5D MarkIII Low ISO performance in shadows

[Alexandros]

Am I the only one to think that 5d MK3 has very poor performance in shadows, even in low isos like 100 or 200 ? High color noise, weird noise patterns, vertical bands/stripes all without any pushing!!!
Straight out of the box the images look terrible in the shadow areas.
Why is that? I am very disappointed. VERY disappointed ...
Even my poor old 350d did better in that domain...
Is there something wrong with my copy or is it supposed to be like this ?

 

[Alexandros]

Another sample

 

[Phenix205]

Can you post side by side comparison between 5D3 and rebel? Same scene, same lighting, same exposure.

If this is the nature of the sensor, you and I have to live with it. But if you don't do large print or not always look at 100%, the noise may not be an issue at all. Remember that this camera provides you tremendous opportunity to capture the scenes or the moments you would've have missed using other camera. What really matters is the content in your image. Enjoy the camera!

 

[Timothy_Bruce]

That is exactly what I hate about my 7D! You are right my old 350D also handle it better :-(
I was looking to get a 5D III and hoped it would be significant better there...

 

[wickidwombat]

no way mine is nothing like that i dont even get noise like that at iso 8000 unless pushing it 3 stops

 

[Sycotek]

Same issue mate - 2 bodies, returned them both and hired a 3rd - same issue.

Questioned Canon they advised to send the bodies in as they had never heard of this issue - strange they have never googled 5d3 read noise (dubbed the rainbow effect).

If you want to really see it - shoot anything close to 18% grey or shoot a landscape and check the shadows you will see it.

Better yet import it in LR and remove the default +25 colour NR reduction.

---

Funnily enough if you look at dpreviews review you can clearly see the banding. Yet they never mentioned it.

It is a good coverup!

 

[dryanparker]

Fascinating! Earlier today I posted an identical thread regarding this same phenomenon I found in my 5D2. ISO 100 and very noticeable vertical banding. Weird!

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=7486.0

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Am I the only one to think that 5d MK3 has very poor performance in shadows, even in low isos like 100 or 200 ? High color noise, weird noise patterns, vertical bands/stripes all without any pushing!!!
Straight out of the box the images look terrible in the shadow areas.
Why is that? I am very disappointed. VERY disappointed ...
Even my poor old 350d did better in that domain...
Is there something wrong with my copy or is it supposed to be like this ?

Welcome to the party .

There have been endless posts and whining about this since the very first RAW files were leaked (and going even back to the early 5D2 days). Yeah Nikon got like 3 stops better for low ISO shadows and got rid of all banding and Canon got rid of horizontal (while leaving vertical as bad as ever) and actually made the read noise per photosite at ISO100 the worst of any of their DSLR since the 30D, I believe. That said it's only a trace worse than the 5D2 in that regard.

The deep low ISO shadows of the canon dslrs look best with the 40D and 1Ds3 and maybe 1D3. The 7D,5D2,5D3 are probably worst with the uglies. The D800 is easily the best, althoguh almost any even semi-recent nikon is a lot better in the low ISO shadows.

Some of use tried to make a big deal of it before it would be too late but most got driven out of various forums for being whiners and babies and here we are, say thanks to the fanboys and helped make Canon think nobody cared.

The 5D3 did fix up the high iso shadow uglies a ton though, it is probably canon's best yet up there and probably only the D3s and D4 are better of all consumer DSLRs ever made (and the D3s is very low res). The D800 is right there too though or better at the lower high ISOs though.

I've said too much on this, way too much already, so I won't say more than what I just said above, which was already adding too much to all I've said.

 

[wickidwombat]

i still dont have any sort of low iso noise anything like this on any of my bodies 5dmk3 5dmk2s or 1Dmk3

 

[psolberg]

this has been documented a lot. dpreview, fred miranda, etc. If you push the shadows on that and other canon cameras, you get exactly that.

 

[wickidwombat]

this has been documented a lot. dpreview, fred miranda, etc. If you push the shadows on that and other canon cameras, you get exactly that.

only if you push out of camera you do not get that normally, if that noise is coming in files straight out of camera I would say soemthing is wrong with the camera

also Topaz denoise has a nice option to correct pattern noise which you can tweak to just about wipe it out completely if you have to push 4 stops of shadow

 

[candyman]

also Topaz denoise has a nice option to correct pattern noise which you can tweak to just about wipe it out completely if you have to push 4 stops of shadow

And, what about sharpness after you applied Topaz denoise? Do you need to correct much sharpness and how is the result after that?

 

[bloodstupid]

You probably did but id better ask to be sure. Did you disable the "highlight tone priority", this improves noise in the dark areas.

 

[Alexandros]

First of all I try to understand if it is a defective copy that I have or this is the way all the 5d3s are.
And again, I didn't push the image in any way.

I will disable al the highlight tone priority as well as the other shadow optimizer and test again...

In the meantime you can check the raw if you want...


http://www.sendspace.com/filegroup/nA3A16dCP9CjsnDtdsf2%2FQ

 

[bloodstupid]

All that matters is the "highlight tone priority" because this pushes the shadows while recording your image and cant be undone in RAW.

 

[Ricku]

Op (Alexandros), are you kidding me?

No, you are not the only one. I guess you haven't been following the dynamic range debate lately?

Canon is known for banding (pattern noise) and now also underwhelming dynamic range. The 5D line has always had banding, and it seems that Canon doesn't know how to fix it, nor how to increase low ISO DR (at least not during the last 5 years).

Nikon on the other hand, are leaping forward with the sensor in their D800. Well, they are getting their sensors from Sony, but that doesn't really matter.

Canon needs to step up.

 

[Alexandros]

Hmmm interesting http://colorbyjorg.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/highlight-tone-priority-htp-choice-of-iso-and-noise/

I didn't know that...

 

[Marsu42]

Hmmm interesting http://colorbyjorg.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/highlight-tone-priority-htp-choice-of-iso-and-noise/
I didn't know that...

HTP *underexposes* your image by 1 stop (that's why it starts at iso200) and then applies a tone curve to raise shadows - of course noise in dark areas & banding is more of a problem. HTP doesn't exchange your Canon sensor for a Sony one behind your back. This feature is only for shooting video & jpeg of high dr scenes where you want to make sure highlights aren't clipped. For raw, underexpose yourself and then recover highlights manually.

 

[Steven_urwin]

That reads wrong. Did you mean overexpose, and then pull back the detail from the highlights?

 

[Marsu42]

That reads wrong. Did you mean overexpose, and then pull back the detail from the highlights?

No, it's exactly what I wrote. HTP doesn't give you more highlights, but more definition in highlights by preventing them being clipped - that's why the camera has to *under*expose.

Since the total dynamic range stays the same, at the same time the shadows have to be compressed and are only expanded again with a tone curve in the raw converter or in in-camera jpeg, with the known side-effects banding and/or more shadow noise.