70D and Dxomark....

[Sporgon]

No, Pi's been told that someone left a Nikon on the beach and he's looking for it.

 

[Famateur]

Dear CR Moderators:

This thread should be sufficient evidence that discussions about dynamic range and other sensor performance topics will likely devolve into endless and pointless back-and-forth arguing. While I support the idea of people being free to engage in it, perhaps we could find a way of accommodating it with a little more discretion.

Here are some ideas:

1.) On topics like these, we simply lock the thread once the topic has been sufficiently beaten to death (or has been beaten to death in previous threads).

2.) We create a "Bickering" section of the forum in which discussions like this can be initiated and labored to the satisfaction of all participating (or to which threads that take on such characteristics can be moved). Threads from such discussions would be excluded from the website's home page list of recent topics.

I kinda like option 2 best. It makes it clear to those who don't (or do) want to read/engage-in bickering threads that that's what they're getting when they enter. Excluding it from the recent topics on the home page might help avoid "feeding the trolls", as it were, and prevent the unsuspecting from stumbling onto such drivel.

What do you think?

Other ideas?

 

[Loswr]

No, that would be not acknowledging that Sony/Nikon sensors have more DR than Canon, and that's not what's going on here. The issue is that for some people, it's a problem and for others, it's not. Your examples suggest it's a problem for you. Guess what? There's a solution - as they say, put up or shut up, and start using one of the cameras from 'every other brand of 35mm or APS-C sensors'.

For the people who don't find the less DR to be a problem, or not enough of a problem to outweigh the advantages for them, nothing you, Mikael, Aglet, LTRLI, or others post here will change that. For people who do find the less DR to be a problem, they don't need more convincing, and in many cases they've switched to or added Nikon bodies to their kit.

So really, you are just

I suggest you head on over to Nikonrumors Forum, where your DRoning will be met with agreement and camaraderie. Since I suspect you'll quickly grow bored, given the discussion above I suggest you start posting lots of examples, in every thread you can, about how the most recent versions of two very popular fast zooms - the 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 VR, are better from Canon than from Nikon. Have fun...

 

[Famateur]

No, Pi's been told that someone left a Nikon on the beach and he's looking for it.

Laughed so hard my sides are still hurting! Thanks! ;D

 

[Pi]

LOL...seriously? That's your conclusion to people who see the futility of this silly argument?

As serious as a dead horse.

You still haven't responded (unless I lost it in the ever-growing volume of pages to this thread -- or was it the other thread?) to my comment and others' comments acknowledging the DR and noise superiority at certain ISO levels of Sony/Nikon sensors. Does your continual ignoring of the fact that for many (most?) photographers DR and noise at certain ISO levels isn't their highest priority mean your head is in the sand?

Yours (and others) continuing ignoring the fact that I said that it is not a main concern, and it affects a small percentage of my images (but I still consider this to be a problem), that I am fine if somebody does not consider it to be a problem (my response to zlatko), is astonishing. This thread has never been about whether it is/should be a priority, stop changing the topic. It is about the people denying the problem in the first place; ridiculing those who think, rightly or wrongly, that it is a priority; keep repeating that this is for people who do not know what they are doing, closed cap shooters, black hole shooters (a good one, BTW), those whose flash did not fire, repeating the 4 stop nonsense, then involving Ansel Adams, teaching me how to pp, etc.

Let it go already...

Why didn't you?

 

[Aglet]

What ISO were these outdoor crowd shots taken at?

ISO 100.

Why?

Photographically (is there such a word!) no matter what camera I was using I wouldn’t have used 100 for that type of picture, what’s the advantage?

In the case of Canon's stripey noise, when practical, one of the work-arounds to reducing the pattern noise is to use higher ISO. Then the greater incidence of random noise can be used to obscure FPN to some extent and NR software can actually do a decent job of recovery.
No, not what you want to hear but that's a method I used sometimes while I had my PoS 5d2.
But,if you look at the DR curves for Canon's sensors, you'll see that total DR is pretty flat from 100 to 800+ on most models and only the SNR drops.
The real solution, other than waiting for Canon to improve their sensor tech, is to change or add other gear to your kit.
I've spent a pile on Nikon and Pentax and have nuthin to gripe about now unless I go back and look at the lousy raw files from my 5d2, 7d or occasionally my 60d.
You're also wasting your efforts trying to convince any of the fanboys here that they should expect more from their Canon gear; they're content to learn to live with the limitations.
Some of us expect better and hope Canon will deliver, they still do make enjoyable gear to use and great lenses..(for the most part)
6D and now the 70D are on track for improving IQ in these areas. The future may be better.

 

[Alrik89]

But,if you look at the DR curves for Canon's sensors, you'll see that total DR is pretty flat from 100 to 800+ on most models and only the SNR drops.


Some of us expect better and hope Canon will deliver, ....

Yeah, all that "curves" guys hope, Canon will deliver some day.
Curves are all that matter!

 

[unfocused]

Wow! 24 pages of comments and no one has added much in the way of constructive comment since Page 2, when LetTheRightLensIn actually tried to explain the numbers and their impact.

Pretty much everything else has been school yard taunts back and forth.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

What ISO were these outdoor crowd shots taken at?

ISO 100.
[quote author=zlatko]
Perhaps a case of unrealistic expectations. Those aren't just highlights. They are direct light sources. When I photograph people in a dark setting at night, I don't expect to hold nice detail in the lightbulbs that light the scene.

It is not about highlights. It is about the DR starting from the clip point to the noise floor. The Sony sensors can detect marginally more photons (on a log scale). For all practical purposes, more or less the same. The difference comes from the noise floor. Having lower noise allows you to expose for the highlights and still have decent shadows. The shadows here, pulled in pp, are plain ugly. Vertical banding is everywhere, plus random noise. There is nothing unrealistic about expecting no visible vertical banding, at least. The 70D seems to be free of it but still has the strong random read noise. Oh, I almost forgot - every other brand has about 2 stops lower read noise.

It's not about the highlights? Of course it is ... and the shadows too. The highlights and shadows are two ends of the same ruler. If you expose for one, you lose the other. If you expose for both, you get a sub-optimal exposure for both. So you got noisy shadows and blown highlights. Ansel Adams had the same issue in the Martha Porter portrait; he chose to expose for the shadows and totally blew the highlights. He didn't blame Kodak for their limited DR film (or for his own lack of a reflector or flash).

[/quote]

What he means is that the clip point is the clip point, that is always fixed goal, you expose as much as you can without blowing and bright parts that you want to save (sometimes you do want to blow some of the bright parts, certainly if the noon sun is in the shot you are not going to be trying to expose the scene so as to save the highlights in the sun's orb ;D well unless the shot was a sun shot only and you were trying to show sun spots or eclipse or something but you know what I mean), so all that matters for DR is the read noise.

The max wells are not that different between the cameras for the most part and even the color filters usually don't affect it to much so any difference in saving highights you see is nothing more than how the meter in the camera works and where the manufacturer suggests RAW develop programs place the mid-tone, but those have nothing to do with what the sensor did or what is contained in the RAW file. All of the main DSLR use basically the same single channel type linear sensor so there really is no such thing as one brand saving highlights noticeably better than another (maybe under weird lighting and with a particular color subject the color filters may blown different channels enough in different orders between different cameras you could encounter some difference). It's more if you were to compare a regular digital camera to the old Fuji teo pixel type design or to film, which has a very non-linear capture, where the way highlights roll off might seem noticeably different.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

[quote author=Jim O]
And neither did we mere mortals complain when we shot with Velvia in the 1990's. It was what it was.

The Fuji shooters do not complain about the DR of the Fuji cameras today either, which is what it is - much higher than Canon.

And this has what to do with my point which was that DR is not everything? That was my point. It had nothing to do with Fuji sensors. How did you tangent off from Fuji color reversal film from the 1990's and onto Fuji sensors of today? I know why I brought up Velvia; again, it was to make the point that making beautiful images can be done with the rather narrow DR of color reversal film.
[/quote]

Of course it can (be used to make beautiful images within narrow DR limits of slide or even color print film). As I said you can use a 5D3 to take a basically infinite number of amazing shots where it would work fine. I used Velvia in the past at times and it could be totally awesome for some things, lush meadow on Rainier with flowers in bloom and soft overcast lighting, man the greens of the fields! But all the same with less DR are more limited the number of different types of things you can pull off. People used to constantly rue how hard it was to try to shoot in sunbeam lit forests back then and how stuff like K64 if you tried really made it impossible.

Nobody is saying that you have to toss your Canon on the ground, kick, toss it into a mud pile and then off the roof or that there are not pluses to the system but some people sure would like them to catch up in DR before it ends up being over a decade and who knows how much longer. They have fallen way behind there and they haven't show much desire to want to invest in using new fabs for their DSLRs even while everyone was willing to spend to do so. Some people only make use of it once in a blue moon but other good likely make use of it on at least a semi-regular basis. I'll bet even a few of the strongest naysayers who say that it's totally overblown and would barely make any difference ever and even a few who claim that more DR would make the camera worse (and yes there have been some, one of the biggest posters on DPR for instance) will suddenly end most glad they have it when/if they finally get extra DR.

Not that it is the only thing or the end of the world by any remotest means, but it can be a very nice thing, certain for a good chunk of people if not everyone.

And yes 5D3 video with ML is astoundingly better than the video from any Nikon or Sony DSLR. Just to randomly toss something in there. After the ML RAW release the 5D3 became a true revelation for video as the 5D2 had been. It's an incredibly awesome thing.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

So I was looking at some resolution charts for lenses yesterday.

Man the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR 2 sucks, like, those corners are terrible. To think that Nikon shooters have been wasting their lives with glass like that for so many years, almost half a decade now, sheesh, and it's so obvious too. It's like they've all got their head in the sand or something. I mean, obviously whatever talent you have is being severely limited if you use that system.

yes, the 70-200/2,8 VR2 is not the best regarding corners and together with a 24x36mm sensor, it is like a lot of lenses soft, and compared with for example Canon 70-200mk2 is the canon is much better
Now , it is not the only lens Nikon has, like Canon they have several and with better corner sharpness

Not the 24-70 2.8 though or 70-300 either.

Eventually if it really finally seems like Canon truly will never bother with more DR for another decade or two, I will switch, but I'd rather not if I don't have to. I'm starting to almost feel like it might be another decade for them or more. If the next round doesn't do anything for DR I wont buy it and will probably stop moving up in lenses, perhaps even dabble with a single lens and a Nikon as a second body and hope there is some sign the 5D5 round will do it, if it looks like not then I might finally switch over (keeping 5D3 and a simple lens or two for video if Nikon hasn't gotten anything going for video by then).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

No, that would be not acknowledging that Sony/Nikon sensors have more DR than Canon, and that's not what's going on here.

Actually one of more frequent posters to thread dealing with DR on DPR does deny the DR advantage. He more less says DxO is ultra-biased against Canon and that more DR actually makes image quality worse and that Canon should never, ever try to match Exmor. He didn't use to say that when Canon was ahead. But now in defense of that, he seem to claim that Canon has not improved DR for a while because they known they are at the perfect magical limit and they are not so foolish as to go beyond it like Nikon and others so as to avoid ruining image quality.

Granted DPR is not, strictly speaking, here.

But even here how often do you see a post, even from yourself, tossing off getting more DR as nothing but useful for incompetents who like to shoot everything underexposed by 5 stops/who don't know to work a camera/who want to shoot awnings at 10 stops under for no apparent reason/that even DxO's plots are a pure crock and so on and so forth?

For the people who don't find the less DR to be a problem, or not enough of a problem to outweigh the advantages for them, nothing you, Mikael, Aglet, LTRLI, or others post here will change that.

One could also say, if you don't care about DR why jump all over any thread where someone points out Canon is way behind in DR again with a new sensor? If it doesn't matter to you, then who cares? People pointed out a fact that doesn't matter to you so why do you care then and jump all over every such thread? OK if you do but then you also turn around and complain the threads go on forever.

 

[Jim O]

Wow. As promised, I took a drive to nowhere in particular but sadly the weather wasn't great and I wasn't all that inspired. Came home and took a nice nap.

Came back here find the level of discourse had gotten one or more notches more inane, sadly.

So here's my tit for your tat.

And with that, I am done with this thread, lest I risk becoming a victim of my own signature. Peace out.

 

[Famateur]

And with that, I am done with this thread, lest I risk becoming a victim of my own signature. Peace out.

LOL...Ditto.

I might even go and...(gasp)...take a photo or two, and...(gasp)...enjoy it!

 

[duydaniel]

Can you people sit down and have peace?

 

[Loswr]

Actually one of more frequent posters to thread dealing with DR on DPR does deny the DR advantage.

Granted DPR is not, strictly speaking, here.

I don't post in the DPR forums, and read threads there only in the course of Google searches for information. Occasionally (rarely might be more accurate), I find useful info there.

I might even go and...(gasp)...take a photo or two, and...(gasp)...enjoy it!

I tried that, but the fact that I have only 11 stops of DR just sucked the joy right out of it. :

 

[ahab1372]

I might even go and...(gasp)...take a photo or two, and...(gasp)...enjoy it!

I tried that, but the fact that I have only 11 stops of DR just sucked the joy right out of it. :

I usually drive to the coast here which tends to be foggy. Even a Canon can handle that reduced DR. You should try it one day

 

[Loswr]

I might even go and...(gasp)...take a photo or two, and...(gasp)...enjoy it!

I tried that, but the fact that I have only 11 stops of DR just sucked the joy right out of it. :

I usually drive to the coast here which tends to be foggy. Even a Canon can handle that reduced DR. You should try it one day

So, you're saying I shouldn't have tried to take a picture from inside a pitch black tunnel and capture the graffiti sprayed on the black walls with black paint and in the same shot capture the kids' white chalk drawings on the white sidewalk in full sun just outside the tunnel? Was that where I went wrong? I bet a D7100 could have done it, though, right? Sadly, I'm stuck with this PoS, poor dynamic range 1D X. As the actor-turned-Mayor-of-Carmel once said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

 

[Don Haines]

Sticking your head in the sand is very dangerous in this forum.... there may be dangers lurking on the beach....

 

[Famateur]

I might even go and...(gasp)...take a photo or two, and...(gasp)...enjoy it!

I tried that, but the fact that I have only 11 stops of DR just sucked the joy right out of it. :

Yeah, I've been feeling a little deflated, too, now that I've learned I can't really take photos of much more than pigeons on a concrete overpass on an overcast day. Maybe there's a local support group that can help...