5D mkIII untouched files for testing purposes (RAW)

[akiskev]

I'm happy you enjoyed the videos guys! Here's some more!

PeteG it's a nice product so I'm sure you will be more than happy with it!

 

[dystorsion]

Thanks for your work akiskev!

 

[vWings]

Thanks akiskev. I looked at the videos you provided but not following exactly what/why you tweaked in ACR. I use Aperture and PS but am an admitted novice at best. Color balance, dodging, burning, cropping, and sharpening are easy enough. But removing noise and cleaning up photos as you did in the videos is uncharted territory for me. Any recommendations for tutorials?

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I'm not sure yet but at quick peek it seems like it still uses the fake intermediate ISOs.
Someone said that real ISOs go higher than the prior ISO1600/3200 of other Canon models though.

 

[Aglet]

disappointing results at ISO 100:

Arghh!

If D800's DR and S/N turn out to best the 5D3 at pixel or print levels I'm gonna be SO disappointed I recently spent a load on new Canon glass.

Thanks for your dogged analysis of the 5D3's files. I'm hoping the production version of the thing shows more tangible improvements.

 

[te4o]

Thanks akiskev. I looked at the videos you provided but not following exactly what/why you tweaked in ACR. I use Aperture and PS but am an admitted novice at best. Color balance, dodging, burning, cropping, and sharpening are easy enough. But removing noise and cleaning up photos as you did in the videos is uncharted territory for me. Any recommendations for tutorials?

Try NIK at www.niksoftware.com . I was like you and I don't have time to learn CS5 and PS, so I "tried the trial" and got hooked: easy and effective enough. From Aperture it works quite easy as a plug in. The whole suite is at a good price at B&H.
Just as an idea.
There are plenty of other options too, but we are off-topic here.

 

[te4o]

Yes, I'd be turning into 5D2 territory slowly. Why spend the money for features I don't need. Let the pro-s use the 6 fps and the high ISO. I needed IQ improvements at base ISO, well, another 4 years of waiting. Probably not possible with the current sensor tech.

 

[wickidwombat]

Thanks akiskev. I looked at the videos you provided but not following exactly what/why you tweaked in ACR. I use Aperture and PS but am an admitted novice at best. Color balance, dodging, burning, cropping, and sharpening are easy enough. But removing noise and cleaning up photos as you did in the videos is uncharted territory for me. Any recommendations for tutorials?

I use Topaz de-noise which works really well
it lets you apply different strength noise reduction to shadows and highlights as well as control
specific colour channel noise and has an option for pattern noise if you are pushing that far

the only issue i have is when i load it as a plugin to lightroom the colours go all crazy in the topaz editor
(doesnt affect the image though but its annoying i'm hoping lightroom 4 fixes this)

 

[te4o]

wickidW, do you think 5D2 will drop further in price when the 5d3 is in the shops? Now 1839 A$, I think I'll stop dreaming for the 4000+ 5D3, no point for me. This will be slowly the end of a dream.

 

[wickidwombat]

wickidW, do you think 5D2 will drop further in price when the 5d3 is in the shops? Now 1839 A$, I think I'll stop dreaming for the 4000+ 5D3, no point for me. This will be slowly the end of a dream.

$1839 is pretty cheap, where is selling it that cheap?

I cant see it getting that much cheaper since its not going out of production and
is going to be cemented as the entry level full frame. The fact is the 5D mk2 still
produces outstanding images this isnt going to change if you are budget concious that extra
$2000+ can sure buy alot of nice glass to go with the camera depending on what you already have

i was considering selling 1 5Dmk2 but the price drops make it pointless I'll just keep it going
(both me and my wife shoot so for weddings we need 4 cameras, just in case anyone thought i was an octopus to be able to use that many cameras at once

 

[Ricku]

disappointing results at ISO 100:

banding:
horizontal banding appears to be entirely removed, this is good, and will help make ISO look better and get less badly clumped chroma noise and all but vertical banding appears to be zero improved and it shows up enough that I don't think you gain any usable amount of low ISO DR back compared to the 5D2

so for low ISO I'm not sure the removal of horizontal banding alone will really help usable DR any since the vertical sticks out to the eye just as much, maybe here on there on parts of the image it might help

DR:
5D2: 15760,1024,6.1 AU,3.8 8MP normalized ADU, DR - 11.2 , DR8MP - 11.9

5D3: 15309 (maybe the channels were still not quite blown though?),2048, 6.6 ADU, 6.4 normalized to 5D2 6.4 and then to 8MP 3.96, DR- 11.0 DRto5D2 - 11.0 DR8MP - 11.7
and let us say WP should be 15760 instead then DR8MP - 11.8
and let us even say it should be max 14bit 16383 - 11.8

so I actually get fractionally worse DR than for the 5D2, but it's for all intents, the exact same, within copy to copy variation and well within any difference you'd be able to notice

Sad to say but even the DX D7000 handily beats the latest Canon FF for DR, and not by a little. The D800, at 100% view, full 50% MP advantage may beat it by 2 stops, maybe even 2.5 usable stops.

I did not expect this at all. :'(

(the high iso side of things should turn out more favorable though, most likely)

This is exactly what I have found out from my own tests.

What were Canon thinking? :-\

 

[simonxu11]

disappointing results at ISO 100:

banding:
horizontal banding appears to be entirely removed, this is good, and will help make ISO look better and get less badly clumped chroma noise and all but vertical banding appears to be zero improved and it shows up enough that I don't think you gain any usable amount of low ISO DR back compared to the 5D2

so for low ISO I'm not sure the removal of horizontal banding alone will really help usable DR any since the vertical sticks out to the eye just as much, maybe here on there on parts of the image it might help

DR:
5D2: 15760,1024,6.1 AU,3.8 8MP normalized ADU, DR - 11.2 , DR8MP - 11.9

5D3: 15309 (maybe the channels were still not quite blown though?),2048, 6.6 ADU, 6.4 normalized to 5D2 6.4 and then to 8MP 3.96, DR- 11.0 DRto5D2 - 11.0 DR8MP - 11.7
and let us say WP should be 15760 instead then DR8MP - 11.8
and let us even say it should be max 14bit 16383 - 11.8

so I actually get fractionally worse DR than for the 5D2, but it's for all intents, the exact same, within copy to copy variation and well within any difference you'd be able to notice

Sad to say but even the DX D7000 handily beats the latest Canon FF for DR, and not by a little. The D800, at 100% view, full 50% MP advantage may beat it by 2 stops, maybe even 2.5 usable stops.

I did not expect this at all. :'(

(the high iso side of things should turn out more favorable though, most likely)

This is exactly what I have found out from my own tests.

What were Canon thinking? :-\

I said this a few times:
Nikon focus on making better cameras, Canon focus on selling more cameras

 

[maxxevv]

disappointing results at ISO 100:

banding:
horizontal banding appears to be entirely removed, this is good, and will help make ISO look better and get less badly clumped chroma noise and all but vertical banding appears to be zero improved and it shows up enough that I don't think you gain any usable amount of low ISO DR back compared to the 5D2

so for low ISO I'm not sure the removal of horizontal banding alone will really help usable DR any since the vertical sticks out to the eye just as much, maybe here on there on parts of the image it might help

DR:
5D2: 15760,1024,6.1 AU,3.8 8MP normalized ADU, DR - 11.2 , DR8MP - 11.9

5D3: 15309 (maybe the channels were still not quite blown though?),2048, 6.6 ADU, 6.4 normalized to 5D2 6.4 and then to 8MP 3.96, DR- 11.0 DRto5D2 - 11.0 DR8MP - 11.7
and let us say WP should be 15760 instead then DR8MP - 11.8
and let us even say it should be max 14bit 16383 - 11.8

so I actually get fractionally worse DR than for the 5D2, but it's for all intents, the exact same, within copy to copy variation and well within any difference you'd be able to notice

Sad to say but even the DX D7000 handily beats the latest Canon FF for DR, and not by a little. The D800, at 100% view, full 50% MP advantage may beat it by 2 stops, maybe even 2.5 usable stops.

I did not expect this at all. :'(

(the high iso side of things should turn out more favorable though, most likely)

This is exactly what I have found out from my own tests.

What were Canon thinking? :-\

I have to ask ... where/what and how do you guys do the DR tests ?

 

[WarStreet]

disappointing results at ISO 100:

banding:
horizontal banding appears to be entirely removed, this is good, and will help make ISO look better and get less badly clumped chroma noise and all but vertical banding appears to be zero improved and it shows up enough that I don't think you gain any usable amount of low ISO DR back compared to the 5D2

so for low ISO I'm not sure the removal of horizontal banding alone will really help usable DR any since the vertical sticks out to the eye just as much, maybe here on there on parts of the image it might help

DR:
5D2: 15760,1024,6.1 AU,3.8 8MP normalized ADU, DR - 11.2 , DR8MP - 11.9

5D3: 15309 (maybe the channels were still not quite blown though?),2048, 6.6 ADU, 6.4 normalized to 5D2 6.4 and then to 8MP 3.96, DR- 11.0 DRto5D2 - 11.0 DR8MP - 11.7
and let us say WP should be 15760 instead then DR8MP - 11.8
and let us even say it should be max 14bit 16383 - 11.8

so I actually get fractionally worse DR than for the 5D2, but it's for all intents, the exact same, within copy to copy variation and well within any difference you'd be able to notice

Sad to say but even the DX D7000 handily beats the latest Canon FF for DR, and not by a little. The D800, at 100% view, full 50% MP advantage may beat it by 2 stops, maybe even 2.5 usable stops.

I did not expect this at all. :'(

(the high iso side of things should turn out more favorable though, most likely)

LetTheRightLensIn thanks for your time. Thanks for akiskev too, for providing the raw files !

So, from my understanding, these new measurements with lens cap on/off confirms the ones that you did using the masking area ?

I am disgusted with the results. Will look at DXO measurments when out, but I am afraid that they won't be significantly different from yours. Do you confirm that DR has improved @ the high ISO's ?

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I am disgusted with the results. Will look at DXO measurments when out, but I am afraid that they won't be significantly different from yours. Do you confirm that DR has improved @ the high ISO's ?

It's tricky to say for the high ISOs since Canon was at it's least conservative ISO rating time back in the 5D2 days so it might not be fair to compare ISO6400 DR of the 5D2 to ISO 6400 DR of the 5D3. Head to head I actually found a real but very small DR advantage for the 5D3, I forget but it may have been not even quite a quarter stop or something, nothing meaningful. However, there is some reason to believe that that comparison was not fair and due to quite possible changes in named to actually delivered ISO so the 5D3 result might need to get 1/3-1/2 stop added to it, so maybe it is almost 1/2 stop to almost 3/4 stop more. But I'm guessing a bit. It's tricky to try to do with the samples we have and I don't feel like taking all the time it would take to try to plot out gain differences and so on. I'd rather wait until DxO calculates the ISO differences.

It's maybe dangerous to judge using ACR, but it seems like the high iso noise has a slightly nicer look on the 5D3 so that might give a tiny bit of an extra advantage too (At super duper high isos and for really tricky scenes it might give a notice usable bonus compared to the 5D2 over the pure measured values).

 

[DavidRiesenberg]

I am disgusted with the results.

Isn't this a bit extreme?

 

[WarStreet]

I am disgusted with the results.

Isn't this a bit extreme?

Yes might be, I am not english native. So, what should I say which is less severe than disgusting ? Not happy is just too soft, for 3.5 years.

 

[tt]

I am disgusted with the results.

Isn't this a bit extreme?

Yes might be, I am not english native. So, what should I say which is less severe than disgusting ? Not happy is just too soft, for 3.5 years.

Perhaps the word "disappointed"? Though the same issues with softness came out prior to the 5D Mark II launch if that's any consolation.