not happen PERIOD' bit... I blame my poor ability at skim reading a three page long forum thread ... well reading in general... That why I take pictures!

I think we can agree that this is the sensor envelope and it's not at all bad, a massive improvement on the mkiii. Not quite as pushable as the D750 but we're unlikely to need to push to that leve anyway in the real world. And if you didn't make it all the way down to the bottom of my review... I think it's a bloody great camera, the more I use it the more I love it