Dynamic Range - Try it for yourself, conclude for yourself: 5D III vs. A7r

[Marsu42]

A) world-renowned photographers and masters of their craft with numerous years experience between them, all shooting Canon (despite any flaws or limitations) in extremely diverse conditions with diverse lighting and subject matter, and producing high quality work with their reputations at stake.

Nooooooooo, I'm about to post in a dr thread ... but anyway:

The points about pro photogs using and having used Canon sensors successfully seems to leave out the competitive aspect and only concentrate on the *absolute* iq.

For most of us, there certainly is a "good enough" for a given print/view size. But if the competition with other brands can move ahead in *relative* terms some photogs might face a problem if an editor has to pick just one. Esp. if their genre mostly depends on producing the very highest iq possible at any given time and the creative aspects doesn't matter so much (I imagine shooting models on a catwalk in so-so lighting).

 

[Sporgon]

I'm still puzzled why the OP didn't take some 'landscape' shots as a direct comparison between the two cameras,,and this has been something of a disappointment to me. I know he stated that the weather was very poor but the shots of the rocks, judging by the image and histogram, looks like there was a fair amount of bright light about when they were taken. Why didn't he just point the camera at a sky/land/trees scene and shoot ? Or was it that he found, as I have been saying all the time, the Sony can't record the actual light source as well as what it's illuminating either in one exposure ?

Anyway the samples so far have put me off getting a Sony A7s. I've been half talking myself into one of these due to the 12 mp sensor and large pixels. Canon will never produce another 12 mp FF camera because it is just too niche a product for them. It's probably too niche for Sony too, it's just that unlike Canon they don't realize that yet. As all the serious work I do is stitched, 12 mp is just ample in one frame and I have been kidding myself that others might actually see a difference in the tonal ranges of the final print, but really it's just an excuse to purchase something new.

And in the UK the D810 is being offered at a £300 ($450) discounted sale price for a 'limited period of time'. What's that all about so soon after launch ? Someone is supposed to be dropping one of these in for me to try any time now, and I still have a few Nikkor lenses left, so I'll post some 'normal' high contrast landscapes when I've used it.

 

[Loswr]

Or was it that he found, as I have been saying all the time, the Sony can't record the actual light source as well as what it's illuminating either in one exposure ?

Dude, get a grip. Go read the Internet. It's Exmor!! There's nothing it can't do. Need to stand in a cave under overcast skies at night and capture the sun while pushing shadows to reveal crater detail on the dark side of the moon? Get an Exmor!!

 

[Sporgon]

Or was it that he found, as I have been saying all the time, the Sony can't record the actual light source as well as what it's illuminating either in one exposure ?

Dude, get a grip. Go read the Internet. It's Exmor!! There's nothing it can't do. Need to stand in a cave under overcast skies at night and capture the sun while pushing shadows to reveal crater detail on the dark side of the moon? Get an Exmor!!

Well there is at least one 5DIII that appears to have an Exmor sensor installed in it; at least when fitted with a 17 TS-E

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=22916.30

 

[Lee Jay]

my wish? May Canon use Sony sensors in the next models

I hope not. Sony doesn't make a dual-pixel sensor, and that functionality is much more important to me than base ISO dynamic range.

I'd rather Canon just reduce read noise across the board on their dual pixel sensors.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

:

A) world-renowned photographers and masters of their craft with numerous years experience between them, all shooting Canon (despite any flaws or limitations) in extremely diverse conditions with diverse lighting and subject matter, and producing high quality work with their reputations at stake.

FYI

That is an example of both an "argument from authority" and "bandwagoning" both of which are logical fallacies.

Simply observing that a large number of succcessful photographers use a specific brand does not indicate that the specific brand is better or worse than any other brand -- unless a relationship of causation between camera brands and succcess as a photographer can be established.

Which will be difficult to establish since we like to proclaim that it is the photographer not the equipment that makes the good picture.

There are many reasons why one would consider a specific camera brand to be better. The fact that a bunch of famous successful people use a particular brand should not be one of them.

 

[zlatko]

:

A) world-renowned photographers and masters of their craft with numerous years experience between them, all shooting Canon (despite any flaws or limitations) in extremely diverse conditions with diverse lighting and subject matter, and producing high quality work with their reputations at stake.

FYI

That is an example of both an "argument from authority" and "bandwagoning" both of which are logical fallacies.

Simply observing that a large number of succcessful photographers use a specific brand does not indicate that the specific brand is better or worse than any other brand -- unless a relationship of causation between camera brands and succcess as a photographer can be established.

Which will be difficult to establish since we like to proclaim that it is the photographer not the equipment that makes the good picture.

There are many reasons why one would consider a specific camera brand to be better. The fact that a bunch of famous successful people use a particular brand should not be one of them.

My point was not about which brand is better or worse — that's really not the point, sorry. My point was that group A) has a proven public record of skill and mastery and Canon clearly meets group A)'s standards for image quality. So the fact that Canon doesn't meet the "high" image quality standards of group B) is of very little relative importance, considering group B)'s unknown level of skill and mastery, and considering group B)'s determination to fix radical underexposures as a way of proving alleged sensor superiority. Moreover, it does sound rather dubious for anyone in group B) to claim to have higher image quality standards than group A).

There are indeed many reasons why one would choose one camera brand over another. That's consistent with my view that DR is not as important as some people make it out to be. Recall that Steve McCurry (current Nikon & Hasselblad user) created an amazing body of work shooting slide film with limited DR. Even the threat of contrasty lighting did not make him choose color print film.

 

[Aglet]

..it does sound rather dubious for anyone in group B) to claim to have higher image quality standards than group A).

your argument logic is reminiscent of someone under the influence of too many wobbly-pops

MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS

go ahead, debate that. :

 

[3kramd5]

MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS

go ahead, debate that. :

I'll give it a shot

(argument from boredom )

1) What is, in your professional opinion, the camera body which produces the best quality images?
2) What are, in your professional opinion, the lenses for that body which produce the best quality images for the variety of scenes you frame?

Do you exclusively use 1 & 2?

If so, I concur that you have higher standards than [whomever].

If not, I assert that, while you may have high desires for image quality, you don't have higher standards.

 

[zlatko]

..it does sound rather dubious for anyone in group B) to claim to have higher image quality standards than group A).

your argument logic is reminiscent of someone under the influence of too many wobbly-pops

MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS

go ahead, debate that. :

So easy to say, "MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS" when you're anonymous and can say whatever you want. You can as easily say that you've flown to Jupiter and back ... with the same level of conviction, and just as much credibility. But I'll grant you that your standards for pushing 4- or 5-stop underexposed nearly-black frames and rescuing them from the trash are higher than mine. You'll win that argument every time.

Could Canon's IQ be higher? Of course! But the fact remains that Canon meets the IQ standards of some of the very best photographers.

 

[krisbell]

Image quality is, to me, not very subjective. I'm only considering the results produced by the hardware used.
I'm not alone here with very high quality standards in that regard.
If you haven't run into such hardware limitations you're staying within your handicap. If you're using various workarounds "that have been around for a century" then you're accepting a compromise or exercising an artistic choice to work within those limitations.
Some of us have artistic choices that require better hardware with less limitations to fulfill. That's how progress happens.

Some people here react to this debate far too emotionally, with lots of passion and only a few facts.
The OP has not only shown examples, he's also provided his raw data and used a lot of his personal time and resources to do so, only to receive insult on top of (literal) injury.
Some of us have bolstered his findings with more examples.
Point is, these are facts, not opinions, about sensor system capabilities of Canon vs Sony.
It can be summarized as such:
- Canon is good enough
- Exmor is excellent
... in the one sensor metric where they differ substantially, low iso SNR and FPN.

+1 and bravo Aglet - beautifully summarized, objective post. Couldnt have said it better myself.

 

[unfocused]

..it does sound rather dubious for anyone in group B) to claim to have higher image quality standards than group A).

your argument logic is reminiscent of someone under the influence of too many wobbly-pops

MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS

go ahead, debate that. :

So easy to say, "MY image quality standards are higher than YOURS" when you're anonymous and can say whatever you want. You can as easily say that you've flown to Jupiter and back ... with the same level of conviction, and just as much credibility. But I'll grant you that your standards for pushing 4- or 5-stop underexposed nearly-black frames and rescuing them from the trash are higher than mine. You'll win that argument every time.

Could Canon's IQ be higher? Of course! But the fact remains that Canon meets the IQ standards of some of the very best photographers.

Well, Aglet's not quite as anonymous as you might suppose. http://a2bart.com/

You can browse his website and draw your own conclusions.

 

[msm]

I think the subject is interesting, I am trying to get better at landscape photography, I am however unsure what methods yield the best results-

I been out the last days and chanced on couple of sunsets, both from rather boring places though. Tried to take some single exposures on my a7r and process them and they are both near the limit of what the a7r can do so needless to say it would just be garbage if taken with a Canon camera.

My question is, would they be better if taken as multiple exposures (with any camera) and mixed or HDR or any other form of processing? And if so what would the benefits be?

 

[Loswr]

Well, Aglet's not quite as anonymous as you might suppose. http://a2bart.com/

You can browse his website and draw your own conclusions.

I like this one. It's titled, "9th Street Bridge, SW" but I'd call it "Stairway to Heaven" because of all the artifacts in the sky. Really speaks to having a high standard for image quality in the way one showcases their work.

 

[privatebydesign]

Well, Aglet's not quite as anonymous as you might suppose. http://a2bart.com/

You can browse his website and draw your own conclusions.

I like this one. It's titled, "9th Street Bridge, SW" but I'd call it "Stairway to Heaven" because of all the artifacts in the sky. Really speaks to having a high standard for image quality in the way one showcases their work.

I took the high quality outlets that represent him to be a true measure of his creative worth, one farm seed shop in Edmonton.

Apache Seeds, 10136 - 149 St NW Edmonton

With representation in the art world like that I find it very easy to take anything the guy says with complete seriousness. /sarcasm.

 

[Sporgon]

I think the subject is interesting, I am trying to get better at landscape photography, I am however unsure what methods yield the best results-

I been out the last days and chanced on couple of sunsets, both from rather boring places though. Tried to take some single exposures on my a7r and process them and they are both near the limit of what the a7r can do so needless to say it would just be garbage if taken with a Canon camera.

My question is, would they be better if taken as multiple exposures (with any camera) and mixed or HDR or any other form of processing? And if so what would the benefits be?

Well at least you have posted something the OP should have done, some landscape shots into the sun with the A7.

The first picture is really quite beautiful.

Were you being serious about saying the images would be garbage if shot on a Canon ? Not sure if you were being sacrastic or not.

In the first picture it looks as if the sun has virtually gone, obviously not in the frame so not a huge EV range in this pic. My only comments would be that the horizon is just a little off ( down on the left ) and the luminosity - light intensity of the sky does not match the luminosity in the rest of the picture, so to me it just looks a little unnatural, but that is just a personal point of view.

In the second picture the camera has been unable to record the sun disc which is no surprise. Perhaps you have a tiny bit more around the sun that's not blown than I would expect, but you'd have to put the two pictures together to notice it. You have a masking shadow or correction radius left on the hills, but to be honest I don't think you would see much of a difference between Canon and Exmor in these situations until you began pushing shadows more, which is not what most people want to do.

Regarding using B&B or HDR it is difficult to give a definitive response without seeing the raw files. I suspect the luminosity of the valley and hills in the second shot could be improved significantly if you'd worked from a B&B file.

 

[msm]

[

Well at least you have posted something the OP should have done, some landscape shots into the sun with the A7.

The first picture is really quite beautiful.

Were you being serious about saying the images would be garbage if shot on a Canon ? Not sure if you were being sacrastic or not.

In the first picture it looks as if the sun has virtually gone, obviously not in the frame so not a huge EV range in this pic. My only comments would be that the horizon is just a little off ( down on the left ) and the luminosity - light intensity of the sky does not match the luminosity in the rest of the picture, so to me it just looks a little unnatural, but that is just a personal point of view.

In the second picture the camera has been unable to record the sun disc which is no surprise. Perhaps you have a tiny bit more around the sun that's not blown than I would expect, but you'd have to put the two pictures together to notice it. You have a masking shadow or correction radius left on the hills, but to be honest I don't think you would see much of a difference between Canon and Exmor in these situations until you began pushing shadows more, which is not what most people want to do.

Regarding using B&B or HDR it is difficult to give a definitive response without seeing the raw files. I suspect the luminosity of the valley and hills in the second shot could be improved significantly if you'd worked from a B&B file.

Thanks for your comments.

I probably worded it a bit wrong, I am not sure the picture would be garbage if shot on my 5DIII or 1DX but from my experience I would not be able to dig out the foreground so with the exact same treatment they would be garbage if shot as a single exposure.

You are right about the first picture the sun is just gone, however the dynamic range is still high, there are some slight overexposure in the red channel on the clouds on the left and the foreground is almost black before pushing.

I am a bit unsure what you mean by recording sun disc, do you like to see the sun as a circle with no burn going into the clouds? If so then no it is not possible with this exposure, it has melted into a nearby cloud. Maybe a bit faster shutter could have helped in that respect.

If there is an interest for it I can see if I can put out the arw files.

 

[V8Beast]

I like this one. It's titled, "9th Street Bridge, SW" but I'd call it "Stairway to Heaven" because of all the artifacts in the sky. Really speaks to having a high standard for image quality in the way one showcases their work.

I took the high quality outlets that represent him to be a true measure of his creative worth, one farm seed shop in Edmonton.

Apache Seeds, 10136 - 149 St NW Edmonton

With representation in the art world like that I find it very easy to take anything the guy says with complete seriousness. /sarcasm.

You mean I'm not the only one who determines a photographer's credibility based on the quality of the images they produce? According to some people (cough, LTRLI), many people complaining about how Canon sensors are holding them back produce exceptional images yet choose to keep them top secret. Using that logic, we should give everyone the benefit of the doubt and just assume they're all exceptional photographers.

 

[Kmccarthy]

Image quality is, to me, not very subjective. I'm only considering the results produced by the hardware used.
I'm not alone here with very high quality standards in that regard.
If you haven't run into such hardware limitations you're staying within your handicap. If you're using various workarounds "that have been around for a century" then you're accepting a compromise or exercising an artistic choice to work within those limitations.
Some of us have artistic choices that require better hardware with less limitations to fulfill. That's how progress happens.

Some people here react to this debate far too emotionally, with lots of passion and only a few facts.
The OP has not only shown examples, he's also provided his raw data and used a lot of his personal time and resources to do so, only to receive insult on top of (literal) injury.
Some of us have bolstered his findings with more examples.
Point is, these are facts, not opinions, about sensor system capabilities of Canon vs Sony.
It can be summarized as such:
- Canon is good enough
- Exmor is excellent
... in the one sensor metric where they differ substantially, low iso SNR and FPN.

+1 and bravo Aglet - beautifully summarized, objective post. Couldnt have said it better myself.

In the real world, the overall capability of a camera system includes various factors and compromises, not just DR (i.e. lenses, AF, frames per second, image stabilization, handling, build quality, skin tones, etc...) If you tabulate and score all these different factors, I think you will find that a 5DIII is a much more capable system than a A7r. Personally, I wouldn't trade the 5DIII's excellent AF system and lenses for a couple extra stops of DR.

 

[Sporgon]

[

Well at least you have posted something the OP should have done, some landscape shots into the sun with the A7.

The first picture is really quite beautiful.

Were you being serious about saying the images would be garbage if shot on a Canon ? Not sure if you were being sacrastic or not.

In the first picture it looks as if the sun has virtually gone, obviously not in the frame so not a huge EV range in this pic. My only comments would be that the horizon is just a little off ( down on the left ) and the luminosity - light intensity of the sky does not match the luminosity in the rest of the picture, so to me it just looks a little unnatural, but that is just a personal point of view.

In the second picture the camera has been unable to record the sun disc which is no surprise. Perhaps you have a tiny bit more around the sun that's not blown than I would expect, but you'd have to put the two pictures together to notice it. You have a masking shadow or correction radius left on the hills, but to be honest I don't think you would see much of a difference between Canon and Exmor in these situations until you began pushing shadows more, which is not what most people want to do.

Regarding using B&B or HDR it is difficult to give a definitive response without seeing the raw files. I suspect the luminosity of the valley and hills in the second shot could be improved significantly if you'd worked from a B&B file.

Thanks for your comments.

I probably worded it a bit wrong, I am not sure the picture would be garbage if shot on my 5DIII or 1DX but from my experience I would not be able to dig out the foreground so with the exact same treatment they would be garbage if shot as a single exposure.

You are right about the first picture the sun is just gone, however the dynamic range is still high, there are some slight overexposure in the red channel on the clouds on the left and the foreground is almost black before pushing.

I am a bit unsure what you mean by recording sun disc, do you like to see the sun as a circle with no burn going into the clouds? If so then no it is not possible with this exposure, it has melted into a nearby cloud. Maybe a bit faster shutter could have helped in that respect.

If there is an interest for it I can see if I can put out the arw files.

I'd be interested to look at the two raw files if that was possible.