Do Sensors Make the Camera?

[3kramd5]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

All of this Sensor Hype is probably meaningless to that crowd as well just the same as it is to 90% of those buying Sony and Nikon equipment. If this were all that important, Nikon cameras would be selling a lot better than Canon and that is not what we really see.

The problem with that comparison is you use the sensor every single time you take a photo, and not "the system".

So... it would seem that what you are saying is that it is the overall "system" that matters and not only the sensor or the camera.

That's an odd way to read the sentence you quoted...

 

[David Hull]

For me, the sensor is probably the least important part of the camera.

It's been that way ever since I bought a 7D and it continues to be the case with my 5DIII. I have never, ever felt limited by the sensor.

Lenses? Yes. I have owned lenses that I felt were limiting what I could do. When I felt that way, I got new or different lenses. Don't feel that way any more.

Before I had radio control strobes I felt a little limited (largely by my lack of technical skill though). Now I have 600RTs and any limitations I feel now reflect my own need to work on my skills, not on any limits of the speed-lights.

If I had to choose five or 10 things to upgrade on a camera body, the sensor wouldn't make the cut.

Why? Because all sensors from all brands and all formats are so good today that the differences are just plain insignificant. If there were truly a camera out there with a "crappy" sensor, it would be a different story. But even new cell phones have pretty damn good sensors in them.

I guess I don't have much sympathy for people who write encyclopedia-long posts obsessing over how disappointed they are because they pointed their cameras directly into the sun and didn't get perfectly exposed shadows in the foreground. That's pretty much the epitome of first-world problems as far as I'm concerned and I'm kind of embarrassed for them.

I think I would be more impressed with these sorts of photographers if they produced something artistically compelling when they did this. I keep harking back to the infamous Fred Miranda comparison of the 5dIII and the D800 where he shot a bunch of beautiful photos in Yosemite but to demonstrate how bad the Canon was he had to go find a special scene to demonstrate it and produced a photo that was unusable for anything but his demo. this after he proved that he could shoot such magnificent shots with the Canon equipment.

This is why I comment that most of this whole sensor argument is hype for the most part.

 

[scyrene]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

Which is exactly the point. You use the sensor every time you take a shot, so if Canon sensors were so inferior, Canon would not have remained the market leader.

Right now, Canon sensors are absolutely inferior at low ISO. This is fact.

I'm not really interested in who sells the most hamburgers. If I was, I'd be shooting grizzlies with iPads and you probably wouldn't hear from me soon.

How do those touting Exmor advantages demonstrate them? They underexpose by 4-5 stops then push the shadows back up. While there are valid reasons to do that, it's an 'advantage' that's totally useless to the vast majority of dSLR buyers.

Fortunately, technological improvements aren't based on this.

The low ISO DR of the Exmor's is extremely beneficial for landscape and wildlife shooters. I know a few shooters who even tossed their GND's. Simply expose for the sky and lift your shadows later on with minimal penalty.

This is a good thing.

I'm genuinely intrigued, would you say wildlife work is mostly low-ISO? I find the opposite.

Wildlife chooses the appropriate ISO setting. I find myself shooting from ISO 100 to 12,800 in RAW (yes, the 6D can handle this).

This shot was recently picked up for an international textbook run. It was *cold*, and I had to expose for the sky. I'm happy with what the 7D did here, but it could have been much cleaner. This was either ISO 100 or 200:

I had to lift the bison/foreground by a couple stops. The pattern noise and lack of detail in the lower third of the frame has prevented me from printing this image as large as I would like, unfortunately.

For my preferred shots (animalscapes) low ISO dynamic range is incredibly important.

Oh yes, I remember that one. It's a valid case, although I'd say 'animals in landscapes' are a small subset of wildlife shots (or a crossover between the two genres). Surely many/most/a significant number/a majority of wildlife shots are taken with long lenses, so narrower apertures (f/4 and smaller), and therefore at higher ISO. I wonder if anyone else has input on this?

 

[Famateur]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

How do those touting Exmor advantages demonstrate them? They underexpose by 4-5 stops then push the shadows back up. While there are valid reasons to do that, it's an 'advantage' that's totally useless to the vast majority of dSLR buyers.

A lot of people do just that, yes. However, I have been showing examples where underexposing was a necessity. I'm an "afternoon landscaper"...I can never get up early enough in the morning (which is really early, like 3:30am), in order to be able to drive out to the kinds of beautiful landscapes I want to photograph, but get there in time to set up and be ready to go by the time the rising sun lights the clouds afire with color.

So, I'm stuck taking my photos in the afternoon, when the setting sun washes the clouds in color. Problem is, all the mountains are to my west, same direction as the sun.

As I stated, there are valid reasons, albeit very rare ones. In your case, not strictly a necessity, since you could get up at 3:30a but don't want to.

Consider the USA – what states are immediately to the east of large mountain ranges? Yours, Nevada, etc. Tiny fraction of the US population, so even if there are the same per capita number of landscape shooters, that's not many people.

That's really the whole point here...the number of people who require (or believe they require) that kind of shadow lifting capability is minuscule relative to the dSLR market.

I'm feeling lucky to be in the Salt Lake Valley -- mountain ranges to my east and west. ;D

Whether the sun is rising or setting, I've got options for whether or not to shoot into the sun.

 

[jrista]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

with two more stops of shadow-lifting ability, with a sensor that has read noise in the deep shadows that has a nice random appearance without any banding of any kind, I could probably get away with my GND filters, some hefty shadow lifting, and one single shot...instead of bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots and having to deal with some frustrating HDR mergers.

If you're looking for two more stops in the shadows, why are you bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots? Just bracket 2, one for the highlights and one two stops brighter. That would significantly mitigate the frustration of merging (fewer options for ghosting to occur, less labor, etc). You're still left dealing with the GND gradient, but that's true in both of your scenarios.

Have you ever tried to HDR merge just two or three frames when you have harsh highlight transitions? You end up with posterization and harsh transitions. The number of shots brackets isn't for more DR, it's to get a better blend around either the sun or very bright backlit clouds.

 

[jrista]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

With two more stops of sensor DR, or to be more specific...with two more stops of shadow-lifting ability, with a sensor that has read noise in the deep shadows that has a nice random appearance without any banding of any kind, I could probably get away with my GND filters, some hefty shadow lifting, and one single shot...instead of bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots and having to deal with some frustrating HDR mergers. Things aren't quite as bad when I'm west facing east at sunset, or east facing west at sunrise...however, even in those circumstances, many of my older shots, taking with my 450D and 7D, still have problems with detail in the shadows...those cameras still have 11 stops or less of DR. Having two extra stops would have meant I could pull out much cleaner, more colorful detail from the shadows.

I'd really be curious to know, how many people run into the same situation? I've been spending a lot of time browsing through landscapes at 500px. There are a LOT of people who photograph landscapes. I think landscapes might be 500px's largest category.

This might be a case where Magic Lantern's dual iso mode (and auto ETTR) helps, at least that's how I've used it in challenging situations, letting auto ETTR expose iso 100 to not clip (or let them clip a bit) highlights and then have iso 800 or so help with shadows.

Magic Lantern's Dual-ISO uses line-skipping, and alternates which ISO is used for each line. You effectively get half the resolution. That's not a cost I'm willing to pay.

 

[3kramd5]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

with two more stops of shadow-lifting ability, with a sensor that has read noise in the deep shadows that has a nice random appearance without any banding of any kind, I could probably get away with my GND filters, some hefty shadow lifting, and one single shot...instead of bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots and having to deal with some frustrating HDR mergers.

If you're looking for two more stops in the shadows, why are you bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots? Just bracket 2, one for the highlights and one two stops brighter. That would significantly mitigate the frustration of merging (fewer options for ghosting to occur, less labor, etc). You're still left dealing with the GND gradient, but that's true in both of your scenarios.

Have you ever tried to HDR merge just two or three frames when you have harsh highlight transitions? You end up with posterization and harsh transitions. The number of shots brackets isn't for more DR, it's to get a better blend around either the sun or very bright backlit clouds.

Nope, I've never done any HDR (hence the question). Thanks.

 

[unfocused]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

I'm feeling lucky to be in the Salt Lake Valley -- mountain ranges to my east and west. ;D

Whether the sun is rising or setting, I've got options for whether or not so shoot into the sun.

This time of year in Illinois it's impossible to see over the corn to find out if there are any mountain ranges lurking about.

 

[jrista]

There are more reasons to want a sensor with higher DR, for landscapes and for other things. Here is one of my shots from yesterday:

I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either. Having more sensor DR, however, would have...given how much the highlights clipped, I'd say two extra stops would have been perfect to get this entire scene, from the clouds right down to the deeper shadows under the trees, all in a single shot. Here is another example of a scene where GND filtration just doesn't really help:

Granted, these aren't "bad" shots...but neither is it what I wanted. I ended up re-framing to move the sky out of the frame:

 

[privatebydesign]

I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either. Having more sensor DR, however, would have...given how much the highlights clipped, I'd say two extra stops would have been perfect to get this entire scene, from the clouds right down to the deeper shadows under the trees, all in a single shot. Here is another example of a scene where GND filtration just doesn't really help:

You can easily use PS HDR for moving water, just choose which image you want to use as the key frame, check the Remove Ghosts option and you are done. I just did a series of a fountain and even CS6 is freaky good at water.

Also, your V shaped sky is why I have never been a graduated ND filter fan, there is almost always something on the line that makes it not work, but, Background Erase tool is designed for this scenario, it takes seconds to effortlessly layer out your sky to a different exposure.

Not arguing against newer tech or suggesting what we have is enough, just pointing out that you are mistaken in your blending and post processing beliefs. Things have moved on a lot in the last few years and you clearly don't blend/HDR a lot.

 

[jrista]

I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either. Having more sensor DR, however, would have...given how much the highlights clipped, I'd say two extra stops would have been perfect to get this entire scene, from the clouds right down to the deeper shadows under the trees, all in a single shot. Here is another example of a scene where GND filtration just doesn't really help:

You can easily use PS HDR for moving water, just choose which image you want to use as the key frame, check the Remove Ghosts option and you are done. I just did a series of a fountain and even CS6 is freaky good at water.

Also, your V shaped sky is why I have never been a graduated ND filter fan, there is almost always something on the line that makes it not work, but, Background Erase tool is designed for this scenario, it takes seconds to effortlessly layer out your sky to a different exposure.

Not arguing against newer tech or suggesting what we have is enough, just pointing out that you are mistaken in your blending and post processing beliefs. Things have moved on a lot in the last few years and you clearly don't blend/HDR a lot.

While I'm happy to admit I haven't done HDR blends for lanscapes in a couple of years, I do know how to use the ghost removal tool. Here is an HDR of the one scene, five frame blend. I was able to recover a lot of the sky (it was overcast, so not much to see there, it's just not fully blown out white now). It's not perfect...I don't really care for how the tops of the trees blend into the sky...but there is only so much you can do, I guess (and that's probably true of using a D800 as well):

However, there are still artifacts in the water. Here are a couple crops of the single frame edited in LR:

And here are the same crops from the HDR:

There always seems to be something with HDR that just doesn't come out right. I've never done a background erase...I could try that, although what I'd replace it with I honestly don't know. I could spend time layering and manually blending in detail from a layer with the LR edits into the HDR image. The point is, I wouldn't have to spend all this extra time trying to correct a photo if I had more DR.

It's not a complicated argument, it's a pretty simple one. Sure, there are tools that can alleviate the limitations of Canon sensor DR...but it's more work. They don't always work. Give me ~14 stops of DR, better yet, give me ~16 stops of DR in a new camera with high resolution and a new 16-bit ADC, and most of these problems (no, I don't believe every single problem will go away, but most) will stop being problems.

To the point of the original question that started this topic: Does my argument here mean "The sensor makes the camera"? No, of course not. No one feature "makes the camera"...cameras are tools. Just like we use a hammer to pound nails, a screwdriver to screw in screws, and a saw to cut wood, different cameras are tools that solve different problems. Having a sensor with more DR means you have the option of buying a tool that solves certain problems. Personally, I would REALLY like to have a Canon camera that solved the problems I face whenever I head out to do landscape photography. I prefer the Canon system overall...I prefer most of their lenses (their wide angle lenses are a bit wanting, they really need to update the 16-35 f/2.8 L II...they could really use some better ultra wides in the 14 to 24 mm range overall, be they primes or zooms, that have significantly improved corner performance...as that's where Canon's wide to ultra wide angle lenses suffer), I prefer Canon ergonomics, I prefer Canon's AF system. However for certain kinds of photography, Canon does not really have an offering to fill that spot in your toolbox where lots of DR is needed and can be used. It doesn't matter if it's 14 stops, 16 stops, or 20 stops...more DR can always be used.

 

[rrcphoto]

I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either. Having more sensor DR, however, would have...given how much the highlights clipped, I'd say two extra stops would have been perfect to get this entire scene, from the clouds right down to the deeper shadows under the trees, all in a single shot. Here is another example of a scene where GND filtration just doesn't really help:

You can easily use PS HDR for moving water, just choose which image you want to use as the key frame, check the Remove Ghosts option and you are done. I just did a series of a fountain and even CS6 is freaky good at water.

Also, your V shaped sky is why I have never been a graduated ND filter fan, there is almost always something on the line that makes it not work, but, Background Erase tool is designed for this scenario, it takes seconds to effortlessly layer out your sky to a different exposure.

Not arguing against newer tech or suggesting what we have is enough, just pointing out that you are mistaken in your blending and post processing beliefs. Things have moved on a lot in the last few years and you clearly don't blend/HDR a lot.

While I'm happy to admit I haven't done HDR blends for lanscapes in a couple of years, I do know how to use the ghost removal tool. Here is an HDR of the one scene, five frame blend. I was able to recover a lot of the sky (it was overcast, so not much to see there, it's just not fully blown out white now). It's not perfect...I don't really care for how the tops of the trees blend into the sky...but there is only so much you can do, I guess (and that's probably true of using a D800 as well):

However, there are still artifacts in the water. Here are a couple crops of the single frame edited in LR:

And here are the same crops from the HDR:

There always seems to be something with HDR that just doesn't come out right. I've never done a background erase...I could try that, although what I'd replace it with I honestly don't know. I could spend time layering and manually blending in detail from a layer with the LR edits into the HDR image. The point is, I wouldn't have to spend all this extra time trying to correct a photo if I had more DR.

It's not a complicated argument, it's a pretty simple one. Sure, there are tools that can alleviate the limitations of Canon sensor DR...but it's more work. They don't always work. Give me ~14 stops of DR, better yet, give me ~16 stops of DR in a new camera with high resolution and a new 16-bit ADC, and most of these problems (no, I don't believe every single problem will go away, but most) will stop being problems.

that's a tricky shot - because if you expose for the highlights you lose the motion blur of the water. normal convention even on a D800,etc would be to expose for the sky and yank up the shadows - so in this case the DR of a sony sensor really wouldn't help you that much.

however just from the small image your sky really hard clipped. i'd take a look at your other exposures and see if you can blend in the sky from another one.

you'd end up doing this on any camera.

Even though some claim it's a gimmic - I turn on HTP as well if i think I may hard clip skies, bracket on three shots and use ETTR and try not to clip as much as possible and blend when necessary.

however I doubt 2EV DR would help unless you had two 2EV DR in highlight headroom.

 

[jrista]

however I doubt 2EV DR would help unless you had two 2EV DR in highlight headroom.

This is a misnomer. There is no such thing as DR only in the highlights. Dynamic range defines the range from highlights to deepest usable shadows. You cannot have "highlight DR" or "two stops DR in highlight headroom"...that's just not how it works. The D800 gains dynamic range primarily by reducing read noise. That doesn't change the midtones or highlights, or for that matter even the brighter shadows. However, what it DOES allow you to do is underexpose to PRESERVE the highlights, and have relatively clean deep shadow detail that can be lifted and not be riddled with banding and color noise.

The D800 DOES give you the ability to recover 2EV worth of highlights...that's what shadow recovery is all about. Canon's shadows are "dirty", and they are dirty up to a level much higher than the D800's. If I try to recover a photo exposed to preserve the highlights with the 5D III, instead of workable detail, I get lots of muddy color-noise infested "detail", red vertical and some horizontal banding, and very heavy grain.

In this shot, the sky was pretty much impossible anyway. It was a backlit light overcast sky...there really isn't much detail there to start with. My biggest complaint was how the tree tops disappeared into the sky in the non-HDR. In my darkest frame, which was underexposed over two stops, the sky is visible, but it doesn't really look any different than what I've got in the HDR.

 

[jpaana]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

Magic Lantern's Dual-ISO uses line-skipping, and alternates which ISO is used for each line. You effectively get half the resolution. That's not a cost I'm willing to pay.

Fortunately it's not quite that bad, resolution loss only happens where the brighter exposure clips highlights, which in landscapes usually is sky, where it's not that critical.

 

[Loswr]

however I doubt 2EV DR would help unless you had two 2EV DR in highlight headroom.

This is a misnomer. There is no such thing as DR only in the highlights. Dynamic range defines the range from highlights to deepest usable shadows. You cannot have "highlight DR" or "two stops DR in highlight headroom"...that's just not how it works. The D800 gains dynamic range primarily by reducing read noise. That doesn't change the midtones or highlights, or for that matter even the brighter shadows. However, what it DOES allow you to do is underexpose to PRESERVE the highlights, and have relatively clean deep shadow detail that can be lifted and not be riddled with banding and color noise.

The D800 DOES give you the ability to recover 2EV worth of highlights...that's what shadow recovery is all about. Canon's shadows are "dirty", and they are dirty up to a level much higher than the D800's. If I try to recover a photo exposed to preserve the highlights with the 5D III, instead of workable detail, I get lots of muddy color-noise infested "detail", red vertical and some horizontal banding, and very heavy grain.

In this shot, the sky was pretty much impossible anyway. It was a backlit light overcast sky...there really isn't much detail there to start with. My biggest complaint was how the tree tops disappeared into the sky in the non-HDR. In my darkest frame, which was underexposed over two stops, the sky is visible, but it doesn't really look any different than what I've got in the HDR.

I think you missed the point. Of course DR isn't specific to one end of the range, it defines the range. While that's fine in the abstract, real world considerations impose constraints on that abstract situation. If your aperture is constrained by your DoF needs, your shutter speed constrained by a need to stop or show motion, then certain parts of the range are not achievable.

Say there was an interesting cloud formation against blue sky in your scene. His point was that an extra two stops of DR in a single shot would not give you that nice sky detail over moving water, because the exposure needed to preserve the sky would require a shutter speed too fast to show enough motion blur in the water. You could bring up the detail in the water more cleanly with an Exmor sensor, but you'd still have minimal motion blur in the water.

As you stated, there's only so much you can do, even with a D800 (although in the above scenario, the lower base ISO of the D810 would help). Exmor and 2 extra stops of DR aren't a panacea.

 

[dtaylor]

Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

With two more stops of sensor DR, or to be more specific...with two more stops of shadow-lifting ability, with a sensor that has read noise in the deep shadows that has a nice random appearance without any banding of any kind, I could probably get away with my GND filters, some hefty shadow lifting, and one single shot...instead of bracketing 5, 7, 9 shots and having to deal with some frustrating HDR mergers. Things aren't quite as bad when I'm west facing east at sunset, or east facing west at sunrise...however, even in those circumstances, many of my older shots, taking with my 450D and 7D, still have problems with detail in the shadows...those cameras still have 11 stops or less of DR. Having two extra stops would have meant I could pull out much cleaner, more colorful detail from the shadows.

I'd really be curious to know, how many people run into the same situation? I've been spending a lot of time browsing through landscapes at 500px. There are a LOT of people who photograph landscapes. I think landscapes might be 500px's largest category.

This might be a case where Magic Lantern's dual iso mode (and auto ETTR) helps, at least that's how I've used it in challenging situations, letting auto ETTR expose iso 100 to not clip (or let them clip a bit) highlights and then have iso 800 or so help with shadows.

Something's not adding up. 2 more stops of range != 5-9 shots in an HDR merge. Heck, if all you need is 2 stops you can fire off two frames and quickly blend them without any HDR software using a layer mask. You can hand hold that with most DSLRs.

 

[dtaylor]

I think I would be more impressed with these sorts of photographers if they produced something artistically compelling when they did this. I keep harking back to the infamous Fred Miranda comparison of the 5dIII and the D800 where he shot a bunch of beautiful photos in Yosemite but to demonstrate how bad the Canon was he had to go find a special scene to demonstrate it and produced a photo that was unusable for anything but his demo. this after he proved that he could shoot such magnificent shots with the Canon equipment.

This is why I comment that most of this whole sensor argument is hype for the most part.

For such huge differences it sure is hard to tell one sensor from another...even one format from another (m43, APS-C, FF)...while browsing work at Flickr and 500px.

 

[dtaylor]

There are more reasons to want a sensor with higher DR, for landscapes and for other things. Here is one of my shots from yesterday:
I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either.

Blend two of the frames with a layer mask and "paint" in either the sky or the shadows (depending on which frame you want to be the primary.)

 

[jrista]

There are more reasons to want a sensor with higher DR, for landscapes and for other things. Here is one of my shots from yesterday:
I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either.

Blend two of the frames with a layer mask and "paint" in either the sky or the shadows (depending on which frame you want to be the primary.)

Sure, that's an option. You guys are STILL missing the point. Manually blending with layer masks and whatnot is STILL MORE WORK. When you fill GIGS of CF cards every time you go out, having to do all that for even half the images is too much work. That's the entire point here. Yeah, there are options...but they all involve more work. The benefit of increased editing latitude is it reduces the workload.

 

[privatebydesign]

There are more reasons to want a sensor with higher DR, for landscapes and for other things. Here is one of my shots from yesterday:
I've got bracketed shots for this, but I doubt I'll actually use them, as in some the water is frozen, and in others the water motion is blurred. The V-shaped patch of sky at the end of the river is an example of where no kind of filtration will solve the problem either.

Blend two of the frames with a layer mask and "paint" in either the sky or the shadows (depending on which frame you want to be the primary.)

Sure, that's an option. You guys are STILL missing the point. Manually blending with layer masks and whatnot is STILL MORE WORK. When you fill GIGS of CF cards every time you go out, having to do all that for even half the images is too much work. That's the entire point here. Yeah, there are options...but they all involve more work. The benefit of increased editing latitude is it reduces the workload.

Whilst I take your point that more work is more work and if a different piece of gear can save you that why not use it, or at least covert it , anybody shooting gigs and gigs of images every time they go out really isn't shooting with the highest IQ forefront in their mind.

But anyway, whilst I am no Canon apologist here is an example, not dissimilar to yours (without the water) where a GND would not have been any help, but I am pragmatic enough to accept that an extra two stops of sensor DR would not have helped much as the shadows still wouldn't have held detail and I want the contrast anyway, I hate the flat HDR look your sunflowers had. It took 15 seconds to make the second one from the first one. I took a further two minutes to make it look OK!