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

[deleteme]

I received my A7r rental from LensRentals today. I've been working, but I took a few minutes to snap some quick shots of my living room,

If you fixed the verticals your house will sell faster.

Actually thanks for the comparison. I can see a difference but I am not sure if it means much to me. When I started photography transparency films gave us a rather compressed range that we opened up or compressed as needed with lighting, reflectors, scrims etc.. It was really a matter of selecting what range we wanted to have reproduced and the mood that the reproduction would carry.
A very long tonal range compressed into a print that revealed ALL the detail in highlights and shadow leaves us with a flat image. The flat image may be delightful in and of itself but if drama and contrast is what you want then one must choose what will be dropped in favor of the impact of the image.
So while I would be happy to get more DR, the fact that the A7 gives incrementally more is scarcely reason to abandon my tools. The fact that it has a small form, lens adaptability and high resolution are far more compelling reasons for me. The poor battery life is a very real drawback.

 

[raptor3x]

@ Sporgon

it was already mentioned that DPP is better at develop cr2 raw expecially in the shadows, from this point your examples of the blue boat is very interesting even more with no noise reduction ... In the end if not better sensor Canon could realise a better/powerful software or why not help Adobe improve the CR2 raw converter ??? Their DPP is free, they do not need to protect sales in this regard, maybe it is the opposite, there are many adobe customers that could get more out of canon so no need to search elsewhere.

That is debatable. DPP shows less banding and noise in shadows now, but it also gets a very mushy, sometimes almost posterized, very fake, digital, waxy, no detail look IMO. Personally I'd call that putting lipstick on a pig.

Yeah, especially with the new version of DPP even the lowest non-zero level of noise reduction is very heavy handed.

 

[V8Beast]

A lot of people like to keep their photography separate from all the tech/Canon marketing mess pushing controversy and feel freer to just call it all as they see it and so on.

For every person that "likes to keep their photography separate from all the tech/Canon marketing mess pushing controversy" there's another person too busy arguing on forums to produce anything beyond watermarked snapshots on flickr.

And for the record, when you do come across the portfolios of those who ask for more DR, I have to say they generally are among the more impressive and comprehensive ones you'll find while many of those attacking them and talking about going out and shooting end up having a portfolio consisting of three, non-artistically, blurred photos of a cat in the back yard (not in your case though, just to make that clear though and for all I disagree with what and how he posts here, Sporgon does have a good portfolio too).

I mean heck did you miss the flickr account linked to earlier in this thread?

Please. There are lame or non-existent portfolios on both sides of the DR debate, just like there are incredibly spectacular portfolios on both sides of the DR debate. Trying to assess the skill set of everyone who has an opinion on the DR debate based on the tiny yet very vocal fraction of the population that posts on CR is preposterous. I don't doubt that you perceive that those seeking more DR have more impressive portfolios. What I seriously doubt is how precisely your own personal perception reflects the skill set of the entire photography world as a whole.

 

[jrista]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I'll see what I can do about getting some more demonstration shots. Given the tone of this thread, I don't think it will matter much...same old stuff, same old retorts, same old nastiness. I simply set out to demonstrate the differences, as best as possible...which required an extreme situation. It doesn't matter if you always do a 5-stop push, even with a one or two stop push, the differences can be realized.

I'm pretty dismayed at some of the insults being thrown, not even at myself, it's just not necessary (Sporgon!) We can be civil about this issue.

 

[Don Haines]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I'll see what I can do about getting some more demonstration shots. Given the tone of this thread, I don't think it will matter much...same old stuff, same old retorts, same old nastiness. I simply set out to demonstrate the differences, as best as possible...which required an extreme situation. It doesn't matter if you always do a 5-stop push, even with a one or two stop push, the differences can be realized.

I'm pretty dismayed at some of the insults being thrown, not even at myself, it's just not necessary (Sporgon!) We can be civil about this issue.

I am waiting the results with an open mind.

 

[Marsu42]

The way LR reports tonality, it's POST-render!!! In the Exmor, there is WAAAY more tonality in the region that LR reports as the bottom 5% than in the Canon file. I believe it is extremely misleading to utilize LR's dropper tool to measure tonality, since it is not measuring the linear data.

Interesting point, I didn't know that (cannot read all posts about dr )

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

Get better soon! If you can manage sooner or later I'd also like to see some comparison images esp. in connection with the low 5% tonality you described.

I am using Magic Lantern to boost the dynamic range, but with the way it works it reduces detail in the very high and low histogram regions where just one part of the interlaced image caputres data. If you happen to have installed ML by now and reached dual_iso in the menu, maybe you can also include a 100/800 and 100/400 ML shot - that would be conclusive.

 

[Sporgon]

I never get noise or banding in images taken with the 5DII, not in blue skies, dark shadow - nowhere. Either you had a real dud of a camera or a real dud of a brain. Maybe both, I'm being generous.

If you've never once seen noise or banding in 5D2 shadows then you never push it or use DPP which now apparently mushes shadows to nothing, maybe not much banding or noise, but raw mush, no details at all either.

I mean come on, you can say it doesn't matter for what and how you shoot, but to try to imply that nobody ever sees banding or noise in 5D2 low ISO shadows unless they have a defective copy, come on man.

Honestly I don't. My 5DII has always been as clean as a silent whistle in blue skies. However I think you are probably right in saying I don't push much. One stop push, one stop pull, that is always enough for me.

The 5DII has a fair amount of highlight latitude and headroom, much more than the 5D ever had, but it hates chronic under exposure, so I don't chronically under expose. Simples.

But anyway the 5DII is 2009 tech, so it's hardly relevant to judge it against a D8x0 anyway. The 6D has significantly more latitude than the 5DII and that's a more relevant comparison.

 

[Sporgon]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I'll see what I can do about getting some more demonstration shots. Given the tone of this thread, I don't think it will matter much...same old stuff, same old retorts, same old nastiness. I simply set out to demonstrate the differences, as best as possible...which required an extreme situation. It doesn't matter if you always do a 5-stop push, even with a one or two stop push, the differences can be realized.

I'm pretty dismayed at some of the insults being thrown, not even at myself, it's just not necessary (Sporgon!) We can be civil about this issue.

I'm interested to see the images too. If I could make a suggestion: don't get carried away with 5 or 6 stop pushes in scenes. It's just too extreme, most seem to agree on that. I'd like to see some sunlit landscapes shot into or across the sun, holding as much highlight as possible but not the sun disc. Then see if you can get the tonality and luminosity in the shadow areas from one exposure.

 

[Lee Jay]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I'll see what I can do about getting some more demonstration shots. Given the tone of this thread, I don't think it will matter much...same old stuff, same old retorts, same old nastiness. I simply set out to demonstrate the differences, as best as possible...which required an extreme situation. It doesn't matter if you always do a 5-stop push, even with a one or two stop push, the differences can be realized.

I'm pretty dismayed at some of the insults being thrown, not even at myself, it's just not necessary (Sporgon!) We can be civil about this issue.

I often fly off of Nern lake at Long Lake Park.

 

[zlatko]

Sorry, tools like that do not meet my standards of image quality, not when they come with that kind of price tag.
If you're happy with them, great. But image quality like this is the reason I dumped Canon and went to ABC cameras.
Most people likely would not notice the noise, I sure do, much as I listen to the silence between the music.

Apparently your standards of image quality are higher than those of photographers who shoot with Canon ... Sam Abell, David Burnett, Patrick Demarchelier, Greg Gorman, Lauren Greenfield, Gregory Heisler, David Hume Kennerly, Douglas Kirkland, Antonin Kratochvil, Vincent Laforet, Annie Liebovitz, Don McCullin, Eric Meola, Peter Read Miller, James Nachtwey, Martin Parr, Paolo Pellegrin, Denis Reggie, Sebastiao Salgado, Mario Sorrenti, Pete Souza, Joyce Tenneson, Damon Winter, etc. I know some of them don't shoot Canon exclusively, but with all of the talk about Canon's poor sensors, it's a wonder they shoot Canon at all. Those folks just don't have image quality standards like you do, or maybe they just photograph easy-peasy stuff without too much dynamic range.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

A lot of people like to keep their photography separate from all the tech/Canon marketing mess pushing controversy and feel freer to just call it all as they see it and so on.

For every person that "likes to keep their photography separate from all the tech/Canon marketing mess pushing controversy" there's another person too busy arguing on forums to produce anything beyond watermarked snapshots on flickr.

So you think, based upon nothing. Maybe you'd be surprised.

And for the record, when you do come across the portfolios of those who ask for more DR, I have to say they generally are among the more impressive and comprehensive ones you'll find while many of those attacking them and talking about going out and shooting end up having a portfolio consisting of three, non-artistically, blurred photos of a cat in the back yard (not in your case though, just to make that clear though and for all I disagree with what and how he posts here, Sporgon does have a good portfolio too).

I mean heck did you miss the flickr account linked to earlier in this thread?

Please. There are lame or non-existent portfolios on both sides of the DR debate, just like there are incredibly spectacular portfolios on both sides of the DR debate. Trying to assess the skill set of everyone who has an opinion on the DR debate based on the tiny yet very vocal fraction of the population that posts on CR is preposterous. I don't doubt that you perceive that those seeking more DR have more impressive portfolios. What I seriously doubt is how precisely your own personal perception reflects the skill set of the entire photography world as a whole.
[/quote]

That's kinda rich since you were the one who brought portfolios and hinted that the DR side is basically a bunch of zero portfolio types.

You were the one who started trying to make claims that one side had the portfolios.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

ah man, sorry to hear that.
Hope it gets better sooner rather than later.

 

[privatebydesign]

Yeh, you can't do that with a Canon..........

HAHA!

Do you expect me to take your example seriously?!?

C'mon, in my example the "pushed" shadow areas are still darker than the shadow areas in your "before" shot! ;D
You're not in a DR-limited scene. Other than the sun being in frame, that's some might flat dull scenery.

A large part of the lower right corner of my before shot is rendered RGB (0-255) 0,0,0 by the camera's internal jpg engine. In the after shot it's brought up the the mid-20s on average.
Your before shot dark area is about 11,17,20 brought up to about 22,35,42 in the after shot.

My Sol glint is not even clipped in the before shot; 248,247,218 is about the brightest pixel in the small image. In the after shot, it's still 249,246,212 so I'm not pulling my highlights down like in your example either.
My example is a proper ETTR shot to take advantage of the Exmor capabilities; maxing out the exposure at the brightest point in the image and re-curving the entire thing to bring back the tonality that is close to how it was visually perceived.

my after

vs your before

If you want to come up with a good comparison, leave the 1DS3 at home, grab a current Digic 4 or 5 body and see if you can replicate this much DR and recovery in one shot.

Thanks for playing tho.

EDIT: bonus point for picking a similar composition

Thanks for the compliment.

I posted that particular picture for two reasons, first because of the composition being so similar to yours, the second because I knew you would do the "oh but the 1Ds MkIII is the only Canon camera that could do that" so it is from a 2002 1D.

 

[risc32]

It surprises me that no-one has tried to put a Sony sensor into a Canon 5d3 and make the perfect camera.
Swapping engines and transmissions in cars is not uncommon, so why not swap sensors in cameras?

I don't think it's a simple as changing a lens or a focusing screen. The sensor is the guts of the camera and it's hard wired in. I'd imagine Sony uses completely different components than Canon so you can't just stick it on and expect it to work. Then you need to programme the digic processor to work with the new sensor. So you'd need the electrical engineering skills from both Sony and Canon plus the coding skills of the ML team to stand a chance. How many attempts would it even take? Do you wanna buy a bunch of $3000 cameras just so you can play Dr Frankenstein with them?

I bet there is some lunatic out there that is probably doing this very thing as I type this!

You need to replace almost all of the electronics, design new custom chips, write a new firmware from scratch.

NOW YOU TELL ME! OMG i guess i gotta put this all back the way it was...
====
seriously, jrista, get better and keep up the good fight. I'm by your side in spirt.

Sure this place isn't all rainbows and sausages, but it's pretty good overall. I've always been surprised that these disagreements don't quickly go down the road of, "ya? well your mother...." again overall pretty good. Lots of guys here are mostly into gear and perhaps never actually use their cameras. others will grab whatever they have and do their best. I'm much closer to the later. most of my nitpicks involve getting stuff done as efficiently as possible. I only wish i could fiddle with one image for hrs, and personally I don't see the example you posted as being so out of line. tons of people go all "natural light", and that's just what they would get.(personally i feel that most natural light shooters just don't know how to light but that's a horse of a different color) i guess you could go the other way and expose for the inside and then tweak out on the windows. i guess that would be better. at least it would have a smaller footprint on the... print, but whatever, i get it.
some of you are hopelessly lost yet damn sure of where your are. to the point i don't care to bother looking the i forum, but then sometimes (cue dumb and dumber) you go and totally redeem yourselves. i don't know. i guess i'll kick around.
so on reacap,
jrista-cool, i would totally take you out for a beer if i was in (wherever you live).
clueless people(I know, you don't think i'm pointing at you)- be more humble.
everyone- chill. we are taking about cameras.

 

[privatebydesign]

To the OP: let's see you capture a scene that includes the actual sun disc recorded in the EV range and lift shadows from a shaded area with the A7r. This is the only situation in which my Canon gear cannot cope.

Of course you will fail. I know because I have already tried with a D800. That's why myself and hundreds, nay thousands of 'landscape' orientated photographers are still using Canon.

you mean like this one?..
www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=8105.msg161888#msg161888
good luck using a Digic 4 or 5 Canon for a shot like the first one, you would not be able to re-tone the image to look like it does to the eye.
How does a Canon user cope with such a shot? Cry and go home? Spend many hours in post, trying to tame the stripes and fix the muddy dark tones to have some sort of semi-realistic texture? HAHAHA! Bracket?!? ;D

the last 2 in that post could even be done with a 7D, not that I'd chose one if I had an ABC alternative available.

Yeh, you can't do that with a Canon..........

That example was only like a half stop or stop lift of lower mid-tones, not near black areas.

It was a +100 shadow lift, basically a two stop lower lift, plus a modest exposure lift.

If that isn't "enough" then here it is with a totally unrealistic lift, a +100 shadow lift and a 1.5 stop exposure lift on the bottom, looks kind of ridiculous even though I held the sky back with a filter in post. Don't forget this is with a 2002 4.2MP camera with a >3.5 lift in post at 100%.

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I wish you recover well, and I'm praying for that. Rest and do not feel pressured to prove anything. Regardless of my opinion on the test that originated this post, I am grateful for you to share your knowledge with us.
Peace and good.

 

[V8Beast]

That's kinda rich since you were the one who brought portfolios and hinted that the DR side is basically a bunch of zero portfolio types.

You were the one who started trying to make claims that one side had the portfolios.

Why so defensive? No one's call you out personally

 

[Zv]

I really screwed up my knee, and weather is blowing in rather fiercely now. I can hardly walk, so hiking up to my landscape spots (Long Lake is a great one, but it's a decent hike up past Brainard Lake, which is a nice area...and I can't take any hikes like that now. ).

I'll see what I can do about getting some more demonstration shots. Given the tone of this thread, I don't think it will matter much...same old stuff, same old retorts, same old nastiness. I simply set out to demonstrate the differences, as best as possible...which required an extreme situation. It doesn't matter if you always do a 5-stop push, even with a one or two stop push, the differences can be realized.

I'm pretty dismayed at some of the insults being thrown, not even at myself, it's just not necessary (Sporgon!) We can be civil about this issue.

Take it easy man, you don't need to prove anything. I appreciate that you've tried to demonstrate the differences in this thread. I understand that it's important to some and less to others. It's good to see for ourselves so thanks for sharing samples. Hope you get better soon!

Btw - I downloaded the sample from the a7r but I guess Lr 4 can't open the file, (doh! moment) so for me none of this is relevant! I don't even know what I'm missing out on! (I'm sure it would be glorious!)

 

[TeT]

Curious about the setting... Are the walls a vibrant or subdued green?

Low ISO shots the A7 shows a more neon green while on the next set the 5DIII shows more neon green and the A7 show the subdued hue...

on boths sets something between the two would be pleasing to my eye (what little eye I have for such things)...

 

[privatebydesign]

Curious about the setting... Are the walls a vibrant or subdued green?

Low ISO shots the A7 shows a more neon green while on the next set the 5DIII shows more neon green and the A7 show the subdued hue...

on boths sets something between the two would be pleasing to my eye (what little eye I have for such things)...

The colours really are irrelevant, both cameras can be used with profiles to make the colours identical.