1DX ISO 12,800 real-life test

[The Bad Duck]

If you are mixing lightsources with different colors you will get this kind of problem, there is nothing strange about that. Our eyes and brain are incredible good at telling what color something really is in virtually any light. A camera is not. Light from bulbs are yellow/orange, ligth from fluorescent is green. Window light is white unless it bounces from something with another color.

So, if you take a photo of a scene with both window and fluorescent light, either the camera will give color for window light and make everything lit mostly by fluorescent too green, or the camera will compensate for the green light making the windowlight get another color of... I really don´t know, blue/purple?

Anyway, don´t mix lightsources with different colors. Get green gel and tape over your windows or shut down the fluorescent light inside. Or just accept a few green shadows on photos you are not going to sell anyway and just enjoy the emotional value.

 

[Viggo]

I'm seriously color blind, but to me it looks like both the outdoor lit wall and his indoor lit t-shirt are both the same white, so the green shadow shouldn't be different and green, no?

 

[Viggo]

Jsut got hold of a 1dx for 8999 brand new, so I put up my 5d3 and TS 17 for sale, I have until wednesday to make it happen, fingers crossed!

8999 ??? In which currency ?

Don't you feel sorry to part with TS 17 ?
I bought it 2 months ago and I wouldn't sell it. I believe good lenses are forever (well almost but you get my point)

I am in the land of Expensive, Norway:

http://www.japanphoto.no/product/kampanje/nyheter/systemkamera/canon-eos-1d-x-kamerahus/

https://www.google.no/search?q=54999+nok+to+usd&sugexp=chrome,mod=10&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Yeah, it sucks, but we have free healthcare, lol.

Yeah, I feel sad parting with the 17, but the truth is, I hardly ever use it, and that has nothing at all to do with the lens, it has everything to do with the fact that I don't use that wide angles. I get easily bored with UWA, because I don't have any surroundings here to make use of it either for arcitecthure or landscape.

A fantastic lens, but it was the same with my 300 f2,8 L IS, sickest lens ever, just a totally wrong focal for me. I also almost never use the 135 and 85.

 

[canon816]

Does this look better?

Much

 

[canon816]

Another green shadow shot that cannot be fixed with WB adjustments:

Bdunbar79-

You can actually fix the green shadow quite easily. Just de-saturate the greens a wee bit. I use lightroom and all you need to do is click on the saturation tool, then click where the funny color is and de-saturate it by reducing the value. Not sure if it is the same in PS. In some scenes this would not work well... if for instance there were lots of plants in the room and you de-saturated greens. You will run into this issue all the time with interior photography and multiple light sources. Often if you have natural light spilling in the window and an interior light source as the primary lighting you end up with blu-ish hues on the walls. Same trick... just de-saturate the blues. This works 90% of the time...

 

[bdunbar79]

Everybody,

Thanks.

Brett

 

[TrumpetPower!]

For white balance, your first best option is to use a styrofoam coffee cup as a white balance target. Styrofoam has a nearly perfectly flat spectral response, far superior to that of any of the commercial white balance targets. It's also about 80% reflective, which is excellent for setting white balance; low enough that there's no danger of clipping (unless the photo is hopelessly overexposed), yet high enough that noise isn't a factor. You can set it in the scene and get a nice sampling of each of the light sources by direction (say, daylight coming from the right and fluorescent coming from the left, blended roughly equally in the middle); or, you can put it over the lens and get a good whole-scene sampling suitable for an in-camera custom white balance.

If you don't have a spectrally-flat target (and note that many common "white" objects such as shirts and paper and the like are far from white), your next best bet is to boost the saturation in post-processing to 100%, fiddle with the white balance until it looks as neutral and un-saturated as possible, and then return the saturation to wherever you want it for that picture. It's much easier to tell when the white balance is off when the picture is over-saturated.

Cheers,

b&

 

[bdunbar79]

For white balance, your first best option is to use a styrofoam coffee cup as a white balance target. Styrofoam has a nearly perfectly flat spectral response, far superior to that of any of the commercial white balance targets. It's also about 80% reflective, which is excellent for setting white balance; low enough that there's no danger of clipping (unless the photo is hopelessly overexposed), yet high enough that noise isn't a factor. You can set it in the scene and get a nice sampling of each of the light sources by direction (say, daylight coming from the right and fluorescent coming from the left, blended roughly equally in the middle); or, you can put it over the lens and get a good whole-scene sampling suitable for an in-camera custom white balance.

If you don't have a spectrally-flat target (and note that many common "white" objects such as shirts and paper and the like are far from white), your next best bet is to boost the saturation in post-processing to 100%, fiddle with the white balance until it looks as neutral and un-saturated as possible, and then return the saturation to wherever you want it for that picture. It's much easier to tell when the white balance is off when the picture is over-saturated.

Cheers,

b&

That's a fantastic idea. I have tons of styrofoam cups I was drinking beer out of And you're right, much cheaper. I couldn't see the green that bad in my histogram, that's what confused me, so I will WB off the styrofoam cup, thanks.

 

[swampler]

I've heard of using coffee filters for white balance, but will a Styrofoam cup let in enough light if placing over your lens?

 

[TrumpetPower!]

I've heard of using coffee filters for white balance, but will a Styrofoam cup let in enough light if placing over your lens?

I'd be rather leery of using a coffee filter.

The raw materials used for paper aren't spectrally flat. There are some high-end fine art papers that are quite good -- if it's from a reputable source, is expensive, is labeled as a natural white, and is advertised as free of optical whiteners / brighteners / etc., then it's probably pretty good. It even has a chance of being better than the typical expensive photographic white balance target. Even then, it's the coating, not the paper, that's white...so you'd only want to use it as a reflective white balance tool, not a transmissive one.

But a coffee filter? I'd be quite surprised if it's spectrally flat. Not saying it's impossible, just that that's not how I'd bet.

With a typical styrofoam cup, you'll get about the same meter reading as with evaluative metering. That is, put the cup over your lens, and whatever your in-camera meter reads is just about what you should be shooting at. I wouldn't rely upon it as a metering aid without doing some testing and experimentation -- and, obviously, strong light sources hitting the cup but not part of the scene (such as stray sunlight) will skew things significantly. But it does mean that you wind up with, essentially, typically, a full-frame neutral 18% gray card shot. And, while, on the one hand, you'd like it to be brighter to reduce noise...you're dealing with the whole frame and so it's trivial to average out the noise. Or, of course, you can adjust the exposure to get a brighter rendering...it's not like you have to worry about sharpness in an out-of-focus macro shot of the inside of a coffee cup you're just using to get a custom white balance....

Cheers,

b&

 

[tron]

Jsut got hold of a 1dx for 8999 brand new, so I put up my 5d3 and TS 17 for sale, I have until wednesday to make it happen, fingers crossed!

8999 ??? In which currency ?

Don't you feel sorry to part with TS 17 ?
I bought it 2 months ago and I wouldn't sell it. I believe good lenses are forever (well almost but you get my point)

I am in the land of Expensive, Norway:

http://www.japanphoto.no/product/kampanje/nyheter/systemkamera/canon-eos-1d-x-kamerahus/

https://www.google.no/search?q=54999+nok+to+usd&sugexp=chrome,mod=10&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Yeah, it sucks, but we have free healthcare, lol.

Yeah, I feel sad parting with the 17, but the truth is, I hardly ever use it, and that has nothing at all to do with the lens, it has everything to do with the fact that I don't use that wide angles. I get easily bored with UWA, because I don't have any surroundings here to make use of it either for architecthure or landscape.

A fantastic lens, but it was the same with my 300 f2,8 L IS, sickest lens ever, just a totally wrong focal for me. I also almost never use the 135 and 85.

Almost 9300 dollars. How about ordering from abroad? Or traveling ?

Also is the 1DX really necessary?

You seem to prefer to use: 24L II, 35L, 50L

So I exclude sports. It's landscapes, people, street photography maybe.
It is the best for low light photography of course if that is what you want.

I personally would keep the 5DMkIII which must be an excellent all round camera (and second best for low light photography) and the TS 17. Of course you know best.

P.S Anyway 24L II and Aurora Borealis in Norway must be a killer combination (either with a 5DMkIII or a 1Dx)

 

[Razor2012]

Does this look better?

Yes, blue cast is gone.

 

[bdunbar79]

These shots with indoor and mixed lighting where I can't use a flash are difficult. I think WB does matter a great deal, especially if it adds a cast to a shadow that you can't get rid of. I don't think you can ignore that. Fortunately I was able to test both the 1DX and 5D3 in these harsh conditions and they performed similarly.

 

[TrumpetPower!]

These shots with indoor and mixed lighting where I can't use a flash are difficult. I think WB does matter a great deal, especially if it adds a cast to a shadow that you can't get rid of. I don't think you can ignore that. Fortunately I was able to test both the 1DX and 5D3 in these harsh conditions and they performed similarly.

You know, you can always develop the RAW twice, once for each white balance, and then composite the one into the other using a mask and a big soft brush....

b&

 

[bdunbar79]

These shots with indoor and mixed lighting where I can't use a flash are difficult. I think WB does matter a great deal, especially if it adds a cast to a shadow that you can't get rid of. I don't think you can ignore that. Fortunately I was able to test both the 1DX and 5D3 in these harsh conditions and they performed similarly.

You know, you can always develop the RAW twice, once for each white balance, and then composite the one into the other using a mask and a big soft brush....

b&

You know, you are absolutely right. I forgot PS can do that.

I am also going to do some test shots downstairs this evening with tungsten and fluorescent lighting, and "meter" my WB reading off a styrofoam cup. Secondly, I'll apply a flash on a second series of photos. Funny how when you are so used to shooting in one environment you really don't appreciate the difficulties of other environments.

 

[bdunbar79]

After shooting around the house for awhile, I'd like to say that the AWB on the 1DX is actually really, really good.

 

[Axilrod]

Try doing manual white balance off a white or gray card that's illuminated from the light source (looks like window light). That should make the shadows free of a color cast. But then there might be a cast on the face which is lit by reflected light off of various colored objects.

Off topic, and I'm pretty sure I've asked before (but don't think I got an answer), I was curious as to what on Earth you shoot that requires 11 camera bodies and two copies of multiple lenses. Five 7D's? Seriously?

 

[Viggo]

Jsut got hold of a 1dx for 8999 brand new, so I put up my 5d3 and TS 17 for sale, I have until wednesday to make it happen, fingers crossed!

8999 ??? In which currency ?

Don't you feel sorry to part with TS 17 ?
I bought it 2 months ago and I wouldn't sell it. I believe good lenses are forever (well almost but you get my point)

I am in the land of Expensive, Norway:

http://www.japanphoto.no/product/kampanje/nyheter/systemkamera/canon-eos-1d-x-kamerahus/

https://www.google.no/search?q=54999+nok+to+usd&sugexp=chrome,mod=10&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Yeah, it sucks, but we have free healthcare, lol.

Yeah, I feel sad parting with the 17, but the truth is, I hardly ever use it, and that has nothing at all to do with the lens, it has everything to do with the fact that I don't use that wide angles. I get easily bored with UWA, because I don't have any surroundings here to make use of it either for architecthure or landscape.

A fantastic lens, but it was the same with my 300 f2,8 L IS, sickest lens ever, just a totally wrong focal for me. I also almost never use the 135 and 85.

Almost 9300 dollars. How about ordering from abroad? Or traveling ?

Also is the 1DX really necessary?

You seem to prefer to use: 24L II, 35L, 50L

So I exclude sports. It's landscapes, people, street photography maybe.
It is the best for low light photography of course if that is what you want.

I personally would keep the 5DMkIII which must be an excellent all round camera (and second best for low light photography) and the TS 17. Of course you know best.

P.S Anyway 24L II and Aurora Borealis in Norway must be a killer combination (either with a 5DMkIII or a 1Dx)

If you think cameras are expensive, you should see what a round trip to NY costs, lol! 2000 usd, and then I have to pay 25% taxes on the camera coming, back, so it's cheaper here ;D

ANyway, necessary has nothing to do with it, I want one!

 

[sandymandy]

Off topic, and I'm pretty sure I've asked before (but don't think I got an answer), I was curious as to what on Earth you shoot that requires 11 camera bodies and two copies of multiple lenses. Five 7D's? Seriously?

Perhaps he got a photo business and he just ownz all his workers cameras. Or hes a busy reporter in a rush without time to change lenses

 

[wockawocka]

After shooting around the house for awhile, I'd like to say that the AWB on the 1DX is actually really, really good.

Much better than any Canon before.