DRones vs. anti-DRones: how to resolve the controversy

[LetTheRightLensIn]

As for landscapes...neither GND nor manual blends have any issue with movement as long as there's not a large moving section that crosses the line or mask. You're not going to HDR a sprinter, but wind is seldom an issue in a landscape. I can hand hold a 3 frame bracket for crying out loud. Just how hard is this wind blowing that things radically change in <0.5s?

Only relatively few shots like ocean horizon or mountain range horizon shots get helped by GND. For forest stuff wind can be quite a problem with leafs and branches going all over or water moving like crazy or mists going crazy in post storm winds. Not always though of course, I mean sure sometimes you can take multiple shots with a tripod (although that is more of a drag, and you do waste time and as golden hour lighting changes you miss other shots inthe meantime or bog down people hiking with you and annoy them, although those are different sorts of issues and yeah beggars can't be choosers) and occasionally they can patch hand-held (but not always so well as you'd like).

Although it's a bit rare to need it, sometimes for wildlife or sports you do hit HDR scenarios and multi-shots are utterly unworkable in those cases just about always (other than for stable perched bird).

HDR tools also have features to compensate for motion.

And you get weird artifacts and fixing them takes ages upon ages when it is possible patch it up.

 

[dtaylor]

Not when that doesn't blend well because of shake or motion

I haven't had either prove to be a problem in practice.

or when the shadow exposure at 3 stops lower becomes too slow to handhold at lower ISO at f/6.3-f/13.

You find yourself confronted with scenes which are low light, yet you're not using a tripod or IS lens, and somehow these low light scenes also present a huge luminance range? ???

(Side note: I actually have been in this situation once. But an IS lens would have helped more then an Exmor sensor.)

Where did he say that meant nobody could get a great photo out of a Canons sensor?

He has never said that, but he was...at the time...basically claiming that you could not get the same quality landscape shots out of Canon. Again, a quick Flickr search would have broken the confirmation bias spell.

But the thing is most people who complain about banding and DR, noticed it in their real world work before every reading anything about it or about other cameras so....

I'm not buying that. jrista...yeah, I think he noticed it long ago. But most people generating chatter on the Internet right now are doing so because they saw a Fred Miranda or Tool review. (I respect the former, the latter not so much. Never the less they both make the same fundamental error.)

And there is also the psychology of some not be able to handle that something they bought is not the best at every single thing or that their team, I mean brand of use, can't win all games.

That might be at play here if even ONE Canon user had ever said that Canon is better at low ISO DR. But none of them have

For the record, Canon read noise SUCKS when you underexpose by more then 3ev and try to put the shadow tones back in post. I just never really have to do that.

 

[dtaylor]

Only relatively few shots like ocean horizon or mountain range horizon shots get helped by GND.

Manual blends cover the rest pretty well.

For forest stuff wind can be quite a problem with leafs and branches going all over or water moving like crazy or mists going crazy in post storm winds.

How often do you face this situation yet you would have to HDR on any camera? That's a point the "DRoners" keep missing. You guys treat the Exmor sensors as if they never require HDR, as if the shadow depth is unlimited. Nonsense. jrista's own example would have required HDR to be publishable.

How often are you shooting a scene with more luminance range then Canon can handle...but not more then Exmor can handle...with close up foliage...and with wind so heavy that HDR or blending is impossible? Seriously, how many shots per year are we talking here?

and occasionally they can patch hand-held (but not always so well as you'd like).

I regularly, confidently hand hold AEB 3 frame brackets. It's the C1 setting on my DSLR. I can even do so with the M though in fairness that is with an IS lens.

Although it's a bit rare to need it, sometimes for wildlife or sports you do hit HDR scenarios and multi-shots are utterly unworkable in those cases just about always (other than for stable perched bird).

That is exceedingly rare. I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where...again...you're out of bounds on the Canon sensor but still in bounds on the Exmor.

 

[Marsu42]

How often are you shooting a scene with more luminance range then Canon can handle...but not more then Exmor can handle...with close up foliage...and with wind so heavy that HDR or blending is impossible? Seriously, how many shots per year are we talking here?

A 3ev difference is in my experience often just the range you need to prevent clipped sky while retaining good shadow resolution. And the nature moves a lot, esp. if you look at 100% crop. If you doubt it, get out more :-> ... then you'll see it doesn't take heavy storms to make leaves and grass move noticeably. Are you watching closely ("The Prestige")?

 

[dtaylor]

A 3ev difference is in my experience often just the range you need to prevent clipped sky while retaining good shadow resolution.

Do you mean a +3ev shadow push in post? That's within Canon's range. Hitting the limit, you will move those NR sliders, but absolutely doable.

Do you mean 3ev difference between the cameras? There's not that much difference.

And the nature moves a lot, esp. if you look at 100% crop. If you doubt it, get out more :-> ... then you'll see it doesn't take heavy storms to make leaves and grass move noticeably. Are you watching closely ("The Prestige")?

Nature moves a lot...in <0.5s...across the entire frame...thereby defeating a manual blend? :

 

[V8Beast]

... The difference is does the person work around them. In dilbert case, not so much and why I said DR is the least of the problems others and I have observed with his photos. Which in kinda like ignoring the gaping hole in the wall to work on a miniscule paint chip.

But I'm sure he'll get a high DR body and his photos will still continue to be what they are. That's the real tragedy here.

And above is another example for V8Beast who claims nobody every goes down the first path of personally trashing someone's photography. Of course if someone dares point out that a few of those who insult others work personally (in many cases without ever having even seen any of it) have sometimes had nothing but a few OOF cat shots, then suddenly it's oh see the DR crowd just goes around and picks and insults people. NO! They were just pushed to the point of pointing out some hypocrisy.

label them as talentless geeks who shoot lens caps all day.

Which most are.

It has been demonstrated time and time and time again that most of the "problems" these trolls ascribe to inadequate sensors, actually come from their own incompetent conversion and post processing decisions; or from a deliberate attempt to fake the "proof" that a problem exists.

Haha, ah yes and once again, V8Beast are you still going to claim that NOBODY says that DR never makes any difference and that it's not the other side that constantly starts taking it personal and constantly subtly, or in this case, very much not, tries to imply or directly state that anyone who might ever have a use for more DR are just dweebs, trolls, incompetent morons?

I take it I've said something that offends you ? Man, I must have been a real d!ck to get called out twice in a span of 6 minutes ;D

My claims were based on my personal observations, which I admit could have very well missed insults directed at the pro-DR crowd. I'm sorry that I choose to ignore most of this preposterous back-and-forth squabbling. I was incorrect in my assessment, and extend my sincere apologies. Does that work for you ;D?

Please humor me for just a moment, though. Are the anti-DR guys the only one hurling insults? From my perspective, the insults are originating from both sides, but maybe I'm just crazy.

 

[Marsu42]

Do you mean a +3ev shadow push in post?

No, +3ev beyond Canon's acceptable (ymmv) range - but I can't really tell about exmore as I'm using the 16bit raw files from ML that have more shadow resolution.

Nature moves a lot...in <0.5s...across the entire frame...thereby defeating a manual blend?

Of course you can manual blend a lot, but that doesn't count as "easily circumvented" as speculated above. How bad small movement is of course depends on the export/view size, but in my experience when doing a 2x bracket with there's simply double the chance that something moved or happened in the scene. I'm not much of a landscape photog, but I know this can happen in nature macro.

 

[Sporgon]

How often are you shooting a scene with more luminance range then Canon can handle...but not more then Exmor can handle...with close up foliage...and with wind so heavy that HDR or blending is impossible? Seriously, how many shots per year are we talking here?

A 3ev difference is in my experience often just the range you need to prevent clipped sky while retaining good shadow resolution. And the nature moves a lot, esp. if you look at 100% crop. If you doubt it, get out more :-> ... then you'll see it doesn't take heavy storms to make leaves and grass move noticeably. Are you watching closely ("The Prestige")?

There isn't a 3EV difference in practice, whatever DxO says. Remember that photographically 11 to 12 EV is a lot anyway, and, as I've said many times before, to hit this amount of EV range you have to begin including the light source itself in your exposure. There is then a slim window to make use of the 'extra' 1 stop or whatever, but the light source is normally much more than a 13, 14 or 15 EV range can cope with.

Remember there are many people on CR who have used and/or owned a camera body that uses Exmor. I don't see any of them changing.

The examples of pushing four or five stops is just academic. In all my 'landscape' type shots I'm only ever pulling about 1.5 stop, pushing 1.5 - max.

 

[dtaylor]

Of course you can manual blend a lot, but that doesn't count as "easily circumvented" as speculated above.

I would consider it "easily circumvented." Soft brush on a mask? Not long at all.

How bad small movement is of course depends on the export/view size, but in my experience when doing a 2x bracket with there's simply double the chance that something moved or happened in the scene. I'm not much of a landscape photog, but I know this can happen in nature macro.

Are we all talking about the same thing? For movement to impact a manual blend the movement would have to cross the scene in a manner that makes mask creation difficult. There's no movement within the individual frames.

 

[Aglet]

Nature moves a lot...in <0.5s...across the entire frame...thereby defeating a manual blend? :

if you're shooting rocks, or anything else when the air is dead calm... Rarely the case for most of us.

I would consider it "easily circumvented." Soft brush on a mask? Not long at all.

how much time each of us have to devote to fixing problems in photoshop varies
I have little and much prefer simple global adjustments on files that can stand up to such adjustments.

But most people generating chatter on the Internet right now are doing so because they saw a Fred Miranda or Tool review.

Not necessarily true, but not false either.
I discovered this forum when I went looking for information on the horrible levels of shadow banding on my 7D and blue-sky banding my 5d2 exhibited.

 

[Marsu42]

I would consider it "easily circumvented." Soft brush on a mask? Not long at all.

how much time each of us have to devote to fixing problems in photoshop varies
I have little and much prefer simple global adjustments on files that can stand up to such adjustments.

+1, generally the notion "I'll fix it in post" gives me the creeps as I'm already sitting in front of the pc much more than I'd like to. If you want to postprocess the one great keeper you have with full-blown PS adjustments, fine, but for anything else I'd like to stay in Lightroom - which excludes inter-shot blending.

 

[dtaylor]

if you're shooting rocks, or anything else when the air is dead calm... Rarely the case for most of us.

I think you guys are reading "exposure blend" and thinking "HDR." Again, when you manually blend exposures using a mask it's like a GND filter. There's no motion in the frames being blended. For motion to be an issue it would have to large enough and fast enough to cross your mask in the time the shots are taken.

I discovered this forum when I went looking for information on the horrible levels of shadow banding on my 7D and blue-sky banding my 5d2 exhibited.

I don't see shadow banding on the 7D until >3 stops.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

You find yourself confronted with scenes which are low light, yet you're not using a tripod or IS lens, and somehow these low light scenes also present a huge luminance range? ???

It's not that uncommon, although not always the case, that for a forest scene to be such that if you expose to not clip the bright sunlit parts you can do that at f/6.3-f/11 at reasonable handheld speeds and often the brightness difference turns out to be such that the shadows would be serviceable enough with another nearing 3 stops more DR and that if you expose 3 more stops for an extra shot as required by Canon that can flip the shutter speeds into questionable zone.

But the thing is most people who complain about banding and DR, noticed it in their real world work before every reading anything about it or about other cameras so....

I'm not buying that. jrista...yeah, I think he noticed it long ago. But most people generating chatter on the Internet right now are doing so because they saw a Fred Miranda or Tool review. (I respect the former, the latter not so much. Never the less they both make the same fundamental error.)

All I know is that most of us who have talked about it a lot for years in the forums very much did first notice in real world work. I'm sure that is case for many others who post about. That said, I'm sure some of the chatter from infrequent posters on the ad thread on DPR and such might have heard about it from TN or FM or DxO.

And there is also the psychology of some not be able to handle that something they bought is not the best at every single thing or that their team, I mean brand of use, can't win all games.

That might be at play here if even ONE Canon user had ever said that Canon is better at low ISO DR. But none of them have

That is not how it works, they simply have to say they are as good or close enough that it doesn't matter or that they are different but it doesn't ever matter for anyone ever anyway and plenty do that. Also there is one who flat out says Canon is better, not because it has more DR, but because it has less ;D. KGW on DPR says that having more DR is too much for current RAW files and that Canon has much better image quality because it has less DR. He says that: 1. having more DR tricks and forces one to process all files in an extreme HDR garish style : 2. that it squeezes to much range into too few bits and simply ruins the quality of Nikon/Sony images compared to the smooth mid-tones of Canon. : And he pounces all over anyone who has ever mentioned DR and goes on and on about they have no deep understanding of sensors or files or electronics and so on and trashes them for technical knowlege and runs them off as Nikon trollls.

For the record, Canon read noise SUCKS when you underexpose by more then 3ev and try to put the shadow tones back in post. I just never really have to do that.

First, it's disingenuous to refer to as underexposing by 3 stops since by definition that means you leaving 3 stops free at the top and you well know that is not the case.

Second, it's perfectly fine if you just about never have to dig into the bottom depths of files. And it's fine to say that. What some others say is not so fine.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

How often are you shooting a scene with more luminance range then Canon can handle...but not more then Exmor can handle...with close up foliage...and with wind so heavy that HDR or blending is impossible? Seriously, how many shots per year are we talking here?

Lots, since it turns out that we get a lot of wind around here and so do many other places, water flows and forest scenes happen to just be about at the range that exmor DR can just handle with single shot. Sure there are some shots beyond even Exmor, but I find many more for what I shoot that do fit and the ones that do fit in Exmor range require less extreme tone mapping and are easier to avoid the HDR look with too. If the tech were 3-4 stops worse on both sides now, then I'd find what you find, that Exmor is too often not enough anyway. But it just so happens that as the DR is for both sides not, Canon often falls just short for me and Exmor has just enough for a lot of the stuff I encounter. But sure there are shots where even Exmor will fail for single shot.

Although it's a bit rare to need it, sometimes for wildlife or sports you do hit HDR scenarios and multi-shots are utterly unworkable in those cases just about always (other than for stable perched bird).

That is exceedingly rare. I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where...again...you're out of bounds on the Canon sensor but still in bounds on the Exmor.

sun dappled Wild Turkey or Ruffed Grouse in a forest. Pileated Woopecker with sun on head and rest in shade.
Granted for sports and wildlife I don't get bothered by it nearly so much. it wouldn't hurt to have it though, but it's not a regular basis issue for what I do there in my particular case.

There have been a few games where you had to shoot extreme backlighting and on the older sensors back then 20D, the faces get a bit ugly and lacking in detail. Not a regular thing though.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I would consider it "easily circumvented." Soft brush on a mask? Not long at all.

how much time each of us have to devote to fixing problems in photoshop varies
I have little and much prefer simple global adjustments on files that can stand up to such adjustments.

+1, generally the notion "I'll fix it in post" gives me the creeps as I'm already sitting in front of the pc much more than I'd like to. If you want to postprocess the one great keeper you have with full-blown PS adjustments, fine, but for anything else I'd like to stay in Lightroom - which excludes inter-shot blending.

+1 PP is such a time pig as it is and for finely detailed forest type stuff, going into to every little glint and leaf and blade and so on or dealing with halos and oddities if you shortcut, a nightmare, crazy time waster, and this is for the shots that you could take at least two frames and have that work.

Anyway, at the end of the day if all Canon sees and hears is that it's not that big of a deal, nobody but a few will care, we will be stuck with this old 500nm fab for another decade or two, literally. So I don't see that it does anyone any good to minimize it. Even if you don't need it, it won't hurt you and a new fab might bring stuff that you do care about more too. Plus at least once in a blue moon you must mess up the exposure on a one of shot and at least you'll be able to rescue that better. And for those who do care more, we'll it would be great. Less money to get all your gear from one brand than a mix. Less to carry and drag around which can be a pain, literally. Canon does make awesome lenses, has a very nice UI and so on so it is nicer if Canon improves their sensors to go to a different system.

 

[Otara]

"Even if you don't need it, it won't hurt you "

Uh no - unless that improvement costs nothing, something else wont be done, or cost will increase or both. When you're talking a new fab, thats more than a few dollars. It remains to be seen how easy dual pixel for video and increased DR at the same time is for instance and thats a feature many would value over a measurable but not meaningful (to them) increase in DR.

Its unlikely to be an everyone wins scenario in the short to medium term. If a feature gets overvalued, other features inherently end up being undervalued by comparison.

 

[dtaylor]

It's not that uncommon, although not always the case, that for a forest scene to be such that if you expose to not clip the bright sunlit parts you can do that at f/6.3-f/11 at reasonable handheld speeds and often the brightness difference turns out to be such that the shadows would be serviceable enough with another nearing 3 stops more DR and that if you expose 3 more stops for an extra shot as required by Canon that can flip the shutter speeds into questionable zone.

It has been uncommon for me apparently. I can count on one hand the instances where I've faced this, and that was without IS.

All I know is that most of us who have talked about it a lot for years in the forums very much did first notice in real world work. I'm sure that is case for many others who post about. That said, I'm sure some of the chatter from infrequent posters on the ad thread on DPR and such might have heard about it from TN or FM or DxO.

Fair enough.

First, it's disingenuous to refer to as underexposing by 3 stops since by definition that means you leaving 3 stops free at the top and you well know that is not the case.

No, by definition that means middle gray is 3 stops below where it should be. You're doing that to extend your highlight range.

Second, it's perfectly fine if you just about never have to dig into the bottom depths of files. And it's fine to say that. What some others say is not so fine.

That's fair...but they say it over and over and over again

Meanwhile, for the words posted, there are precious few examples of that sliver between Canon's limit and HDR for every camera.

 

[dtaylor]

Lots, since it turns out that we get a lot of wind around here and so do many other places, water flows and forest scenes happen to just be about at the range that exmor DR can just handle with single shot.

I'm not sure I buy it...but if true then shoot an Exmor camera or load up Magic Lantern. Not sure what else to say. Posting about it here certainly won't push Canon to change their ADC arrangement.

 

[Don Haines]

Anyway, at the end of the day if all Canon sees and hears is that it's not that big of a deal, nobody but a few will care, we will be stuck with this old 500nm fab for another decade or two, literally. So I don't see that it does anyone any good to minimize it. Even if you don't need it, it won't hurt you and a new fab might bring stuff that you do care about more too. Plus at least once in a blue moon you must mess up the exposure on a one of shot and at least you'll be able to rescue that better. And for those who do care more, we'll it would be great. Less money to get all your gear from one brand than a mix. Less to carry and drag around which can be a pain, literally. Canon does make awesome lenses, has a very nice UI and so on so it is nicer if Canon improves their sensors to go to a different system.

The thing is, we don't know yet what fabrication line the 70D and 7D2 sensors are made on... but we do know that going to the 20.2Mpixel design from the 18Mpixel design, the ISO performance increased slightly... The more complex lithography required for DPAF should have meant a reduction in high ISO performance, so they must have done something to counter it, and using their existing 180nM line (P/S sensors) seems like the most likely scenario... Also, it costs a lot more money to keep 2 fabrication lines open than one, so my bet is that the death of the 500nM fabrication run is already happening.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

No, by definition that means middle gray is 3 stops below where it should be. You're doing that to extend your highlight range.

I don't think it makes sense to talk about exposures that way with digital sensors.
The whole middle gray is centered thing is kind of bogus. And different manufacturers default the point on the linear capture to different values anyway.
The proper exposure is one where you don't clip anything that you want to retain and where you put enough light on to minimize noise as best as you can without clipping (or going quite so far as to make processing tricky and leaving too few highlight tones).

Calling it like "people going around underexposing 3 stops" makes it sound like they are making mistaken exposures. You may not have meant to imply that, but many of those who post like that do, since they then say stuff, like learn how to set a proper exposure [insult insult].