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

[awinphoto]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times, I've NEVER had a client ask/mention/complain about the DR of my images... ever... And for that matter, the flatter the image, less chances it has to sell... so could care less.

 

[Larsskv]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times, I've NEVER had a client ask/mention/complain about the DR of my images... ever... And for that matter, the flatter the image, less chances it has to sell... so could care less.

+1. A couple of years ago, I would generally push the shadows a bit in my editing. The files I got from the 6D did that very well in 99% of the photos I edited, and I would rarely wish for more. Now, after maturing as a photographer and in editing photos, I push the shadows way less than before, and will often increase the shadows instead of brighthening them.

The one thing I'm most happy with, with Canon cathing up with Sony and Nikon with regards to DR, is that we might stop hearing people gush on about the importance of 5-6 stops of shadow pulling. I see no importance in it for my kind of shooting.

 

[KeithBreazeal]

I ordered the Mark IV and looking forward to the DR improvements- but there's more to getting the customer's final product.
-What's the print size?
-What's the viewing distance?
-What kind of paper?
-What type of lighting is there where the photo will be displayed?

The camera and artistry in post is only part of the equation. Getting it right in camera is step one, but all the subsequent steps matter just as much.
Besides, most customers are after the subject and have no clue about grain and DR. We, the camera geeks, freak out over the tiny details.

 

[scyrene]

I ordered the Mark IV and looking forward to the DR improvements- but there's more to getting the customer's final product.
-What's the print size?
-What's the viewing distance?
-What kind of paper?
-What type of lighting is there where the photo will be displayed?

The camera and artistry in post is only part of the equation. Getting it right in camera is step one, but all the subsequent steps matter just as much.
Besides, most customers are after the subject and have no clue about grain and DR. We, the camera geeks, freak out over the tiny details.

Not to mention, isn't the DR of prints much lower than what cameras routinely record anyway?

 

[dsnook]

I ordered the Mark IV and looking forward to the DR improvements- but there's more to getting the customer's final product.
-What's the print size?
-What's the viewing distance?
-What kind of paper?
-What type of lighting is there where the photo will be displayed?

The camera and artistry in post is only part of the equation. Getting it right in camera is step one, but all the subsequent steps matter just as much.
Besides, most customers are after the subject and have no clue about grain and DR. We, the camera geeks, freak out over the tiny details.

+1

We're the photographers and are the ones responsible for all the technical details. My comments before were less about DR being the most important thing. In general I've been satisfied with what I can get out of the Mk III. My thoughts were more about if we are going to discuss DR, I generally think it should be a discussion about the full range not just a shadows push.

At then end of the day, it's all knowing your equipment so you can be able to deliver the desired product.

 

[Jack Douglas]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times, I've NEVER had a client ask/mention/complain about the DR of my images... ever... And for that matter, the flatter the image, less chances it has to sell... so could care less.

+1. A couple of years ago, I would generally push the shadows a bit in my editing. The files I got from the 6D did that very well in 99% of the photos I edited, and I would rarely wish for more. Now, after maturing as a photographer and in editing photos, I push the shadows way less than before, and will often increase the shadows instead of brighthening them.

The one thing I'm most happy with, with Canon cathing up with Sony and Nikon with regards to DR, is that we might stop hearing people gush on about the importance of 5-6 stops of shadow pulling. I see no importance in it for my kind of shooting.

Perhaps this aligns with my thinking and reaction to hdr photos. Often I come away with the feeling that there is something "wrong" with these photos. It has to do with my brain knowing subconsciously that a dark area will not display much detail and that dark areas provide the contrast. A piece of photo paper can't display the black of a cave or the brilliance of the sun so it's all squeezed together. I'm just learning so feel free to correct me.

Jack

 

[ritholtz]

Check this list for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016. There are two made from Canon EOS 500D + 55–250mm f5.6 lens and Canon EOS 1200D + 75–300mm f5.6 lens.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5480094425/take-a-peek-at-some-of-the-contenders-for-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016

 

[Jack Douglas]

Check this list for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016. There are two made from Canon EOS 500D + 55–250mm f5.6 lens and Canon EOS 1200D + 75–300mm f5.6 lens.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5480094425/take-a-peek-at-some-of-the-contenders-for-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016

Imagine, with that lens that you can barely give away. Goes to show ......

It gives hope to those who love to shoot but can't afford upper level gear.

Jack

 

[Otara]

Check this list for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016. There are two made from Canon EOS 500D + 55–250mm f5.6 lens and Canon EOS 1200D + 75–300mm f5.6 lens.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5480094425/take-a-peek-at-some-of-the-contenders-for-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016

Not to mention the 5D1, the D300, the D90. Several 5D3's. Its amazing what they were able to do with such ancient useless hardware, particularly all those Canons that were so utterly terrible at DR even on release.

The actual winners might change the balance a tad though.

 

[3kramd5]

Check this list for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016. There are two made from Canon EOS 500D + 55–250mm f5.6 lens and Canon EOS 1200D + 75–300mm f5.6 lens.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5480094425/take-a-peek-at-some-of-the-contenders-for-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016

Imagine, with that lens that you can barely give away. Goes to show ......

It gives hope to those who love to shoot but can't afford upper level gear.

Jack

Bet'cha the housing and lights cost most than most bodies.

Regardless, cost of gear doesn't correlate well with good photos, and however much some personalities like to lambaste the image quality of that camera, that's a quality image.

 

[Luds34]

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

My coworkers and I have been watching his videos for a month strictly for the entertainment value. The best ones are when he talks in a high voice and has imaginary conversations. Just hilarious. And then there is his reasoning for not buying a Sigma Art lens..."It's a turd." ;D

Sorry for implying you guys are morons. Actually, I called my wife and we both watched it and had a good laugh so I guess that's what it's all about.

Jack

Okay, curiosity killed the cat and I clicked on the link. 9 minutes in and this guy is obsessed with the UHS-I card slot and buffer.

It's like a trainwreck, I can't look away...

 

[StudentOfLight]

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

My coworkers and I have been watching his videos for a month strictly for the entertainment value. The best ones are when he talks in a high voice and has imaginary conversations. Just hilarious. And then there is his reasoning for not buying a Sigma Art lens..."It's a turd." ;D

Sorry for implying you guys are morons. Actually, I called my wife and we both watched it and had a good laugh so I guess that's what it's all about.

Jack

Okay, curiosity killed the cat and I clicked on the link. 9 minutes in and this guy is obsessed with the UHS-I card slot and buffer.

It's like a trainwreck, I can't look away...

My sincere condolences for your loss (of time you can never get back)

 

[KeithBreazeal]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times, I've NEVER had a client ask/mention/complain about the DR of my images... ever... And for that matter, the flatter the image, less chances it has to sell... so could care less.

+1. A couple of years ago, I would generally push the shadows a bit in my editing. The files I got from the 6D did that very well in 99% of the photos I edited, and I would rarely wish for more. Now, after maturing as a photographer and in editing photos, I push the shadows way less than before, and will often increase the shadows instead of brighthening them.

The one thing I'm most happy with, with Canon cathing up with Sony and Nikon with regards to DR, is that we might stop hearing people gush on about the importance of 5-6 stops of shadow pulling. I see no importance in it for my kind of shooting.

Perhaps this aligns with my thinking and reaction to hdr photos. Often I come away with the feeling that there is something "wrong" with these photos. It has to do with my brain knowing subconsciously that a dark area will not display much detail and that dark areas provide the contrast. A piece of photo paper can't display the black of a cave or the brilliance of the sun so it's all squeezed together. I'm just learning so feel free to correct me.

Jack

For those photos with brilliant colors like flowers or things like chrome and polished aluminum, I am having the prints done using the Kodak Metal coated paper. The difference is significant.

 

[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"

Oh no ? What is clipped / blown with to day's processors may not be with tomorrows.

Go run some of your CR2 files through the ACR 2003 processes and compare 'blown' highlights with the latest process.

And regarding shadow lifting, lowlights at 0 lift as readily as highlights at 255 are pulled. (Forgot the <sarcasm> tag here

clipped is clipped,
gone is gone.
that the data is lost is foregone,
Sporgon

best that can be done is fake some texture back into the blown channel by modulating it with data from unclipped channels. Done cleverly, this may be somewhat useful but it's not a recovery operation, it's re-direction.

run some test shots and use whatever raw utility shows the actual numeric value of the RGB channels. If you've max'd out the count on R, G, or B, you're not recovering tonal data from that area of that channel. You can't get anything from the derivative of a flat line. [/math]

 

[GMCPhotographics]

The thing is, if a manufacturer managed to make a camera with say 12 stops of real world true iso Dynamic range, then most of our default images would look very flat and dull. We would need to add quite a lot of contrast and curves to compress the DR to bring back some jazzel to the photos. If you look at the HDR composites that the car photo industry uses to make their advertising material with...the images have a massive DR...and they are completely bland until the final post processing.

 

[Jack Douglas]

If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times, I've NEVER had a client ask/mention/complain about the DR of my images... ever... And for that matter, the flatter the image, less chances it has to sell... so could care less.

+1. A couple of years ago, I would generally push the shadows a bit in my editing. The files I got from the 6D did that very well in 99% of the photos I edited, and I would rarely wish for more. Now, after maturing as a photographer and in editing photos, I push the shadows way less than before, and will often increase the shadows instead of brighthening them.

The one thing I'm most happy with, with Canon cathing up with Sony and Nikon with regards to DR, is that we might stop hearing people gush on about the importance of 5-6 stops of shadow pulling. I see no importance in it for my kind of shooting.

Perhaps this aligns with my thinking and reaction to hdr photos. Often I come away with the feeling that there is something "wrong" with these photos. It has to do with my brain knowing subconsciously that a dark area will not display much detail and that dark areas provide the contrast. A piece of photo paper can't display the black of a cave or the brilliance of the sun so it's all squeezed together. I'm just learning so feel free to correct me.

Jack

For those photos with brilliant colors like flowers or things like chrome and polished aluminum, I am having the prints done using the Kodak Metal coated paper. The difference is significant.

Thanks, that's good to know.

Jack

 

[Aglet]

...
Oh no ? What is clipped / blown with to day's processors may not be with tomorrows.

Go run some of your CR2 files through the ACR 2003 processes and compare 'blown' highlights with the latest process.

And regarding shadow lifting, lowlights at 0 lift as readily as highlights at 255 are pulled. (Forgot the <sarcasm> tag here

clipped is clipped,
gone is gone.
that the data is lost is foregone,
Sporgon
...

Sporgon is quite right about highlights. ACR/LR in the 2012 process, a different curve or weighting is used for highlights and areas that you may have thought were blown with 2003 are recoverable with 2012. But there are also color changes in 2003 -> 2012.

Maybe what I'm trying to say here is that the Adobe processes prior to 2012 blew highlights much earlier than was necessary and that non-blown raw data was being shown as blown highlights but of course we couldn't see that.

With some of my files from the early years that had blown highlights I've gone back and a 2012 gives me detail that was previously all white.

Of course the same isn't true for shadows. We're still just as f'd there.

I won't disagree that latest ACR may be vastly improved (I'm not set up to compare them) but truly clipped is lacking tonal data for the clipped channel, there is nothing there to recover
Perhaps they're doing some extra math based on the CFA response for a particular body that allows them to extract a little more info from the non-clipped colors (since each color filter has a bit of other color affected it as well).
Or, what may have changed is the way the preview data was presented as being clipped (some raw converters allow you to set black and white levels that are within the DR limits and define those as clipped or blocked) when it really was not quite clipped.

Can anyone provide real numbers that show the difference between the new and old ACR and how it handles these blown, but maybe not really blown, hilites?... Perhaps a good topic for another thread... post a link.
I'm curious. But I'm also adamant that you can't recover tonal data from a (truly) clipped channel!

 

[KeithBreazeal]

I'm wondering if there may have been a couple of different Beta versions in circulation.

 

[dtgphoto]

Get it mostly right in camera and there is plenty type of DR to make it perfect or push it beyond perfect to being artificial looking hdr shots. Personally I like photos that capture the mood through a degree of faithfulness to the real.

Having worked with what is tested as horrid DR in my 70d and various canon dlsrs over the years I can't wait to having a lot more latitude in keepers.

With regards to the review and testing... the images at over iso400 look better on the 5d4 than the nixon and Sony best.

 

[3kramd5]

Having worked with what is tested as horrid DR in my 70d

lol, come on.