Dustin Abbott Nikon D850 vs Canon 5D mark IV sensor comparision
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The contrast differences he brings up a couple of times in the first half are neither lens nor sensor-specific, but processor-specific. I do wish people would learn that it's the sensor and processor together which make the image, not just the sensor. It's especially aggravating when it's someone who generally knows what they're talking about and is positioned as an informer and educator. (See also his mispronunciation of 'ISO' as if it's an acronym.)
To some people it may seem like a minor distinction, but given how frequently these companies re-use processors with different sensors (or vice-versa) in various cameras, it really is very helpful to bear in mind that it's the sensor and processor within each camera at work, not just the sensor. Knowing which elements can be attributed to just the sensor (initial capture colour accuracy), the processor (noise, color profiling, and interpretation of contrast), or both (everything else) is very helpful when then looking at future cameras which may re-use the same part(s).
That said, it's interesting to see someone come to such a mixed conclusion (by the second half of his video), compared to the usual all-or-nothing comparisons you get online. The Canon seemingly being better when you nail exposure, but the Nikon being better for deeper editing and post-processing, is in line with my own experience with the two brands over the last couple of years (as well as Sony, who of course make Nikon's sensors). Typically online you see people only vouching for one or the other.
Also interesting to see the Tamron lens at 120mm on the Nikon shots and 114mm on the Canon in the first couple of examples. While that wouldn't account for contrast, noise, colour accuracy, or anything else like that, and has no bearing on the later examples looking at recoverable range, it would account for the apparent bump in sharpness that the Canon has in most of the early comparisons and it could also account for the slightly more accurate metering. (That's a longer shot; Tamron's light transmission across their zoom range is usually very accurate.)
To some people it may seem like a minor distinction, but given how frequently these companies re-use processors with different sensors (or vice-versa) in various cameras, it really is very helpful to bear in mind that it's the sensor and processor within each camera at work, not just the sensor. Knowing which elements can be attributed to just the sensor (initial capture colour accuracy), the processor (noise, color profiling, and interpretation of contrast), or both (everything else) is very helpful when then looking at future cameras which may re-use the same part(s).
That said, it's interesting to see someone come to such a mixed conclusion (by the second half of his video), compared to the usual all-or-nothing comparisons you get online. The Canon seemingly being better when you nail exposure, but the Nikon being better for deeper editing and post-processing, is in line with my own experience with the two brands over the last couple of years (as well as Sony, who of course make Nikon's sensors). Typically online you see people only vouching for one or the other.
Also interesting to see the Tamron lens at 120mm on the Nikon shots and 114mm on the Canon in the first couple of examples. While that wouldn't account for contrast, noise, colour accuracy, or anything else like that, and has no bearing on the later examples looking at recoverable range, it would account for the apparent bump in sharpness that the Canon has in most of the early comparisons and it could also account for the slightly more accurate metering. (That's a longer shot; Tamron's light transmission across their zoom range is usually very accurate.)
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If 'nailing exposure' means being no more than two or three stops out, I'm going to agree with you. A fairer conclusion might be that, when it comes to pushing images, the Nikon sensor has a small advantage over the Canon if either your technical limitations or, more positively, your style of shooting require you to push your out-of-camera images by over three stops.aceflibble said:
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Hey aceflibble, I don't think I understand the impact that the processor has on the image beyond how quickly the image can be stored and manipulated once acquired from the A/D converter that processes the analog data from the sensor? Please elaborate.
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I found the review very intersting and balanced as well. Dustin does a great job!
Honestly, my expectation was that the Nikon would have more of an advantage at low ISO, but the difference seemed insignificant to my eyes.
I believe the difference in sharpness must be caused by a weaker lens on the Nikon, but it would be interesting to see a sharpness comparison of the two cameras and the Tamron 15-30 lenses.
One small thing could be improved though. Many of the pictures that were compared had slightly different exposures (shutter speed), which hurts the comparison of ISOs, and also the ISO invariance tests. My experience is that more exposure benefits the end result with regards to (less) noise, when using the same ISO (as long as there is no clipping). Therefore, I would expect the pictures with the longer shutter speeds to perform better with regards to shadow lifting. Said in different words, the comparisons weren’t 100% apples to apples. That said, this doesn’t impact on the overall impression, that both cameras perform very good in real world use.
Honestly, my expectation was that the Nikon would have more of an advantage at low ISO, but the difference seemed insignificant to my eyes.
I believe the difference in sharpness must be caused by a weaker lens on the Nikon, but it would be interesting to see a sharpness comparison of the two cameras and the Tamron 15-30 lenses.
One small thing could be improved though. Many of the pictures that were compared had slightly different exposures (shutter speed), which hurts the comparison of ISOs, and also the ISO invariance tests. My experience is that more exposure benefits the end result with regards to (less) noise, when using the same ISO (as long as there is no clipping). Therefore, I would expect the pictures with the longer shutter speeds to perform better with regards to shadow lifting. Said in different words, the comparisons weren’t 100% apples to apples. That said, this doesn’t impact on the overall impression, that both cameras perform very good in real world use.
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I also don't think the processor makes any difference at all to the RAW images at all. The processor and jpg processing algorithms do make a difference to the quality of JPG images, but those are not what is being compared in the video. (RAW images are being tested in the video)
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You can do deep pushing with the 5D4. It's easy to rescue very high contrast images and still have nice clean shadows. Yes the Nikon can go an an extra stop or stop and a half, but how often do you need to go over 4EV, without leaving a unnatural result. Nikon is great if you completely screw up exposure, but it only has a 0.8EV photo dynamic range advantage at base ISO and from ISO 160 on they are almost identical with the Canon slightly better above ISO 3200. The sensor differences are now not the main issue for Canon, although it would be great to see BSI and stacked sensors and further improvements, it's more about the feature gimping. 5D4 is a nice camera but could have easily been a lot better. 5DsII could be a D850 killer if they wanted but that would make it a 1DXII killer and they just can't have that. Nikon couldn't care less about putting pro features from D5 into lesser cameras. D500 is so close to the D5 in AF performance it's not funny. You can own a D500 + D850 for less than D5.
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aceflibble said:
You are splitting hairs - it is whether the D850 as a camera is better than the 5DIV as a camera. People use 'sensor' as a shorthand because it is the easiest thing to talk about even though the sensor provides the raw material. Yes, a manufacturer could screw up a great sensor with a poor processor but what is really important is whether you can get good photos from it.
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Mikehit said:
Not the original poster, but I'd assume things like the crop on 4k, limited (read storage intensive) 4k codec, fixed screen rather than tilting/articulating, fps seemed to be minimal increase from the 5dmk3 etc. At least, those are the ones that put me off it.
Other extras like introducing usb charging, a uhs-2 card slot, an ibis system etc would have made it an easy purchase. Not saying it's a bad camera by any means though, just held back
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Geek said:
For starters, every camera does baked in noise reduction. For the last five years companies have been pointing to the processor whenever they get new improvements in high ISO.
“Maybe” base ISO isn’t given any processing but it’s unlikely.
I’d bet there are some color adjustments going on as well.
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9VIII said:
I agree.
When the signal is converted from digital to analogue I would be amazed if they (r any manufacturer) avoid the temptation to firtle with the S/N and get a 'cleaner' image. You only need to look at Sony's 'star-eater' update to see what can be done in the conversion. Raw is not raw - it is 1's and 0's with conversion applied.
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snoke said:
As you can also notice from your link, the D850 ISO 100 is also 'fake'. What is your point?
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'Raw' is processed too.mistaspeedy said:
Basically, all the sensor does is collect the light; it's the processor which interprets it.
Yes this applies to 'raw'. No, it's not just for .jpgs. There is a huge, huge difference between the processor within a camera and a 'processor' as in software converting to a different format. They may be frequently called the same thing but they are entirely different.
'Raw' files are not actually truly 'raw' data. To create the 'raw' image file the processor needs to interpret the light collected by the sensor.
The way I've found people easily understand this in the past is to liken it to food production, so bear with me a second.
Think about basic food ingredients such as flour or sugar, which you might use to make a cake. When you buy them they seem to be in a pretty basic form—'raw', you could say—but you know that before you were able to buy that flour and sugar it first had to go through many stages of production. It had to grow, be harvested, cleaned up, processed and packaged up. Only after the ingredients have already gone through all that can you buy them and then turn them into a cake.
You can think of the camera's processor—remember, that's the psychical processor driving everything, not the software—as being that intermediate stage between food first being grown and you getting to cook with it. When you open your 'raw' image and start to 'process' it, that's the equivalent of you starting to bake that cake; the base ingredients you're working with were already harvested (sensor) and cleaned and packaged up (processor).
Another way to think of it is like a solar panel. The panel—that's the camera sensor—can collect the light, but it requires much more—the processor—to actually turn that sunlight into energy, which then can be used to power whatever you want. (That last bit is your post-processing.)
So, what is the camera's processor responsible for? It's taking the light the sensor reports and puts it all in order. Noise is mostly down to the processor as it tries to interpret variations in the under-stimulated sensor. The processor decides what data can be safely discarded (yes, even with lossless 'raw', some data is lost) when multiple neighbouring pixels report exactly the same information. (This is the basis of what we commonly refer to as dynamic range). When you see colour banding or specific noise patterns, that's usually down to the processor.
If you look at Fuji cameras, you can see how important the processor is compared to the sensor. Their 'A' cameras use a bayer sensor while their other 'X' cameras us a unique 'X-Trans' array. Despite the sensor's pixels being in a different order, though, all their cameras end up with the same look to the raw files because their processors are the same. A lot of people think DxO don't measure Fuji cameras because of the X-Trans array, but DxO can't measure the X-A bayer camera either... because it's really the Fuji processor that is getting in the way.
This is also why Nikon and Sony cameras have varied in image despite them using the same sensors. They use the same sensor, but not the same processor. As a result, the basic interpretation of colour, contrast, brightness, and noise are different.
Canon users of a decade or so ago, especially portrait photographers, will remember how big a deal it was when DIGIC II came along, and then again when DIGIC II was replaced, and how colours and contrast in Canon cameras changed so much in that period even though the sensors themselves mostly hadn't changed. (Especially the APS-C sensors). There are still some people who swear by DIGIC II cameras (and the first generation of Fuji processors, for that matter) as producing the best files for portraiture.
This is all done to the 'raw'. You are never getting truly untouched 'raw' data. If you did you wouldn't be able to open it. Every 'raw' file, from every manufacturer, has to have been processed by the camera's processor—again, this is the physical chip we're talking about, not the software .jpg conversion—before you can open it.
And before anybody asks "well why don't they give me the option to have the file unprocessed, and why doesn't someone develop a way to open that truly raw data?" the answer is quite simple: imagine buying a lens which never allowed you to focus it, ever. Yeah, now you see why you don't want truly raw data.
Final word on the subject: it would really help ease confusion if people got used to being more specific with their terminology. When you're talking about editing a raw file be sure to call it "post-processing", not just "processing". Don't call Photoshop a "processor", for example, but a "raw processor" or "post-processor" are fine.
There can be up to five different stages of 'processing'from the time the shutter is pressed to the time the file is finished and you typically use at least two physical processors in that process, so you can see how the process of using the correct names for each processor used in the process will make the process of discussing processes and processors less confusing.
Yeah, try and get your heads around that one.
When you want to get an idea of what these parts can do, so you can start to get an idea of what future cameras may be like, it's very important to make the distinction.Mikehit said:
E.G.
The 7D3 may well use the same processor—in fact it will likely have two of them—but a different sensor. Knowing which part is responsible for which aspects of the 5D4's image quality can help us estimate the nature of the 7D3's image quality, which helps inform early adopters. Conversely, if you ascribe everything simply to the sensor, you've learnt nothing about the next camera.
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aceflibble said:
I think you are missing part of the equation here. It is the Analog to Digital (A/D) converters that are one of the more critical parts in the path of getting a picture from the image sensor to a usable raw file or jpeg image.
The A/D converters and associated amplifiers and other analog signal conditioning components are responsible for converting the analog data collected by the sensor array into the binary data that the processor(s) can handle.
Until recently this has been a big differentiator between Canon and Sony/Nikon camera systems. Sony sensors and A/D converters have been manufactured onto the same piece of silicon giving them an advantage in signal noise and therefore cleaner final images. Canon has typically used A/D converters that are on separate pieces of silicon and require longer paths and more potential for noise in the analog path before getting to the A/D converters. (Read some of the other threads that cover this in far more detail than I'll bore you with)
The processors (Canon Digic - Digic 7, Sony BIONZ X, Nikon whatever) take the digital data from the A/D converters and process it. Some if not all of the processors have extra Digital Signal Processor (DSP) hardware in addition to the general purpose cores. The DSP's are used to accelerate processing the digital data in the processors.
The reality is that all processors only process the digital data that is given to them from the A/D converters. The difference between the original Digic and the latest Digic 7, 8 or whatever is the performance of the processor and the power usage. With the appropriate firmware, an original Digic can do the same thing that the latest Digic 7 can do, only much slower and using more power. The Canon Digic line uses an ARM core (a general purpose processor) and some specialized DSP hardware to accelerate processing the digital data.
The processor version make no difference on the final image, only the sensor, the A/D conversion and the algorithms used to process the digital data.
And yes, the raw file is the digital data from the output of the A/D converters along with some other information about the required to turn the data into a usable image. I'm sure as mentioned above there is some processing applied to the raw data to reduce noise adjust for ISO levels, etc. But that is relatively minimal compare to the processing required for final images.
So in summary, the sensor and A/D conversion are very critical to the images. All of the work done by the camera to insure proper exposure and focus is critical to the images. Even the image manipulation algorithms are critical to the images. However as long as the processor is fast enough and does not use too much power, it really does not matter which one is used or even how many are used.
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I don’t guess any usual camera gives out the raw data from the little sensors under the green, red, and blue filters.
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stevelee said:
Those data are in the RAW file, the demosaicing is performed by the RAW converter (in-camera or on your computer). Typical converters do not allow you to access those data, you need more esoteric software (e.g. RawDigger, Rawnalyze).
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Geek said:
This paragraph is self confliciting.
All RAW files are baked, it is impossible to access data as it was generated directly from the ADC on any modern camera. The design of the processor will affect the final image. Hook up Digic 4 to a 5DS and you’ll get a very different image, not just get it slower.
Maybe at one point things weren’t processed that way but they are now.
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