EOS-1D X Mark II Claims of 15 Stops of DR [CR3]

[heptagon]

I really want better IQ with lower noise in the ISO 2000 to 6400 range.

Not going to happen with current silicon technology using the Bayer pattern because it is physically not possible.

* They have about 50% of quantum efficiency. If that gets increased to a perfect 100% it would be an improvement by 1 step. With silicon this is probably not going to happen.

* Readout noise is not the big problem at high ISO. Little to none to gain here except regarding DR at low ISO.

* What I'm waiting for is stacked photodetectors to replace the Bayer pattern. The green channel would double its pixel count resulting in a 1 step of improvement which could actually be achieved.

* A diversification into more color channels would reduce the noise amplification when decomposing the sensor data into RGB channels. Also it would improve white balance and color rendition.

That's what we can hope for in the next 10, 100, 1000 years: 2 steps and a little something of improvement in high ISO performance.

This is also the reason why Canon greatly improves the digital noise reduction of their JPEG engine. There is much more to gain for people who shoot JPEG.

 

[jrista]

An image which is exposed "correctly" such that nothing has to be pushed or pulled does not need high DR. Do you know any display device that can display more than 10 stops of DR?

All of them, including prints.

It's not hard to tone map 25 stops of DR into a 6 stop capable display system. If you go to the Hubble Site, you'll see a lot of that sort of thing going on. Many of those images (but not all) have absolutely huge DR, all mapped into an 8-bit JPEG.

How is tonemapping 25 stops DR into an 8 bit JPEG different from pushing and pulling like crazy?


Your answer to my question is like:

Q: Do you know a stair with 1000 steps?

A: With 6 decimal digits you can represent 1 million different numbers.

You can't always expose a scene such that nothing needs to be pushed or pulled. Not when the scene has more dynamic range than the camera. One of the most difficult subjects for me to shoot as a bird photographer are birds with white and black feathers in direct sunlight. Even if I've got the sun behind me, black feathers don't reflect much, and white feathers reflect a ton. The 5D III suffers severely in that case. So did my 7D. I simply don't have enough dynamic range in the camera to get an exposure where I could just leave it be without recovering highlights AND lifting shadows.

There are a lot of birds like this. Loons. A wide range of ducks. Chickadees. Nuthatches. The list goes on and on. Bird photography isn't a situation where you can sit still and bracket. The bird's are there then gone a moment later. You gotta get the shot in a single frame, and to get the best shot, you need to fire off a whole string of single frames to get one with the bird posed right and without any subject blur. The compromise I am forced into these days is to underexpose the dark feathers. I have no other option, because to go the other way would mean permanently clipping the light feathers, and that is completely unrecoverable. Because of the high read noise in Canon cameras, I cannot recover those dark feathers without heavy noise. The 5D III in particular has this very speckled (due to hot pixels from the rather high dark current) and often banded noise as well.

There are many ways to use an increase in dynamic range. I would LOVE to be able to set my exposure 2/3rds to 1 stop underexposed in a well lit exposure, and just leave it there. Bird photography is catching fleeting moments where a bird shows up before it's gone, and short sequences of action. Sometimes the light changes on a dime, and with the limited DR of current Canon cameras, you don't have the option of leaving yourself any headroom to deal with those moments when the sun pops out from behind a passing cloud and the scene brightens by a stop for a couple frames before slipping behind a cloud again. You have to constantly be on the ball, constantly adjusting your exposure for every change in the light. Gets really tedious after a while, and there are always moments when your focused on getting the right moment instead of keeping an eye on the exposure meter...and oops, you just clipped the crap out of those bright white feathers.

Sometime you just can't get that perfectly exposed shot without the need to recover anything, and it's in those moments when having more DR is invaluable.

 

[jrista]

I really want better IQ with lower noise in the ISO 2000 to 6400 range.

Not going to happen with current silicon technology using the Bayer pattern because it is physically not possible.

* They have about 50% of quantum efficiency. If that gets increased to a perfect 100% it would be an improvement by 1 step. With silicon this is probably not going to happen.

* Readout noise is not the big problem at high ISO. Little to none to gain here except regarding DR at low ISO.

* What I'm waiting for is stacked photodetectors to replace the Bayer pattern. The green channel would double its pixel count resulting in a 1 step of improvement which could actually be achieved.

* A diversification into more color channels would reduce the noise amplification when decomposing the sensor data into RGB channels. Also it would improve white balance and color rendition.

That's what we can hope for in the next 10, 100, 1000 years: 2 steps and a little something of improvement in high ISO performance.

This is also the reason why Canon greatly improves the digital noise reduction of their JPEG engine. There is much more to gain for people who shoot JPEG.

It's already happened. The A7s did it. The A7s II did it. The D500 did it. Those cameras are already pushing 65% Q.E. Sony's also got sensors on the market (not in DSLRs) that have ove 77% Q.E. The A7s has phenomenal high ISO performance not because it's got higher Q.E. but because it's got bigger pixels...and more importantly, because it switches to a higher gain mode at ISO 2000. In the higher gain mode Sony mapped the input analog signal to the output digital signal differently, which is how they were able to gain back dynamic range at higher ISOs.

We were talking about transfer curves earlier. That is another way that the analog signal could be mapped more effectively into the output bit depth. Instead of using a linear amplifier, a non-linear amplifier (log amplifier or something similar) could be used to amplify darker pixels more and brighter pixels less. Maybe even combine that with something like Sony's high gain mode. That would preserve dynamic range even more, at both low and high ISO. A reversing curve could be stored in the RAW (or simply specified in the specifications for how to decode the given RAW format) allowing the non-linear compression to be reversed by a RAW editor for proper rendering to screen.

There are many ways to improve dynamic range beyond just increasing Q.E. or pixel size.

 

[heptagon]

I really want better IQ with lower noise in the ISO 2000 to 6400 range.

Have you read about the D500? Might want to google around for some articles and have a read. It sounds really impressive, at any ISO, even as high as 12800.

Are there solid tests out there, yet? I didn't see it on DXOmark yet (only preview, not tested).

 

[heptagon]

I really want better IQ with lower noise in the ISO 2000 to 6400 range.

Not going to happen with current silicon technology using the Bayer pattern because it is physically not possible.

* They have about 50% of quantum efficiency. If that gets increased to a perfect 100% it would be an improvement by 1 step. With silicon this is probably not going to happen.

* Readout noise is not the big problem at high ISO. Little to none to gain here except regarding DR at low ISO.

* What I'm waiting for is stacked photodetectors to replace the Bayer pattern. The green channel would double its pixel count resulting in a 1 step of improvement which could actually be achieved.

* A diversification into more color channels would reduce the noise amplification when decomposing the sensor data into RGB channels. Also it would improve white balance and color rendition.

That's what we can hope for in the next 10, 100, 1000 years: 2 steps and a little something of improvement in high ISO performance.

This is also the reason why Canon greatly improves the digital noise reduction of their JPEG engine. There is much more to gain for people who shoot JPEG.

It's already happened. The A7s did it. The A7s II did it. The D500 did it. Those cameras are already pushing 65% Q.E. Sony's also got sensors on the market (not in DSLRs) that have ove 77% Q.E. The A7s has phenomenal high ISO performance not because it's got higher Q.E. but because it's got bigger pixels...and more importantly, because it switches to a higher gain mode at ISO 2000. In the higher gain mode Sony mapped the input analog signal to the output digital signal differently, which is how they were able to gain back dynamic range at higher ISOs.

We were talking about transfer curves earlier. That is another way that the analog signal could be mapped more effectively into the output bit depth. Instead of using a linear amplifier, a non-linear amplifier (log amplifier or something similar) could be used to amplify darker pixels more and brighter pixels less. Maybe even combine that with something like Sony's high gain mode. That would preserve dynamic range even more, at both low and high ISO. A reversing curve could be stored in the RAW (or simply specified in the specifications for how to decode the given RAW format) allowing the non-linear compression to be reversed by a RAW editor for proper rendering to screen.

There are many ways to improve dynamic range beyond just increasing Q.E. or pixel size.

I interpreted the question not in regards to DR but in regards of SNR instead.

The 18% grey area does not benefit from increased DR.

You won't improve SNR with any technique when it's limited by poisson noise. You need more detected photons and you only get that with more QE, more sensor area, less ISO.

Regarding DR, yes, that is an interesting area to improve upon.

 

[heptagon]

An image which is exposed "correctly" such that nothing has to be pushed or pulled does not need high DR. Do you know any display device that can display more than 10 stops of DR?

All of them, including prints.

It's not hard to tone map 25 stops of DR into a 6 stop capable display system. If you go to the Hubble Site, you'll see a lot of that sort of thing going on. Many of those images (but not all) have absolutely huge DR, all mapped into an 8-bit JPEG.

How is tonemapping 25 stops DR into an 8 bit JPEG different from pushing and pulling like crazy?


Your answer to my question is like:

Q: Do you know a stair with 1000 steps?

A: With 6 decimal digits you can represent 1 million different numbers.

You can't always expose a scene such that nothing needs to be pushed or pulled. Not when the scene has more dynamic range than the camera. One of the most difficult subjects for me to shoot as a bird photographer are birds with white and black feathers in direct sunlight. Even if I've got the sun behind me, black feathers don't reflect much, and white feathers reflect a ton. The 5D III suffers severely in that case. So did my 7D. I simply don't have enough dynamic range in the camera to get an exposure where I could just leave it be without recovering highlights AND lifting shadows.

There are a lot of birds like this. Loons. A wide range of ducks. Chickadees. Nuthatches. The list goes on and on. Bird photography isn't a situation where you can sit still and bracket. The bird's are there then gone a moment later. You gotta get the shot in a single frame, and to get the best shot, you need to fire off a whole string of single frames to get one with the bird posed right and without any subject blur. The compromise I am forced into these days is to underexpose the dark feathers. I have no other option, because to go the other way would mean permanently clipping the light feathers, and that is completely unrecoverable. Because of the high read noise in Canon cameras, I cannot recover those dark feathers without heavy noise. The 5D III in particular has this very speckled (due to hot pixels from the rather high dark current) and often banded noise as well.

There are many ways to use an increase in dynamic range. I would LOVE to be able to set my exposure 2/3rds to 1 stop underexposed in a well lit exposure, and just leave it there. Bird photography is catching fleeting moments where a bird shows up before it's gone, and short sequences of action. Sometimes the light changes on a dime, and with the limited DR of current Canon cameras, you don't have the option of leaving yourself any headroom to deal with those moments when the sun pops out from behind a passing cloud and the scene brightens by a stop for a couple frames before slipping behind a cloud again. You have to constantly be on the ball, constantly adjusting your exposure for every change in the light. Gets really tedious after a while, and there are always moments when your focused on getting the right moment instead of keeping an eye on the exposure meter...and oops, you just clipped the crap out of those bright white feathers.

Sometime you just can't get that perfectly exposed shot without the need to recover anything, and it's in those moments when having more DR is invaluable.

You are actually playing into my argument for more DR with a pretty good example:

1) I think that "correctly exposed" such that "nothing needs to be pushed or pulled" is ill defined. (What does "correct" mean anyways without a reference to a specific technique?)

2) Different photographers have different needs. (Who would have thunk that I'm not the centerpin of the universe.)

- Some photographers can control their scene. (Good for them.)

- Some photographers cannot control their scene. (Usually it's not their fault.)

3) Some scenes intrinsically have a high dynamic range. (Should we not take an image of these situations because it would be a "bad" scene?)

4) Some photographers need pushing and pulling to actually make an image look good on the display devices we currently have. (It's and art about showing what you want to show as good as possible. Different people want to show different things. Some people want to do things that are not possible with current technology. Some people want to do things that are not possible ever.)

 

[Loswr]

To me, looking at some HDR photos that were bragged up, I felt they just looked "unnatural".

shad·ow. ˈSHadō/ noun
1. a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface.

Your brain sort of expects shadows to be...dark. When they're not dark, and there's no obvious reason for that, it naturally looks unnatural. Naturally.

Dark does not mean noisy, though. Neither does dark mean black, or devoid of detail. By definition dark means "approaching black"...but not actually black. When it comes to whether DR matters...it's not the darkness that matters, it's how much noise is in that darkness, and how much that noise costs you useful detail.

It's also the fact that because of the nature of a RAW image, in their natural linear form they do not represent the world as we see it, and with a default camera curve they tend to compress both the highlights and the shadows too much. Our eyes see far more detail in shadows and highlights than a RAW rendered with the default settings of any RAW editor. Yes, shadows should be dark...but everything that is dark in a camera RAW image before it is processed is not necessarily supposed to be dark, or for that matter, a actual shadow.

When your storing more information than you can display (and unless your particularly lucky and unique to have a 10-bit display with a video card that can actually render 10-bit, and your using software that also supports 10-bit display...then your working with 8 bits, and what you see on screen is about 8 stops of dynamic range...anything more, and it will be crushed to black or clipped to white), your bound to, by default, render some of that information incorrectly. Hence the reason we need the ability to lift shadows. Same reason we need the ability to recover highlights, because when something starts to blow out to nearly pure white in a RAW, it's not representative of reality...in reality, things don't suddenly clip to hard white with harsh edges. Why should shadows be any different?

Canon users are used to having to keep shadows very dark (and personally I would say unnaturally dark in many cases), because to do otherwise means dealing with more noise. They don't push more because they either can't, or are simply unwilling to have that much noise in their image...especially if it has unnatural patterns in it. Once you work with data that has more dynamic range for a while, the NEED to keep shadows so crisply dark fades, and you begin to appreciate the flexibility that having lower read noise offers. You don't always have to lift your shadows. You won't always need to. However having the freedom to is extremely useful when you do need it.

Let me explain. No, there is too much...let me sum up.

Question: Why do the images used to brag on demonstrate how much more DR one camera has compared to another so often look unnatural?

Answer N: Because shadows are supposed to be dark.

Answer J: Because Canon sensors are bad and Sony sensors are good and dark is relative and Sony allows more shadow pushing.

Well, I know which one sounds like an answer to the question posed.

 

[kaihp]

The 5D III has 11 stops of DR. If I'd had 13.8 stops, it would have required fewer integrations to capture the entire dynamic range of the whole object. If I'd had 15 stops, I'd have required even fewer integrations...maybe only two or three.

Nah, you would still do att that hard tedious work so you could gain even more DR

See scientist complain about long computational time. Give a scientist a computer that is 10x faster. See scientist refine model and data to make computation 10x longer. See runtime stay the same.

Trust me, I've seen this too many times ;D

 

[rfdesigner]

An image which is exposed "correctly" such that nothing has to be pushed or pulled does not need high DR. Do you know any display device that can display more than 10 stops of DR?

All of them, including prints.

It's not hard to tone map 25 stops of DR into a 6 stop capable display system. If you go to the Hubble Site, you'll see a lot of that sort of thing going on. Many of those images (but not all) have absolutely huge DR, all mapped into an 8-bit JPEG.

I don't have a firm handle on this so may be displaying ignorance. When the human eye views a scene where there is bright sun somewhat in the field of view and deep shadows as well, it does not perceive all the detail in the highest brights and the lowest darks. To me, looking at some HDR photos that were bragged up, I felt they just looked "unnatural". Is that what we're after, being able to distinguish detail in the darkest and brightest areas even though it doesn't represent reality?
This is just an innocent question. Isn't mapping just another way of saying compression?

Jack

Yes.

Example, this is about what the Orion Nebula looks like with a normal contrast curve:

This is the Hubble image:

That bright area in the middle is way, way, way brighter than the dust that surrounds it. The Hubble Site folks have massively compressed probably 20+ stops of DR into an 8 bit JPEG. And it still looks fine. Great, even. Not all HDRs are so good. Many look very unnatural. Go look in the sunrises and sunsets thread for a few that are pretty bad.

Jack, to add to what Lee Jay has said, this is my own Orion Sword image...(and for all the effort I put into it, I think I can say one of the best you'll find (outside of the Hubble image, of course) ):



http://www.astrobin.com/full/142576/F/

This is an HDR composite. I took a number of sets of data, including 210s, 120s, 60s, 30s, 15s, 10s and 5s sets of subs. (I had intended to take 240s subs...I accidentally took 210s, hence the break in the linearity of the exposure times.) To actually capture the central stars (the Trapezium or "Trap" as we call it), I had to keep dropping my exposure time down to a mere 5 seconds per sub. Even then...note how much brighter the core of Orion Nebula is in my image? The Trap itself is still overexposed, I wasn't able to accurately reproduce all of the major stars in there (there are four major stars in the trap, and a number of other smaller ones) at 5s. I could have gone down to 2.5s, maybe even 1.25s subs, to better resolve those stars without the heavy clipping in them. Down to 5s, I expanded my dynamic range to 17 stops, and if I'd gone down to 1.25s that would have expanded it to 19 stops. Throw in the integration of 40x210s subs, which reduces noise by over a factor of 6x, and you have even more dynamic range. So, this was a truly high dynamic range image...probably 18-20 stops from the trap to the darkest background sky.

I manually linear-fit each integration to each other, starting with the 10s to the 5s, then the 15s to the fit 10s, etc. Once all the integrations were fit, I combined each subsequent set into a combined image using an exponential transfer curve formula in PixelMath in PixInsight to produce a single high dynamic range image.

Now, if you look at Orion Nebula with a pair of binoculars or a decently large telescope, you will only see the large central nebula, including the bluish rim...but you won't see all the rest of the outer dust. You would need an extremely large telescope to start seeing some of that outer dust, and a gargantuan telescope to see it all (albeit more faintly than I have depicted here for sure.)

But...what is reality, here? Because we cannot normally see the outer dust around Orion Nebula, is it improper and incorrect and lying to reveal it? This is one of my favorite regions of the night sky. Has been since I was 7 or 8 as a kid. Orion Nebula was the first nebula I think I ever saw through a telescope. I've wanted to see it FOR REAL for my entire life. I've wanted to know what's really out there in space in the constellation of Orion my whole life. This image represent's what's really there. It isn't what we see when we look through a telescope...what we see when we look through a telescope is a pale soft gray shadow of the reality of the object up there in space, 1350 light years away. I didn't want to just reproduce what I could see every night during winter by pointing a telescope up at the sky...I wanted to reproduce everything, all of it, top to bottom, brightest to faintest, as much of the intriguing structure and detail of the region as I could.

And damn if it wasn't a HELL of a LOT of work. I reprocessed this data three times. I spent two solid weekends the third time, and I developed some of my own processing techniques in the end to bring out all the structures and all the nuances of color that I could. It would have been a lot easier to do if my camera had more dynamic range. The most tedious part of the process was linear fitting everything, identifying the blending regions, and tuning the exponential transfer curve formula for each deeper integration to blend them properly. Took a lot of time. Lot of meticulous and tedious measurement. The 5D III has 11 stops of DR. If I'd had 13.8 stops, it would have required fewer integrations to capture the entire dynamic range of the whole object. If I'd had 15 stops, I'd have required even fewer integrations...maybe only two or three.

Reality is more than what we see. Sometimes we don't see all of what really is there. Sometimes the goal isn't to exactly reproduce reality (and other times, it's to reproduce it more accurately.) Sometimes having a piece of technology that is more capable than our humble little eyes can let you reveal something that people rarely see. Sometimes it can let you realize a childhood dream.

Just for reference. I took a high resolution, high dynamic range. image of the trapezium, at the core of this image. In order not to blow out the stars I had to look beyond 16 bit / channel pre-processing as when doing that I either blew out the stars, or I got banding in the nebula surrounding them.. that's more than 16EVs of DR in the linear image.

 

[Orangutan]

Dark does not mean noisy, though. Neither does dark mean black, or devoid of detail. By definition dark means "approaching black"...but not actually black. When it comes to whether DR matters...it's not the darkness that matters, it's how much noise is in that darkness, and how much that noise costs you useful detail.

Let me explain. No, there is too much...let me sum up.

Question: Why do the images used to brag on demonstrate how much more DR one camera has compared to another so often look unnatural?

Answer N: Because shadows are supposed to be dark.

Answer J: Because Canon sensors are bad and Sony sensors are good and dark is relative and Sony allows more shadow pushing.

Well, I know which one sounds like an answer to the question posed.

While I often agree with Neuro on these things, I'll say that there have definitely been some times with my camera, a 70D, that I've felt more DR would have helped. To be clear, I understand that this is not Canon's best sensor for DR. The most notable example is a forest scene with dappled light. I don't expect to capture the full scene DR, it would be nice to reduce the amount of blowout, and reduce the noise in the high shadows.

I think we all agree on the following:

• More DR is better, but not at the expense of other important qualities (everything here relative to how you shoot)
• Until we hit 20+ we will not have enough
• You work with what you've got

 

[jeffa4444]

An image which is exposed "correctly" such that nothing has to be pushed or pulled does not need high DR. Do you know any display device that can display more than 10 stops of DR?

All of them, including prints.

It's not hard to tone map 25 stops of DR into a 6 stop capable display system. If you go to the Hubble Site, you'll see a lot of that sort of thing going on. Many of those images (but not all) have absolutely huge DR, all mapped into an 8-bit JPEG.

I don't have a firm handle on this so may be displaying ignorance. When the human eye views a scene where there is bright sun somewhat in the field of view and deep shadows as well, it does not perceive all the detail in the highest brights and the lowest darks. To me, looking at some HDR photos that were bragged up, I felt they just looked "unnatural". Is that what we're after, being able to distinguish detail in the darkest and brightest areas even though it doesn't represent reality?
This is just an innocent question. Isn't mapping just another way of saying compression?

Jack

Jack my understanding is that our eyes look at one thing at a time so when at a sunset when we look at the bright clouds our eyes adjust to show details and when we look at the darkness under the trees our eyes adjust. We can do this very rapidly and in effect have a very hight DR built in.

Our eyes constantly pan & scan but the debate about how much DR we can see in any one time has constantly changed as the science & knowledge has changed and that debate is just as fierce as this one.. I saw a German paper that said most people can see up to 14 stops in any one time but the eyes & brain can adjust to up to 20 stops. Think of sitting in a movie theatre and then going out into bright sunny blue summer skies the variance can be 20 stops but your eyes need time to adjust and our protection mechanism is things like squinting.

A similar arguement is made about how many colors we can see, this has constantly been adjusted up as the science has improved and a couple of years back a US optromitist discoverd some women have three cones instead of the normal two in each eye and they describe even more colors.

 

[3kramd5]

How is tonemapping 25 stops DR into an 8 bit JPEG different from pushing and pulling like crazy?

With the former, you can actually have detail throughout the range.

Are there solid tests out there, yet?

Doubtful; it was only just announced.

The A7s has phenomenal high ISO performance not because it's got higher Q.E. but because it's got bigger pixels...and more importantly, because it switches to a higher gain mode at ISO 2000. In the higher gain mode Sony mapped the input analog signal to the output digital signal differently, which is how they were able to gain back dynamic range at higher ISOs.

A7R2 implements DR-Pix as well, albeit at 640.

 

[bdunbar79]

Question: Suppose you do increase QE of the pixel without making the dimensions larger. Can you "count" that as part of the FWC?

 

[scyrene]

Canon users are used to having to keep shadows very dark (and personally I would say unnaturally dark in many cases), because to do otherwise means dealing with more noise.

I don't disagree with most of what you say, but this statement strikes me as odd. It's certainly not my experience (and while one person's experience is merely anecdote, it's no worse than 'lots of unspecified people think/do XYZ'. Partly, it comes back to - could you tell, given a series of finished images, what brand of camera was used to create each one? If you're right, it should be obvious. But it's not - I spend a lot of time looking at images made by all manner of equipment, and hardly ever can you tell what was used except in the broadest terms (obviously we'd all welcome equipment that makes things easier - and more DR, lower noise, etc. would mean less intensive processing etc.) But also, technique like ETTR* (which I appreciate is more a Canon thing nowadays) means the shadow worries are just not the case the way you mean - you're pulling the exposure down, so the shadows aren't especially compromised. It's not perfect, but I just don't think Canon shots have 'unnaturally dark' shadows, nor do I approach exposure or editing with trepidation towards darker areas - does anyone else?

*You talk about black and white birds later in the thread. I shoot birds more than any other subject, and certainly black and white ones are a challenge (in direct sunlight). But I don't feel like it's the massive problem you make out - I can only conclude you want images with brighter shadows than I do (a legitimate difference of taste). You can ETTR a fair bit before the highlights are truly blown. Much more and the shadows would look weird imho.

 

[scyrene]

Dark does not mean noisy, though. Neither does dark mean black, or devoid of detail. By definition dark means "approaching black"...but not actually black. When it comes to whether DR matters...it's not the darkness that matters, it's how much noise is in that darkness, and how much that noise costs you useful detail.

Let me explain. No, there is too much...let me sum up.

Question: Why do the images used to brag on demonstrate how much more DR one camera has compared to another so often look unnatural?

Answer N: Because shadows are supposed to be dark.

Answer J: Because Canon sensors are bad and Sony sensors are good and dark is relative and Sony allows more shadow pushing.

Well, I know which one sounds like an answer to the question posed.

While I often agree with Neuro on these things, I'll say that there have definitely been some times with my camera, a 70D, that I've felt more DR would have helped. To be clear, I understand that this is not Canon's best sensor for DR. The most notable example is a forest scene with dappled light. I don't expect to capture the full scene DR, it would be nice to reduce the amount of blowout, and reduce the noise in the high shadows.

I think we all agree on the following:

• More DR is better, but not at the expense of other important qualities (everything here relative to how you shoot)
• Until we hit 20+ we will not have enough
• You work with what you've got

Pretty much!

Just to reiterate - I've seen nobody say more DR would be worse (that it might encourage 'unnatural-looking' images is not to say it wouldn't help in other ways). A few don't think it would help them, that's fine. Most of us would like the extra leeway *sometimes*. A few people feel their photography is suffering a lot for want of more DR.

Given this is a thread on the rumour that the next Canon body will have more DR, it's a mild surprise the discussion has gone this way. If you want more, more may be coming! If you don't, it's not gonna harm you in any way!

 

[Lee Jay]

Dark does not mean noisy, though. Neither does dark mean black, or devoid of detail. By definition dark means "approaching black"...but not actually black. When it comes to whether DR matters...it's not the darkness that matters, it's how much noise is in that darkness, and how much that noise costs you useful detail.

Let me explain. No, there is too much...let me sum up.

Question: Why do the images used to brag on demonstrate how much more DR one camera has compared to another so often look unnatural?

Answer N: Because shadows are supposed to be dark.

Answer J: Because Canon sensors are bad and Sony sensors are good and dark is relative and Sony allows more shadow pushing.

Well, I know which one sounds like an answer to the question posed.

While I often agree with Neuro on these things, I'll say that there have definitely been some times with my camera, a 70D, that I've felt more DR would have helped.

So have I, but never at base ISO. At high ISO, I'm always struggling for DR but at base ISO, it's never really been a problem except for that time I was trying to shoot a solar eclipse setting behind the mountains. The dark mountain foliage in shadow compared to the surface of the sun is about a 30 stop range so the little bit of extra you get from on-sensor ADC would have made no difference.

 

[Orangutan]

Dark does not mean noisy, though. Neither does dark mean black, or devoid of detail. By definition dark means "approaching black"...but not actually black. When it comes to whether DR matters...it's not the darkness that matters, it's how much noise is in that darkness, and how much that noise costs you useful detail.

Let me explain. No, there is too much...let me sum up.

Question: Why do the images used to brag on demonstrate how much more DR one camera has compared to another so often look unnatural?

Answer N: Because shadows are supposed to be dark.

Answer J: Because Canon sensors are bad and Sony sensors are good and dark is relative and Sony allows more shadow pushing.

Well, I know which one sounds like an answer to the question posed.

While I often agree with Neuro on these things, I'll say that there have definitely been some times with my camera, a 70D, that I've felt more DR would have helped.

So have I, but never at base ISO.

I certainly have had the problem at base ISO, even on tripod, with LiveView and bracketing.

Edit: I should add that I'm not in the market for the new 1DXII, but I hope the tech trickles down quickly to my price range.

 

[scyrene]

So have I, but never at base ISO. At high ISO, I'm always struggling for DR but at base ISO, it's never really been a problem except for that time I was trying to shoot a solar eclipse setting behind the mountains. The dark mountain foliage in shadow compared to the surface of the sun is about a 30 stop range so the little bit of extra you get from on-sensor ADC would have made no difference.

The ISO thing is a good point I'd forgotten - with regard to shooting those high contrast birds, it's surely always gonna be ISO 400-800+...

 

[ewg963]

Interesting!!!

 

[Loswr]

...I just don't think Canon shots have 'unnaturally dark' shadows, nor do I approach exposure or editing with trepidation towards darker areas - does anyone else?

Clearly some do.

Just to reiterate - I've seen nobody say more DR would be worse (that it might encourage 'unnatural-looking' images is not to say it wouldn't help in other ways). A few don't think it would help them, that's fine. Most of us would like the extra leeway *sometimes*. A few people feel their photography is suffering a lot for want of more DR.

Agreed.

It seems that for some people, a couple of extra stops of low ISO DR can elevate their photography to the sublime and end world hunger.