Is Canon now two generations behind Nikon?

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The reasoning of downplaying the importance of DR to the point of 'We don't need a better DR sensor because canon doesn't have one' eludes me.

The reasoning doubtless eludes you because nobody's actually doing that.

More disingenuous "spinning" to push an agenda and score cheap points...

Don't paint me as a troll, I don't have any agenda to push, nor points to score. For what it's worth, I only shoot canon myself and have never really liked any nikon body I shot with.

The point I was making is that in a discussion like this one people seem to want to defend the fact that their brand is worse at some characteristic than a competing brand by dismissing the importance of that characteristic, like claiming that people who run into canon's shadow banding are bad photographers, or no one should ever need more DR.

Conversely, some people (not referring to you) take a single factor of camera system performance, promote the idea that better performance in that factor is of such paramount importance that no other aspect of camera system performance has relevance, and then proceed as if that one factor which is important to them is critical for everyone, so much so that lesser performance in that metric spells 'doom' for a particular brand.

Those same people sometimes obsess over trying to prove their point, and post their views rampantly, even in threads which have nothing to do with that issue.

Ultimately, people vote with their wallets. Sales figures and market share for the past few years are ample proof that while low ISO DR is of paramount importance to a small minority, a difference of a couple of stops on that one single metric doesn't have any meaningful impact on the buying decisions of the majority of photographers.

More often there is a thread specifically about sensors or DR or banding and the same set of Canon defenders always comes in and jumps all over and starts going on about how none of the stuff really ever matters, or it's only apparent to lab geeks, or learn how to expose moron, etc. and then if that fails a good bit of but don't you know that there is more to a camera than one aspect, yeah of course we knows, but this thread was about the sensor! We don't fill up threads going on about how amazing the 24 T&S II or 100L or 24-70 II are and say yeah but who cares since the DR is behind.

Back when Canon sensors were basically the best at everything I played them up as the best at everything. And when they had a bit lower spec bodies then I wasn't afraid to admit it. When Canon had poor wide angle lenses I wasn't afraid to bring that up and now that they have many great FF standard and wide lenses I am not afraid to sing their praises. When the 5D3 had good fps and AF I didn't hide it. When the 24-70 II came out I praised it like crazy and I didn't even blanch at Canon's pricing of it, I was like hey this ZOOM basically matches my 24 1.4 II prime (aside from distortion) and it is nearly true APO. I sold my 7D to fund my 5D3, but I don't make up garbage to defend my 5D3 and say that the 7D never gave me anything that my 5D3 can't and that I didn't ever get a reach advantage from it. My 5D3 is good at some things and frustratingly behind in others. When it arrived I wasn't afraid to knock it for having blurry video and extremely low detail in shadows or low contrast areas. When ML RAW came out for it I wasn't afraid to then say that the RAW video out of it wasn't truly stunning and far better than anything you could get out of a Nikon.

I don't try to defend my purchases. I just try to call it as I see it. If it does things much better I say it, if it does things much worse I say it.

But an entire brigade goes around and hassles anyone who ever dares bring up that something isn't the best and hounds them and calls them incompetent moron photographers or lab geeks or clueless and tell them to go out and shoot (if they even know how) and toss subtle insults all over and mocks them and they try to downplay and hide and minimize any findings and yeah maybe DxO overall ratings are curious shall we say but then they also toss out and trash all the generally valid individual plot info. And many good posters have been driven from the forums and some are still around and maybe we've become to annoying and testy at this point but maybe many of us got pushed to it although maybe we should better let the nonsense just brush off.

And maybe some bits get overblow and this or that, but come on.

If we didn't know that Canon has a nice UI and lenses and, with ML only, some really good video (although they may fall way behind on 4k soon it sounds like) we maybe wouldn't care to even bother posting in Canon forums. But at the end of the day, going to the nth degree to defend any last aspect whatever brand is behind on, helps nobody and if some aspect even were overblown, it could only help the users of that product in the end anyway.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I never said Canon cameras were not useful. That's what all the other DRones say.

Actually it is not what the 'DROnes' say. It's what neuro and Keith and friends say (attributing it to the other side, but nobody ever actually says such words, with maybe the most extreme rarest exception, other than the defends of Canon's sacred honor crowd).

What I am saying is that the arguments put forth in defense of Canon are frequently fallacies or other tactics that mislead. Sure, you can get away with using Canon equipment. I do myself.

exactly

However...Canon has shown no clear initiative to improve their low ISO capabilities. Not everyone on the face of the planet shoots at high ISO.

Exactly, so even if some were to go off the deep end about it, how would that a bad thing? Isn't giving the company that a makes a cam which you otherwise like a push something good when it seems like said company sure needs the push? If the company whose products you use gets egged on into improving is that supposed to be bad?

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

If you listen to the monotonous droning you would think no one could take a decent photograph with a Canon, the only trouble for the drones is that plenty of people prove them wrong and misguided.

And yet IN REALITY, from waht I see most of us can be quoted from this thread as having said that you can find an infinite number of subejcts where ytou could take great shots with Canon.

But it seems the other side tries to make it sound like there are zero times having more DR could ever help to any degree taht would matter.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Exactly. It's a totally ridiculous and untenable assertion that the low ISO differences between SoNikon and Canon sensors mean that the former can deliver excellent images whereas the latter deliver subpar or unusable images.

I've come to expect such DRivel from the usual sources (old and new), but I must admit it's rather disappointing when otherwise apparently logical people start spouting the same sort of crap.

And yet such words have ONLY be typed here by Skulker, Keith, dtaylor, yourself and the like.

 

[jrista]

Admittedly, I conflated your comments with those of Tony Northrup, and for that I apologize. I had assumed it would be clear from context, since I included quotes from both of you (even though you did not, in quoting me, which confuses the issue). I expected the deconvolution to be easy...evidently it was not easy enough. Sorry.

Alright, apology accepted.

However, in your words:

Canon data gets scratchier and muddier starting in the lower midtones, and gets ever more nasty the deeper you go. I like contrasty landscapes, and when downsampled to ~8x10 size or smaller for viewing on the web they look perfectly fine. But printed? The shadows are muddy, red-blotchy mush, even despite the contrast.

Is it truly your honest opinion and do you stand by your statement that Canon images are suitable only for web display or prints no larger than 8x10"?

As I stated before, that's completely ridiculous...it's a statement that's proven false by many images, including high-contrast landscapes, taken with Canon cameras hanging as large prints in prestigious galleries around the world.

As for your reputation and history here, you're probably familiar with the saying about reputations – it takes years to build them, but only seconds to destroy them.

Well, it may not stop dead at 8x10 size, and that was actually 8x10 size "on screen"...which is considerably lower pixel density than an actual print.

I usually print 13x19" at home, and I usually do spend quite a lot of time working the shadows to get them to print nicely. I'll often print one copy, to see how things look, then muck around with the shadows again. I've been doing that ever since my 450D. Back then...that was simply what you did...where was no Exmor.

However, now that I have the 5D III, and I am STILL doing that. Not only that, now that I see the 5D III is actually WORSE in the shadows than my 450D, and even a bit worse than the 7D...yes, I really am rather flabbergasted at how far Canon's technology, from a fundamental standpoint, has NOT come in all the years since they released the 450D. That was even before the 5D II, I believe. It is the single most surprising thing to me in regards to my purchase of the 5D III. There is no question that high ISO is improved, however unless you go with the 1D X or 6D with ML's DR extender for high ISO...the 5D III enjoys a marginal lead over the competition. A touch of color noise reduction on a D800 NEF pretty much eliminates any advantage the 5D III has...and the shadows still don't fall off as well until your above ISO 3200.

So...when it comes to large size images...either something like a 1920x1200 size published online (which I've done a few times for 1x.com...they have a very large format presentation), or larger prints (not sure where the cutoff is, I usually print 13x19), then yes. I HONESTLY do believe that the 5D III suffers from it's shadow noise. It's a lot of work. I am realizing more and more how much I have to WORK my images to clean them up, but not so much that I lose an unacceptable amount of detail, and see-saw back and forth between those extremes for a while before I find some kind of happy medium that I'm generally satisfied with...but which still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth because of how the shadows fall off (usually rather harshly, rather than softly, because the only really SOLID way to deal with Canon shadows is to block them up with high contrast).

This isn't just some ploy or tactic here to get people to listen. This is my honest, down to earth, experiential opinion. I haven't done much landscapes. I never liked the FoV with the 16-35 on the 7D...just never quite got the expansive range from close up, detailed foreground element out wide to the depths of some incredible mountainous landscape. The shadows aren't great on the 7D either, although with only 8e- RN, it's better than the 5D III. ISO up through 400 always has banding. Topaz does a pretty good job cleaning that up, yet even after some careful tweaking of DeNoise 5's settings, I've NEVER achieved the kind of shadow falloff I see in D800 files (without any processing whatsoever, I might add...THAT is the truly appealing thing about having that kind of IQ!!) So, I haven't really done landscapes in years. I get some more tightly frames river or creek photos every so often, but, when it comes to the expansive landscapes I love...I haven't even really tried until recently.

Now that I have the 5D III...I'm out trying to do landscapes again. The biggest single issue with landscapes is being at the right place at the right time, ready to go, waiting for that amazing light to occur. That takes a lot of time that I usually don't have, so it's largely luck of the draw for me. When I do manage to capture something interesting...I get home and....banding....blotchy red color noise...really, REALLY grainy shadows. I still use ISO 100 because everything above the lower midtones ends up looking better at ISO 100 than ISO 200 and up...but the shadows just...suck. They suck as bad as they did with the 450D...and that really bugs me. It's a three thousand dollar camera, for christ sake! It's been years...and things haven't really changed. The grain is a slightly more pleasing random flavor...but it is still just as ugly, muddy, lacking in color fidelity, blotchy, and displeasing as it's always been.

I clearly had an inflated opinion of the 5D III before I bought it. I thought it's shadows were a lot cleaner than that, even if they still had roughly the same noise floor. I am now admitting I WAS WRONG in my opinion of the 5D III's low ISO performance. This is a general purpose camera. I got it because it really does very well at high ISO for birds, but I also got it because it's a full frame, with lots of megapixels, and I really to like landscapes. Given that I've never really had major problems with the 7D for birds since getting the 600/4 II, I am really thinking now that I should have spent my three grand on a D810, and a little bit more on a 14-24mm...because it would have served needs that Canon isn't serving far, far better.

That's my honest opinion. No spin, no hype, I am not being paid by anyone for sure (I spent my own hard-earned money on the 5D III, and it will serve me well for birds and wildlife, I have no question). I'm not telling everyone to jump ship even. All I'm saying is...I think we, collectively, are shooting ourselves in our collective feet if we don't at least admit that Canon should do something about their sensor technology.

There are a LOT of technological breakthroughs being made in the sensor industry. Most of those breakthroughs are being patented by other technology companies, which, in my opinion, if Canon doesn't start innovating along those fronts themselves, will eventually lock Canon out of some of the most incredible advancements. I think Canon could not only enhance their low ISO considerably (not really by improving the sensor so much as eliminating the sources of noise in their system, which would simply allow them to use their already good sensor technology more effectively), but there are probably some innovations out there that could RADICALLY improve their high ISO performance. Deep photodiodes, electron hole density increases, multibucketing, etc. can all greatly enhance the dynamic range of sensors at high ISO. This technology, and the patents for them, are being snatched up by Canon's competitors. They innovate a ton...but it primarily seems to be in different areas.

I honestly do think that at some point, Canon is just going to be stuck behind the competition because their innovative focus is currently off in some entirely different area (video is my perception...but they are a big company, and the majority of their innovations could be in an area entirely unrelated to photography.)

 

[Loswr]

More often there is a thread specifically about sensors or DR or banding and the same set of Canon defenders always comes in and jumps all over

Sorry, but no. More often it's a thread about anything but DR and one of the DRones comes in and makes it about DR, and others chime in to counter that. Mikael/ankorwatt hijacked countless threads. Earlier today jakeymate posted his diet coke box noise images (from this thread) in a thread started by someone wondering about changing the color profile of their Canon on-board LCD. Nothing to do with sensors or DR, at all...until Dean the DRone showed up, that is. :

 

[risc32]

when i got my 5dmk3 i was expecting it to behave better than my 5dmk1 in terms of DR. i thought that with the time that had past since the mk1 and then when they didn't really change the megapickle count from the mk2 i thought, hey, maybe they did alot of work in other areas like DR. but then i saw that it reacts pretty much the same. i really like my mk3. it's the best camera i have. but if i could shoehorn a 20-25mp sony sensor in it, i would.
on the other hand i'd rather canon stick around and make good business choices. maybe not investing in sensors is better. maybe all that sony has spent isn't getting them market share. maybe canon should just start purchasing sensors.

 

[weixing]

Would someone explain to me what is wrong with pointing out the weaknesses of your brand and hoping that future models improve on those weaknesses?

Not a damned thing.

+1

Honestly and fairly pointing out weaknesses is something consumers should do, assuming their products matter to them.

Many people, myself included, discussed the lack of a sharp-to-the-corners UWA from Canon. Now, we have the 16-35/4L IS.

I bitched loud and long about the 5DII's AF system, which was pretty similar to that in the 20D...which was the same system used in the entry level xxxD bodies at the time. Now, we have 1-series AF in the 5DIII.

For those two examples, a sizable portion of Canon's customer base felt there was an issue to be addressed. I think the difference in this case is that there is only a very small minority complaining about Canon's lesser low ISO DR. The other difference is the way in which some members of that small minority seem to exaggerate the issue out of all reasonable proportion.

Hi,
+1

Have a nice day.

 

[weixing]

Hi,

More often there is a thread specifically about sensors or DR or banding and the same set of Canon defenders always comes in and jumps all over

Sorry, but no. More often it's a thread about anything but DR and one of the DRones comes in and makes it about DR, and others chime in to counter that. Mikael/ankorwatt hijacked countless threads. Earlier today jakeymate posted his diet coke box noise images (from this thread) in a thread started by someone wondering about changing the color profile of their Canon on-board LCD. Nothing to do with sensors or DR, at all...until Dean the DRone showed up, that is. :

+1

Recently, when I read a thread not about the DR, I always had the feeling that the thread will end up about DR.... ha ha ha

Have a nice day.

 

[Loswr]

That's my honest opinion. ... I think we, collectively, are shooting ourselves in our collective feet if we don't at least admit that Canon should do something about their sensor technology

Fair enough.

I do think there's near-universal agreement that some aspects of Sony/Nikon sensor performance are ahead of Canon.

I also think we, collectively (meaning CR forum members) could shoot ourselves in the foot, and Canon wouldn't even offer us a bandaid to cover the bullet hole. Sad, but true.

 

[jarrieta]

+1

Recently, when I read a thread not about the DR, I always had the feeling that the thread will end up about DR.... ha ha ha

Have a nice day.

Couldn't agree with you more. I don't post much but "try" to read. Sometimes I don't get the technical stuff but do appreciate and admire people that post a lot and share their knowledge. BTW, has the original poster chimed in on the 20 pages this thread has generated?

 

[Don Haines]

When the 70D came out the Canon world was shocked with DPAF. That was July 2013.... DSLR launches since then - zero.

Something is coming..... and not "more of the same"....

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

 

[jrista]

When the 70D came out the Canon world was shocked with DPAF. That was July 2013.... DSLR launches since then - zero.

Something is coming..... and not "more of the same"....

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

I really hope you are right.

 

[jarrieta]

When the 70D came out the Canon world was shocked with DPAF. That was July 2013.... DSLR launches since then - zero.

Something is coming..... and not "more of the same"....

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

You may be right there and hope so too. I do recall an interview wherein a Canon exec (IIRC) implied the 7D2 would be a revolutionary step up.

 

[3kramd5]

When the 70D came out the Canon world was shocked with DPAF. That was July 2013.... DSLR launches since then - zero.

Something is coming..... and not "more of the same"....

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

But didn't you hear? It's the year of the lens. Er... about that

 

[Don Haines]

When the 70D came out the Canon world was shocked with DPAF. That was July 2013.... DSLR launches since then - zero.

Something is coming..... and not "more of the same"....

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

I really hope you are right.

Fabrication lines do not last forever. The Canon 500nM line will eventually have to be replaced with a new line or the production moved to another existing line. Either way, we are looking at a redesign on the underlying technology of the camera. DPAF is almost certainly a shift to another line... When other sensors move over, will it just be DPAF added, or will Canon have figured out something else by then?

I find it hard to believe that anyone at Canon would still be designing for the 500nM process. I can see tweaks to an old design, but not a whole new design.. Remember that 200Mpixel APS-H sensor from the Canon Labs? That's pixels 1650nM square..... you do not design that for 500nM fabrication.

For example, the 7D2.... the sensor design for the pixels may well be the same design as the 70D, but if this rendition of the chip has the A/D moved over too, we could see a significant performance increase...

Only time will tell and Photokina is getting quite close...

 

[can0nfan2379]

If all the 7D2 is, is a 70D with slightly better specs, the same sensor, and a better autofocus system, it would have been out by now. Something is coming that required changing the underlying technology....

I think DPAF was the tip of the iceberg and we are in for a surprise.

I certainly hope this is the case but I'll be waiting to see what exactly rolls out at Photokina

 

[Jack Douglas]

Don Haines, I'm with you. I'd much rather spend my hours having positive thoughts.

It's great being a lowly beginner cause I'm still thrilled with my most used combo the 6D 300 X2. I love it even with the terrible AF and the action shots I miss. I'm very happy with my 24-70 F4, another item that was cursed by many. I love it when a bird fills my 24" computer screen with details I've never noticed before. If the 7DII doesn't strike me as desirable second camera then I'll wait for the next one all the while loving what I'm doing with my present Canon gear.

People can be very fickle. Now I hear complaints that a Canon camera may not have WiFi. When I was researching, everyone was cursing the 6D because it had this useless WiFi and GPS and the on-off switch was over on the left.

So, what more can I say.

Jack

 

[can0nfan2379]

I personally wish Canon would funnel more of their R&D budget into improving still photography IQ...but they seem to have a different focus right now.

^^^This.....I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've recorded video on my 5D3. I'd love it if they worked on improving the ability of modern cameras for manual focus (ie. My Zeiss ZE glass.) -- either focus confirmation dot accuracy or offering better precision focusing screens.

 

[jrista]

Don Haines, I'm with you. I'd much rather spend my hours having positive thoughts.

It's great being a lowly beginner cause I'm still thrilled with my most used combo the 6D 300 X2. I love it even with the terrible AF and the action shots I miss. I'm very happy with my 24-70 F4, another item that was cursed by many. I love it when a bird fills my 24" computer screen with details I've never noticed before. If the 7DII doesn't strike me as desirable second camera then I'll wait for the next one all the while loving what I'm doing with my present Canon gear.

People can be very fickle. Now I hear complaints that a Canon camera may not have WiFi. When I was researching, everyone was cursing the 6D because it had this useless WiFi and GPS and the on-off switch was over on the left.

So, what more can I say.

Jack

I agree that people find dumb little things to complain about with every camera. Not just here on CR, but everywhere.

For me, I've literally been waiting for Canon to really improve their IQ since I first got into photography. I'd researched and new all the technical tidbits before I got the 450D. I wanted the 5D II for landscapes, but I waited as I knew it's noise was pretty bad...hoping that Canon would jack the megapixel count on the 5D III up to 28, and improve sensor IQ. Well, the 5D III hit...better high ISO sensor IQ, but it was trounced in the low ISO game by the D800. I waited again. I've been waiting ever since, watching camera after camera come out from Canon, and camera after camera come out from everyone else. On the IQ front, Canon hasn't changed in over two years...everyone else has, multiple times in some cases. Things originally changed with the Pentax K-5, then the D7000, both of which came out before the 5D III, and that was when I really started hoping Canon would have competitive DR in the 5D III...it never happened.

I'm sorry if I'm venting frustrations, but I'm frustrated. I've been waiting for Canon to fix their noise problems for YEARS. Since, what, 2008? It's topped six and a half years now. How long does a guy have to wait, and keep his mouth shut? I don't have a lot of confidence in Canon to actually do anything about it. I don't know why they don't...they just don't. The only real consistent, model-after-model thread of innovation that I see in Canon's DSLRs after all that time is video. Maybe AF unit as well, if the 7D II really does get a 65pt all-cross-type. Everything else has just been minimal evolutions, throwing in an extra cheap feature or other (cheap in terms of cost...like WiFi and GPS) every so often. Their old technology isn't bad...it just hasn't improved in pace with the competition.

Being a guy with a pure Canon kit that probably tops $25,000 in total personal cost...that's very frustrating. Now, instead of just being able to pick up a new Canon body with ergonomics and functionality I already know how to use without even thinking about it, I have to expand my kit. That involves even more cost, a new set of lenses that largely duplicate what I have, learning a whole new camera system, etc. I like simplicity...one brand, one set of lenses, one type of button placement and menu system. It just sucks.