5DS-R DR test on DPReview

[Eldar]

I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends.

This is a 7DII-shot, with the 200-400 @560mm and ISO320, straight from raw to jpeg, with standard LR settings. I just cropped it a bit. Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped. My current alternatives would have been to either make the shadow even darker, to get some structure in the white or I could have blown the white even further to get shadows worth looking at.

 

[Marsu42]

Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped.

Right, that's it, now you're on the Sonikon troll list for good :->

Dislaimer: As a fellow CR user under suspicion for un-Canonish behavior, I agree - these are the exact wildlife shots where some more dr helps a lot. Unless you use a 1dx I recommend to use dual_iso - drawback is that for most effective use, you need to shoot @iso 100 which limits your shutter speed.

 

[Sporgon]

I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends.

This is a 7DII-shot, with the 200-400 @560mm and ISO320, straight from raw to jpeg, with standard LR settings. I just cropped it a bit. Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped. My current alternatives would have been to either make the shadow even darker, to get some structure in the white or I could have blown the white even further to get shadows worth looking at.

That looks to me as if there is way too much contrast already applied. Are you sure that your conversion is not carrying forward any profiles ?

 

[Orangutan]

like the MythBusters blowing up a cement truck.

Which proves synthetic situations can be fun, I seem to remember that distinctive *boom* sound, too :->

True dat. But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom." We also see several seconds of them laughing and cavorting. Do we have that on the DPR review? I think it unlikely that we see any cavorting at all in the DPR review.

 

[Orangutan]

Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped.

Right, that's it, now you're on the Sonikon troll list for good :->

Dislaimer: As a fellow CR user under suspicion for un-Canonish behavior, I agree - these are the exact wildlife shots where some more dr helps a lot. Unless you use a 1dx I recommend to use dual_iso - drawback is that for most effective use, you need to shoot @iso 100 which limits your shutter speed.

Excellent! A legitimate real-world example!

 

[Marsu42]

But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom."

Yeah, but in the later series unfortunately they changed their message into "science is shooting things or blowing 'em up". I guess that's why the original two hosts ousted their other team recently to get back to the roots, and the last couple of shows were really better in the regard of integrated science in a meaningful way.

 

[Orangutan]

But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom."

Yeah, but in the later series unfortunately they changed their message into "science is shooting things or blowing 'em up". I guess that's why the original two hosts ousted their other team recently to get back to the roots, and the last couple of shows were really better in the regard of integrated science in a meaningful way.

My understanding is that the "money" fired the co-hosts, and the two principals argued for keeping them. I have no inside info, though.

 

[Eldar]

I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends.

This is a 7DII-shot, with the 200-400 @560mm and ISO320, straight from raw to jpeg, with standard LR settings. I just cropped it a bit. Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped. My current alternatives would have been to either make the shadow even darker, to get some structure in the white or I could have blown the white even further to get shadows worth looking at.

That looks to me as if there is way too much contrast already applied. Are you sure that your conversion is not carrying forward any profiles ?

Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.

 

[Marsu42]

Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.

Methinks zhe question was about camera profiles, i.e. did you shoot raw and what LR/camera profile (neutral or a nice contrasty landscape-something giving you more bang by default).

But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom."

Yeah, but in the later series unfortunately they changed their message into "science is shooting things or blowing 'em up". I guess that's why the original two hosts ousted their other team recently to get back to the roots, and the last couple of shows were really better in the regard of integrated science in a meaningful way.

My understanding is that the "money" fired the co-hosts, and the two principals argued for keeping them. I have no inside info, though.

Do you have any sources for the reasons? I tried to research it, but failed - esp. as they don't have a forum anymore, but just Facebook.

But it seemed to me that (at least one of the) the original hosts had a falling out with the newbie team since a long time, after which they were moved to another facility (m6/m7 instead of Jamie's m5). All 5 Mythbusters were - to my knowledge - never seen again as a complete team even for promotional purposes. Plus some of the newbie three seemed seriously tired in of their job lately, it seemed they did little work themselves anymore but just went there, pushed a button and went home.

Anyway, one thing arguably has changed for the better: Now they don't say "We're experts" in the disclaimer anymore, but "We're advised by experts" as the former always sounded kind of ridiculous esp. in the case of Kari (who somehow always happened to be placed in front of the camera in tight jeans) and Tori.

 

[Eldar]

Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.

Methinks zhe question was about camera profiles, i.e. did you shoot raw and what LR/camera profile (neutral or a nice contrasty landscape-something giving you more bang by default).

Camera Calibration: Process: 2012, Profile: Adobe Standard (all 0)

 

[Eldar]

This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??

 

[meywd]

This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??

hahaha that's true, I agree that your picture shows a case where you need more DR, however there are two questions:

• How much more DR is needed for such situation? can we really measure it? can we know for sure that the picture would have had more detail in the shadow area if a sonikon was used?
• How often is that case? is it really a show stopper? wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?

On the second question, think of it like the difference between a 1DX and a 5D3, like the thread that shows what the 1DX FPS can do and other cameras can't, like the shots done with a 1k or 10k FPS cameras, its a limitation that we must live with, I wish my 5D3 had 10k FPS, 1 Giga pixels, and 10 more stops of DR - I am really clueless in this regard but hey more is better, right? - but wishes remain wishes, still once again, I agree that is really a situation were I will be frustrated and wish I had more DR.

 

[Aglet]

This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??

I think you broke the law by shooting a black & white duck in daylight with something other than medium format 25 ISO film. ;D

Even the mighty D7200 would have only provide about 1 extra EV worth of total DR at iso 320 (pixel level, more if normalized)
Tho, because of its drastically lower read noise, you could have shot at iso 100 or 200 and exposed to not clip the highlites, then pull the dark areas up in post without fear of introducing any noise issues to deal with.

FWIW, shooting that with a 7d2 should also have allowed you to underexpose a bit more to retain detail in the white feathers and bring up the rest without incurring too much of a noise penalty in the darker regions as the 7d2 I tested was at least devoid of FPN and the remaining chroma noise could be dealt with fairly easily.

You could have made some really (com)pressed-duck!

That is a good example where it would be very handy to be able to compare different systems and different exposure and PP methods. is that duck for hire?

 

[Marsu42]

This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??

I know the effect, once you post something that requires actual thinking about a special or new subject before typing the comments cease because lotsa people cannot copy/paste what they always write :->

How much more DR is needed for such situation? can we really measure it? can we know for sure that the picture would have had more detail in the shadow area if a sonikon was used?

Yes, you can - use Magic Lantern, their raw histogram show you the dr of the scene and even extrapolates how much dr is clipped if the sensor's dr wasn't sufficient. In my experience (and I shoot a lot of grey, black & white animals) it's usually 2-3ev missing. I can tell because that's how much you gain with ML's dual_iso.

How often is that case?

Kinda depends on what and when you shot, doesn't it? For me (shooting wild horses a lot all day long) dual_iso definitely is extremely important, it allows as it allows me shoot against the sun and still get detail on the animals and not just silhouettes and I never get clipped sky.

is it really a show stopper?

Yes, clipping in large areas definitely is.

wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?

No, because photography is painting with light an (imho, ymmv) front-lighting often looks very boring even though it's easy to expose.

 

[Aglet]

Hi Aglet.
Not very down with the dudes here, what is ABC for in your context please, Already Been Chewed, as in doe to death, A Better Camera?

Cheers, Graham.

hey, those are all good too.

in this context, that TLA means
Anybody But Canon

or, if you're into politics
Anybody But Conservatives

or, A Beer Cooler

 

[meywd]

wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?

No, because photography is painting with light an (imho, ymmv) front-lighting often looks very boring even though it's easy to expose.

Then shadows should remain shadows.

I use ML dual ISO so I know of the benefits, though I didn't know that the histogram shows the clipped DR range.

 

[Marsu42]

wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?

No, because photography is painting with light an (imho, ymmv) front-lighting often looks very boring even though it's easy to expose.

Then shadows should remain shadows.

I'm not arguing in favor of the dreaded "hdr look", but I like to have enough data in the shadows so *I* can decide what I want to push into deep shadows or raise a bit to provide texture. That's because personally I hate clipping, but ymmv a lot on this.

 

[sanj]

Elder.
Am not arguing or fighting. Am not questioning your skills. God Forbid! I am on your side. Read my earlier posts. But you must figure out what is wrong with the duck photo. It looks just too contrasty. Perhaps an issue with your camera sensor?
Could you post a drop box link to the RAW, I want to check it on my computer? Or else you may send the camera to Canon for a check up.

And YES even 2 stop more DR can be a life saver in MANY situations. I am sure I have lots of examples in my files. Too lazy to dig them. And YES 'system' does matter as well.

 

[Eldar]

Elder.
Am not arguing or fighting. Am not questioning your skills. God Forbid! I am on your side. Read my earlier posts. But you must figure out what is wrong with the duck photo. It looks just too contrasty. Perhaps an issue with your camera sensor?
Could you post a drop box link to the RAW, I want to check it on my computer? Or else you may send the camera to Canon for a check up.

And YES even 2 stop more DR can be a life saver in MANY situations. I am sure I have lots of examples in my files. Too lazy to dig them. And YES 'system' does matter as well.

Sanj, I do not believe there is anything wrong with the sensor, but I´ll check it more thoroughly. I have been shooting this pond, with the same birds, with both the 1DX and 5DIII. I get pretty much the same results under these conditions. Be aware that this image is shot in Norway in early May, when the air can be extremely clear, as it was in this case and give a very harsh sunlight.

Here is another, shot the same day, but with light clouds in front of the sun. Not the best example, but at least different lighting. Also straight from raw to jpeg. As you can see, apart from a slight under exposure, there is nothing wrong with this one. If you wish, just give me an email adr. I´ll send you the raw file of the first image.

Update! When I came to work and saw the image I realize it is a very poor example ... I'll find something more useful later.

 

[LOALTD]

Here's a self-portrait taken at ISO 400 and then pushed +0.65 EV and only +40 shadows.


My hat is flat-black, it doesn't have rainbow colors on it. That's just Classic Canon banding! (and lots of weird noise in general)


Taken on a 5D Mk III.


This is what I keep trying to say. You don't even have to push it 6 stops to see the noise.