Canon 5D Mark IV brings dramatic dynamic range improvements to the 5D line

[LetTheRightLensIn]

DPreviews
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3229755227/canon-5d-mark-iv-brings-dramatic-dynamic-range-improvements-to-the-5d-line

But, still not good enough. Nikon and Sony ahead.......

Still not good enough?...if this is a horse race with only one winner. Since the differences are practically negligible - and probably not noticeable in real life shooting - it is PLENTY good enough. Let's give Canon some kudos instead of the usual mindless criticism.

set all to ISO100 +6 and pan around to darker areas of the image and it looks almost a stop worse than A7R II and the difference is plenty noticeable and since stuff like A7R II only just offers enough DR to get away with single shot HDR in many natural real world conditions not sure the 5D4 will quite cut, much improved but maybe jsut shy of really pulling lots of real world stuff in single shot

ALTHOUGH.... if the stuff Iliah Borg says on DPR is true, and you can somehow use the dualpixel raw file to extract and extra stop of highlights, suddenly the camera would offer very good DR, plenty good (at the cost of 50% wasted storage space, but whatever, especially since you should be able to combine it into a new RAW file with 1 extra stop and same storage space as usual, so it would only clog the camera buffer and CF storage a bit, but that's not nearly as big of a deal, especially not the buffer). It seems a little hard to believe it should be able to work as claimed, but if so.... so long as you shoot dualpixel RAW this thing finally could deliver state of the art DR that also happens to be enough to truly make a difference real world.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

DPreviews
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3229755227/canon-5d-mark-iv-brings-dramatic-dynamic-range-improvements-to-the-5d-line

But, still not good enough. Nikon and Sony ahead.......

Yes it means you can push your new 5D4 images so that they have only 3200 iso noise in the pushed 4/5 stop shadow areas, while the rest of the image has clean iso 100 noise levels. It's still not acceptable to a landscape photographer, regardless of how good the camera's sensor.




This is NOT dynamic range, but shadow pulling...which is the same as extracting high iso shadows (iso Invariance). True high Dynamic range is where the an image can be shot at 100 iso and captures all of the shadow and highlights in one frame and doesn't resort to iso pulling.

Huh????

These are basically linear sensors.

Shadow pulling isn't shadow pulling it's just applying a certain tone curve and not crushing blacks down artificially.

Nothing about your comment makes any technical sense.

 

[Memdroid]

If I owned a 5DS line camera,I would want to see it updated real soon now.

Have you ever used/owned a 5DS? If you did you would've found out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the camera. In fact it is better than the 5D3 in almost everything. The IQ/colors is tremendous and the noise cleans up better than my 1DX (I). So no, I wouldn't want it updated really soon. It is a fine camera as is for the things it is supposed to do.

 

[Aglet]

DPreviews
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3229755227/canon-5d-mark-iv-brings-dramatic-dynamic-range-improvements-to-the-5d-line

But, still not good enough. Nikon and Sony ahead.......

Yes it means you can push your new 5D4 images so that they have only 3200 iso noise in the pushed 4/5 stop shadow areas, while the rest of the image has clean iso 100 noise levels. It's still not acceptable to a landscape photographer, regardless of how good the camera's sensor.




This is NOT dynamic range, but shadow pulling...which is the same as extracting high iso shadows (iso Invariance). True high Dynamic range is where the an image can be shot at 100 iso and captures all of the shadow and highlights in one frame and doesn't resort to iso pulling.

Huh????

These are basically linear sensors.

Shadow pulling isn't shadow pulling it's just applying a certain tone curve and not crushing blacks down artificially.

Nothing about your comment makes any technical sense.

+1, I was about to suggest someone was short a cup of coffee or up a couple pints of ale when then made that comment.

 

[hendrik-sg]

This Data on dpreview are really great noise.

the one who really is interested in, can compare now the data for the 5d4. As the review is not finished yet, go to the review of the 1dx2 and compare "iso invariance". There the 5d4 results are available.

for my uneducated eyes the camera is as good as a Nikon d810 and as good as the 1dx2, despite the much higher pixel count. My personal summary is, that this is the (canon) camera with the best image quality now, leaving the 5ds(r) in the dust.

The iso invariance is really important for me, because it allows to "rise" the iso in post without blowing the highlights. This will preserve sky blue in otherwise shaded landscapes or arfiticial lights in night shots.

I am excited, waiting for the price to come little bit down

 

[docsmith]

To be honest, I found the commentary to be balanced and honest, within the parameters of how he tested the 5Div.

Although he states Canon is still behind Sony and Nikon, he states the gap has closed significantly, to the point of near irrelevance.

I'll personally take this as a win for Canon.

....
but the "get it right in camera" argument still holds. Granted, the latitude for high DR scenes would be nice.....

This.

Perhaps different to the AF argument, is that much of the DR argument can be attributed to how a photographer sets up his shot. There is very little than can be done when the actual AF mechanics are unable to produce but relying on sensor 'magic' to fix what should've been done correctly in setup, is nonsensical.

I'm hoping the new AF microadjustment feature doesn't spawn similar conversations through the coming years

It is striking how many of the "advances" are trending toward being able to "recover" a blown shot.

Coming soon, mind-reading AF, frame grabs from 120 fps 8K video, lytro like focus point adjustment, and 20 stops of DR/color recovery all designed to shoot in one mode. All to be output into an 8-bit jpeg file

 

[LordofTackle]

for my uneducated eyes the camera is as good as a Nikon d810 and as good as the 1dx2, despite the much higher pixel count. My personal summary is, that this is the (canon) camera with the best image quality now, leaving the 5ds(r) in the dust.

If that is truly the case maybe Canon opts to update the 5Ds(R) sooner, rather than later...

 

[Sporgon]

Its interesting how the ability to recover highlights, or at least the useable highlight headroom is never tested or discussed.

 

[GMCPhotographics]

Its interesting how the ability to recover highlights, or at least the useable highlight headroom is never tested or discussed.

Yes...that's because most discussions about DR are really about shadow pull using iso invariance. True high DR would allow us to recover highlights and shadows with the same levels of iso noise as the image was shot with and have a contrast scale beyond the legacy CCD capability of 8.4 stops. It's similar to slide film in it's DR, but way below the capabilities of negative print film's 14 stops of DR. The current fad with shadow recovery has little to do with DR. In the current Nikon and Sony sensors, yes you can pull shadows on a 100 iso image from apparent blackness to 5 stops of mid tones. But the equivalent iso noise is still 5 stops over the base iso 100. That's going to be iso 3200 noise in the shadows > new mid tones. That's really too high and it's not true HDR, it's just pulling noisy shadows using an iso trick. Some cameras do the same trick to make up their different iso values. Often 100 / 400/ 1600 iso values are native and all the other settings are based on one of these iso values and then the camera pulls the difference from pulling the exposure by a stop or two.

 

[sebasan]

DPreviews
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3229755227/canon-5d-mark-iv-brings-dramatic-dynamic-range-improvements-to-the-5d-line

But, still not good enough. Nikon and Sony ahead.......

Yes it means you can push your new 5D4 images so that they have only 3200 iso noise in the pushed 4/5 stop shadow areas, while the rest of the image has clean iso 100 noise levels. It's still not acceptable to a landscape photographer, regardless of how good the camera's sensor. This is NOT dynamic range, but shadow pulling...which is the same as extracting high iso shadows (iso Invariance). True high Dynamic range is where the an image can be shot at 100 iso and captures all of the shadow and highlights in one frame and doesn't resort to iso pulling.

I always think on that. I think that your approach is not incorrect, and what technology should point.
Human eyes can see 20 stops aprox. The sensors are really far from that.

 

[scyrene]

If I owned a 5DS line camera,I would want to see it updated real soon now.

I dunno. I use that as my primary camera now. I don't mind them not updating it any time soon, I'm more likely to consider trading in for the 5D4 if and when the price comes down a bit. I don't expect a 5Ds update to do everything the 5D4 does, unless the price is even higher.

 

[scyrene]

set all to ISO100 +6 and pan around to darker areas of the image and it looks almost a stop worse than A7R II and the difference is plenty noticeable and since stuff like A7R II only just offers enough DR to get away with single shot HDR in many natural real world conditions not sure the 5D4 will quite cut, much improved but maybe jsut shy of really pulling lots of real world stuff in single shot

Wait, you're saying that real world shooting has an arbitrary cutoff where +5 stops shadow lift is of no benefit, but +6 is? That's one of the more perplexing statements I've seen round here recently.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Sometimes I wonder if Canon doesn't deliberately keep things subdued so that all the negative hype gets cleared out up front and then the reality of a good solid performance rises up out of that perspective and Canon gets the last laugh. I never though much about this until the D5 bragging about such high ISO settings.

When I stumbled upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqrvKdckys

I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. What morons would go to this guy for any advice on anything. ;D

Jack

 

[Maiaibing]

As expected. Canon promised and delivered the top three improvements 5DIII users most wanted for the 5DIV: More MPIX, better AF, more DR.

Looks like they did a great job on all three key user demands so this should be good news for a lot of people out there.

I'm still not ready to get a 5DIV myself. 2 stops of noise over the 5DIII would have been much more important to me. Now if only the 6DII sensor will be even better just as the 6D sensor beat the 5DIII sensor...

(Its a little funny how DPR in one step went from being seen as evil stepmother of Canon to now being the oracle of Canon's DR triumpf for certain forum members - oh well...)

 

[romanr74]

Sometimes I wonder if Canon doesn't deliberately keep things subdued so that all the negative hype gets cleared out up front and then the reality of a good solid performance rises up out of that perspective and Canon gets the last laugh. I never though much about this until the D5 bragging about such high ISO settings.

When I stumbled upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqrvKdckys

I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. What morons would go to this guy for any advice on anything. ;D

Jack

Toyota is (one of) the car manufacturers with the highest customer satisfaction for decades now. If you compare a Toyota to other manufacturer's cars, the technology is YEARS BEHIND. However, the tech works and is reliable. Customers are not let down. They get something that delivers to the promise.

 

[Maiaibing]

Sometimes I wonder if Canon doesn't deliberately keep things subdued so that all the negative hype gets cleared out up front and then the reality of a good solid performance rises up out of that perspective and Canon gets the last laugh. I never though much about this until the D5 bragging about such high ISO settings.

When I stumbled upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqrvKdckys

I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. What morons would go to this guy for any advice on anything. ;D

Jack

Toyota is (one of) the car manufacturers with the highest customer satisfaction for decades now. If you compare a Toyota to other manufacturer's cars, the technology is YEARS BEHIND. However, the tech works and is reliable. Customers are not let down. The get something that delivers to the promise.

Worked directly with their CEO for a while so absolutely biased - but seriously, Toyota tech is not behind anyone out there.

 

[romanr74]

Sometimes I wonder if Canon doesn't deliberately keep things subdued so that all the negative hype gets cleared out up front and then the reality of a good solid performance rises up out of that perspective and Canon gets the last laugh. I never though much about this until the D5 bragging about such high ISO settings.

When I stumbled upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqrvKdckys

I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. What morons would go to this guy for any advice on anything. ;D

Jack

Toyota is (one of) the car manufacturers with the highest customer satisfaction for decades now. If you compare a Toyota to other manufacturer's cars, the technology is YEARS BEHIND. However, the tech works and is reliable. Customers are not let down. The get something that delivers to the promise.

Worked directly with their CEO for a while so absolutely biased - but seriously, Toyota tech is not behind anyone out there.

It is big time. I own one of these. And I owned a few of the others. Toyota is year's behind with fancy features... (at least in Europe vs some European manufacturers).

 

[Aglet]

Its interesting how the ability to recover highlights, or at least the useable highlight headroom is never tested or discussed.

Yes...that's because most discussions about DR are really about shadow pull using iso invariance. True high DR would allow us to recover highlights and shadows with the same levels of iso noise as the image was shot with and have a contrast scale beyond the legacy CCD capability of 8.4 stops. It's similar to slide film in it's DR, but way below the capabilities of negative print film's 14 stops of DR. The current fad with shadow recovery has little to do with DR. In the current Nikon and Sony sensors, yes you can pull shadows on a 100 iso image from apparent blackness to 5 stops of mid tones. But the equivalent iso noise is still 5 stops over the base iso 100. That's going to be iso 3200 noise in the shadows > new mid tones. That's really too high and it's not true HDR, it's just pulling noisy shadows using an iso trick. Some cameras do the same trick to make up their different iso values. Often 100 / 400/ 1600 iso values are native and all the other settings are based on one of these iso values and then the camera pulls the difference from pulling the exposure by a stop or two.

because, there's no such thing as "recoverable highlights"
either the tonal data is there or it's clipped. If it's clipped it's not recoverable.

At the shadows end the tonality is lost in noise and quantization steps if the noise is not too great. That's why reductions in read noise are a big deal when it comes to improving the DR.

Roughly, Highlight level divided by shadow level equal DR.

Expose for the highlite levels you want to keep, the rest that's available is dependent on the DR of the system... See?..

Looks like the 5D4 is finally able to (almost) deliver what the competition has been providing for years. Buy one and be happier.

 

[Maiaibing]

Worked directly with their CEO for a while so absolutely biased - but seriously, Toyota tech is not behind anyone out there.

It is big time. I own one of these. And I owned a few of the others. Toyota is year's behind with fancy features... (at least in Europe vs some European manufacturers).

Had Supra, Landcruiser, 4Runner. Probably not "fancy" if that's what you also call "tech". To me tech is about having the best drive & gear train, suspension, motors, etc.

My last car was a BMW 750LI. If that's "tech/fancy" to you its also another price range. Here Toyota has the Lexus brand with lots of "fancy" stuff.

[OK - gotta stop the OT stuff]

 

[dsnook]

Its interesting how the ability to recover highlights, or at least the useable highlight headroom is never tested or discussed.

Yes...that's because most discussions about DR are really about shadow pull using iso invariance. True high DR would allow us to recover highlights and shadows with the same levels of iso noise as the image was shot with and have a contrast scale beyond the legacy CCD capability of 8.4 stops. It's similar to slide film in it's DR, but way below the capabilities of negative print film's 14 stops of DR. The current fad with shadow recovery has little to do with DR. In the current Nikon and Sony sensors, yes you can pull shadows on a 100 iso image from apparent blackness to 5 stops of mid tones. But the equivalent iso noise is still 5 stops over the base iso 100. That's going to be iso 3200 noise in the shadows > new mid tones. That's really too high and it's not true HDR, it's just pulling noisy shadows using an iso trick. Some cameras do the same trick to make up their different iso values. Often 100 / 400/ 1600 iso values are native and all the other settings are based on one of these iso values and then the camera pulls the difference from pulling the exposure by a stop or two.

because, there's no such thing as "recoverable highlights"
either the tonal data is there or it's clipped. If it's clipped it's not recoverable.

At the shadows end the tonality is lost in noise and quantization steps if the noise is not too great. That's why reductions in read noise are a big deal when it comes to improving the DR.

There may be no such thing as "recoverable highlights" but it seems to me that there should be a way to test where the sensor clips the highlights. Since the noise is all in the shadows it seems like having a higher clip point for the brights would be extremely valuable.

For my work I'd much rather have the ability to expose for the mid tones where most of the information is, and then bring up/down the shadows/highlights as needed.