5DS-R DR test on DPReview

[9VIII]

I think this forum would be better if Neuro were a moderator.

 

[sanj]

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.

It's beyond you how some people can decide for themselves how much DR they need?

(1) Read his post more carefully, the part about "and others."

(2) Is this all you have to criticize about the post, just some editing?

I read it. There is a difference between 'decide for themselves and others' and 'decide for others', had he stated the latter I'd have no objection.

Reading the rest of his post, you'd think that landscape/cityscape photography with large prints as an output was impossible before Exmor, and that no one could be using Canon equipment for such purposes today. Not a very defensible position, IMO.

With my reduced capabilities as a non-native English speaker I think my post was still easy enough to understand, no need to pull a single sentence out of context if the content is still plain enough.

As for if the position is defensible or not: I would like you to tell me what you would have done in said situation with the Canon body of your choice (long exposure scene for the silky and magical waterfall effect and in order to keep harsh clouds from detracting from the soft waterfall). A Canon solution to that problem would be interesting to know. Btw the final image is stitched from 3 single images (75 sec each) and the light only lasted for a couple of minutes. Yeah, not shoot it at all in the first place?

To all the others, thank you very much for your kind words! I really appreciate it!

Several nice people on this forum are blind to the facts: 1. Wanting high DR has nothing to do with proper exposure. 2. There are many situations where a photographer (outside studio) is required to expose correctly for the highlights or the shadows. Then he/she hopes that they will be able to get some details back which were not exposed properly. Here 'more the better' DR comes into play. I don't understand how anyone can fight such a simple logic. Unless of course they are worshippers of the Canon Gods. For them to face some realities is akin to shattered religious beliefs. Have compassion for for they know not harshness of light in real world.

 

[sanj]

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.

It's beyond you how some people can decide for themselves how much DR they need?

This is simple. They go out in the field and take photos in all kind of light. Then they sit on the computer and make the best of it. At that point they want to 'fix' as many faults of the photo they can. Then several times they wish they could bring up the shadows a bit from dark areas without it looking grainy - like some other sensors allow. So so simple. At least to me.
No one I believe is asking for anything special. We are just pleading that Canon sensors come to par with other sensors. If 'others' can do it why not Canon? 'The system' logic does not work for me.

 

[sanj]

The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance.

Your demonstration is ineffective. Why? Because there are still shadows in your image, both in the foreground and at the distant treeline. The point of having a 6-stop lifting capability is so you can totally obliterate shadows from your images.

Not to worry, technology will eventually solve this problem for Canon users. No, I'm not suggesting they'll change their sensors, but rather we will soon have space flight and planoforming capability such that we will colonize planets with several suns, thus eliminating shadows effectively even for those poor fools still using Canon cameras.

hahahaha. NO. Sorry NO NO NO. Increase in DR is requested for situations when it may be required. Every photographer uses light and shadow.

 

[sanj]

Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.

DPR married DXO? Please.

dpreview have been measuring dynamic range and noise since their very first review.

All that they have done now they've just provided a new way for people to compare cameras that didn't exist before. Unfortunately for Canon, it is now easy to see how bad the sensor noise is in their images compared to others. Don't blame dpreview for this nor DxO - unless you are the type to shoot the messenger.

Why do DPR/DXO measure and emphasise DR at ISO 100 and not at 3200?
Simple.
They're looking to measure the best DR that the camera can deliver and this generally occurs at ISO 100.

And yes, more people take photos at ISO 100 - 800 than at ISO 1600 and above.

Maybe so. But I use ISO 1600 and above regularly. And I am interested in that. (Not to say I am not interested in lower ISO)

 

[sanj]

One has to wonder....

If Canon released a camera with a sensor having 16 stops of DR, would DXO, DPP and all the Exmorites champion the Canon sensor as they have the Sony? Would DXO rate the T7i sporting that sensor as superior to the Nikon D810 or D4S?

Would they flood the Camera gear Internet world with the same kind of vociferous enthusiasm promoting Canon and its superior sensor? Would there be all these articles, blogs, posts, tests of 6+ stop pushes at ISO 100? Would there be masses of whiners and complainers stating they can't lift a shadow on a D810 as well as the Canon, and begin tearing Nikon and Sony down as a company?

I think not...


I think they would change the subject to something else. I think they would start saying that 14 stops is plenty enough for what they need.

Notice how with the announcement of the 5DS, the megapixel bashing has stopped. Prior to the 5DS, Canon not only got bashed over low ISO DR, but for not having more than 22.3 megapixels. We all heard how superior Nikon/Sony is for having 36mp. Where are these megapixel braggers to come out of their caves and give credit and praise to Canon for making a huge leap over Nikon/Sony? *silence* *sound of crickets*

With 50mp, the Nikon trolls have abandoned that subject entirely. It vanished from the web. It will come back when Nikon/Sony release a sensor with as many or more megapixels. Until then, it is mighty quiet on that front.

Anyhow,

There is a degree of insincerity in the "DR is everything" crowd. Everyone wants more DR, and they do too. But that's not the whole story. There is a bit of Canon hate in there. It's not uncommon for people to want to tear down the big dog. Intel, Microsoft and other market leaders experience the same thing.

Possible. But personally I love using Canon gear and there is nothing in the market to compete with the 1dx. BUT I want the sensor tech to improve. And I am sure it will. They lagged behind for years with high resolution cameras where Canon God lovers said Nikon high MP cameras are rubbish. Canon has given us high MP, will give industry best DR as well. Hope soon, starting with 1dx2.

 

[sanj]

DR is measured on a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.
So yes, 2-stops is quite a big difference over 14-stops.
Not to worry, if the 1Dx Mk II ends up having class-leading DR, the spec will finally matter again. I cannot wait!

So, f/1.2 lenses are massively awesome, and f/2.8* lenses are practically useless. Good to know.


(*Yes, that difference is more than two stops. However, it was painfully and laboriously explained to me sometime back that when I round the DR of a Canon sensor up to 12 stops from 11.7, I am drastically under representing the true superiority of Exmor's 14-stops of pure awesomeness.)

Loaltd can you point me to where you said that please?

 

[sanj]

Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.

DPR married DXO? Please.

dpreview have been measuring dynamic range and noise since their very first review.

All that they have done now they've just provided a new way for people to compare cameras that didn't exist before. Unfortunately for Canon, it is now easy to see how bad the sensor noise is in their images compared to others. Don't blame dpreview for this nor DxO - unless you are the type to shoot the messenger.

Why do DPR/DXO measure and emphasise DR at ISO 100 and not at 3200?
Simple.
They're looking to measure the best DR that the camera can deliver and this generally occurs at ISO 100.

And yes, more people take photos at ISO 100 - 800 than at ISO 1600 and above.

Why does some one push ISO 100 by +5 stops and turn it into ISO 3200 image. If some one wants to take advantage of high DR at base ISO 100, they need to expose image properly right? How does underexposing is going to help in terms of capturing high DR. Just trying to understand.

I do not think that anyone wants to underexpose on purpose. But many time one wants to bring back details in blacks when bracketing or lighting was not possible (backlit scenes) subject in shadow etc etc.

 

[sanj]

I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.

Have you actually fallen so far?
Have you actually forgotten that all of these comments are in the context of a constant barrage of absurd statements implying that a camera is useless without 14 stops of DR?

I visit the forum whenever I can. I have never seen anyone say that a camera is useless without 14 stops DR. But I have seen people pointing out that Canon has lower DR than some other cameras and they should fix that. Something so wrong with that?

 

[jrista]

Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.

DPR married DXO? Please.

dpreview have been measuring dynamic range and noise since their very first review.

All that they have done now they've just provided a new way for people to compare cameras that didn't exist before. Unfortunately for Canon, it is now easy to see how bad the sensor noise is in their images compared to others. Don't blame dpreview for this nor DxO - unless you are the type to shoot the messenger.

Why do DPR/DXO measure and emphasise DR at ISO 100 and not at 3200?
Simple.
They're looking to measure the best DR that the camera can deliver and this generally occurs at ISO 100.

And yes, more people take photos at ISO 100 - 800 than at ISO 1600 and above.

Maybe so. But I use ISO 1600 and above regularly. And I am interested in that. (Not to say I am not interested in lower ISO)

I have actually tried to determine if there are actually any real statistics about such claims as the one by Dilbert that you higlighted in red. I used to think action photography at higher ISO was most likely to be the most common, but these days, it seems it's pretty evenly spread between nature, sports, and various people/portraiture, and rather evenly spanning a pretty wide range of ISO settings.

You can try to glean such information off of sites like 500px or flickr, but there is no way to just rank all photos by ISO. Bing and Google searches for photos by ISO and a wide variety of permutations of similar searches yield very little even related to photography at all, let alone any concrete or statistically valid information that ranks what ISO setting is used most by photographers. You can look through a dozen pages of landscape photos on 500px, and get the impression that ISO 100 and 200 are used most, but do the same thing with wildlife or sports photos, and you get the impression that ISO 800 or 1600 is used considerably more often. Try to figure out which ISO is used most often just by the top dozen or so pages of Popular is misleading, as those pages are often heavily weighted towards landscape and other nature photography.

In the end, we really don't know what ISO settings are used most often. We really don't know what kind of photography is done most often. Landscapes? Sports? Portraiture? There is no way to tell for sure, since I don't believe anyone has actually done a valid statistical analysis from a broad enough and diverse enough body of digital photography.

 

[sanj]

Being a passive CR user for a while, I just have to add my take on the DR debate now before I will return to passive mode again. Not that the debate wouldn't be hot enough already, but there are a few aspects that I can't remember being mentioned here.

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me. If some of you think that getting all the tonal values in a shot is only a matter of correct exposure, I can only assume that you have spent more time on this forum than outside in high contrast scenes. Of course, in many cases you can help yourself with bracketing. Then again I wonder how many people here have actually already done some exposure blending by hand. I am asking because without some advanced techniques such as the use of luminosity masks it is sometimes almost impossible to do perfect blends which really hold up in a big print. It is all a matter of technique (and time) to pull off some perfect exposure blending, I just want to say it is not at all as easy as many here make it sound.

I am mostly a landscape/cityscape photographer and started out with a Canon 6D, which I loved right from the very beginning. When the A7R came out, I felt obligated to test it but I really wanted to dislike the Sony body in order to to save myself some money.
When I looked at those A7R files, I was blown away by just how much better the overall image quality and the detail level was. Keeping that body was one of the best decisions I have made. I soon realized how limiting the Canon DR was for my shooting style and that bracketing simply was not necessary in many cases now. It gave me the freedom to do some advanced stuff such as long exposure panoramas and to return from Iceland with a couple of shots that I had not seen before. That freedom certainly is inspiring! I have printed (and sold) some of these images up to 150x61cm in absolutely astonishing quality. Trust me- doing this with any Canon body would have been virtually impossible (unless you tried to bracket long exposures but good luck merging images with cloud movement and spending all the sunset for a single final frame). Just to give you an idea of what I am talking about, you will find a long exposure panoramic image below. To have a look at similar stuff, feel free to visit my website.

I agree that for some photographic genres with very controlled lightning conditions DR is secondary and many casual shooters will be happy with what dynamic range they got out of their cameras.
Depending on your genre however, you will be faced with dramatic, high-contrast light and if you really try to break the boundaries (or save yourself a lot of pain) you just need the gear that enables you to handle those situations.
The A7R has opened some new creative possibilities for me. I would love a Canon 5dsr with comparable dynamic range and I would happily be back with Canon again- I am however not that optimistic.

I will now return to passive mode.
To some of you- please let other photographers decide for themselves what they actually require in a camera body and be glad that Canon DR suffices for your needs. There is no reason for undue sarcasm towards people who spend their time outside, know their gear and technique and still use all the DR they can get to eventually make for the most important final product- a high quality print.

Good light everyone.

Very good and TRUE points. WELL SAID. Nice photos and that makes me more biased towards your viewpoint because I respect your work. Besides we think exactly the same on the DR religion. (Btw The photo you posted of the waterfall looks tad oversaturated on my screen. And photo 'decision' shows oversharpning artifacts.) Good light to you too!

 

[sanj]

Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.

DPR married DXO? Please.

dpreview have been measuring dynamic range and noise since their very first review.

All that they have done now they've just provided a new way for people to compare cameras that didn't exist before. Unfortunately for Canon, it is now easy to see how bad the sensor noise is in their images compared to others. Don't blame dpreview for this nor DxO - unless you are the type to shoot the messenger.

Why do DPR/DXO measure and emphasise DR at ISO 100 and not at 3200?
Simple.
They're looking to measure the best DR that the camera can deliver and this generally occurs at ISO 100.

And yes, more people take photos at ISO 100 - 800 than at ISO 1600 and above.

Maybe so. But I use ISO 1600 and above regularly. And I am interested in that. (Not to say I am not interested in lower ISO)

I have actually tried to determine if there are actually any real statistics about such claims as the one by Dilbert that you higlighted in red. I used to think action photography at higher ISO was most likely to be the most common, but these days, it seems it's pretty evenly spread between nature, sports, and various people/portraiture, and rather evenly spanning a pretty wide range of ISO settings.

You can try to glean such information off of sites like 500px or flickr, but there is no way to just rank all photos by ISO. Bing and Google searches for photos by ISO and a wide variety of permutations of similar searches yield very little even related to photography at all, let alone any concrete or statistically valid information that ranks what ISO setting is used most by photographers. You can look through a dozen pages of landscape photos on 500px, and get the impression that ISO 100 and 200 are used most, but do the same thing with wildlife or sports photos, and you get the impression that ISO 800 or 1600 is used considerably more often. Try to figure out which ISO is used most often just by the top dozen or so pages of Popular is misleading, as those pages are often heavily weighted towards landscape and other nature photography.

In the end, we really don't know what ISO settings are used most often. We really don't know what kind of photography is done most often. Landscapes? Sports? Portraiture? There is no way to tell for sure, since I don't believe anyone has actually done a valid statistical analysis from a broad enough and diverse enough body of digital photography.

Each photographer would have a most used 'range'. Many who shoot just in studio rarely use anything except ISO 100. I shoot varied kind of stuff so use all ISO. But I think 800 is my most used ISO.

 

[sanj]

The following is from a poll on the DPR site:
Total voters: 1,505

That's about 0.01% of the dSLRs sold per year.

You don't have to poll everyone in order to get a statistically significant sample set.

This 'demonstrates' that DR is as important as AF and High ISO to a reasonable number of people. Which seems about right. I bet that these percentages will not change.

While improved DR performance at ISO 100 is not something worth turning down, DR captured by DSLR's at base ISO has for a long time exceeded the DR of current generation output medium, be that screen or paper. Making use of the expanded DR offered by Exmor sensors at base ISO either compensates for a shot taken where the metering system misses by a large margin, the photographer selects the wrong setting, or more usually to create the weird washed out HDR mush effect. While I can see the need for certain types of specialist photography (e.g. astro), it is certainly not a mainstream problem with photography.

I bet you if you show a selection of prints to a non-trained eye showing typical problems caused by lack of base ISO DR, high ISO noise, AF tracking issues, frame rate/buffer issues (resulting in missing the decisive moment) and resolution, the chances are missing the moment would be number one noticed problem (if its an action shot), focus issues would be number two, high ISO noise would be number three, and no-one would pick up on a typical lack of resolution or lack of DR if exposed correctly.

Keeping the lowest common denominator in mind is not the way I like to lead my life.

 

[Loswr]

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.

It's beyond you how some people can decide for themselves how much DR they need?

This is simple. They go out in the field and take photos in all kind of light. Then they sit on the computer and make the best of it. At that point they want to 'fix' as many faults of the photo they can. Then several times they wish they could bring up the shadows a bit from dark areas without it looking grainy - like some other sensors allow. So so simple. At least to me.
No one I believe is asking for anything special. We are just pleading that Canon sensors come to par with other sensors. If 'others' can do it why not Canon? 'The system' logic does not work for me.

I presume you mean on par in terms of low ISO DR, since Canon just exceeded all those 'others' in terms of MP. The question isn't why can't Canon, it's why should they? How many constitute this 'we' of which you speak? There seem to be some Nikon users asking for a D300s replacement...are they asking for something special? It's also 'so so simple'.

The 'system' logic has two components. One is that there are finite resources for R&D, so Canon must choose where to invest. The size of the 'we' matters for that. The other is simple reality - there are available products and systems with different features, you can make your own choice, but you can't buy something that doesn't exist. Neither component has to 'work for you'...they are just reality.

 

[sanj]

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.

It's beyond you how some people can decide for themselves how much DR they need?

This is simple. They go out in the field and take photos in all kind of light. Then they sit on the computer and make the best of it. At that point they want to 'fix' as many faults of the photo they can. Then several times they wish they could bring up the shadows a bit from dark areas without it looking grainy - like some other sensors allow. So so simple. At least to me.
No one I believe is asking for anything special. We are just pleading that Canon sensors come to par with other sensors. If 'others' can do it why not Canon? 'The system' logic does not work for me.

I presume you mean on par in terms of low ISO DR, since Canon just exceeded all those 'others' in terms of MP. The question isn't why can't Canon, it's why should they? How many constitute this 'we' of which you speak? There seem to be some Nikon users asking for a D300s replacement...are they asking for something special? It's also 'so so simple'.

The 'system' logic has two components. One is that there are finite resources for R&D, so Canon must choose where to invest. The size of the 'we' matters for that. The other is simple reality - there are available products and systems with different features, you can make your own choice, but you can't buy something that doesn't exist. Neither component has to 'work for you'...they are just reality.

Agree with most. It makes sense. What I do find odd is that for last 5 years Canon has not chosen, in their limited R&D resources, to fix the DR and banding of their sensors. You must be right, there are not enough 'we'. They obviously know the business better than others.

 

[bdunbar79]

I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well. Remember the 5D Mark II? To me that was a fairly revolutionary camera. A big complaint at the time was high ISO noise. And so Canon came through big with that one. It pretty much changed the game with regards to high ISO shooting. People didn't have to spend $8k on a 1Ds3 either. But then people complained about the AF system on the 5D2. So what did Canon do? They introduced the 5D3 which pretty much matched every spec of the 5D2 except with class-leading AF. It's like there is just not as big of a concern over low ISO DR because people in general don't notice that. They sure as heck notice high ISO noise, however. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.

 

[Sporgon]

I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well. Remember the 5D Mark II? To me that was a fairly revolutionary camera. A big complaint at the time was high ISO noise. And so Canon came through big with that one. It pretty much changed the game with regards to high ISO shooting. People didn't have to spend $8k on a 1Ds3 either. But then people complained about the AF system on the 5D2. So what did Canon do? They introduced the 5D3 which pretty much matched every spec of the 5D2 except with class-leading AF. It's like there is just not as big of a concern over low ISO DR because people in general don't notice that. They sure as heck notice high ISO noise, however. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.

Exactly. When you can shoot straight into the sun and still push shadows to a level that's greater than most people will ever want, it is hardly a priority compared with the other points you mention. There are of course, a few people who want to make this kind of shooting the foundation of their photography. Unfortunately they all seem to post here.

 

[Loswr]

Agree with most. It makes sense. What I do find odd is that for last 5 years Canon has not chosen, in their limited R&D resources, to fix the DR and banding of their sensors. You must be right, there are not enough 'we'. They obviously know the business better than others.

I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well.

I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.

Exactly the point. Canon does listen to their customers, but their responses are based on their own priority, namely to return value to shareholders. If they believe they need to do something to sell more cameras, they'll do it.

Some people seem to take it very personally when Canon doesn't incorporate a feature they personally want. It's just business.

If the 5Ds has <12 stops of DR and still sells strongly (as I expect it will), what message will that send to Canon?

 

[mkabi]

If the 5Ds has <12 stops of DR and still sells strongly (as I expect it will), what message will that send to Canon?

And, what if it doesn't sell well?
Can you always blame it on a shrinking market? Saturated market? Cell phones are invading?
Why is the M3 only selling in Europe and Asia?

 

[sanj]

Neuro u have mocked the supposed failure of d800 stating so many mp are redundant . Now y do u suppose 5ds will sell well?

Btw I will most likely buy 1.