1DX new all-time low-light king?

[TrumpetPower!]

Taking into account all posts in this discussion, can someone make a picture with 1D X and 1Ds III in the same conditions for us to make a comparison?

...and can said picture please not be an underexposed, out-of-focus, extreme macro shot of the inside of a lens cap?

A well-composed, well-lit studio shot would be nice. You can even do something with a bare reflector to make a high-contrast scene, but do please still expose properly....

b&

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

A well-composed, well-lit studio shot would be nice.

wouldn't a well lit and staged studio scene where you can control the lighting not really be much of a dynamic range test and especially not at all a low light king test though??? maybe a poorly setup and lit studio shot? ;D

what you'd want is say some dark alley, barely there artificial lighting, model shot for the high iso and some uncontrolled, high DR landscape scene or something I'd think for the low ISO dr range comparison

 

[TrumpetPower!]

A well-composed, well-lit studio shot would be nice.

wouldn't a well lit and staged studio scene where you can control the lighting not really be much of a dynamic range test and especially not at all a low light king test though??? maybe a poorly setup and lit studio shot? ;D

Not at all.

You can easily get insane amounts of dynamic range in a scene in a studio. Just put a single light with a reflector on one side of the subject and nothing else.

And you can easily get low light in a studio; turn off the flash, turn off your working lights, and just use the modeling light of the flash turned down to whatever levels you need.

But the point is that it's all controlled, and you can easily yank the one camera off the tripod and put the other in its place, and use the exact same settings for both.

what you'd want is say some dark alley, barely there artificial lighting, model shot for the high iso and some uncontrolled, high DR landscape scene or something I'd think for the low ISO dr range comparison

Waaay too many variables. Especially in the landscape.

The great thing about the studio is that it lets you control all those -- both for consistency and so you can create exactly the test you want.

For example, if you want to see what the camera can do with a scene with ten stops of dynamic range, no problem -- just use a single light on, say, a Rubick's Cube on a piece of black flock velvet or suspended in midair. Use your meter to read at ISO 100 and f/32 on the lit face and f/1.0 on the shadowed face, and shoot away. Take a shot at f/32 and ISO 100, another at f/1.4 and ISO 200, and another at f/5.6 and ISO 100. (Getting that level of contrast will require a studio that isn't prone to bounce and possibly a bit of creative flagging / cutting as well.)

(And the observant photographer will read that suggestion of a test and understand why the proper answer to a scene with more dynamic range than a 5DIII's twelve-plus stops can capture is not, "Get a D800," but rather, "fix the light." Or, maybe, embrace the contrasty nature of the scene, rather than fight it -- let the highlights blow and crush the blacks!)

Cheers,

 

[JR]

I agree with the original post that the low light ISO performance of the 1DX seem really good. It will be nice to compare them in similar condition with the 5D mkIII and D4 for example. Based on the sample I saw which are not the same condition as my shooting with a D4 I would say that indeed the 1DX is at least as good as the D4 for high ISO if not better. Since I don't shoot higher then 12800 it is hard for me to say. Both camera seem really close up to 12800 (D4 and 1DX I mean)...

One thing I could offer which would interest some is I found the D4 at least 1 stop better then the 5D mkIII in its ISO performance, so this says a lot on how the 1DX will likely perform..

Cant wait to get it!

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Not at all.

You can easily get insane amounts of dynamic range in a scene in a studio. Just put a single light with a reflector on one side of the subject and nothing else.

And you can easily get low light in a studio; turn off the flash, turn off your working lights, and just use the modeling light of the flash turned down to whatever levels you need.

But the point is that it's all controlled, and you can easily yank the one camera off the tripod and put the other in its place, and use the exact same settings for both.

OK, I get your point. I thought you were meaning something else.

what you'd want is say some dark alley, barely there artificial lighting, model shot for the high iso and some uncontrolled, high DR landscape scene or something I'd think for the low ISO dr range comparison

Waaay too many variables. Especially in the landscape.

Yeah agreed, that is why it's easy to just to the black cap. Boom in like 60 seconds test carried out and done. No wasting of time and it's repeatable and you don't even need all teh bodies on hand at the same time (which is a biggie).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Anyway, 1DX dynamic range results are in.

Who's results are in? Anyone's but yours?

No longer just mine:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=41976502

and big shocker.... he gets the same thing

(note that he did not normalize for ISO or MP so the 1DX and 5D2 look a bit better on that chart compared to the 5D3 than they do in reality, particularly note that the 5D3 DOES beat the 5D2 for high iso DR once you shift the 5D2 chart to account for it rating ISOs differently)

his charts shows that they did improve high ISO DR a lot in the 1DX though so it won't fall behind in DR there compared to D3s or D4, so yeah, ignoring a bit of color-blindness , the 1DX should be all time low light king with probably about tied for best DR at high ISO (with D3s and D4) and best luminance SNR (perhaps by 1/3 stop maybe 1/2 stop over D4???) and with many more MP than D3s (making 'grain' look much better and allowing for more NR while maintaining the same detail).

 

[nightbreath]

No longer just mine:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=41976502

and big shocker.... he gets the same thing

(note that he did not normalize for ISO or MP so the 1DX and 5D2 look a bit better on that chart compared to the 5D3 than they do in reality, particularly note that the 5D3 DOES beat the 5D2 for high iso DR once you shift the 5D2 chart to account for it rating ISOs differently)

his charts shows that they did improve high ISO DR a lot in the 1DX though so it won't fall behind in DR there compared to D3s or D4, so yeah, ignoring a bit of color-blindness , the 1DX should be all time low light king with probably about tied for best DR at high ISO (with D3s and D4) and best luminance SNR (perhaps by 1/3 stop maybe 1/2 stop over D4???) and with many more MP than D3s (making 'grain' look much better and allowing for more NR while maintaining the same detail).

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

 

[bdunbar79]

No longer just mine:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=41976502

and big shocker.... he gets the same thing

(note that he did not normalize for ISO or MP so the 1DX and 5D2 look a bit better on that chart compared to the 5D3 than they do in reality, particularly note that the 5D3 DOES beat the 5D2 for high iso DR once you shift the 5D2 chart to account for it rating ISOs differently)

his charts shows that they did improve high ISO DR a lot in the 1DX though so it won't fall behind in DR there compared to D3s or D4, so yeah, ignoring a bit of color-blindness , the 1DX should be all time low light king with probably about tied for best DR at high ISO (with D3s and D4) and best luminance SNR (perhaps by 1/3 stop maybe 1/2 stop over D4???) and with many more MP than D3s (making 'grain' look much better and allowing for more NR while maintaining the same detail).

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

The 1Ds3 is superior ISO 50-200. Above 200 the 5D3 is better.

 

[nightbreath]

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

The 1Ds3 is superior ISO 50-200. Above 200 the 5D3 is better.

So I went to DXO to check the difference between 5D III and 1Ds III (yes, I heard lot of negative stuff about this web-site) and here what I saw in the results for low ISO measurements:

Dynamic Range: 5D Mark III loses (~2% difference at ISO 100)
SNR: 5D Mark III wins (~3.6% difference at ISO 100)
Tonal Range: 5D Mark III wins (~0.3% difference at ISO 100)
Color Sensitivity: 5D Mark III loses (~0.4% difference at ISO 100)

Looking at those numbers I don't clearly understand why 1Ds Mark III is so superior. Does it handles uncontrolled light better? Or is it about self-convincing? (i.e. a camera that costs 8 grand makes better images as a matter of fact).

Or am I missing something?

 

[briansquibb]

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

The 1Ds3 is superior ISO 50-200. Above 200 the 5D3 is better.

So I went to DXO to check the difference between 5D III and 1Ds III (yes, I heard lot of negative stuff about this web-site) and here what I saw in the results for low ISO measurements:

Dynamic Range: 5D Mark III loses (~2% difference at ISO 100)
SNR: 5D Mark III wins (~3.6% difference at ISO 100)
Tonal Range: 5D Mark III wins (~0.3% difference at ISO 100)
Color Sensitivity: 5D Mark III loses (~0.4% difference at ISO 100)

Looking at those numbers I don't clearly understand why 1Ds Mark III is so superior. Does it handles uncontrolled light better? Or is it about self-convincing? (i.e. a camera that costs 8 grand makes better images as a matter of fact).

Or am I missing something?

Up to iso200
- total lack of noise
- DR
- strong colours
- no banding in the shadows

 

[bdunbar79]

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

The 1Ds3 is superior ISO 50-200. Above 200 the 5D3 is better.

So I went to DXO to check the difference between 5D III and 1Ds III (yes, I heard lot of negative stuff about this web-site) and here what I saw in the results for low ISO measurements:

Dynamic Range: 5D Mark III loses (~2% difference at ISO 100)
SNR: 5D Mark III wins (~3.6% difference at ISO 100)
Tonal Range: 5D Mark III wins (~0.3% difference at ISO 100)
Color Sensitivity: 5D Mark III loses (~0.4% difference at ISO 100)

Looking at those numbers I don't clearly understand why 1Ds Mark III is so superior. Does it handles uncontrolled light better? Or is it about self-convincing? (i.e. a camera that costs 8 grand makes better images as a matter of fact).

Or am I missing something?

Up to iso200
- total lack of noise
- DR
- strong colours
- no banding in the shadows

+8 million. You are missing something badly. You went off website specs instead of actually shooting with both and looking at your photos. Brian is 100% correct on his assessment here.

 

[nightbreath]

Up to iso200
- total lack of noise
- DR
- strong colours
- no banding in the shadows

Any chance to get this kind of comparison with 1Dx? ;D

 

[briansquibb]

Up to iso200
- total lack of noise
- DR
- strong colours
- no banding in the shadows

Any chance to get this kind of comparison with 1Dx? ;D

Just waiting for my 1DX, on back order

 

[simonxu11]

Check this out
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1129607/0

From that test, I cannot see 1 stop over 5d3, at most half a stop, maybe still not as good as D3s or D4

 

[RLPhoto]

It looks like a stop to me over 3200 ISO. Under that its very similar but thats amazing. The grain also looks better on the 1Dx.

 

[candyman]

It looks like a stop to me over 3200 ISO. Under that its very similar but thats amazing. The grain also looks better on the 1Dx.

I am confused about that.
Shouldn't the 1D X ISO 6400 look like the 1D X ISO 3200 IF compared to the 5D MKIII ISO 6400? Now that would be 1 stop. Or am I wrong?

 

[RLPhoto]

It looks like a stop to me over 3200 ISO. Under that its very similar but thats amazing. The grain also looks better on the 1Dx.

I am confused about that.
Shouldn't the 1D X ISO 6400 look like the 1D X ISO 3200 IF compared to the 5D MKIII ISO 6400? Now that would be 1 stop. Or am I wrong?

The 5D3 @ 6400 ISO and the 1Dx @ 12,800 look simliar to me. I can see a good stop there when processing and the final photo is done.

 

[Dylan777]

It looks like a stop to me over 3200 ISO. Under that its very similar but thats amazing. The grain also looks better on the 1Dx.

I am confused about that.
Shouldn't the 1D X ISO 6400 look like the 1D X ISO 3200 IF compared to the 5D MKIII ISO 6400? Now that would be 1 stop. Or am I wrong?

The 5D3 @ 6400 ISO and the 1Dx @ 12,800 look simliar to me. I can see a good stop there when processing and the final photo is done.

+1

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

what ISOs would you be dealing with?
well lit, full sun street portraits or low light stuff?

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

So who's the winner? I'm interested in a camera for street portrait photography. What would be the best thing to use to get great skin tones in Canon lineup? Does the 1Ds Mk III remain the best thing for this?

The 1Ds3 is superior ISO 50-200. Above 200 the 5D3 is better.

So I went to DXO to check the difference between 5D III and 1Ds III (yes, I heard lot of negative stuff about this web-site) and here what I saw in the results for low ISO measurements:

Dynamic Range: 5D Mark III loses (~2% difference at ISO 100)
SNR: 5D Mark III wins (~3.6% difference at ISO 100)
Tonal Range: 5D Mark III wins (~0.3% difference at ISO 100)
Color Sensitivity: 5D Mark III loses (~0.4% difference at ISO 100)

Looking at those numbers I don't clearly understand why 1Ds Mark III is so superior. Does it handles uncontrolled light better? Or is it about self-convincing? (i.e. a camera that costs 8 grand makes better images as a matter of fact).

Or am I missing something?

the main thing would be the metamerism index (the real world difference this makes I'm not sure, it might be complex, nobody has looked into it carefully) and the banding, you can dig around the shadows more with the 1Ds3 since it doesn't have as much ugly pattern banding at low ISO