Looks like the 6D may not be so bad after all

[x-vision]

Part of the reason I went with Canon a decade ago is because Nikon stripped down their lower end bodies to the bone, thought way too much of themselves, and priced accordingly. Now Canon seems to have that attitude, while Nikon wants to be cut throat competitive. I don't like what I'm seeing in terms of Canon pricing for a given feature set.

+1000

I bought into the Canon system when they were the price/performance leader.
Man, how things have changed since then.

 

[friedmud]

Looking over the Imaging Resource test images, the D600 at 3200 looks a lot like the 7D at 1600.

I've owned a 7D for over a year and just rented a D600 and I can tell you that the difference is definitely more pronounced than that... especially at lower ISO. ISO 100 on a 7D looks like ~ISO700 on a D600. It's not even close.... and it is something that I can see on my 27" iMac when looking at a fullscreen picture. The D600 is _clean_ the 7D is damn noisy anywhere there is a somewhat solid color. The frustrating thing about the 7D noise is that if I go to take it out I lose detail. If I leave it in and do any sharpening it comes blasting to the foreground (much like trying to sharpen up photos from a point and shoot... although, of course, it's not THAT bad).

There's greater separation at 3200 and 6400...just like with 7D/5D comparisons...but no great difference in any respect at lower ISOs...also just like 7D/5D comparisons. I can confidently say that I could make two 24" ISO 400 prints from the 7D and the D600 and you would never know which was which.

That is possibly true but it doesn't mean much. I could make a 24" print from my old XSi that would probably look pretty damn close to a 5D3 (if I managed to get the exposure and everything nailed and did a bit of postprocessing work to heighten the contrast and DR). Almost anyone would have trouble distinguishing prints from 12mp+ DSLRs from the past 4 years on a 24" print.... especially when viewed from normal viewing distances

I can't stand it when people say "but you don't print larger than X!". Going by that standard we should all still be at 10mp like Mr. Rockwell advocates. That statement means absolutely nothing and should not be taken as a reason to have noisy sensors with less DR...

And the 5D3 looks better at 6400 than the D600 at 3200. That surprised me, but it's a pretty clear difference in favor of the 5D3.

The small edge that Sony made sensors generally have in shadow and high ISO noise has been blown way out of proportion by Nikon fans and turned into an online myth. Much like how FF fans will swear on their mother's lives that there is a huge...just HUGE...difference in IQ against crop sensors even though they can never confidently pick between unlabeled samples and prints.

It's human nature I guess.

I don't do a lot of high ISO shooting so I can't comment on that. Go look at other reviews though... like this one from Gizmodo that compares it directly to a 5dmk3: http://gizmodo.com/5946258/nikon-d600-review-images-this-spectacular-have-never-come-so-cheap

That outdoor shot with the buildings is particularly telling... look at the noise in the sky. The D600 is damn clean with excellent contrast and detail on the buildings... which is what I've been after for a while now.... and for just $2100 I can have it. Even spending $3500 on a new Canon body won't give it to me! WTH.

As to the 6D...the problem is that it has been stripped down way too much for the price. The 5D3 is a great camera, but should be priced between the D600 and D800, closer to the D600, but a bit more. The 6D should be priced well below the D600, and even then should not have been stripped down like it was. And I fear Canon's 46 MP beast will be sold at a beast of a price, more than the 1Dx.

Part of the reason I went with Canon a decade ago is because Nikon stripped down their lower end bodies to the bone, thought way too much of themselves, and priced accordingly. Now Canon seems to have that attitude, while Nikon wants to be cut throat competitive. I don't like what I'm seeing in terms of Canon pricing for a given feature set.

I definitely agree with all of that - and that's why I'm switching. Canon costs have just been out of proportion with the competition recently... and I've been disappointed with the IQ and specs for the price. If the 5dmk3 were ~$2k or even $2.5k and the 6D were ~$1500 I might stick around. If the new 24-70 was ~$2k. Or how about those new primes.... $900 for a 24mm f/2.8 IS?

But Canon seems to believe that it can keep jacking up prices and we'll keep paying them. I, for one, am not sticking around to see what happens next.

 

[dtaylor]

I've owned a 7D for over a year and just rented a D600 and I can tell you that the difference is definitely more pronounced than that... especially at lower ISO.

With all due respect...post properly executed test samples for all to review, or don't bother making the claim. Identical scenes with identical exposure by professional testing sites simply do not show the differences you claim.

That said...personal use will have some variance vs. professional testing because of exposure variance. The 7D is not very tolerant of underexposure, and I'll be the first to say if this concerns you then go FF. Also, the technique to get the most out of a crop sensor is different from that of a full frame one. (Actually the processing steps are the same, but the values at each step can be very different.)

That is possibly true but it doesn't mean much. I could make a 24" print from my old XSi that would probably look pretty damn close to a 5D3 (if I managed to get the exposure and everything nailed and did a bit of postprocessing work to heighten the contrast and DR).

Less fine detail would give it away, at least for landscape prints. Though the difference still wouldn't be as great as many would expect.

I can't stand it when people say "but you don't print larger than X!". Going by that standard we should all still be at 10mp like Mr. Rockwell advocates.

99.9% of images never see that size. I don't advocate sticking to 10 MP because of that, but it's also silly to get worked up over differences that can only be seen at 100% in PS.

I don't do a lot of high ISO shooting so I can't comment on that. Go look at other reviews though... like this one from Gizmodo that compares it directly to a 5dmk3:

I give more weight to IR and DPReview because of the precision of their testing and because I can obtain and process the files myself. What too many people over look is that even tiny variations in exposure and settings can make very large differences in 100% views.

But Canon seems to believe that it can keep jacking up prices and we'll keep paying them. I, for one, am not sticking around to see what happens next.

That's a fair assessment. I really, really like Canon's lens library and have a significant investment there, so I'll see what the next year or two brings. (I also hate Nikon ergonomics, but I could adapt.) But I'm much more frustrated with their pricing than their products.

 

[elflord]

It was stupidity and arrogance the lead to the decisions made on this camera, nothing more. I for one, feel insulted.

Arrogance perhaps, but I don't think it's stupid at all. Put the price too low and they'll damage their brand. Better off making the best products they can and insisting on fetching a good price.

Given some of their recent lenses (the 24-70, the 300mm f/2.8 and the 40mm f/2.8), it doesn't seem to me that they are getting lazy or complacent.

 

[friedmud]

With all due respect...post properly executed test samples for all to review, or don't bother making the claim. Identical scenes with identical exposure by professional testing sites simply do not show the differences you claim.

I totally agree with this (that I haven't shown proof)... but unfortunately I didn't have a good basis to compare them on. My 17-55 f/2.8 is broken at the moment (one of the reasons I'm thinking of switching... because I have to buy new glass anyway) and I didn't think that anyone would care to see 7D shots with a 18-55 f3.5-f5.6 IS I compared to a D600 with a 24-70 f/2.8G.

I did take one shot with my "broken" 17-55 at 17mm (where it is stuck) and the D600 at 24mm mounted on the same tripod with the same view. It's a crappy photo (light was really bad at the time... tons of haze from fires in the mountains and really cloudy) but it does show just how much difference there is in noise between the two at ISO 100. Unfortunately, I didn't go further than that (should have taken a series of ISO shots on each to compare)... but, while I had the camera I was having too much fun actually taking photos like this one: http://500px.com/photo/14938023 to think about doing "testing" too much. I'll see if I can post the full res versions of each a little later.

So you're absolutely right that I have no hard proof... but, if you can't tell, I'm a pixel peeper at heart... and I've been peeping at the 7D for a year over tens of thousands of photos... and on my honor as a pixel peeper the D600 is miles ahead... ;-)

 

[RC]

...
For anyone that is thinking about switching I highly recommend renting a D600 like I did. At LensRentals it was ~$200 to rent it with a 24-70 f/2.8G for 5 days. During that time I was able to find out if I could live with the ergonomics...

I'd rather put the $200 towards a 5D3. I played with a 60D at a shop trying to get a feel for what the 6D might feel like. It was so different from my 7D that I realized there is just no way I could ever be happy with a 6D. 5D3 or bust for me.

 

[crasher8]

Pink Ladys to Blood Oranges

"Waiter?, check please. I just can no longer stomach these FF High ISO compared to Crop low ISO posts any longer."

 

[shinjuku-thief]

I don't usually mind a bit of a wait from announcement until release but this seems to long, made worse by the fact Nikon had theirs on shelfs the next week, and Apple releases their products within 2 weeks of announcements.

That's why Apple stopped having an official presence at these tech events. They want to set their own schedule.

 

[xps]

I've owned a 7D for over a year and just rented a D600 and I can tell you that the difference is definitely more pronounced than that... especially at lower ISO.

With all due respect...post properly executed test samples for all to review, or don't bother making the claim. Identical scenes with identical exposure by professional testing sites simply do not show the differences you claim.

I´m not sure, whether all testing magazines get "normal" Cameras you can buy on the market. It is sometimes said, that Companies send specially adjusted Cameras to them. Maybe it is true.
But what I can say: In my fotoclub, more than a dozen of people own a 7D or an 60D. And we were frustrated how big the quality gap of the IQ is. Mine 60D has low noise, lower then the 60D of my friends. But my 7D is more noisy and has low contrasting quality. There other Camerasare much better than mine.

So, I think that Friedmud could be quite right, because his own camera is making not as good pictures as written on the online magazines.


[/quote]

That's a fair assessment. I really, really like Canon's lens library and have a significant investment there, so I'll see what the next year or two brings. (I also hate Nikon ergonomics, but I could adapt.) But I'm much more frustrated with their pricing than their products.
[/quote]
+1

 

[Marsu42]

@ Marsu42
Des is oba a bisserl sarkastisch! Scheane Griass vun da Wiesn. Hob mi heit mit a boa Preissn guat untahoitn.
;D

But doesn't conversation on Oktoberfest mainly consist of "Prosit!", "Gsuffa" und "Guäääääää" :->?

I´m not sure, whether all testing magazines get "normal" Cameras you can buy on the market. It is sometimes said, that Companies send specially adjusted Cameras to them. Maybe it is true.

I'm sure they don't do anything that could ruin their public image when discovered, so "specially adjusted" will mean only that they make sure it's the best "normal" sample of a batch with absolutely no known flaws.

Mine 60D has low noise, lower then the 60D of my friends. But my 7D is more noisy and has low contrasting quality. There other Camerasare much better than mine.

The 7d is known to have a large variance esp. with banding, obviously because of issues with the dual readout channels. But I never read the 60d noise was different across samples? On my 60d the iso100 noise is low, too, it's just that I'd have expected to do better if I've got a tripod and no end of exposure time.

5D3 or bust for me.

...And that's why Canon marketing achieved its goal: Release an entry level ff w/o cannibalizing the 5d3, every person with more than one Canon lens who can somehow cough up €3000 will bit the bullet and save for the (imho still overpriced) 5d3, esp. when the 5d2 is gone.

 

[xps]

@ Marsu42
Des is oba a bisserl sarkastisch! Scheane Griass vun da Wiesn. Hob mi heit mit a boa Preissn guat untahoitn.
;D

But doesn't conversation on Oktoberfest mainly consist of "Prosit!", "Gsuffa" und "Guäääääää" :->?

I´m not sure, whether all testing magazines get "normal" Cameras you can buy on the market. It is sometimes said, that Companies send specially adjusted Cameras to them. Maybe it is true.

I'm sure they don't do anything that could ruin their public image when discovered, so "specially adjusted" will mean only that they make sure it's the best "normal" sample of a batch with absolutely no known flaws.

Mine 60D has low noise, lower then the 60D of my friends. But my 7D is more noisy and has low contrasting quality. There other Camerasare much better than mine.

The 7d is known to have a large variance esp. with banding, obviously because of issues with the dual readout channels. But I never read the 60d noise was different across samples? On my 60d the iso100 noise is low, too, it's just that I'd have expected to do better if I've got a tripod and no end of exposure time.

5D3 or bust for me.

...And that's why Canon marketing achieved its goal: Release an entry level ff w/o cannibalizing the 5d3, every person with more than one Canon lens who can somehow cough up €3000 will bit the bullet and save for the (imho still overpriced) 5d3, esp. when the 5d2 is gone.

Sometimes you meet somebody thats alcohol level is below 3%o. So you can talk to this person....

For my person, I can say that in our fotoclub some owners of an 60D have problems with the noise. @100 iso it is not really present, starting to be visible >400 Iso. This is what we noticed.

I´m even not sure, wheter the selection of Cameras that are tested, happens or not. But this problem is present everywhere. Just scour the www. You can find a lot of products where test have been excellent, but useres claim problems....

 

[Marsu42]

Sometimes you meet somebody thats alcohol level is below 3%o. So you can talk to this person....

Ok, I believe you, I really don't want to bash it. The only time I've been there is when I've been a kid - and of course the media mostly report the spectacular things like drunken persons being dragged away by the police (I recon they've got foreign national policemen there to be able to cope with the tourists ).

For my person, I can say that in our fotoclub some owners of an 60D have problems with the noise. @100 iso it is not really present, starting to be visible >400 Iso. This is what we noticed.

High iso noise is just an inherent problem w/ aps-c sensors, no way around this in comparison to ff. The current 18mp sensor imho is ok @iso400, just still usable @iso800 ... but then it's emergency only, you cannot raise shadows and/or have to reduce the mp size in post to cover the noise (or blur generated by nr). But if you look closely, @iso100 there's no iso read noise, but the plain color areas are uneven and just gives the image a "noisy" expression, too.

 

[xps]

Sometimes you meet somebody thats alcohol level is below 3%o. So you can talk to this person....

Ok, I believe you, I really don't want to bash it. The only time I've been there is when I've been a kid - and of course the media mostly report the spectacular things like drunken persons being dragged away by the police (I recon they've got foreign national policemen there to be able to cope with the tourists ).

For my person, I can say that in our fotoclub some owners of an 60D have problems with the noise. @100 iso it is not really present, starting to be visible >400 Iso. This is what we noticed.

High iso noise is just an inherent problem w/ aps-c sensors, no way around this in comparison to ff. The current 18mp sensor imho is ok @iso400, just still usable @iso800 ... but then it's emergency only, you cannot raise shadows and/or have to reduce the mp size in post to cover the noise (or blur generated by nr). But if you look closely, @iso100 there's no iso read noise, but the plain color areas are uneven and just gives the image a "noisy" expression, too.

My 60D is quite ok, some othery would shredder it, if they would have enough money to buy another Camera. But my 7D is catastrophic to similar cameras other persons own. 3 times @ Canon support. Just a little bit an better IQ. It was a scorn, when they wrote that I bought a "Montagsgerät" and that they are sorry about that....
I learned, that in future I have to be more careful in selecting the Camera body.


Information: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikon-d600/8 - Comparison about noise between different cameras. Interesting

 

[RC]

5D3 or bust for me.

...And that's why Canon marketing achieved its goal: Release an entry level ff w/o cannibalizing the 5d3, every person with more than one Canon lens who can somehow cough up €3000 will bit the bullet and save for the (imho still overpriced) 5d3, esp. when the 5d2 is gone.

Well in my case it hasn't paid off for Canon, if anything just the opposite. When I stated "5D3 or bust", I really meant it will never be a 6D. As far as the 5D3 goes, I've got more than enough money in my photography fund but I haven't given Canon a penny since I ordered the ST-E3-RT several months ago. Furthermore I'm holding off on a couple of lens purchases since FF plays into my choice.

So, when will I crack and how much will I spend for a 5D3? Well it won't be this year and it won't be $3500. Maybe never, maybe there is a third option and I'll wait for the next generation of bodies.

So for now I'll just enjoy what I have, keep my money, and go out and take photos.

 

[friedmud]

So for now I'll just enjoy what I have, keep my money, and go out and take photos.

That's what I've been trying to do for a while myself... and that is definitely the right way to be.

Recently I had a few photos with a somewhat dark sky where it literally looks like it is raining because of the vertical noise bands in the more solid areas of the sky.

I've been trying to just "push on" with my 7D... but the continued poor IQ out of my camera and the prices on everything Canon releases going up... and then the announcement of the 6D (which doesn't fit what I'm looking for) all adds up to me selling my gear and moving to Nikon.

I hope that people who stick with Canon end up getting what they want eventually... I would love to wait but I can't deal with what's coming out of my camera right now...

 

[jrista]

So for now I'll just enjoy what I have, keep my money, and go out and take photos.

That's what I've been trying to do for a while myself... and that is definitely the right way to be.

Recently I had a few photos with a somewhat dark sky where it literally looks like it is raining because of the vertical noise bands in the more solid areas of the sky.

I've been trying to just "push on" with my 7D... but the continued poor IQ out of my camera and the prices on everything Canon releases going up... and then the announcement of the 6D (which doesn't fit what I'm looking for) all adds up to me selling my gear and moving to Nikon.

I hope that people who stick with Canon end up getting what they want eventually... I would love to wait but I can't deal with what's coming out of my camera right now...

You don't necessarily need to jump ship, though, either. If you did pick up a 6D, or a 5D III for that matter, the noise "problem" you have would instantly disappear. You wouldn't have quite the shadow lifting ability that a D800 offers, but you still could have quite a bit of shadow lifting (especially if you put Canon's extensive highlight headroom to work in your landscapes). Plus, people always seem to forget that the D800 simply has a lower noise floor, around 3.1e- rather than the 8e- of the 7D. That's not a huge difference, especially considering that maximum saturation is tens of thousands of electrons. You can easily create a bias offset frame to remove FPN/HVBN, and a little bit of standard NR in Lightroom will GREATLY normalize the playing field. The D800's advantage is more of a "noisereductionLESS shadow pushing story"...but much of the same gains can be managed with a 7D as well...it just can't be "noisreductionless".

 

[Aglet]

.. You can easily create a bias offset frame to remove FPN/HVBN, ..

What is your preferred method for performing this bias offset and what software do you use to perform it?

If it's not too onerous, I can readily perform this on more than a few landscape shots I took with my 7D before I realized it was not going to hold up to any push in post.

I'd like to salvage a few otherwise sweet shots I took with my 7D where banding renders the image unusable for large print.

 

[dtaylor]

I´m not sure, whether all testing magazines get "normal" Cameras you can buy on the market. It is sometimes said, that Companies send specially adjusted Cameras to them. Maybe it is true.

If a "special adjustment" improves performance, why wouldn't they just make that adjustment to the entire production line???

But what I can say: In my fotoclub, more than a dozen of people own a 7D or an 60D. And we were frustrated how big the quality gap of the IQ is. Mine 60D has low noise, lower then the 60D of my friends. But my 7D is more noisy and has low contrasting quality. There other Camerasare much better than mine.

Proof? And by proof I mean properly controlled and executed tests. You pixel peepers don't realize that a 1/3 stop variation in exposure, or a seemingly innocent change in post processing, can produce quite large differences in noise at 100%.

So, I think that Friedmud could be quite right, because his own camera is making not as good pictures as written on the online magazines.

He posted an example of a "bad" ISO 100 image in another thread and got pounced on. There is nothing wrong with the image at all, no noise to see what so ever. He was upset because the blue sky is not an artificially smooth sheet of plastic. (And to think, some people ADD noise/grain because they think their digital images are too smooth and plasticky!)

You just can't please some people...

 

[jrista]

.. You can easily create a bias offset frame to remove FPN/HVBN, ..

What is your preferred method for performing this bias offset and what software do you use to perform it?

If it's not too onerous, I can readily perform this on more than a few landscape shots I took with my 7D before I realized it was not going to hold up to any push in post.

I'd like to salvage a few otherwise sweet shots I took with my 7D where banding renders the image unusable for large print.

There are a few ways you could do it. The simplest would be to take a bunch of dark frames of the same exposure time as the image you wish to remove that kind of noise from. Blend those frames together in something like Photoshop to create a single pattern noise frame. You want to stack them in some kind of additive way to enhance the effect of the noise.

To remove that noise from a photo, you can do so in Photoshop. Just blend the noise frame with a "difference" setting, then adjust the opacity to tune the degree of noise removal. Keep in mind that the way pattern noise exhibits is dependent to a certain degree on exposure time, so you'll need to create a dark noise frame for a variety of exposure lengths for this trick to really work. You don't necessarily need a noise frame for EVERY shutter speed, but if you frequently use 1/15th, or 2 seconds, etc. then you'll want to make a noise frame for each of those exposure times.

Its not perfect, some pattern noise (FPN and HVBN) will remain, but you can eliminate a lot of it that way.

You can also use one of the more advanced noise removal tools on the market. They keep getting better, and some are pretty good at removing pattern (including banding) noise.

 

[tnargs]

....Recently I had a few photos with a somewhat dark sky where it literally looks like it is raining because of the vertical noise bands in the more solid areas of the sky.

Send your unprocessed cr2 files and your camera to Canon and get it fixed. I have the same body and I have never had a dark sky 'literally look like it is raining'. You say it is 'recent' and 'a few photos', so get it looked at.

I've been trying to just "push on" with my 7D... but the continued poor IQ out of my camera and the prices on everything Canon releases going up... and then the announcement of the 6D (which doesn't fit what I'm looking for) all adds up to me selling my gear and moving to Nikon.

You mean Sony type N. Given your emphasis on sensor performance, that's the new name for Nikon. (Wouldn't it be neat if Sony took over Nikon and produced two camera ranges, the alpha and the nu?)

I hope that people who stick with Canon end up getting what they want eventually... I would love to wait but I can't deal with what's coming out of my camera right now...

Most Canon users are getting what they want NOW, thank you. Some Canon, Leica, Sigma, Pentax, Olympus, Sony and Sony type N users are not getting what they want; it's a generic disease.

P.S. if your objection to a 5D III is price, jumping to Nikon makes no sense given their pricier and optically inferior lens range. You will lose out in dollars (and in imaging results (sensor + lens) if you are a chronic pixel peeper, although I maintain excellent and satisfying photos are available from any of the major brands).