70D and Dxomark....

[Aglet]

As for jumping ship, I think people tend to exaggerate how hard it is. In the past few years I've jumped ship from Nikon APS-C to Pentax APS-C to Canon FF, bought a second ship (Olympus) and toyed with a third (Nikon FF) before deciding against it after renting a couple. Each time I switched I sold all the previous equipment I had bought. Depending on whether I had bought it new or used I received less/more/the same as I had paid for it in the first place. I may have overall "lost" but I don't look at it that way - I think if it as the (not very high) price of using that equipment during the time I owned it and an extremely useful learning experience.

+1

Pentax, by the way, provided a rather good example of why DR isn't enough. I owned a K-5, with a K-x as back-up. At the time there seemed to be fairly wide agreement that the K-5 had the best sensor of any APS-C camera (the same Sony sensor as the D7000 but run by slightly better software), and it was a good camera in other ways too (esp. ergonomics). The dynamic range was simply astonishing - when I first bought it I would amuse myself by fooling around with deep shadows in DxO and LR, amazed by what it could reveal (not that the results were worth keeping...); and yes, there were a few times, mainly involving sharply contrasting light in the alleys of Lugano, when it proved useful. But the relative shortage of first rate lenses with fast, accurate focusing soon became old....

I've added Pentax gear to my kit over the last year. I really like the k52s, the thing will AF in near dark w-o assist light. And it likely still does have the best overall low ISO raw performance of any crop body... per-pixel anyway. and the high iso end is also very good.
But I agree, Pentax lenses are a different collection compared to the competition but I've managed to find some that work extremely well for me, tho only my body-driven primes focus super fast. Their SDM AF is kinda slow on my 16-50/2.8 and that's cost me a few shots.
Still, I use it because I love the images I get with it and the ergonomics and highly customizable interface. It's a very good photographic tool and has replaced my 60D + 15-85mm as my go-to rig. If they would bring out a fast lens with more range, like 15-85mm f/2.8-4.5, that'd be even better.

 

[David Hull]

All this really proves that even two of the best cameras currently made are each capable of producing suboptimal images when used incorrectly.

That statement implies that you don't know how to use a camera correctly actually .

Just about anyone who knew what they were doing (and was actually trying to make a good, low noise image as opposed to a bad, noisy one) could have done a good job on this scene using either of these cameras. The fact that this guy did not only speaks for his choice of technique not for the quality of the equipment. These shots were made with a deliberate bias to make a specific point. However, in most of these “examples” it turns out to be a moot point because (in almost every case), not only could the image be made with either camera but a dramatically better image could be made with either camera if that were your goal (that is assuming you know how to use your camera correctly ).

Based on the examples continually put up, the number of real images that actually demand application of a single shot technique with serious shadow lifting must be pretty few and far between (otherwise we would not be continually entertained with the junk we are always shown). In this particular case the guy went to Mono Lake and Yosemite and he shows a whole series of magnificent images shot with the Canon gear. Apparently he could not find a real world example in that usually very challenging environment where the Canon gear was not up to the task.

While this particular parameter provides plenty of fodder for the endless sabre rattling over which brand is superior to the other, in the real world of practical photography (save for a small number of specific applications executed over a pretty narrow range of the ISO capability of the equipment) it appears to be pretty much a nonstarter. I would guess that you could probably type out the screen names for everyone that has ever participated in these types of threads on one side of a single sheet of A size paper which is probably not enough to produce noticeable movement on the Canon/Nikon market share needle.

Incidentally, the example we are discussing has to do with pattern noise which has nothing whatsoever to do with the thing the DxO curve is reporting.

 

[Chosenbydestiny]

I love how people keep arguing over the sensors and how much more DR they actually need. These people aren't photographers, they're editors with cameras. Tons of DR is like a crutch for them. Wow, they screwed up their shots,, shouldn't that mean they have to live and learn from loss? Lazy. Such a worthless excuse for a petty argument.

 

[MichaelHodges]

I love how people keep arguing over the sensors and how much more DR they actually need. These people aren't photographers, they're editors with cameras. Tons of DR is like a crutch for them. Wow, they screwed up their shots,, shouldn't that mean they have to live and learn from loss? Lazy. Such a worthless excuse for a petty argument.

This really doesn't make any sense. Every good songwriter, author, or photographer is also a good editor. It's always been that way.

Also it's odd (IMHO) to excuse away technological advancement for the sake of technique. Why can't one attain both? Should we have puffed our chest at the implementation of auto-focus? Should we have held our noses at IS? After all, good technique can nullify those as well....

 

[mkabi]

Gosh threads like this is why i visit canonrumors less and less. I'd rather hang out at creativelive learning about what I CAN do with a camera and produce better images that I can SELL to my clients than hang out here saying I cant do this or cant do that with a camera. It amazes me how many professionals for decades have been using Canon and selling images from their inferior canon camera and make money hand over fist. Only photographers sit looking at their images 3 stop underexposed on the monitors at 200% looking for pattern noise at ISO 100. Get a freaking life, learn how to expose properly, and take some freaking pictures for God sake or sell your gear and jump to sony for all I care... Just stop this nonsense.

+1. We need to hang out...

 

[horshack]

Just about anyone who knew what they were doing (and was actually trying to make a good, low noise image as opposed to a bad, noisy one) could have done a good job on this scene using either of these cameras. The fact that this guy did not only speaks for his choice of technique not for the quality of the equipment. These shots were made with a deliberate bias to make a specific point. However, in most of these “examples” it turns out to be a moot point because (in almost every case), not only could the image be made with either camera but a dramatically better image could be made with either camera if that were your goal (that is assuming you know how to use your camera correctly ).

Based on the examples continually put up, the number of real images that actually demand application of a single shot technique with serious shadow lifting must be pretty few and far between (otherwise we would not be continually entertained with the junk we are always shown). In this particular case the guy went to Mono Lake and Yosemite and he shows a whole series of magnificent images shot with the Canon gear. Apparently he could not find a real world example in that usually very challenging environment where the Canon gear was not up to the task.

While this particular parameter provides plenty of fodder for the endless sabre rattling over which brand is superior to the other, in the real world of practical photography (save for a small number of specific applications executed over a pretty narrow range of the ISO capability of the equipment) it appears to be pretty much a nonstarter. I would guess that you could probably type out the screen names for everyone that has ever participated in these types of threads on one side of a single sheet of A size paper which is probably not enough to produce noticeable movement on the Canon/Nikon market share needle.

Incidentally, the example we are discussing has to do with pattern noise which has nothing whatsoever to do with the thing the DxO curve is reporting.

Hi Dave, nice to run into one of the other screen names that participates in these threads I would agree that nearly every High DR scene can be captured using techniques that don't require a High DR sensor. But one benefit of such sensor is workflow time savings. Here is a recent example where I shot a home interior for a friend for his real estate listing (using a D800). I wanted maximum IQ so I used two-shot blends for all the shots which had windows, to exhibit the woodsy setting outside his home. In this example it took me 20 minutes to manually blend the image, which I did in PS using layers and masks around the windows. For kicks I also performed the same exposure adjustment using a single image, which took me about 3 minutes. The latter has more noise than the two-shot blend but it's still perfectly usable even at the native 36MP resolution...and much more so at the resolutions the images were displayed at for the MLS listing. If you multiply this by 10 photos then the time savings can be significant...compared to either blends or interior strobe set ups.

Full 36MP Images:
Orig lower exposure image: http://horshack.smugmug.com/photos/i-pVMB6WN/0/O/i-pVMB6WN-O.jpg
Two-shot blend: http://horshack.smugmug.com/photos/i-VBVhdth/0/O/i-VBVhdth-O.jpg
One-shot HDR/shadow push: http://horshack.smugmug.com/photos/i-DGKLj57/0/O/i-DGKLj57-O.jpg

 

[awinphoto]

.. learn how to expose properly, and take some freaking pictures for God sake or sell your gear and jump to sony for all I care... Just stop this nonsense.

how do YOU "expose properly" for a scene that exceeds your Canon's DR?
Are you content to clip highlites and shadows and live with the out-of-camera tone curve for every shot?
If so, your advice may not register with the more artistic photographers.

Aglet Aglet Aglet ::Shakes head:: I expose the way I expose. I've been shooting professionally for the last 10 years and been shooting even longer... I look at a scene, look at what the meter tells me, and I either go with it or call it's bluff and compensate as i see fit. It's not rocket science. I get a shot, if it looks the way I want it to, great, if not, I compensate more. When it's exposed the way I want it, It's good. If you dont know how to expose, go, get off this forum, and start shooting.

As far as going into a scene with too much DR... what absolute non-sense... I've shot back in the days of 4x5 film, shot transparency, medium format, the early canon DSLRs which had what, 5 stops of DR? If a scene is too dark, brighten it, if you cant brigten it without over exposing something else, use flash, or even better off camera flash, or reflector or some other way to manipulate the light. Dear god son, this is photo 101, well maybe 102. This isn't hard. A real photographer doesn't blame his gear for not getting the shot. A real photographer knows what needs to be done, and makes the photo even better. As i've said before, a client NEVER has looked at my photos and said "it's a shame there wasn't more DR"... Hell, the average client doesn't even know what noise is. This is pure pixel peeping madness and it's disgusting.

 

[CR00]

If someone ever mention Dxomark in any threads, everytime someone have to mention Nikon. I thought this is 70D and Dxomark.... thread, it would be more useful to see how it compares to other Canon if you care about Dxomark. If you want to read, write or care about Nikon, you should go to Nikon Rumors forum and stay there.

 

[Loswr]

If you want to read, write or care about Nikon, you should go to Nikon Rumors forum and stay there.

That would totally defeat the purpose of being a DRoll Troll.

 

[Chosenbydestiny]

I love how people keep arguing over the sensors and how much more DR they actually need. These people aren't photographers, they're editors with cameras. Tons of DR is like a crutch for them. Wow, they screwed up their shots,, shouldn't that mean they have to live and learn from loss? Lazy. Such a worthless excuse for a petty argument.

This really doesn't make any sense. Every good songwriter, author, or photographer is also a good editor. It's always been that way.

Also it's odd (IMHO) to excuse away technological advancement for the sake of technique. Why can't one attain both? Should we have puffed our chest at the implementation of auto-focus? Should we have held our noses at IS? After all, good technique can nullify those as well....

Right, but you're supposed to be a photographer first and an editor second. DR doesn't help you when you're actually taking your shot, though it might give you peace of mind knowing the very basics of exposing an image is no longer relevant. At least for however many stops you can recover =P No one has to hold their noses with IS btw, apparently you no longer need the breathing technique to prevent motion blur.

 

[unfocused]

.. learn how to expose properly, and take some freaking pictures for God sake or sell your gear and jump to sony for all I care... Just stop this nonsense.

how do YOU "expose properly" for a scene that exceeds your Canon's DR?
Are you content to clip highlites and shadows and live with the out-of-camera tone curve for every shot?
If so, your advice may not register with the more artistic photographers.

Aglet Aglet Aglet ::Shakes head:: I expose the way I expose...Dear god son, this is photo 101, well maybe 102. This isn't hard...A real photographer knows what needs to be done, and makes the photo even better...This is pure pixel peeping madness and it's disgusting.

Awinphoto gets some positive Karma from me today (yeah...yeah...no more Karma. I know)

This is something I really don't get with the dynamic range fetishism. I LIKE images that go from pure black to pure white. Usually, I'm not trying to reproduce exactly what is in nature, I'm trying to interpret it and that often means eliminating extraneous detail in shadows and highlights. Photography is all about simplifying nature. I enjoy the challenge of taking the chaos of the real world and turning it into a simple, graphic statement.

What idiot looks at an Edward Weston image and screams: "Oh my God. This is terrible, he lost the shadow detail!"

 

[CR00]

If you want to read, write or care about Nikon, you should go to Nikon Rumors forum and stay there.

That would totally defeat the purpose of being a DRoll Troll.

I just went to the Nikonrumor site. Now I see why Nikon users troll here. Tthe Nikonrumor site is laid out just like Nikon cameras' Menu.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

If you want to read, write or care about Nikon, you should go to Nikon Rumors forum and stay there.

That would totally defeat the purpose of being a DRoll Troll.

I just went to the Nikonrumor site. Now I see why Nikon users troll here. Tthe Nikonrumor site is laid out just like Nikon cameras' Menu.

I visit Canonrumors and Nikonrumors at least twice a week ... I have to agree that Nikonrumors site sucks with its lazy and disorganised layout ... but I don't agree with you about Nikon camera's menu ... I shoot with both Canon & Nikon ... the menu layout problem is all in the mind and is solely the photographer's lack of experience with that particular camera, especially if one is primarily a Canon shooter who tries out a Nikon camera (or any other camera brand for that matter), I bet Nikon users will also make such uninformed comments about Canon camera menu system. Canon 70D or Nikon D7100, both are good in their intended use, just need some basic photographic vision and camera knowledge to make good photos. BTW I just had my hands on a 70D today morning (colleague of mine bought it from Hongkong) ... 70D feels better in hand than my D7100 ... I did not get a chance to make any photos with the 70D as we were in the office and did not have a canon lens at hand

 

[Rienzphotoz]

That would totally defeat the purpose of being a DRoll Troll.

BTW, Neuroanatomist I just noticed you have crossed 10000 mark ... impressive achievement ... CONGRATULATIONS! I like your new status "CR GEEK" 8) .. I was on a long vacation with limited time/access to the internet and haven't had a chance to visit Canonrumors as much as I used to ... hope to see many more of your usual helpful posts.

 

[msm]

...
how do YOU "expose properly" for a scene that exceeds your Canon's DR?
Are you content to clip highlites and shadows and live with the out-of-camera tone curve for every shot?
If so, your advice may not register with the more artistic photographers.

On my 1DX I just hit a couple of button and bracket, never failed me this far. Generally prefer the results I get from blending exposures over what I get from using sliders on 1 exposure too .

 

[David Hull]

Well, as innovative as the 70D's new dual-sensel pixels for continuous AF are, the overall signal to noise ratios, as reported by DxOmark, have changed very little. Hopefully there'll be less banding in dark shadow for those who need to push it but I thought I'd put together some animated gifs to compare the difference between the 70D and the 60D and then the 70D compared to the Nikon D5200.
I hope DxOmark will allow this editorial use of their material here. If not, it can be removed easily enough.
I find the complete SNR graphs are more useful to see where the low ISO deep shadow SNR limits are and what the highlite end shows for difference, which combined can help indicate DR and more. Switching between them is a useful way to quickly see the differences.

One take away from all of this though is that somehow they managed to double the number of pixels and add a significantly useful feature (the Dual Pixel AF) without breaking anything. Of course it doesn't look like they made any significant improvement in the low end noise either -- oh well. However, I think the jury is still out until we get a look at the back of a lens cap (or something similar) to see what the pattern noise looks like. I am very curious if any improvement has been made in that area.

 

[aj1575]

I have to say, I was also a bit disappointed by the DXOMark. But actually I start to question the real world connection of their marks. I was looking at the sample shoots of the 70D at dpReview with their nice tool they have. My impression was that the 70D is quite good at high ISO, even beating the D600 in some areas when using JPEGs. The D600 which should actually be better than the 6D (according to DXO), but at high ISO the pictures look either the same (RAW) or the 6D is better (JPEG).
At first I didn't see much difference at low ISO, until somebody pointed out some parts of dark color cards. There you can see the advantage of Nikon at low ISO. The Canons have some nasty noise in some colors, even at low ISO. But they represent only a small part of the whole picture, the rest looks almost the same for both. At high ISO the Canon files look either the same (RAW) or better (JPEG).

Also interesting, check out the Fujifilm X-Pro1; this sensor rocks! It easely keeps up with all the FF sensors from Canon and Nikon. Sadly there is no test planned for this camera at DXO, this would be interesting to see.


I suggest we make a blind test for IQ of Canon and Nikon (and others). Select some areas of the preview comparison tool, and take the pictures from different cameras and rank them according to the IQ. This could settle the IQ war for a while. The problem is, that one could select areas that suit one of the two better than the other, but it should be possible to make a fair comparison.
I suggest 4 samples of one area at a certain ISO from 4 different Cameras at either RAW or JPEG. Then I would take maybe 6 areas. The cameras can be different in the other areas, but can also be the same. The order of the pictures from one area should be random. For each area the pictures can be put in the order according to their quality. This should give a good idea about IQ of the different sensors.

What do you think?

 

[Joe M]

Canon just does not seem to be able to break that 11 point DR. If only their customers make fuss about it... but Canon customers are not demanding sensor quality and Canon is gladly shipping out decade old technology.

If you click on "print", you'll see the DR of the camera breaks the 11 point mark. Then again, this only matters if you find DXO to be your grail for all things photographic.

That said, though I used to have a pair of 7Ds, I've left the crop world behind so I'm mostly interested in the performance improvements as an indication of where Canon may or may not be going in the future. There sure seems to have been some peaking of late.

 

[horshack]

I have to say, I was also a bit disappointed by the DXOMark. But actually I start to question the real world connection of their marks. I was looking at the sample shoots of the 70D at dpReview with their nice tool they have. My impression was that the 70D is quite good at high ISO, even beating the D600 in some areas when using JPEGs. The D600 which should actually be better than the 6D (according to DXO), but at high ISO the pictures look either the same (RAW) or the 6D is better (JPEG).
At first I didn't see much difference at low ISO, until somebody pointed out some parts of dark color cards. There you can see the advantage of Nikon at low ISO. The Canons have some nasty noise in some colors, even at low ISO. But they represent only a small part of the whole picture, the rest looks almost the same for both. At high ISO the Canon files look either the same (RAW) or better (JPEG).

Also interesting, check out the Fujifilm X-Pro1; this sensor rocks! It easely keeps up with all the FF sensors from Canon and Nikon. Sadly there is no test planned for this camera at DXO, this would be interesting to see.


I suggest we make a blind test for IQ of Canon and Nikon (and others). Select some areas of the preview comparison tool, and take the pictures from different cameras and rank them according to the IQ. This could settle the IQ war for a while. The problem is, that one could select areas that suit one of the two better than the other, but it should be possible to make a fair comparison.
I suggest 4 samples of one area at a certain ISO from 4 different Cameras at either RAW or JPEG. Then I would take maybe 6 areas. The cameras can be different in the other areas, but can also be the same. The order of the pictures from one area should be random. For each area the pictures can be put in the order according to their quality. This should give a good idea about IQ of the different sensors.

What do you think?

dpreview doesn't match lighting/exposure between cameras, which makes their comparisons unsuitable, esp. since the High ISO differences between modern sensors are approaching margins of erroor. The Fuji has a good sensor but it's only about equal to other APS-C sensors - it appears better than that due to a lower nominal ISO rating (requires a slower shutter speed to achieve the same exposure as a Canikon sensor). I did a controlled comparison of the Fuji here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1223542/0

 

[mountain_drew]

I suggest we make a blind test for IQ of Canon and Nikon (and others). Select some areas of the preview comparison tool, and take the pictures from different cameras and rank them according to the IQ. This could settle the IQ war for a while. The problem is, that one could select areas that suit one of the two better than the other, but it should be possible to make a fair comparison.
I suggest 4 samples of one area at a certain ISO from 4 different Cameras at either RAW or JPEG. Then I would take maybe 6 areas. The cameras can be different in the other areas, but can also be the same. The order of the pictures from one area should be random. For each area the pictures can be put in the order according to their quality. This should give a good idea about IQ of the different sensors.

What do you think?

I think it'd be nice. The only way to compare cameras is to compare apples to apples. DXOmark is probably not perfect, but at least everything is measured objectively and in the exact same environment across cameras, making comparisons easy.

Real world samples would be even better, but rarely will people take pictures in the exact same situation with two different brands of camera.

I found few of those:

http://newzealandphotographer.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/nikon-d800e-vs-canon-5dmkii-landscape-photography-comparison-updated/
http://www.oopoomoo.com/2012/03/personal-style-is-your-camera-determining-yours/