# Who said Canon cameras suck?!?



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

D800. Its the name of the camera on everyones mouths these days. In all the blogs. In all the reviews. Its the thing raving Nikon fans rave about. Canon's taken a solid back seat to Nikon these days, particularly to the D800. I've said many times that Canon cameras have some pretty amazing highlight recovery, as Canon tends to tune their cameras to favor highlights (either intentfully or simply as a byproduct of their manufacturing process, I can't say...although I'm inclined to think its intentional given Canon popularity among wedding photographers.) 

I regularly repeat that anecdote in many of my posts...but I just came across a couple accidental overexposures of some of my own photos that I think clearly demonstrate the point. While out photographing birds with a rental Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L II IS and Canon EF 2x TC III, I kept coming across dragonflys. A telephoto lens with a TC is a great way to photograph some frame-filling insect "macros" (more like pseudomacro) without scaring the subject off. I accidentally set my exposure wrong and totally blew the first few shots:






1/100s @ f/5.6 ISO 100

The exposure should have been around 1/1000s @ f/8 ISO 100 (which I proved with some subsequent shots, which ended up being 1/1000s @ f/7.1 ISO 160)...so my exposure above was almost four stops overexposed. Thanks to the power of Lightroom 4.1 and its amazing highlight recovery, the above image, with -4 EV exposure correction and 60% highlight recovery, turned into this:






I'd experienced Canon's amazing highlight headroom when photographing the moon. I REALLY push my moon exposures...to the point where once exposed the moon looks like a nearly uniform almost-white disc in the in-camera preview. Once imported, its clear that there are actually few parts of the moon that are actually white. I'd never actually overexposed something so much that on import it really DID look almost entirely white. The histogram of the dragonfly was all bunched up in two peaks near the very far right...with a small gap between the second peak and the actual right edge...a gap maybe 1 or 2 pixels wide. With 100% highlight recovery in LR 4.1, even the specular highlights on the wings still retain a lot of detail:






Since this image started out way overexposed, there is zero color or pattern noise in the shadows. There is also minimal random (photon shot) noise in the shadows as well...they look as clean as a D800 at ISO 100! ;-)

So, the next time someone tells you Canon cameras suck...send 'em here. While Canon cameras may not be able to achieve 13.2 stops of DR or allow noiseless shadow recovery like the D800 can, they really do know how to pack in the highlights, and maintain full color fidelity while recovering. The next time you need low noise shadows...expose to the right....then, try exposing farther to the right. 8)


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## poias (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*

Atleast you admit that having that ABILITY is nice, unlike those who claim that sensor does not matter.

Now imagine having all 14.4 stops of D800 DR rather than 11 DR that 5D3 has.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



poias said:


> Atleast you admit that having that ABILITY is nice, unlike those who claim that sensor does not matter.
> 
> Now imagine having all 14.4 stops of D800 DR rather than 11 DR that 5D3 has.



I really don't know how to put this one to rest. The D800 does NOT have 14.4 stops of dynamic range. Not as a physical capability. That is a fabrication, thanks to the clever way DXO's software DOWNSAMPLES images. So, a few things here. First off...strait out of the camera, even DXO claims the D800 has 13.2 stops of DR. That is hardware dynamic range...we'll get back to that. Second, DXO also clearly claims that to acheive the "wonderous 14.4 stops of DR", they had to downscale that HUGE 36.3mp D800 image down to...a measly 8mp 8x12" print. If your buying a D800 to print at 8x12", your wasting a hell of a lot of money. Second, most people simply use some form of basic averaging to scale their images, which is not going to result in 1.2 stops of additional shadow DR...not by a long shot. You AVERAGE the pixels in the image...including shadow pixels.

For those who don't actually downscale their images, or who crop, your only going to get what the hardware is capable of. DXO measures that at 13.2 stops. I don't much care for DXO, but I still trust that within the microuniverse that is DXO, their results are consistent and "accuratE". If DXO ever came out and claimed that the unmodified RAW was capable of 14.0 stops or more, I would immediately lose the last ounce of trust I have in them, since its impossible to capture more stops of DR than the bit depth of the sensor/adc/image processor. At best you could probably extract...assuming the best real world efficiency possible, 13.9 stops of DR, possibly to another place or two of precision. So long as the final DIGITAL output is still 14 bits, you can't do any better than that. If you intend to use all the pixels the D800 has to offer and NOT downscale, then you can't get 14.4 stops of DR, regardless of how clever your downscaling algorithm may be. Your getting the hardware's 13.2 stops of native DR (what DXO calls Screen DR).

A lot of people will argue that you can use cleaver dithering algorithms when downscaling to expand the dynamic range in the shadows. They are absolutely correct, you can...and DXO's specialized software probably does. But for 99% of people who use normal-people tools, such as Photoshop, to do their scaling...they are using decades old algorithms like bilinear or bicubic scaling. Basic filters based on your simple averaging algorithm. Shadows are averaged, not dithered and deepened, when scaling...so while most people might gain a small amount of DR improvement when downscaling due to noise averaging, they aren't going to be significantly deepening the shadows...and certainly not by 2.4x (1.2 stops).

Finally, its been demonstrated by a number of reviewers around the net that Nikon tends to overexpose a bit relative to Canon cameras. I suspect thats due to the fact that they allocate more levels to the shadows (considerably more than most other camera manufacturers), which is a significant reason why they have such amazing shadow recovery...its not solely due to lower read noise (which would restore a few more levels of luminance to full usability). That leaves fewer levels for the highlights, which is often why you see blown or very nearly blown highlights in sample photos and videos comparing Nikon cameras to Canon cameras in extreme DR scenarios.

I'm not arguing that Canon can achieve 13.2 stops of DR like a Sony Exmor sensor can, but I believe they are capable of more DR than they are generally given credit for...due to how they allocate levels during read. I was able to massively over-expose the photo in my original post, such that most of it looked white, and recover. A D800 wouldn't be able to do the same...and in all probability a 4-stop over-exposure would result in unrecoverable blown highlights. Now, on the same note, you wouldn't need to bother with ETTR, or not nearly as much, to recover shadows with the D800, and their low read noise and greater shadow level allocation still gives them the edge. But overexposures DO happen...they tend to be accidental, but they also have the tendency to be more damaging than an underexposure. You can almost always recover an underexposed image to a reasonable, even usable level...since you haven't actually LOST any information. If you blow past maximum saturation in a digital sensor, those pixels are gone for good, and no amount of recovery will save your ass then. In those cases, I'll keep my Canon, thanks.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*

There is no such thing as more highlight recovery. These designs are linear. Maybe they decide to call middle gray something a little lower and use a different default tone curve, but that is nothing to do with the sensor. And if you measure max well capacity and then shadow noise the story has already been told. You could shift middle gray for nikon and get the same highlight savings (assuming it's actually true they are placed differently in RAW suggestions) and still better shadows.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> poias said:
> 
> 
> > Atleast you admit that having that ABILITY is nice, unlike those who claim that sensor does not matter.
> ...




So don't nornalize to 8MP, normalized to 36MP and you'll still see the DR advantage that large.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > poias said:
> ...



Yes, you will...you'll see a *shadow DR* advantage. But it will be _13.2 STOPS, NOT 14.4!!!_ Thats a difference of 1.2 stops, or a 2.4x light difference...a HUGE difference, a *meaningful* difference! From a real-world perspective, for people who use the D800 for what it is, a 36.3mp megapixel monster, no one is going to get 14.4 stops of DR out of the D800. In the real world, no one is actually doing "comparisons" between the 5D III, 1D X, or any other camera and the D800...they are _using_ the damnable thing to take photographs and publish them (most probably in print.) 

Lets stop talking about the D800 as it its simply and solely a trophy to be compared, and start talking about it from a real world context. No one cares how it compares if you upscale a 5D III image to 36.3mp size. Neither does anyone who uses a 5D III or any other Canon camera really care how it compares if you downscale a D800 image to 22.3mp size. They care whats possible in the real world, with real-world software...tone curves and all.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> There is no such thing as more highlight recovery. These designs are linear. Maybe they decide to call middle gray something a little lower and use a different default tone curve, but that is nothing to do with the sensor. And if you measure max well capacity and then shadow noise the story has already been told. You could shift middle gray for nikon and get the same highlight savings (assuming it's actually true they are placed differently in RAW suggestions) and still better shadows.



If you open up a RAW in a DCRAW program without applying any kind of tone curve at all, yes, things are linear. But in the real world, people don't open their photos in a basic DCRAW editor without a tone curve. All other real-world RAW editing software applies a tone curve. Nikon tone curves have a very LONG foot at the shadow end of their curves, relative to Canon's. Canon tone curves have a slightly longer shoulder in the highlights than Nikon tone curves. I'm not denying that Exmor's low read noise is a benefit...it most certainly is, and you can utilize more levels in the shadows than any other sensor on earth with it...but its not the entire story with the D800's "shadow recovery" (an aspect of editing that wouldn't even exist if everyone opened their RAW images in an editor without any kind of base tone curve applied...you would start with maximum DR and push down the shadows from there, rather than the other way around).


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## PVS (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*

Why people mistake DR for exposure latitude?


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



PVS said:


> Why people mistake DR for exposure latitude?



Technically speaking, I am talking more about exposure latitude than DR...what you can do with a RAW image once it has been imported into a RAW editor for post-processing. The fact that a tone curve is applied that affects the observed exposure is the key factor I'm referring to. With a Canon camera, thanks to their tone curves, when they display a photo on the LCD, even if the highlights appear blown and the image completely over exposed, there is still PLENTY of room (apparently, nearly 4 stops worth) to "recover". 

The D800, D7000, probably even the D600, all have more DR, but its allocated to the shadows by default (thanks to that long foot on the shadow end of their default tone curves.) If you look at a photograph on the the D800 (or D7000, which is actually what I have direct experience with) and the highlights appear blown and the image completely over exposed, the chances are you've actually literally blown some of your highlights to the point where they are not recoverable (you might have a stop or two worth of "recovery" room with Nikon's default tone curves.) So long as you generally underexpose with a Nikon camera that has a Sony Exmor sensor, and lift shadows in post, you'll never have a problem...and thats the true benefit of Nikon. But you have to actually make sure you never overexpose.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> Lets stop talking about the D800 as it its simply and solely a trophy to be compared, and start talking about it from a real world context. No one cares how it compares if you upscale a 5D III image to 36.3mp size. Neither does anyone who uses a 5D III or any other Canon camera really care how it compares if you downscale a D800 image to 22.3mp size. They care whats possible in the real world, with real-world software...tone curves and all.



real world it's simply not fair to compare cameras on a non-normalized basis to one another,it doesn't make any sense


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## Bennymiata (Sep 26, 2012)

Some of you Nikon D800 fanboys really make me sick.
You think the D800 is the be-all and end-all of all DSLR cameras, when in fact it has some glaring faults like poor autofocus (especially on the left side) and a rear screen that makes everything look green.

I do a lot of commercial shots where colour is very important, and if I had to go by the rear screen, a D800 would drive me bonkers!
I can and do go by the screen on my 5D3 and it is very accurate, unlike the Nikon screen.

Put properly exposed shots of the D800 beside shots from a 5D3 on a good quality computer screen and you would have trouble picking the differences, except the Canon's colours are more true to life.

Even if the D800 had a thousand megapickles, the 5D3 is still a better all-around camera and is certainly my tool of choice for the jobs I do.
In fact, with all the types of photography I do for a living, or for my own fun, it has always done a sterling job, even in very difficult and demanding situations.

You guys who carry on about how much better a D800 is than a 5D3 remind me of the immature little boys who say that their car is better than yours, because it can do 0-60 1/10th of a second quicker, yet it rides like a buckboard and handles like a limp rag.
There is far more to a good camera than a heap of megapickles, just as there is a lot more to a good car than a quick 0-60 time.


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## NormanBates (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



PVS said:


> Why people mistake DR for exposure latitude?



I always thought they were the same. Care to explain the difference?


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## verysimplejason (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



NormanBates said:


> PVS said:
> 
> 
> > Why people mistake DR for exposure latitude?
> ...



Exposure latitude is the extent to which a light-sensitive material can be overexposed or underexposed and still achieve an acceptable result. Since the acceptability of the result is dependent on both personal aesthetics and artistic intentions, the measurement of exposure latitude is, by definition, somewhat subjective. However, the relative differences between mediums are generally agreed upon: reversal film tends to have very little latitude, color negative film has considerably more, and digital sensors slot between the two.
It is not to be confused with dynamic range, the range of light intensities a medium can capture simultaneously. A recording medium with greater dynamic range will be able to record more details in the dark and light areas of a picture. Latitude depends on dynamic range. If the same scene can be recorded using less than the full brightness range available to the medium, the exposure can be shifted along the range without losing information in the shadows or highlights. Greater exposure latitude allows one to compensate for errors in exposure while retaining quality.
Professional critique of digital cine cameras often centers on the extent to which their dynamic range, and exposure latitude by extension, falls short of that of negative film.

This is from Wiki. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_latitude


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

Bennymiata said:


> Some of you Nikon D800 fanboys really make me sick.
> You think the D800 is the be-all and end-all of all DSLR cameras, when in fact it has some glaring faults like poor autofocus (especially on the left side) and a rear screen that makes everything look green.
> 
> I do a lot of commercial shots where colour is very important, and if I had to go by the rear screen, a D800 would drive me bonkers!
> ...



we are talking sensor only here nothing more

other than low ISO DR the 5D3 really is quite awesome, 6fps FF, 1 series AF, compact body size, now with ML the video is quite usable and soon it should offer better compression and be a really nice video solution, nice UI (more MP would be nice but you can't have it all yet perhaps so it's really just the low ISO DR that was the one unfortunate thing, other great)


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## verysimplejason (Sep 26, 2012)

It's the photographer that sucks and not the camera most of the time.  Modern DSLRs are basically good enough to capture pictures almost all the time. I admit there are limitations but sometimes it's the skill that's limited and not the camera.


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## Nishi Drew (Sep 26, 2012)

The only complaint I've come across for the 5Dmk3 is relative to it's steep price, while complaints from owners? I don't recall anything specific, just maybe "oh man I wanted a 1Dx but could only afford this so my life stinks"

D800 complaints? Sure, plenty regarding the large MPs slowing things down, it's just unnecessary resolution for most. And of course the AF not being as stellar, and noise at high ISOs. I've seen one used Mk3 out of tons of electronic shops I've been checking out, and oh look there's a couple D800 s, and a D800E.

But, I find myself leaning toward Nikon for starting to beat Canon with video, but even if I would spend that much more for external recording drives for the uncompressed hdmi feed I'd rather wait and see what Canon will do in the near future.


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## meli (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*

@jrista im afraid your post is choke full of wild assumptions and misinformation. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. 
Rent a D800 and test it. Rent a D600 and test it. Recovery is better in both sides of the spectrum.

As for the thread's title, my opinion is yes, Canon sucks. A lot.
I'm not saying this in relation to what other brands put in the market. I'm saying this based on the potential of Canon as the top tier manufacturer of dslrs. 
After 4 years what we see is basically a resolved AF. Thats great, but given the resources of Canon for R&D, it's just laughable how they advanced sensor-wise. Basically they didnt. 
I'm sorry but the difference with previous generation is just a measly update. As for the whole video-oriented designed sensor that also was a joke, what other can it be when that thing is capable of delivering something like 600lines in 1080p? Or was it the slight better behaviour in moire?(not even going to refer to DR etc)


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## Canon-F1 (Sep 26, 2012)

a canon 5D MK3 with a 28 MP sony sensor... that would be a nice camera.


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## tron (Sep 26, 2012)

Canon-F1 said:


> a canon 5D MK3 with a 28 MP sony sensor... that would be a nice camera.


Or a Nikon with a Canon body and controls, Canon electronics and Canon sensor, oh wait


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## bbasiaga (Sep 26, 2012)

I don't know...I hear a lot about how Canon hasn't improved but I just jumped from to a 5DMKIII and all I can say is I'm EXTREMELY impressed. The images are higher resolution AND higher quality than the cameras that came before, and ISO is as clean at 12800 as it was at 1600 just a few years back. To me, that is not stagnation. I know Sony made a breakthrough with the low end DR in their current sensors, but you know what? That happens. Technology is a race. You don't lead every lap. 

There are some real world advantages to the current Sony tech, but I just can't get how all the people on these forums are ready to burn down Canon headquarters for not matching it instantly. I guess in a world where your cell phone and iPad are only cool for a year, there is no patience for anything but what the 'in' crowd has. 


-Brian


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## Canon-F1 (Sep 26, 2012)

bbasiaga said:


> I don't know...I hear a lot about how Canon hasn't improved but I just jumped from to a 5DMKIII and all I can say is I'm EXTREMELY impressed. The images are higher resolution AND higher quality than the cameras that came before



i think you would standing there quite puzzled when i ask you to tell me what image comes from a 5D MK2 or 5D MK3 at ISO under 800.

it´s correct that high ISO is better... but not all are focused on high iso.
there is s lot of folks who focus on maximum IQ at lower ISO settings.

and in fact some 5D MK3 owner say the 5D MK2 is better (sharpness wise) at low ISO.



> Technology is a race. You don't lead every lap.



of course .. but when you are second place you normaly don´t have the most expensive products... :


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## tron (Sep 26, 2012)

Canon-F1 said:


> bbasiaga said:
> 
> 
> > I don't know...I hear a lot about how Canon hasn't improved but I just jumped from to a 5DMKIII and all I can say is I'm EXTREMELY impressed. The images are higher resolution AND higher quality than the cameras that came before
> ...


That is a correct statement! I wonder it Nikon sells cheaper to get Canon users (at the expense of profits from D800). However, we have to take into account the lenses too.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



poias said:


> Now imagine having all 14.4 stops of D800 DR...



You're right, it does have 14.4 stops of DR, despite a 14-bit ADC. It's also powered by an internal perpetual motion machine, floats in the air when released, and basically defies many other laws of physics and thermodynamics.

:


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## mystic_theory (Sep 26, 2012)

I said so, because I think it's true (at least compared to Nikon/Sony)!

Of course after such a scientifically rigorous test as yours I might change my mind... not! ;-)


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## Canon-F1 (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> You're right, it does have 14.4 stops of DR, despite a 14-bit ADC. It's also powered by an internal perpetual motion machine, floats in the air when released, and basically defies many other laws of physics and thermodynamics.
> 
> :



at the pixel level, the D800 DR at ISO 100 is 13.23EV.
the 14.4 is because of the normalizing in the DXO print mark.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



Canon-F1 said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > You're right, it does have 14.4 stops of DR, despite a 14-bit ADC. It's also powered by an internal perpetual motion machine, floats in the air when released, and basically defies many other laws of physics and thermodynamics.
> ...



Yes, I know. 

If a data analysis method includes a normalization step which forces data to fall outside of the range that's physically possible for the measurement, that data analysis method is flawed, and by extension, any conclusions based on that method are also flawed. If a hospital reported to parents that their newborn infant had a population-normalized length of -4", you'd say WTF, a negative height is impossible, right? 

Same thing with a 14.4 DR from a 14-bit ADC. WTF, that's impossible. Change the method, becasue the method is flawed. If the analysis method is flawed, the resulting conclusions (i.e. DxOMark's Scores) are also flawed. Note that I think (and I've repeatedly stated) that their Measurements are valid and useful - it's the Scores, which are based on the flawed normalization step (and have other problems, like undisclosed 'black box' weighting of sub-components) that are meaningless.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 26, 2012)

jrista said:


> D800. Its the name of the camera on everyones mouths these days. In all the blogs. In all the reviews. Its the thing raving Nikon fans rave about. Canon's taken a solid back seat to Nikon these days, particularly to the D800. I've said many times that Canon cameras have some pretty amazing highlight recovery, as Canon tends to tune their sensors response to favor highlights (either intentfully or simply as a byproduct of their manufacturing process, I can't say...although I'm inclined to think its intentional given Canon popularity among wedding photographers.)
> 
> I regularly repeat that anecdote in many of my posts...but I just came across a couple accidental overexposures of some of my own photos that I think clearly demonstrate the point. While out photographing birds with a rental Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L II IS and Canon EF 2x TC III, I kept coming across dragonflys. A telephoto lens with a TC is a great way to photograph some frame-filling insect "macros" (more like pseudomacro) without scaring the subject off. I accidentally set my exposure wrong and totally blew the first few shots:
> 
> ...



Your right, I don't understand how anyone took photos before the D800. :

I still use my D30 for some web stuff, and it's taken some great photos that some would deem impossible with its ancient sensor.


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## tron (Sep 26, 2012)

RLPhoto said:


> Your right, I don't understand how anyone took photos before the D800. :
> 
> I still use my D30 for some web stuff, and it's taken some great photos that some would deem impossible with its ancient sensor.


 ;D


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## MARKOE PHOTOE (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> Canon-F1 said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



IMHO, this is so true. The mass majority doesn't fully understand the testing procedures but only look at the 'numbers' in order to position the worthiness of the product. The real test is using your own combination of body and lens in your own environment with your own light and producing a final print that satisfies your own level of professional expectation.


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## nightbreath (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



MARKOE PHOTOE said:


> The mass majority doesn't fully understand the testing procedures but only look at the 'numbers' in order to position the worthiness of the product. The real test is using your own combination of body and lens in your own environment with your own light and producing a final print that satisfies your own level of professional expectation.


I feel so sorry for people complaining about all this stuff. What did they expect Canon will do with their sensors after several years of complaining about 5D AF?

People just need to stop blaming camera manufacturers for their inability to make the photos they imagine. There's nothing special in the DR or exposure latitude or whatever, it's all about the image that you capture (and maybe some post production to enhance the shot  )


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## AmbientLight (Sep 26, 2012)

If the expected sensor improvements are similar to autofocus improvements between 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III all the whining may at least lead to something worthwhile.


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## Zlatko (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



meli said:


> After 4 years what we see is basically a resolved AF. Thats great, but given the resources of Canon for R&D, it's just laughable how they advanced sensor-wise. Basically they didnt.


You seem to be uninformed about the list of improvements going from the 5D2 to the 5D3. Canon's R&D was busy addressing numerous requests from professional photographers, and they delivered brilliantly. The AF is not just "resolved" as you say; it is upgraded to 1D-series level. And you're incorrect about Canon not advancing the sensor. I shoot both 5D2 and 5D3 and I see the advance in the sensor every week. The 5D3 has significantly better high-ISO performance, which makes a big difference for my work.


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## nightbreath (Sep 26, 2012)

AmbientLight said:


> If the expected sensor improvements are similar to autofocus improvements between 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III all the whining may at least lead to something worthwhile.


For whom? For people who care more about technical part than about the photography itself? Are those who whining really able to use at least capabilities of previous generation bodies? For me it looks like:


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## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

on one of the local wedding forums I visit, a nikon user was asking for some upgrade advice and this is what was said, which I find quite interesting and relavant to the whole 5d3 vs d800 debate:

" I've spent around 2-weeks exhaustively researching my next camera. I do not think that the D800 is good for weddings... it is extremely slow shooting and you are paying for a lot of resolution that serves minimal practical purpose in retail photography (i.e., a 12mp cropped file makes a gorgeous 24x36" canvas).

If you can handle a single card slot, I think the D700 is presently the best value camera in Nikon's lineup for weddings. I owned one and have used many others and never really had an issue with it.

I think the D3s is the best wedding camera on the market today. Fast shooting, exceptional AF, amazing high ISO capabilities and ample resolution... even in 14-bit uncompressed RAW, I have never hit the buffer (and I am one fast shooter)!

When I shoot events, I use a D3s as my primary camera and a D3 as my backup and feel very comfortable with that set up."

And,

"As an owner of the D800, it never comes out at weddings, I stick to the D3s. As Brady said, it is just far too slow of a shooter. Plus, the files sizes are too much of a hassle to drag around and edit. A 16 bit one layer tiff is 289.2 mb per file. I would be looking at a D700, D3 or D3s."

And,

"The D700 is amazing! All the features of the D3 that meant anything and was about $2k less. I love that camera. I still use mine today and it has been three years. The D800 is overkill for weddings. It should come out for portraits, maybe some details and that is it. It is total overkill for the rest of a wedding..."

There ya go, for all the rave reviews, there are many who are opting out of the d800. Grass is always greener!


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## Bosman (Sep 26, 2012)

I rarely have a need for iso 100 so i like to use highlight tone priority, it saves me sometimes as i like to shoot to the right of the Histogram.
Per Canon
Highlight tone priority extends the dynamic range of highlights by about one stop and improves gradation within highlight areas.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> Bennymiata said:
> 
> 
> > Some of you Nikon D800 fanboys really make me sick.
> ...



I'm sorry, but no. I'm talking about the Canon SYSTEM. I used Sensor in my original title, but its not just sensor capabilities I'm talking about. I've corrected the title.


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## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

Canon-F1 said:


> > Technology is a race. You don't lead every lap.
> 
> 
> 
> of course .. but when you are second place you normaly don´t have the most expensive products... :



Ok, lets think about this. Imagine if, and we don't know if this is true, if, both canon and nikon put the same $$$ into R&D on both the d800 and the 5d3. Dollar for dollar from sensor dev on through parts and manufaturing to shipping and advertising. Dollar for dollar match. Now, nikon, who is trying to catch up to canon, decides to sell their body at a lower profit margin in order to climb their way back. Nikon needs to do that to catch. Canon has no incentive to under-price their products --- BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MARKET LEADER!

Reality is that nikon didn't put in all the $$$ canon did in R&D due to the deal with sony for sensors. All that savings rolls into a lower retail price, which if canon matched then they'd be taking a loss on the first few production rounds.

And you know what? I am happy for all of this! The better nikon can be the better canon will be, and thus the cycle repeats itself. So yeah, I am routing for nikon because the more they advance the more canon will too --and this benefits all of us!


----------



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Lets stop talking about the D800 as it its simply and solely a trophy to be compared, and start talking about it from a real world context. No one cares how it compares if you upscale a 5D III image to 36.3mp size. Neither does anyone who uses a 5D III or any other Canon camera really care how it compares if you downscale a D800 image to 22.3mp size. They care whats possible in the real world, with real-world software...tone curves and all.
> ...



And yet...no one actually lives in the limited reality wherein technical comparisons between hardware actually create photography. Sorry...people live in THE REAL WORLD, and in the REAL WORLD, people don't "objectively" utilize their cameras with unmodified, linear import to "see" all the dynamic range their camera has available. In the REAL WORLD, people apply base tone curves to their photos, to compress the considerable dynamic range...from either a Nikon or a Canon camera...which tends to be far greater than the dynamic range of either our computer screens or anything in print, into the much smaller dynamic range of those devices so our photos actually _look good_. 

Tone curves are a real-world thing, they actually exist, and they are utilized by the very, very vast majority of photographers. The differences in tone curves and the distribution of levels in those curves between manufacturers is a meaningful topic.


----------



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



NormanBates said:


> PVS said:
> 
> 
> > Why people mistake DR for exposure latitude?
> ...



Dynamic range refers to the total maximum physical range of tonal levels a camera sensor is capable of recording. Exposure latitude refers to the ability of an actual exposure taken with a camera to be tuned or adjusted. A true RAW photo strait off the sensor is very dull, flat, lifeless, lacking a significant amount of contrast. When we import our RAW photos, most RAW editors apply a tone curve. Usually one of the manufacturer defaults (such as Camera Standard or Camera Neutral, etc.) These tone curves adjust how levels are allocated in the final image you see on your screen. 

In a linear image, levels are distributed equally (hence the dull, lifeless, low-contrast appearance). With a tone curve applied, more levels are allocated to the shadows and the highlights, effectively "compressing" the wide dynamic range into a narrower contrast range. That brightens and adds life and color to an otherwise dull original exposure. The side effect of that is you have a lot of levels "bunched up" in the shadows and in the highlights around the roughly linear growth of the midtones. It's thanks to these tone curves that we have the ability to "recover" highlights and "lift" shadows. 

Technically speaking, LetTheRightLensIn is correct...there is no such thing as highlight recovery or for that matter shadow lifting. Not with a true RAW image that has not yet had tone curves applied. But we generally don't work with our RAW photos in their true form. When it comes to the shape of tone curves, Nikon tends to allocate a lot more levels to the "foot of shadows" than Canon (and, for that matter, most other manufacturers, including MFD manufacturers.) They have more freedom to for sure, thanks to their lower read noise. That doesn't account for the ability to push shadows around by as much as 6 stops though...Exmor sensors only offer about 2 stops of additional DR in the shadows. Examining Nikon's tone curves indicates they allocate more levels to the shadows than their low read noise offers alone with their curves. 

Similarly, Canon allocates more levels to the "shoulder of highlights" in their tone curves. They don't allocate as many more levels to highlights as Nikon seems to do to the shadows, however in Canon's newer cameras their highlight shoulder tends to be a little longer and fall off more into the highlight range than Nikon cameras. This is part of the reason you can overexpose by four stops with a modern Canon camera and still be able to recover (although its doubtful you could overexpose by 6 stops and still recover...Nikon still has around a 2-stop DR edge in the end.)

Exposure latitude is benefited by these tone curves, and the ability to recover highlights and shadows from "beyond the foot and shoulder." Exposure latitude is enabled by DR, and the more DR you have, the more you can tune those curves to allow greater and greater latitude.


----------



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> Canon-F1 said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Couldn't have said it better myself.  BTW, Love the perpetual motion machine...although in the case of the D800, I think its the aura of fanboys that surround it that have perpetual motion.


----------



## cliffwang (Sep 26, 2012)

This thread is getting funny. I use 5D3 and I am satisfied. I haven't tried D800, but I know D800 is a good camera as well especially its high MP & DR. We do see a lot of samples from many website how helpful the high MP & DR are. On the other hand, we also see how useful 5D3 is in low light environment. I thought that's common sense already. Is that necessary to discuss 5D3 vs D800 now?


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## marekjoz (Sep 26, 2012)

I've read somewhere (can't remind the source but can search for it), that in fact Nikon's NEF RAWs manipulate with data from sensors in the shadows area. It could be their compressed NEF.
But, I want to point to you, that in fact it is "almost possible" to get more than 14 DR stops from 14 bits data file. Since most people are most focused on shadows and highlights, you can simply forget about some information in the center of the band. It's later all the matter in implementation of interpretation of these data. Sure you loose information in the center, but you can proove that you gain more than 14bits from darkest to highest if you pay attention only on these areas


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

marekjoz said:


> I've read somewhere (can't remind the source but can search for it), that in fact Nikon's NEF RAWs manipulate with data from sensors in the shadows area. It could be their compressed NEF.
> But, I want to point to you, that in fact it is "almost possible" to get more than 14 DR stops from 14 bits data file. Since most people are most focused on shadows and highlights, you can simply forget about some information in the center of the band. It's later all the matter in implementation of interpretation of these data. Sure you loose information in the center, but you can proove that you gain more than 14bits from darkest to highest if you pay attention only on these areas



Well, DR generally refers to a hardware capability... the maximum range of levels a sensor can record, from its darkest (average of noise) to brightest. Dynamic range doesn't change in post... it's a fixed hardware trait. So you can't really just "exclude some of the midtones" (remember, a stop is a doubling... you would have to lose 1.2 stops of midtones, which would be noticeable.) What changes in post is how you utilize those levels... the tone curves you apply that attenuate them.


----------



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

cliffwang said:


> This thread is getting funny. I use 5D3 and I am satisfied. I haven't tried D800, but I know D800 is a good camera as well especially its high MP & DR. We do see a lot of samples from many website how helpful the high MP & DR are. On the other hand, we also see how useful 5D3 is in low light environment. I thought that's common sense already. Is that necessary to discuss 5D3 vs D800 now?



Well there is always something to say when the facts are incorrect. I frequently hear about how people can push D800 (or, for that matter, D7000) shadows around "by an amazing 6 stops!!" Well, sure, you can...but that doesn't mean the D800 or D7000 are capable of a full 6 stops more exposure latitude than a Canon camera. At a hardware level, the D800 is about 2 stops better than current Canon cameras (some less, as in the case of the 1D IV, which gets about 11.5 stops of DR, and some more as in the case of the 5D III, which gets about 11 stops of DR.)

The point of my post was to show that Canon's cameras aren't "six full stops worse" than a D800 or D7000. In fact, Canon cameras have for a number of years had rather amazing highlight recovery, the kind of highlight recovery that used to be relegated to MFD cameras. The kind of highlight recovery that even the D800 doesn't quite seem to reach (http://www.photographybay.com/2012/04/21/nikon-d800-vs-hasselblad-h4d-40/). I wanted to show that you can push Canon exposure around by at least four full stops when you overexpose. That greatly diminishes the differences between Nikon cameras that use an Exmor sensor, and Canon cameras. Nikon cameras till have a 2-stop advantage, but its not a 6-stop advantage as some video reviews and commentary might have you believing.


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## marekjoz (Sep 26, 2012)

jrista said:


> marekjoz said:
> 
> 
> > I've read somewhere (can't remind the source but can search for it), that in fact Nikon's NEF RAWs manipulate with data from sensors in the shadows area. It could be their compressed NEF.
> ...



Yes, I know what you mean - it was just about showing more than 14DR using 14bits of data.
How about making a sensor in which, let's say even pixels in the first row work at ie ISO 100, and odd works at ISO 400 (so base ISO +2)? In the second row otherwise of course and so on. Knowing that, you can easily interprete all the data properly and record more than now - sth like hdr directly from the sensor.


----------



## NormanBates (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



verysimplejason said:


> NormanBates said:
> 
> 
> > PVS said:
> ...



Thanks for the explanation.

From reading that, it seems to me that the distinction was more useful in the old days of film than when you're working with digital sensors: now the only difference left would be that "exposure latitude" includes a subjective component (how much noise each individual is ready to accept), whereas dynamic range is an objective measure (how far into each side because you lose all detail)


----------



## bbasiaga (Sep 26, 2012)

Canon-F1 said:


> > Technology is a race. You don't lead every lap.
> 
> 
> 
> of course .. but when you are second place you normaly don´t have the most expensive products... :



Well there is a fact. Canon's 5D is more expensive than Nikon's D800. And if sensor DR and resolution were the sum total of the equation, it wouldn't make sense. However, based on my own spec sheet review and reports from actual users of both, the 5DIII is more versatile. So does paying more for a camera that can perform well in more situations make sense? It at least starts to. At that point, you have to look at what you shoot and decide if the extra money is worth the extra functionality. All everyone wants to talk about is the sensor and the price. Everything else gets forgotten. Kudos to whoever posted the wedding camera discussion. Its refreshing to see that somewhere on the 'net there are people who can analyze the situation with a wider angle lens (pun intended). 

-Brian


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

jrista said:


> ...can push D800 (or, for that matter, D7000) shadows around "by an amazing 6 stops!!"
> 
> ...can push Canon exposure around by at least four full stops when you overexpose.



OK, so to sum up:


If you're the sort of photographer who routinely screws up by drastically underexposing your images, get a Nikon.
If you're the sort of photographer who routinely screws up by drastically overexposing your images, get a Canon.
If you're the sort of photographer who routinely screws up by drastically underexposing many of your images, and also by drastically overexposing the images which you didn't underexpose, get both a Nikon and Canon (ok, I suppose you _could_ learn how to expose properly).
If you're the sort of photographer who routinely doesn't screw up the exposure, you should be out taking pictures instead of reading this thread. So go.


----------



## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

bbasiaga said:


> Canon-F1 said:
> 
> 
> > > Technology is a race. You don't lead every lap.
> ...



TY man, with all the negativity and single minded DR discussions here, then seeing those posts go up on the other forums it seemed like info people here should see!

The 5d3 is designed to be a beast of a wedding/event camera. It can handle most other stuff well too, but it is designed first and foremost as a wedding camera. The D800 is designed to be a studio/landscape camera. Both are very good at what they are designed to do. Kind of just wish people would realize that and move on...lol


----------



## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > ...can push D800 (or, for that matter, D7000) shadows around "by an amazing 6 stops!!"
> ...



[email protected]!!!!!! +1,000,000,000,000 ....


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

verysimplejason said:


> It's the photographer that sucks and not the camera most of the time.  Modern DSLRs are basically good enough to capture pictures almost all the time. I admit there are limitations but sometimes it's the skill that's limited and not the camera.



Yes, sometimes it is the skill that is limited, but it can certainly be the camera too.

Anyway, sure you can take awesome sports pics with say a 20D, but I guarantee you that if you suddenly put a 20D in someone's hands who was using a 1 series and vice-versa that the one getting the 1 series will suddenly get a lot more keepers and the one getting the 20D will suddenly get a lot less keepers. Heck, we actually did just such experiments on the sidelines once.

That said the best sport shooters still took better pics than the least experienced now suddenly using a 1 series. But again everyone had an instant and noticeable difference in how well they did depending upon which body they used.


----------



## Zlatko (Sep 26, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> The 5d3 is designed to be a beast of a wedding/event camera. It can handle most other stuff well too, but it is designed first and foremost as a wedding camera. The D800 is designed to be a studio/landscape camera. Both are very good at what they are designed to do. Kind of just wish people would realize that and move on...lol


Exactly right!


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> Canon-F1 said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



In the normalization, they are trading resolution (in the D800 case where the MP are higher than the target, at least) for read noise at the bottom end and the top end is a fixed well capacity regardless.

You should know that it doesn't make sense to say one sensor is better than the other comparing without any normalization (not that one might not want to know at times what the 100% view measurements are). What if you have a 1MP FF sensor with 10D technology and a 40MP FF sensor with 1DX technology. Are you going to compare them say for middle gray SNR and then say wow that 1MP using the old tech performs so much better that awful new 40MP camera? Compared at the same scale the 40MP one would look cleaner. Comparing them directly you are comparing noise at two different power scales as if the scales were the same.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

nightbreath said:


> AmbientLight said:
> 
> 
> > If the expected sensor improvements are similar to autofocus improvements between 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III all the whining may at least lead to something worthwhile.
> ...



You do realize people are whining about it because of things they noticed real world in the field don't you?
If nobody whines in this type of forum then canon sits still another few bodies and that's maybe another 5 years there are certain types of shots you can't take well (and yes sure there are an infinite number of other shots you can take well in the meantime but using that logic we may as well have stopped progressing with the D30).


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

jrista said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > Bennymiata said:
> ...



I'm sorry, but no, you, as stated, used SENSOR in your original title as well as ONLY talked or mentioned the sensor in your original post so.... yeah that was all that you were talking about.

If you want to talk about more and get into LCD tints, and AF and liveview implementation and what not then that is something else.


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



What does all that have to do with my statement that it does not make sense to compare sensors to one another without normalization? What does it even have to do with tone curves at all?

Just tossing out words that sound good are not a response. That is what politicians do. Ask them a question and they give you five minutes of talk, perhaps even true, about something only vaguely related while completely avoiding the real point.


(and btw you do know that you can rest a nikon tone curve to a canon and vice-vesa in raw software....)


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> NormanBates said:
> 
> 
> > PVS said:
> ...



Even if they do suggest to the RAW programs to place things differently and use a different default tone curve. The thing is with RAW all you do is pull a few sliders and everything is totally different than the default anyway. 
D800 sensor has 2.6 stops more DR regardless (and the actual usable difference is over 3 since it has so much less banding junk, so real world actually makes it even greater than the most simple lab measurement).

Anwyay I'm kind of tired about the DR talk. If Canon doesn't get the message by now, they never will. Hopefully that new CR rumor is true and they have gotten the message and hopefully they will carry it off in a way that is as practical and universal as Sony has.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > ...can push D800 (or, for that matter, D7000) shadows around "by an amazing 6 stops!!"
> ...



weak

you know better
and that the DR game is about a LOT more than just fixing up mistakes (even ignoring that, your summary is very misleading, which I suspect you also know)

really weak, I know you know better than that


----------



## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > NormanBates said:
> ...



In comparison to my 7D, the D800 is 2.3 stops better. Period. I don't downscale my photos...on the contrary, I tend to upscale them, so there is no benefit of any kind of the D800 above and beyond the hardware's native 2.3 stops. In comparison to the 1D IV, the difference is only 1.7 stops. 

As for the banding argument, baloney. There are PLENTY of samples from both the D800 and D7000 that show horizontal banding. Exmor's CP-ADC eliminates vertical banding, but you still experience horizontal banding...and oddly enough, it actually seems to get worse as you increase ISO, whereas on Canon cameras banding reduces and disappears as you increase ISO. There is no magic bullet here that makes REAL-WORLD performance of the D800 some 4.4 stops better than a comparable Canon camera. That is the kind of baloney that will sink organizations like DXO that use shady comparison techniques in the long run.

When it comes to comparisons, of hardware-dependent capabilities like DR, I could give a flying rats ass what two cameras look like when their post-conversion images are scaled down to the same tiny size. What I really care about is what the hardware is actually capable of. In that respect, I have no problem applauding Nikon and Sony for the approximately 2 additional stops of DR and amazing shadow recovery abilities. But I greatly dislike how so many people, thanks to DXO, now honestly think the D800 is capable of 14.4 stops of DR in native output (unscaled, dropped strait into <editorofchoice>, ready for processing.) Its flat out incorrect, inaccurate, and is greatly misleading to potential buyers...many of whom certainly seem so roped in by DXO's "score" that they've literally dumped their Canon kits and jumped brands (at what has to be considerable cost...to some who had extensive kits with expensive lenses, a cost of thousands).

If Nikon actually had a 6-stop benefit over Canon, I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, but that isn't the case. Canon can (and probably will) do better in the future, but as things stand now, Canon cameras are far from the horrid worthless POS's they are increasingly made out to be...and I simply wanted to demonstrate that.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> What if you have a 1MP FF sensor with 10D technology and a 40MP FF sensor with 1DX technology. Comparing them directly you are comparing noise at two different power scales as if the scales were the same.



The problem isn't the what, it's the how. I'm not questioning the need for or the benefit of normalization. What I'm saying is the _way_ DxOmark is doing the normalization is flawed, because it generates normalized data that are impossible.

DxOMark is generating impossible data with their analytical method. Either they don't know this, in which case their qualifications to analyze data must be questioned, or they do know this and have chosen not to change it, in which case their rationale for failing to adopt proper methodology must be questioned. 

Personally, I suspect they are aware of the issue, and have chosen to do nothing about it because of 1) the cost and time to re-analyze all of their prior data with a new normalization procedure and 2) the ramifications (i.e. embarrassment) of having to explain _why_ such a change is necessary.



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > OK, so to sum up:
> ...



C'mon, do I _really_ have to put <sarcasm> or <tongue-in-cheek> or <yuk it up, these are the jokes> tags all over my posts? *Really?!?*


----------



## marekjoz (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> C'mon, do I _really_ have to put <sarcasm> or <tongue-in-cheek> or <yuk it up, these are the jokes> tags all over my posts? *Really?!?*



You should.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*ATTENTION LetTheRightLensIn*: Be advised that heretofore and forthwith, some of my posts in this thread and in other past and future threads, on this forum and on other forums not to be named, may contain content that is for entertainment value only, with no expressed or implied informational content. Futhermore, be cognizant of the fact that posts which are intended as humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic will often in no way be explicitly labeled as such. Moreover, you are hereby notified that such humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic posts are not in any way, shape or form to be construed as being personally directed at you, nor will or should posts of the aforementioned nature be deemed to require a response, reply, riposte, or rejoinder.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*ATTENTION everyone else* (you know who you are): The above post may or may not fall into the category of humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic. You decide.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)




----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> In comparison to my 7D, the D800 is 2.3 stops better. Period. I don't downscale my photos...on the contrary, I tend to upscale them, so there is no benefit of any kind of the D800 above and beyond the hardware's native 2.3 stops. In comparison to the 1D IV, the difference is only 1.7 stops.



But if you upscale then you also enlarge the 7D noise and muck so....



> As for the banding argument, baloney. There are PLENTY of samples from both the D800 and D7000 that show horizontal banding. Exmor's CP-ADC eliminates vertical banding, but you still experience horizontal banding...and oddly enough, it actually seems to get worse as you increase ISO, whereas on Canon cameras banding reduces and disappears as you increase ISO.



Lots of canon cameras have horiz banding at high iso. The 5D3, however, is one that does very well in that regard.
I was talking about ISO100 though since that is the place where the Canon lagging in DR occurs.

It may not have had to though, from a canon person (non-DSLR division):

"As I posted before, Canon had no interest in a very clever solution to increase DR, that was produced by our company, which is a Research division of Canon Inc. The idea was patented and won an award and would have worked with existing sensor tech. "

maybe there was something more to it and it would not have actually worked for their DSLRs, but claim was Canon management didn't even let their DSLR divison engineers see it and just told the other external associated research division guy to basically get lost, we don't care, DR whatever.

To be fair maybe DSLR execs just were abrubt and didn't explain things well and had good reasons to toss it off.



> There is no magic bullet here that makes REAL-WORLD performance of the D800 some 4.4 stops better than a comparable Canon camera. That is the kind of baloney that will sink organizations like DXO that use shady comparison techniques in the long run.



were did 4.4 come from?



> When it comes to comparisons, of hardware-dependent capabilities like DR, I could give a flying rats ass what two cameras look like when their post-conversion images are scaled down to the same tiny size. What I really care about is what the hardware is actually capable of. In that respect, I have no problem applauding Nikon and Sony for the approximately 2 additional stops of DR and amazing shadow recovery abilities. But I greatly dislike how so many people, thanks to DXO, now honestly think the D800 is capable of 14.4 stops of DR in native output (unscaled, dropped strait into <editorofchoice>, ready for processing.) Its flat out incorrect, inaccurate, and is greatly misleading to potential buyers...many of whom certainly seem so roped in by DXO's "score" that they've literally dumped their Canon kits and jumped brands (at what has to be considerable cost...to some who had extensive kits with expensive lenses, a cost of thousands).



less misleading than comparing non-normalized numbers

unless you want to tell someone that a 4MP FF camera based on 10D tech would do better at high iso than a 30MP FF camera based on 1DX tech....



> If Nikon actually had a 6-stop benefit over Canon, I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, but that isn't the case. Canon can (and probably will) do better in the future, but as things stand now, Canon cameras are far from the horrid worthless POS's they are increasingly made out to be...and I simply wanted to demonstrate that.



how did you get from over 3 to 4.4 and now 6?


----------



## marekjoz (Sep 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> *ATTENTION everyone else* (you know who you are): The above post may or may not fall into the category of humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic. You decide.



C'mon, do I really have to put <sarcasm> or <tongue-in-cheek> or <yuk it up, these are the jokes> tags all over my posts? Really?!?


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > What if you have a 1MP FF sensor with 10D technology and a 40MP FF sensor with 1DX technology. Comparing them directly you are comparing noise at two different power scales as if the scales were the same.
> ...



it gives a fair relative comparison



> C'mon, do I _really_ have to put <sarcasm> or <tongue-in-cheek> or <yuk it up, these are the jokes> tags all over my posts? *Really?!?*



apparently yes ;D ;D

even more considering that you got some +1000000 100% correct replies too
;D

anyway i have sooooooo many shots to edit and am growing tired of this thread, so i will go


----------



## Kernuak (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > What if you have a 1MP FF sensor with 10D technology and a 40MP FF sensor with 1DX technology. Comparing them directly you are comparing noise at two different power scales as if the scales were the same.
> ...


Jokes and sarcasm aside, there are already a lot of people who assume that digital photography allows you to make mistakes and correct them, no matter how bad they may be. You only have to listen to comments like "you have a nice camera, you must be able to take good pictures". It is at the stage that people assume that it is the camera that takes the shots and the talent (or lack) of the photographer is irrelevant. This is only reinforced by the various discussions over dynamic range, particularly when people are trying to recover four stops of shadow detail. Phototgraphy is essentially an art and part of that art, is making use of the available equipment to get the best shot possible and if it was too easy, it wouldn't be the challenge it is. While dynamic range is an important part of overall image quality, as far as I'm concerned, it isn't the most important factor and shouldn't be used to determine how good or bad a camera or even the sensor is. I strongly believe that shadows are a very important part of an image and while you don't want the whole image blocked up, presence of shadows that hint at detail are much more dramatic in an artistic image, than a complete lack of shadows, because all the detail is visible. That said, my style often involves processing that does lose some of the shadow detail at times. Not all of my images are like that by any means, but certainly a signficant amount of my landscapes are. To benefit me, a sensor would need an extra 6 stops of dynamic range anyway, as I often use 5-6 stops of graduation on the sky, so an extra 3 stops is pretty much an irrelevance. Even then though, I still feel that I would lose dramatic effect if I had those extra 6 stops of usable DR and would still prefer to use graduated filters. Maybe I'm just old fashioned in that respect.


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> *ATTENTION LetTheRightLensIn*: Be advised that heretofore and forthwith, some of my posts in this thread and in other past and future threads, on this forum and on other forums not to be named, may contain content that is for entertainment value only, with no expressed or implied informational content. Futhermore, be cognizant of the fact that posts which are intended as humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic will often in no way be explicitly labeled as such. Moreover, you are hereby notified that such humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic posts are not in any way, shape or form to be construed as being personally directed at you, nor will or should posts of the aforementioned nature be deemed to require a response, reply, riposte, or rejoinder.



You know better than that.
I know you do.
Weak.

;D ;D ;D ;D


----------



## K-amps (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



Kernuak said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > LetTheRightLensIn said:
> ...



Before we used to butt heads over gear vs the photographer (skills), now we have to add PP (skills) as the third leg of this trifecta of these considerations...


----------



## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > LetTheRightLensIn said:
> ...



I plus 1 billioned it cause I thought it was both funny and had a grain of truth in it...yeah it was obvious sarcasm! LOL

So lets go back to some sense ---

"The 5d3 is designed to be a beast of a wedding/event camera. It can handle most other stuff well too, but it is designed first and foremost as a wedding camera. The D800 is designed to be a studio/landscape camera. Both are very good at what they are designed to do. Kind of just wish people would realize that and move on...lol"

What else should I say? sorry that Canon made a camera that is quite awesome for what I do? It's not that I don't see how more DR would be of help, but, for me, the High ISO and AF capabilities more than make up for it - for me. 

Now to point out again some other stuff I said earlier -



Chuck Alaimo said:


> on one of the local wedding forums I visit, a nikon user was asking for some upgrade advice and this is what was said, which I find quite interesting and relavant to the whole 5d3 vs d800 debate:
> 
> " I've spent around 2-weeks exhaustively researching my next camera. I do not think that the D800 is good for weddings... it is extremely slow shooting and you are paying for a lot of resolution that serves minimal practical purpose in retail photography (i.e., a 12mp cropped file makes a gorgeous 24x36" canvas).
> 
> ...



The grass is always greener...


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> but as things stand now, Canon cameras are far from the horrid worthless POS's they are increasingly made out to be...and I simply wanted to demonstrate that.



Well if you actually do want it to be more than your original title and post were about  then I will toss you a bone:

yeah the D800 LCD has an 'interesting' color balance. The 5D3, while among the best accuracy for DSLR LCD still isn't really good enough to know it is at least good enough to get a vague general sense of what is going on color and balance wise which can't really be done many times with the D800 LCD.

the D800 liveview has a worse implementation, worse than even on some of their cheap cams, in the end it still works for stills though, even if not as good, but for video shooting it can make it not the nicest thing to work with for some things for sure

the one side of the AF was calibrated the wrong way isn't so good, but it is not intrinsic to the D800 and not all of them have it and the ones that do will get fixed, but yeah it's an infinitely bigger production flaw than the whole 5D3 light leak thing, which even though basically a non-issue, appears to have been fixed long ago for all 5D3 users while many D800 users are still fighting with Nikon service for a more serious production mistake.

(as for AF on a good copy of both, I don't know. The 5D3 one shot AF seems to be working really well and it seems that paired with certain very recent Canon lenses it will outdo the precision the D800 is capable of, although with all the other lenses it might be closer to same ball park but the 5D3 is probably still just a little better anyway. For AI Servo I haven't gotten to try it in a serious way with the D800 and not enough yet with the 5D3. Some people say 5D3 is definitely better for that stuff, but some say D800 is a little bit better, I don't know. I'd guess 5D3 is better in the end, but just a guess.)


----------



## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> anyway i have sooooooo many shots to edit and am growing tired of this thread, so i will go



Lair, liar, pants on fire. 



Am I serious this time? Hmmmm...better have a fire extinguisher handy and look down - *right now* - just in case.


----------



## dtaylor (Sep 26, 2012)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> weak
> 
> you know better
> and that the DR game is about a LOT more than just fixing up mistakes



Let me be blunt: the final DR difference to the photographer between these sensors is FAR LESS than it is made out to be in forums. A little bit less highlight/shadow detail, or a little bit more noise in the shadow detail, is not going to be the make-or-break difference in a shot except to pixel peepers who argue in forums.

I shove some of my RAW files around pretty hard, the bulk of which have been Canon 7D files. Pretty much every wide luminance range situation I've been in falls into one of these two categories:

* I can see that there's a little more noise on the print in the shadow detail then there might have been with another body. But nobody else notices or cares because their nose isn't on the print. I still got the shot, they still love it, end of discussion.

* I shot and merged multiple frames, and I would have had to with any current body.

So at the end of the day am I out right missing shots because of using a Canon body rather than a Nikon one? Nope. Yes, I'm picky. Yes, I would like to see Canon get around the Sony patent. Yes, I would like a little more room to recover, a little less noise and more DR. No, it's not stopping me from doing anything.

I'm far more concerned with Canon's pricing than their sensor DR. The 6D should undercut the D600. The 5D3 should undercut the D800 and be more expensive than, but close to, the D600. And Canon's new 46 MP monster should be priced to compete with the D800. Instead everything is more expensive because Canon perceives itself to be at the top right now, despite sensor differences. And in terms of lenses I would say they are.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> *ATTENTION everyone else* (you know who you are): The above post may or may not fall into the category of humorous, flippant, sarcastic, or sardonic. You decide.



I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one greatly enjoy your flippant, humorous, sardonic sarcasm.


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## Fishnose (Sep 26, 2012)

Nishi Drew said:


> D800 complaints? Sure, plenty regarding the large MPs slowing things down, it's just unnecessary resolution for most. And of course the AF not being as stellar, and noise at high ISOs. I've seen one used Mk3 out of tons of electronic shops I've been checking out, and oh look there's a couple D800 s, and a D800E.



So where did you read about these 'problems'? On a forum I suppose. Especially the AF one is repeated over and over....

NO, the D800 has bloody marvellous AF. Fast and accurate. This rumor is a leftover of the QC problem they had with left focus alignment in the beginning. It's gone now. Get over it.
NO, it does very well indeed with high ISOs. Not compared to a 1Dx of course, but that's not a reasonable comparison, is it.
NO, the big files don't slow things down (unless you have a shitty computer or you're a sports photographer)

As to the OP's question - 'Who said Canon cameras suck?' - Well it sure wasn't me. They're excellent cameras. Get over it.


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## Fishnose (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> In comparison to my 7D, the D800 is 2.3 stops better. Period. I don't downscale my photos...on the contrary, I tend to upscale them, so there is no benefit of any kind of the D800 above and beyond the hardware's native 2.3 stops. In comparison to the 1D IV, the difference is only 1.7 stops.



Uh, now I'm not with you. If you tend to upscale your 7D images, you REALLY need a D800. If 18MP doesn't do it then 36 is going to be a WHOLE lot better, because then you can generally gain IQ rather than lose it when downscaling a D800 image rather than upscaling a 7D image. 
And DR will in fact be more than 2.3 stops better, since one gains DR with increasing resolution and vice versa. So yes, there IS a benefit of the D800.


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## jrista (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



Fishnose said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > In comparison to my 7D, the D800 is 2.3 stops better. Period. I don't downscale my photos...on the contrary, I tend to upscale them, so there is no benefit of any kind of the D800 above and beyond the hardware's native 2.3 stops. In comparison to the 1D IV, the difference is only 1.7 stops.
> ...



Your missing my point. I'm not saying the 7D will produce better upscales. I'm saying that upscaling a D800 image will not magically fabricate another 2 stops or more dynamic range. Dynamic range is a HARDWARE TRAIT!! Why don't people get that? The friggin sensor has an average read noise level of around 3 electrons, and a maximum saturation point (at ISO 100) of 44972 electrons. Those FACTS about the D800 sensor DO NOT CHANGE, no matter what you do with software. 

Lets just screw comparisons for a moment. Let me ask a simple question:

If you photograph a scene with 14.4 stops of dynamic range with a D800...can you capture every distinct level of luminance in that scene with the D800?

Most people would say YES. Simple fact of the matter is, your 1.2 stops short!! I don't really give a damn how software wizardry, with a bit of dithering in a clever scaling algorithm can mimic a higher dynamic range when scaling my beautiful 36.3mp images down to the native size of a late 1990's DSLR. What I care about is whether I can photograph a scene with 14.4 stops of real-world DR, and GET IT ALL. Simple fact of the matter is the D800 CAN NOT DO THAT. It could capture the entire dynamic range of a real-world scene that contained 13.2 stops between its brightest and darkest points, but not one that contained 14.4 stops. If I try to capture the 14.4 stop scene, I have to give up something. Either I give up 1.2 stops worth of shadow detail, or 1.2 stops of highlight detail...or perhaps 2/3rd of a stop of both shadow and highlight detail...but the damnable hardware aint gonna capture it all. If I _upscale_ in post, so I can print at say 40x30 or 60x40, I'm not doing a damn thing to minimize noise (on the contrary, I'm scaling noise up as well, so it's going to become more apparent...particularly on my computer screen), so the benefit of using the D800 over the 7D is...well, *still 2 stops.*

BTW, FYI...upscaling does NOT normalize noise...it exacerbates it because you sample the same source pixel to generate multiple output pixels. You can only produce anemic output pixels (in the destination space) that are sourced from insufficient original information. You can't *average* noise during upsampling (as a matter of fact, you actually _distribute it_.) Only when downscaling can you normalize noise, because you reference many noisy input pixels to produce a less noisy single output pixel. You sample multiple inputs, _average_ their values, and produce a better output pixel (in the destination space) that contains rich information. Even with downscaling though, it doesn't take a particularl intelligent mind to realize you can't generate more than TWICE THE LUMINANCE RANGE (1.2 stops worth) in a downsampled image from a source image that only contains 13.2 stops to start with.


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## studio1972 (Sep 26, 2012)

NO, the big files don't slow things down (unless you have a shitty computer or you're a sports photographer)

[/quote]

That's just silly, as somebody who processes thousands of images per weak, I can assure you, image size makes a big difference, and if you don't need more than about 20MP, double that is a waste.


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## thepancakeman (Sep 26, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> C'mon, do I _really_ have to put <sarcasm> or <tongue-in-cheek> or <yuk it up, these are the jokes> tags all over my posts? *Really?!?*



Wait, I'm confused--is this a serious question or are you being sarcastic?


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## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 26, 2012)

Fishnose said:


> Nishi Drew said:
> 
> 
> > D800 complaints? Sure,
> ...


----------



## cliffwang (Sep 27, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> Nishi Drew said:
> 
> 
> > D800 complaints? Sure,
> ...



I think file size is not a problem for nowadays computer system. For wedding you need to shoot many photos in low light. I doubt D800 can handle low light as well as 5D3. I believe many wedding photographers would like use 5D3, not D800. However, if you are not taking photos in low light, D800 do give more advantage than 5D3.


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## dtaylor (Sep 27, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> NO ONE says that Canon suck, but the read noise , pattern noise and banding should not be there if Canon has a modern sensor tech linje.
> I do not understand why you are so upset, see the truth and stop denying that Canon's sensors are not up to date and Canon produces sensors in the old 180nm tech machines when others use 110nm or less and use column vise ADC at the sensor edge.



It's called a patent, and it's owned by Sony ;D

It's kind of hard to work around. Ask a Samsung executive. And when you do, make sure you're holding an iPhone.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > anyway i have sooooooo many shots to edit and am growing tired of this thread, so i will go
> ...



Dang it! This time I thought you were joking and now I'm suffering second degree burns. 
I'm always wrong!


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## verysimplejason (Sep 27, 2012)

studio1972 said:


> NO, the big files don't slow things down (unless you have a shitty computer or you're a sports photographer)



That's just silly, as somebody who processes thousands of images per weak, I can assure you, image size makes a big difference, and if you don't need more than about 20MP, double that is a waste.
[/quote]

D600 is already out. That might help Nikon users with a lot of photos to process.


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## Quasimodo (Sep 27, 2012)

I for one find this discussion both entertaining and useful in aquiring knowledge that I did not previously have. 

I have a question: Am I understanding the statements in this thread correctly if I say that you cannot increase the DR in your image because it is a hardware limit? The reason for my question is that I have been looking at videos @ youtube for good tips on black and white conversion in photoshop, and in several of these videos they claim that you can increase the DR by using layers and tweaking Levels and Curves....


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## pasghik (Sep 27, 2012)

Quasimodo said:


> I for one find this discussion both entertaining and useful in aquiring knowledge that I did not previously have.
> 
> I have a question: Am I understanding the statements in this thread correctly if I say that you cannot increase the DR in your image because it is a hardware limit? The reason for my question is that I have been looking at videos @ youtube for good tips on black and white conversion in photoshop, and in several of these videos they claim that you can increase the DR by using layers and tweaking Levels and Curves....



If you use raw - no. you get what you get.
If you use jpg - yes, because jpeg by definition has smaller DR than raw and you have to squeeze more information into smaller DR of jpeg file.
Jpeg has 8bit per channel 2^8=256 gradations of each color, 256*256*256=16,7 millions color combinations, raw has 12, 14 or even 16 bits per channel. Of course not all of DR of raw file is used (depends on the scene), but it is much bigger anyway.


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## elflord (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



neuroanatomist said:


> Same thing with a 14.4 DR from a 14-bit ADC. WTF, that's impossible.



I don't see why that's impossible -- range is determined by bounds, not cardinality. If I have 2 bits, I can represent levels as high as 6 and as low as 0 by mapping 0->0, 1->2, 2->4, 3->6. That's a linear map, and the "dynamic range" (log2(6)/log2(1)) is about 2.6. It does "miss" the levels 1,3 and 5, but then if I were to throw in an extra bit I would still miss the levels 0.5, 1.5, etc. 

Is there something about the physical equipment that mandates that toggling the lowest order bit of the ADC changes the measured output level by exactly "1" and not for example 0.9 or 1.1 ?

To put this another way -- if I use a sensor with the same sensitivity characteristics but I use a 13 bit ADC, can I still represent the lowest and highest output level of the sensor ? If I do this, isn't the dynamic range of the sensor unchanged ? (it might affect other performance characteristics but, it seems to me, not DR)


----------



## elflord (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> You sample multiple inputs, _average_ their values, and produce a better output pixel (in the destination space) that contains rich information. Even with downscaling though, it doesn't take a particularl intelligent mind to realize you can't generate more than TWICE THE LUMINANCE RANGE (1.2 stops worth) in a downsampled image from a source image that only contains 13.2 stops to start with.



Why not ? How much precisely can you generate ? If you have a little over 4x as many pixels (as the destination), what multiple does that reduce noise by ?[edit: if your measure of noise is standard error, and your noise is gaussian, I'd expect it to be inversely proportional to sqrt(N), so in this case I'd expect an extra stop or so for 4x as many megapixels given those assumptions]

btw, I hope you're not suggesting that DxO's primary results should be reported on a per pixel basis (what would that do to SNR measurements of high megapixel cameras ? Would the 5DIII get better results than a 5DC on a per pixel basis for example ?)


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## jrista (Sep 27, 2012)

What you can do in software doesn't matter. Dynamic range benefits *what you do in-camera*. It doesn't matter if you can use clever software algorithms to massage the 13.2 stops of DR in an original image to fabricate artificial data to extract 14.0, 14.4, or 16 stops of "digital DR" (which is not the same thing as hardware sensor DR). I'll try to demonstrate again, maybe someone will get it this time. 

"I am composing a landscape scene on-scene, in-camera. I meter the brightest and darkest parts of my scene, and its 14.4 stops exactly! HA! I GOT 'DIS! I compose my scene with the D800's live view, and fiddle with my exposure trying to get the histogram to fit entirely between the extreme left edge and the extreme right edge. Yet, for the life of me, I CAN'T. Either my histogram rides up the right edge a bit (the highlights), or it rides up the left edge a bit (the shadows). This is really annoying. DXO said this stupid camera could capture 14.4 stops of DR!! Why can't I capture this entire scene in a single shot?!?!?!!!1!!11 I didn't bring any ND filters because this is the uberawesomedonkeyshitcameraoftheyearpureawesomeness!!!!!"

The twit trying to capture a landscape with 14.4 stops of DR in a single shot CAN NOT because the sensor is only capable of 13.2 stops of DR! The twit of a landscape photographer is trying to capture 1.2 stops (2.4x as much light) in a single shot and his camera simply isn't capable of doing so. He could take two shots, offset +/- 2 EV and combine them in post with HDR, but there is no other way his camera is going to capture 14.4 stops of DR. 

THAT ^^^^^ UP THERE ^^^^^ IS MY POINT about the D800. It is not a 14.4 stop camera. It is a 13.2 stop camera. You can move levels around in post to your hearts content, dither and expand the LEVELS YOU HAVE. But if you don't capture certain shadow or highlight detail TO START WITH....you CAN'T CREATE IT LATER. All your doing is averaging and dithering the 13.2 stops you actually captured to SIMULATE more DR. Ironically, that doesn't really do anyone any good, since computer screens are, at most, capable of about 10 stops of DR (assuming you have a super-awesome 10-bit RGB LED display), and usually only capable of about 8 stops of DR (if you have a nice high end 8-bit display), and for those of you unlucky enough to have an average $100 LCD screen, your probably stuck with only 6 stops of DR. Print is even more limited. An average fine art or canvas print might have 5 or 6 stops. A print on a high dMax gloss paper might have as much as 7 stops of DR.

There is little benefit to "digital DR" that is higher than the sensor's native DR. Your not gaining any information you didn't start out with, your simply redistributing the information you have in a different way by, say, downscaling with a clever algorithm to maximize shadow DR. But if you didn't record shadow detail higher than pure black to start with, no amount of software wizardry will make that black detail anything other than black. And even if you do redistribute detail within the shadows, midtones, or highlights...if your image has 14 stops of DR you can't actually SEE IT. Not on a screen. Not in print. You have to compress it, merge those many stops into fewer stops, and thus LOSE detail, to view it on a computer screen or in print.



In my original example that started this thread...my camera DID record the information I recovered. I am not, have not, and will not claim that my 7D is capable of anything more than 11.12 stops of DR, because that's what the sensor gets (at least according to DXO.) My original post was simply noting that one can make the BEST USE of that hardware DR but exposing to the right. Canon cameras offer a lot of highlight exposure latitude, and based on my accidental overexposure of a dragonfly, I've learned you can not only ETTR a little...you can ETTER a LOT with a modern Canon camera (i.e. 7D, 5D III, 1D IV, 1D X). You can really pack in the highlights and recover a tremendous amount of information in post.

However the same facts of reality regarding hardware DR that exist for the D800 also exist for the 7D. DXO Mark lists their "Print DR" for the 7D at 11.73 stops. Same as with the D800 above, if I try to photograph a landscape with 11.73 stops of DR, I'm going to either block the shadows a small amount, or blow some of the highlights a small amount. No way around that. I am going to have to compromise on about 2/3rds of a stop one way or another.


----------



## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 27, 2012)

cliffwang said:


> Chuck Alaimo said:
> 
> 
> > Nishi Drew said:
> ...


 Note, the quote I was using there was from a nikon user, who shoots weddings and owns a d800, this person was giving upgrade advice to another wedding shooter. I personally believe that the size of d800 files would be hard to work with when your trying to move quickly through 3000 shots, I also own a 5d3 and for wedding work its freaking fantastic. Again though, you may feel at that file sizes are not too big, the point of the matter is that NIKON users feel the files are too big for wedding work --- again as the quote says "As an owner of the D800, it never comes out at weddings, I stick to the D3." And likewise that's where the mk3 shines.


----------



## cliffwang (Sep 27, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> cliffwang said:
> 
> 
> > Chuck Alaimo said:
> ...


I won't say the file size is not a problem if you point out people need to deal with thousands of shots regularly. Moreover, picking D800 is a big mistake for a wedding photographer IMO. I think that's nothing need to arguer here. 5D3 is good for high ISO, and D800 is good for low ISO. The argumentation is about DR.


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## marekjoz (Sep 27, 2012)

hjulenissen said:


> Quasimodo said:
> 
> 
> > I have a question: Am I understanding the statements in this thread correctly if I say that you cannot increase the DR in your image because it is a hardware limit? The reason for my question is that I have been looking at videos @ youtube for good tips on black and white conversion in photoshop, and in several of these videos they claim that you can increase the DR by using layers and tweaking Levels and Curves....
> ...



And if you would see how big is the difference in numbers of photons aquired by a sensor between values converted later to numbers 256 and 257, you would get a headache


----------



## infared (Sep 27, 2012)

The "M" Mediocre Mirrorless SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS! Big Time.
...but I love my 5DIII.
Canon is a love hate for this photographer.


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## jrista (Sep 27, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Same thing with a 14.4 DR from a 14-bit ADC. WTF, that's impossible.
> 
> *Not at all, Nikon D3x has a column wise 12 bit ADC and the readings from the sensor are more than ones *.



Actually, thats incorrect. The Nikon D3x has a 14-bit ACD. This is a quote directly from DXO's own review of the D3x:



> *Key sensor characteristics*
> The Nikon D3X features a very high resolution full-frame format CMOS sensor with 24.6Mpix. The D3X and the Sony A900 are the only two cameras at that level of resolution within the professional D-SLR category, but _*the D3X features a 14-bit Analog/Digital (A/D) converter*_ which, as shown below, plays a significant role in boosting its capture performance when compared to the Sony A900 (with only a 12-bit A/D converter).
> 
> The D3X’s lower ISO setting (down to ISO 78) compared to other Nikons certainly help as some dxomark metrics such as dynamic range are considered at lowest ISO values.
> ...


Reference: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Publications/DxOMark-Reviews/DxOMark-review-for-the-Nikon-D3X

@Mikael: You, sir, really need to start getting your facts strait. You keep publishing information that is either inaccurate, misleading, or flat out wrong. That's not helping your arguments at all, and its just regurgitating a lot of the misleading and inaccurate data DXO piles up all over these forums. Please get your facts strait first, then post.


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## zim (Sep 27, 2012)

jrista…. I really want to thank you for this topic and the other fascinating posts over the last days regarding DR, the debate has I think on the whole been excellent. I don’t even begin to understand the science being discussed hell I don’t even know what ADC stands for but I do get your point « Reply #95 on: Today at 01:33:15 PM » you don’t need to be a scientist to understand that.

Anyway to my question(s) I’ve read many times about exposing to the right but have been reluctant to try it as I would prefer if anything to expose to the left to lift my shutter speed and reduce camera shake. I’m just amazed by the example you posted though so I want to try this for myself. I understand that once a highlight is clipped it’s gone so therefore simply setting exposure for a dark area and letting the highlights take care of themselves (over expose) isn’t enough. Is the easiest way to do this in a fast changing situation to bracket say 0, +1, +2 or +1, +2, +3 and use the highest non-clipped file, is the histogram the best way to do it or is there another way?
Also when you talk about amazing highlight recovery in Lightroom 4.1 with -4 EV exposure correction and 60% highlight recovery what would be the equivalent options in say DPP or Photoshop?


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## The Hobbyist (Sep 27, 2012)

So the Mark III has less DR than the D800. Does this really affect everyone _*THAT*_ much? Seems to be really exaggerated. I guess if a scene demands it, I like to do an HDR. I try to process it as minimally as possible, with the goal of only trying to reproduce what my eyes saw during that scene. This seems to work well for me. It just seems everyone arguing about a few digits of DR is pointless. IDK maybe i just dont get it.

Have enjoyed reading jrista's posts.


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## jrista (Sep 27, 2012)

zim said:


> jrista…. I really want to thank you for this topic and the other fascinating posts over the last days regarding DR, the debate has I think on the whole been excellent. I don’t even begin to understand the science being discussed hell I don’t even know what ADC stands for but I do get your point « Reply #95 on: Today at 01:33:15 PM » you don’t need to be a scientist to understand that.



Thanks. I've been trying to explain that since the D800 came out, and no one seemed to understand my point. Hopefully that little narrative gets it across now.



zim said:


> Anyway to my question(s) I’ve read many times about exposing to the right but have been reluctant to try it as I would prefer if anything to expose to the left to lift my shutter speed and reduce camera shake. I’m just amazed by the example you posted though so I want to try this for myself. I understand that once a highlight is clipped it’s gone so therefore simply setting exposure for a dark area and letting the highlights take care of themselves (over expose) isn’t enough. Is the easiest way to do this in a fast changing situation to bracket say 0, +1, +2 or +1, +2, +3 and use the highest non-clipped file, is the histogram the best way to do it or is there another way?



Well, if you really want to start ETTR, its best to experiment for a while. Whatever it is that you photograph most, experiment a lot and _learn where your highlights blow out_. You could try to just take a bunch of shots each time you photograph something, with EV 0, +1, +2, +3, +4, etc. But that is really time consuming to do as a matter of practice. It WILL be helpful to do that when you first start, as you will simply need a variety of samples to figure out where...for the kinds of things you photograph, your highlights really to _tend_ to blow the highlights (such that they are unrecoverable). You should also use the in-camera highlight warning feature. That feature in Canon cameras is based on the JPEG previews, so it will usually start the blinkies a little before you actually do overexpose so much that you can't recover. I've learned that with RAW, you can usually handle at least a small amount of highlight warning blinks when previewing your photos in-camera. In some cases, a LOT of the photo may blink (as was the case with my original sample image of the dragonfly.) You really can't know ahead of time if you've actually blown or not. If I think I have, I pull back some...maybe 1/3rd to 2/3rd of a stop. 

Another excellent tool is the in-camera histogram. USE THIS! Its really your best tool. When you photograph something, check the histogram. That should really be a matter of practice, actually. You'll start to get a feel for what the histogram means, and when it indicates you've blown out your highlights. Again, the histogram is based on a JPEG conversion of the photo taken, rather than the RAW, so it won't be 100% accurate. You can usually get away with a little bit of the histogram riding up the right-side edge of the histogram display. How much it can ride up will depend on the camera, the scene, and the overall key of the photo (high key, low key, etc.) 

It will take time and experimentation, but you'll eventually just get a "feel" for what your camera is telling you, and you'll start to intuitively know when you have or have not actually blown your highlights from the in-camera preview with highlight warning and the in-camera histogram. Also, if you ever feel that you've gone too far, you should always pull exposure down a bit, by at least 1/3rd of a stop, and take another shot. If you are photographing action that only occurs once, its better not to push ETTR that far. You can still expose to the right, but you don't want to go so far that your histogram is riding the right edge. Its better to keep the histogram a couple pixels away from the right edge at least, and probably a little more than that. The key difference between shadows and highlights is that with shadows, you just didn't capture enough, but lacking shadow doesn't mean your photograph is unusable. You can always lift shadows, sometimes a lot, and even if there is noise, FPN, banding, whatever...there are ways to clean that up and get good shadow detail. On the flip side, if you blow your highlights...they are gone, for good. You can't recover them, and if you overexpose enough, you might just blow more than highlights. So when you aren't sure you'll be able to re-take a shot, play it safe. Either just expose normally, or if you are comfortable with your ETTR skills, just ETTR less...give those highlights some physical headroom on the sensor. You usually only need 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a stop, but if you have a lot of bright daylight pounding down on a baseball player in a white jersey, you might want to drop exposure by a whole stop or so. 

(Note: The true benefit of the D800 is not really that it doesn't have any noise...its that you don't have to spend time cleaning that noise up. On the flip side, having shadow noise doesn't mean your photograph is throw-away or that you can't recover shadows...it just means you DO have to spend time cleaning up all the noisy junk in the shadows before your photo is finally acceptable. 



zim said:


> Also when you talk about amazing highlight recovery in Lightroom 4.1 with -4 EV exposure correction and 60% highlight recovery what would be the equivalent options in say DPP or Photoshop?



Photoshop, yes...since that uses ACR, which ultimately uses exactly the same RAW processing engine as Lightroom. As for DPP, I couldn't say. It uses a different RAW processing engine, developed by Canon. Technically speaking, I would kind of expect Canon's own RAW processor to produce better results...although that's not always proven true. I think DPP is able to extract more DR out of the average .CR2 file, however its demosaicing algorithm is somewhat wanting (it tends to leave jagged edges and color artifacts around, where as ACR/LR's demosicing algorithm is AHDD-based and produces very clean results.)

DPP might be able to do even greater wonders with exposure recovery, and work even greater magic than -4 EV recovery, if you can put up with the demosaicing.


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## The Hobbyist (Sep 27, 2012)

> One problem appears is if you are allready doing work-arounds for other problems (focus stacking, stitching,...). Having several "layers" of time-consuming, error-prone work-arounds can detract from the experience of photography, and a loss of "good shots".



I get what you are saying. I guess for me, i know that if i am going to go out and do some landscape shots, that some of them may require me doing some bracketed shots, or focus stacking like you mentioned. In that case, its usually not a time crunch, because my subject matter really isnt going anywhere. And for me, I dont mind post processing some of those things.

I guess its just a situational thing.


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## Quasimodo (Sep 27, 2012)

jrista said:


> What you can do in software doesn't matter. Dynamic range benefits *what you do in-camera*. It doesn't matter if you can use clever software algorithms to massage the 13.2 stops of DR in an original image to fabricate artificial data to extract 14.0, 14.4, or 16 stops of "digital DR" (which is not the same thing as hardware sensor DR). I'll try to demonstrate again, maybe someone will get it this time.
> 
> "I am composing a landscape scene on-scene, in-camera. I meter the brightest and darkest parts of my scene, and its 14.4 stops exactly! HA! I GOT 'DIS! I compose my scene with the D800's live view, and fiddle with my exposure trying to get the histogram to fit entirely between the extreme left edge and the extreme right edge. Yet, for the life of me, I CAN'T. Either my histogram rides up the right edge a bit (the highlights), or it rides up the left edge a bit (the shadows). This is really annoying. DXO said this stupid camera could capture 14.4 stops of DR!! Why can't I capture this entire scene in a single shot?!?!?!!!1!!11 I didn't bring any ND filters because this is the uberawesomedonkeyshitcameraoftheyearpureawesomeness!!!!!"
> 
> ...



Again, and I agree with Zim, I have learned a lot of this discussion about hardware capabilities, screen capabilities, as well as print capabilities. I am waiting for my Pixma Pro 1 printer, and because of this latest information from you, I will go straight to check the stops it has. So my uninformed question yielded even more information 

Thank you.


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## Fishnose (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> Fishnose said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...




About IQ/Noise: You're agreeing with me. I said that downscaling a 36MP image will improve IQ, upscaling an 18MP image will lose IQ - and that's what you're saying too.

About DR: According to DxO, doubling sensor resolution gives 0.5 bit increase in DR. 
Quoted from DxO:

" As can be seen, high-resolution sensors will gain more SNR, DR, TR and CS when reduced to a lower reference resolution. For DxOMark Sensor Overall Score and Metrics, we chose a reference resolution equal to 8 Megapixels, which is a bit less than a 12" x 8" print with a 300dpi printer. However, any other resolution can be chosen, as doing so only shifts the normalized values by a constant (because the reference resolution appears only as a logarithm in the formulas above).
What should be remembered is that doubling the resolution adds:

3dB to the normalized SNR
0.5 bit to the normalized DR
0.5 bit to the normalized TR
1.5 bit to the normalized CS"

Incidentally, this text also addresses one of the things people scream most about - the 8MP thing. In point of fact the actual resolution chosen makes no difference, 16MP or 20MP would give the same *relative* values.


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## jrista (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



Fishnose said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Fishnose said:
> ...



Please read my answer at #95. Maybe then you'll finally get my point. All your doing when scaling images in software is manipulating existing levels, which really doesn't improve DR. It might mitigate noise, making detail in the shadows appear more accurate....but that has nothing to do with the camera. That has everything to do with software, and software is effectively an infinitely subjective thing. Lets eliminate the subjectivity here, and focus on what the physical device we put in our hands and use to take a photograph can do. 

BTW, quoting DXO's own theory to a guy who has serious doubts about that company in the first place, and serious doubts that they even understand the terrible effect their own "Print DR" ratings are having on a community of potential camera buyers, doesn't bring a lot of weight with it. I believe DXO has it entirely wrong with "Print DR", I believe those statistics are extremely misleading, very inaccurate, and the fact that they are a key factor in their scoring makes me have very little trust in their scores. This has nothing to do with being a Canon user. I don't particularly have any specific brand loyalties, and I proclaim the wonders of the D800 plenty myself. I just don't like inaccuracies and misleading information...and DXO is chock-full of both. I strongly believe using post-process scaling to measure the HARDWARE capabilities of a camera is a terrible idea, and should be stopped. As such, I only reference DXO's "Screen DR" numbers when discussing dynamic range (except in the context of arguing about how absurd their _14.4 Stops Print DR_ number for the D800 is!)


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> Please read my answer at #95. Maybe then you'll finally get my point. All your doing when scaling images in software is manipulating existing levels, which really doesn't improve DR. It might mitigate noise, making detail in the shadows appear more accurate....but that has nothing to do with the camera. That has everything to do with software, and software is effectively an infinitely subjective thing. Lets eliminate the subjectivity here, and focus on what the physical device we put in our hands and use to take a photograph can do.



You are missing the point about how to carry out a fairer relative comparison. But if you want to believe a 1DX tech based 36MP FF sensor would do much worse for high ISO noise than a 10D tech based 4MP FF sensor be my guest....


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 27, 2012)

The Hobbyist said:


> So the Mark III has less DR than the D800. Does this really affect everyone _*THAT*_ much? Seems to be really exaggerated. I guess if a scene demands it, I like to do an HDR. I try to process it as minimally as possible, with the goal of only trying to reproduce what my eyes saw during that scene. This seems to work well for me. It just seems everyone arguing about a few digits of DR is pointless. IDK maybe i just dont get it.
> 
> Have enjoyed reading jrista's posts.



3+ stops usable looking difference can be noticed in the real world (it is funny that some have raved about 1/2 stop better SNR than Nikon a times as a huge deal and then toss off 3ish stops of DR at ISO100 as nothing, will it still be nothing if the rumors about the new cam having great DR turn true?)

You can take two shots but:
1. If the subject is moving, sometimes even just branches swaying or if mists are moving about or it's a person etc. it doesn't always work so well, or even at all, sometimes you can try to get it away with fixing modest motion and combining and masking various parts and so on but with hours of post processing and a long struggle and waste of time and it doesn't always work out all that well anyway.

(2. That won't help for the times the exposure was way off on a one of shot.)
(3. It is nicer to grab a shot with less effort, if lighting is changing maybe you can have more time to get more nice shots or you can simply have more fun and not bog down as much, not 100% tripod locked into either.)


That said you can't get TOO carried away, I mean you can take millions of great shots without any issue at all with a 5D3 and it's a very nice cam to use, just there are some shots it won't do as well, which is quite a shame for some at times but not that big a deal for others.

I like it a lot, it is a very good camera, but i really do wish they had improved the DR since i very much could be making use of it.


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## RuneL (Sep 27, 2012)

whatever did we do back when we had to properly expose.


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## jrista (Sep 27, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Please read my answer at #95. Maybe then you'll finally get my point. All your doing when scaling images in software is manipulating existing levels, which really doesn't improve DR. It might mitigate noise, making detail in the shadows appear more accurate....but that has nothing to do with the camera. That has everything to do with software, and software is effectively an infinitely subjective thing. Lets eliminate the subjectivity here, and focus on what the physical device we put in our hands and use to take a photograph can do.
> ...



I fully understand the point of normalization for comparison. I also think its a fundamentally flawed concept. You need to get some new material, because repeatedly trotting the "Well you have to compare on an equivalent playing field" argument out over and over just becomes abrasive after a while. I KNOW your argument. Listen to mine: What you do in post with scaling DOES NOT TELL YOU what the hardware can do IN TERMS OF DR. It only tells you what SOFTWARE can do in terms of SIMULATING a DR gain. Mucking with an image in post doesn't change the capabilities of the hardware though. 

I know that if you scale a D800 image down to the size of Camera X, or scale the image of Camera X up to the size of the D800, you get a rough picture of how those two cameras images compare...ACCORDING TO THE SOFTWARE THAT DID THE SCALING. I learned about the software by doing a normalized comparison. I didn't learn anything new about the D800 and Camera X, though. What happens on a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet, hell even a phone...doesn't tell you anything about a camera. It tells you about the destop/laptop/tablet/phone...and the software that particular device is running.

I'm a printer. I don't downscale. I either print at native resolution, or I significantly upscale. The fact that I can mitigate noise and do some fancy dithering to push my 13.2 stop 17x22" image into a 14.4 stop 8x12" image _DOES NOTHING FOR ME_. As a printer, I can't use the initial 13.2 stops, let alone 14.4 stops, of dynamic range anyway. I either have to compress the information in such an image into a much smaller 5 or 6 stops, and in the process, even if I maintain very tight control over it and manually tweak levels, white and black point, gamut, etc...LOSE A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF DETAIL (particularly in the shadows...where a D800 has the potential to lose a hell of a lot more than any other camera), or I simply print, and let the printer decide what to discard so it can stuff all that extra DR into a print with less than HALF as much...at best. I could maybe get 7 stops of DR in print, but I would have to use a ridiculously bright and unbelievably glossy paper to do so, which really only looks good for a very few types of photos in a very few kinds of settings. But I can't use much more than 7 stops of dynamic range in an image in the first place...outside of a bit of initial shadow or highlight recovery for the first round of dynamic range compression to fit 10+ stops of DR on a computer screen that ALSO can't utilize as much as any camera on the market produces.

Normalized comparisons tell me about SOFTWARE. They don't tell me anything about DSLR HARDWARE. I can't photograph a scene with 14.4 stops in a single shot with the D800. But all this "Well you have to normalize to compare!" crap tells me I can! That's a serious problem! People believe that kind of shit, and it doesn't tell them jack about the camera they are buying. Hell, DXO could improve their DXO Optics software's scaling algorithms and probably gain another...hmm... 0.2, 0.4 stops of DR? That would suddenly mean the D800 is capable of 14.6...maybe even 14.8 stops of DR, right? _Because you have to friggin normalize to compare cameras, RIGHT?!_ *NO!!!!!!* You don't!

If I want to know about *the D800, and what the D800 can do me, and whether the D800 will perform well for my photography*...I haven't asked about any other camera...*I've only asked about the D800.* I could care less about how it compares to 500 different cameras. I care about what the D800 itself can ACTUALLY DO. Enough with this "You HAVE TO if you want to compare!" bull...its unhelpful. Not everything is a competition. Not everything is about comparing camera A, B, C, D, and the whole rest of the freakin alphabet. Comparisons are really starting to muddy the waters, to throw out arbitrary "facts" that don't mean anything out of a very specific and very narrow conceptual space (i.e. DXO labs and all of their specific testing hardware and software algorithms). Keep it simple, ppl! HARDWARE. That's what a DSLR is. Hardware. Lets look at the hardware, not software. Its still possible to compare hardware traits directly. You don't need to keep the exact dimensions of a digitized image (which is 100% POST HARDWARE) the same to have an objective comparison of cameras. Hardware statistics tell you everything you need to know about a camera, about two cameras, about how those two cameras compare from a real-world, in-the-field performance perspective (assuming you actually want to know how to cameras compare...however if you just want to know how one camera fares on its own, hardware statistics will tell you that too.)


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## elflord (Sep 27, 2012)

jrista said:


> What you can do in software doesn't matter. Dynamic range benefits *what you do in-camera*. It doesn't matter if you can use clever software algorithms to massage the 13.2 stops of DR in an original image to fabricate artificial data to extract 14.0, 14.4, or 16 stops of "digital DR" (which is not the same thing as hardware sensor DR). I'll try to demonstrate again, maybe someone will get it this time.
> 
> "I am composing a landscape scene on-scene, in-camera. I meter the brightest and darkest parts of my scene, and its 14.4 stops exactly! HA! I GOT 'DIS! I compose my scene with the D800's live view, and fiddle with my exposure trying to get the histogram to fit entirely between the extreme left edge and the extreme right edge. Yet, for the life of me, I CAN'T. Either my histogram rides up the right edge a bit (the highlights), or it rides up the left edge a bit (the shadows). This is really annoying. DXO said this stupid camera could capture 14.4 stops of DR!! Why can't I capture this entire scene in a single shot?!?!?!!!1!!11 I didn't bring any ND filters because this is the uberawesomedonkeyshitcameraoftheyearpureawesomeness!!!!!"
> 
> ...



I do follow the above. Here are some things I don't quite follow:

You state this: 


> The friggin sensor has an average read noise level of around 3 electrons, and a maximum saturation point (at ISO 100) of 44972 electrons. Those FACTS about the D800 sensor DO NOT CHANGE, no matter what you do with software.



I take it that the above refers to the read noise of a single pixel ? 

Your definition of dynamic range if I understand correctly, is log2( saturation point ) - log2( read noise ).

Now if I'm allowed to average two adjacent pixels into a "superpixel", the saturation point won't change, but the read noise will go down.

That's not a "software" trick, it's the fact that the "hardware" doesn't consist of a single pixel.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 27, 2012)

Canon cameras don't suck nearly as bad as this thread does.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 27, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> *No one says that Canon sucks, but they have a outdated sensor tech compared to others
> there seems to be a bit difficult for some to separate facts from feelings*



Except the 1DX right? I hope you don't say that sensor tech is outdated, please don't.


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> I do follow the above. Here are some things I don't quite follow:
> 
> You state this:
> 
> ...



Read noise *MAY * go down. Its not guaranteed to go down. Simple logical exercise. Lets assume a hypothetical sensor has an average read noise of 3 levels. If you take four adjacent deep shadow pixels, A - D, each with a level anywhere from 2 to 4: A2 B3 C2 D4. If we average those pixels together we get (2 + 3 + 2 + 4)/4 = 11/4 = 2.75. Our read noise is 3, and our averaged pixels are 2.75. Well, since we can't actually have fractional levels in an image stored as integers, that's still 3. We didn't really change anything. We could try to assume that the signal for all four pixels is 2, which would result in an average of 2...but since our average read noise is 3, we could never really be sure whether that averaged result of 2 is actual image data or just noise, or 50/50 of each. But lets call it a win anyway...you gained 1 level of DR by averaging four pixels with a level of 2 together. You could also have this: A3 B4 C4 D3. That averages to 3.5. You might even have A4 B4 C4 D4, which obviously averages to a level of 4. We can't really gain much in terms of DR around our average read noise of 3. Sometimes the average of a few pixels might be less, sometimes it might be more. But its a freaking average...if were averaging information around read noise...were going to end up with something pretty much the SAME as our read noise.

Additionally, a stop is a doubling. You have effectively 9410 levels with a 13.2 stop sensor (2^13.2). A 14.4 stop sensor would have 21681 levels. That's a massive difference. Logically, just with some basic deduction, does anyone SERIOUSLY believe they are gaining 12,208 additional distinct levels, more than their already amazing 13.2 stop image had in the first place, simply by averaging some slightly noisy pixels when downscaling??? Simple logical deduction...does anyone really, truly, honestly believe they are gaining that much via the simple act of downscaling? I mean, the D800 is amazing...but not THAT amazing.


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## cliffwang (Sep 28, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> *No one says that Canon sucks, but they have a outdated sensor tech compared to others
> there seems to be a bit difficult for some to separate facts from feelings*



Honestly I don't care if the sensor tech is outdated or not. I am happy with my 5D3. However, I also agree Nikon has better sensor. I want to have better DR on my 5D3, but the truth is that's impossible. What I can do is just enjoy my 5D3 and give Canon more time and chance.


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## elflord (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> Read noise *MAY * go down. Its not guaranteed to go down.



It's pretty straightforward to state assumptions under which it does go down (basically, unless it's perfectly correlated, it does go down. If it's uncorrelated and gaussian, it's inversely proportional to sqrt(N) )



> Simple logical exercise. Lets assume a hypothetical sensor has an average read noise of 3 levels. If you take four adjacent deep shadow pixels, A - D, each with a level anywhere from 2 to 4: A2 B3 C2 D4. If we average those pixels together we get (2 + 3 + 2 + 4)/4 = 11/4 = 2.75. Our read noise is 3, and our averaged pixels are 2.75. Well, since we can't actually have fractional levels in an image stored as integers, that's still 3.



Now you're conflating quantization loss with noise. They are two different things. 

Anyway, in the above example, we have a read noise of 3 for each pixel. When we average those pixels, our read noise is 1.5 (that's 3/sqrt(4)) for the merged pixel. So we went from 3 +/- 3 to 2.75 +- 1.5. In other words, we went from being at the noise baseline to being outside it. 




> We didn't really change anything.



Yeah, but we did. We dropped our noise baseline from 3 to 1.5. That's an extra stop in the shadows. 



> Additionally, a stop is a doubling. You have effectively 9410 levels with a 13.2 stop sensor (2^13.2).



Actually, there is no guarantee that you have that many levels -- it's only true if the scale is linear (let's assume this anyway) AND the second level on your scale is double of the first level. That's the difference between the top and bottom, but it doesn't say anything about the number in between. There could conceivably be either fewer or more than 2^13.2. This is a bit of a digression but I'm only pointing it out because people get confused and thing that the ADC converter is a hard bound on the dynamic range. It needn't be. 



> A 14.4 stop sensor would have 21681 levels. That's a massive difference. Logically, just with some basic deduction, does anyone SERIOUSLY believe they are gaining 12,208 additional distinct levels, more than their already amazing 13.2 stop image had in the first place, simply by averaging some slightly noisy pixels when downscaling???



Absolutely. Suppose to make this a little simpler, our read noise is 6 to begin with. Then the "levels" 800 and 803 are indistinguishable. 
Then we average 4 pixels, which reduces read noise by a factor of 2, to 3. From 800 to 860, if read noise is 6, we can't really resolve 60 "levels", we can resolve about 10 (800,806,812,...). When we halve the read noise, we can resolve twice as many distinct levels (e.g. 20: 800, 803, 806 , ... ). But this is somewhat beside the point anyway, because dynamic range is just that -- it's the difference between upper and lower level, not the ability to resolve intermediate levels. 



> Simple logical deduction...does anyone really, truly, honestly believe they are gaining that much via the simple act of downscaling?



No, it's not logical deduction -- it's an appeal to (bad, in this case) intuition. 



> I mean, the D800 is amazing...but not THAT amazing.



I'm not concerned here with the D800 or cheerleading for one camera or another.


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> Yeah, but we did. We dropped our noise baseline from 3 to 1.5. That's an extra stop in the shadows.



Well, I think this one statement is most significant. Yes, we gained an extra stop in the shadows, however that stop, in terms of luminance levels gained, is insignificant in the larger picture...its 1.5 levels worth, not 6,000+ levels worth. If the D800 camp here is arguing that they are gaining an extra 2.3 stops on the opposite end that I've classically been looking at the problem from, that is an entirely different story, and far more realistic. If I flip my mental model around and look at it from "upside down", then the gain in the D800 is, what...a few dozen levels worth from the read noise improvement over their previous sensors (and maybe a few dozen more relative to Canon sensors)...grand total? Throw in the longer foot that is characteristic of Nikon's default tone curves, and you might have a few hundred levels total, which now realistically boils down to the kind of shadow wiggle-room we've all been seeing (which is no where near, and need not be to see the kind of shadow lifting we have, 12,000+ levels.)

Coming from Canon, I've always seen levels gained by improvement in DR on the highlight end, and that's how I've generally looked at the problem. Takes kind of a half-paradigm shift to think about the entire problem from the shadow end, but it certainly makes more logical sense.


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## elflord (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> elflord said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, but we did. We dropped our noise baseline from 3 to 1.5. That's an extra stop in the shadows.
> ...



Yes, and that's what dynamic range is, right ? As *you* defined it, it's log2(saturation level) - log2(noise level), so we did gain a stop of dynamic range. Because you can adjust the exposure, an extra stop in the shadows is interchangeable with an extra stop at the other end. 



> however that stop, in terms of luminance levels gained, is insignificant in the larger picture...its 1.5 levels worth, not 6,000+ levels worth.



Number of luminance levels is a different thing to dynamic range. However, as I explained, we not only gain the stop of dynamic range, we gain double the luminance levels. 

e.g. whereas previously, we could only resolve 800,806,812, ..., with the reduced noise we can resolve 800,803,806,809 ... , 

so it really is 6000 levels worth. 

This thinking that before you had the numbers 1-1024 and after you have 0.5 and 1-1024 which is "one more level" is simplistic and wrong. You actually also get 1.5, 2.5, ... etc. You get these because you can resolve more due to reduced noise. Or, if you like, you push them a stop and you get 1-2048. 



> If the D800 camp here is arguing that they are gaining an extra 2.3 stops on the opposite end that I've classically been looking at the problem from, that is an entirely different story, and far more realistic.



(1) dynamic range is different from the number of resolvable luminance levels, and (2) reducing noise does increase both, so the distinction is not as important as you make it out to be.


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > elflord said:
> ...



When talking about DR on a sensor, I agree, its not the same thing as levels (since were talking about an analog signal). But if were talking about downscaling a D800 image and gaining dynamic range, everything is about levels of luminance. In my original example I simply defined noise in the context of a digitized image as being 3 levels. If we downsample an image and average noise by two fold, then the number of levels that constitute noise is between 1 and 2, and may vary a bit by pixel. I am not sure where your example of "previously, we could only resolve 800, 806, 812...now we can resolve 800, 803, 806, 809" is accurate in the context of downscaling an image. Were not talking about resolving anything here, were talking about a three-component pixel with a 0-16384 level range each, and there is nothing preventing us from using every single one of those levels. The thing that diminishes our post-digitization DR is noise, and averaging it by downscaling...as you described, reduces our noise from 3 levels to 1.5 levels. It doesn't change our ability to have digitized (post-ADC) pixels at any and every level between 800 and 812, it simply adds the ability to have levels between 1 or 2 and 3.

Yes, its a stops worth of improvement, but its not a hugely significant improvement. You state that dynamic range is not the same as levels. No, its not, however a CHANGE in dynamic range could be MEASURED in levels (if your working with a digital image), or it could be measured in electrons, or signal power, etc. In the past I've looked at change in DR from the bottom up, starting in the shadows and gaining as we move towards the highlights. Flipping that problem around in my head, its easier to differentiate the differences between 11, 13, and 14 stops. If we take 2^14, we get the potential maximum level that a fully white pixel in a sensor could be converted into by the ADC: 16348. In a perfect sensor, our entire dynamic range, measured in levels, would be from 0 to 16384. However, working down from the "top", our stops of dynamic range as measured in levels can be divided up into the following:


StopLevels in Stop181922409632048410245512625671288649321016118124132141

If read noise is a whole stops worth (image from Exmor sensor), and it eats away from to "bottom", you aren't losing much. If read noise is a few stops (3 to 4) worth (image Canon sensor), you could be losing 7, maybe 15 distinct levels. This is highly simplified, the conversion from sensor to digital isn't as ideal and linear as this, and actual "level allocation" (for lack of a better term/concept) probably results in fewer levels to the upper stops and more levels to the lower stops. But I think this illustrates my point. Canon sensors lose stops 12-14 (and maybe even part of stop 11) to read noise, while Sony Exmor only loses stop 14 to read noise (from the standpoint of digitized pixels, rather than electrons.)


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## tnargs (Sep 28, 2012)

cliffwang said:


> ...I am happy with my 5D3. However, I also agree Nikon has better sensor. ...



Nikon don't make better sensors, though. It's an open secret that Nikon uses Sony sensors. :-X This means if Sony catches a cold, Nikon develop pneumonia. If Sony has a production problem, Nikon has a supply problem and a recall problem. If Sony's FF sensor production stalls or has issues, how much will it hurt Sony? Ah, but how much will it hurt Nikon?

Also, Nikon are therefore losing their in-house sensor capability. If Canon have a particular area they want to research and develop their sensors, they just power ahead and do it. If Nikon have a similar wish, they write a begging letter to Sony. If Sony's imaging priorities start to diverge from what Nikon would like, too bad, Nikon products will suffer.

And this flows on to the issue of integration. By controlling all aspects of product development, Canon can develop fully integrated products. One can expect them to use this to make better *cameras*. A sensor is not a camera.  

If you are wondering if this is terribly important, ask Apple. Nikon are becoming the PC of cameras next to Canon's Apple. The PC might have a CPU with a few more 0.1 GHz and an extra MB of cache, but in terms of integrated performance for the end user...... It is impossible for them to keep up for long while they have to take what Sony delivers and built a camera and processor around it with falling in-house sensor tech capability. IMHO.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

*Re: Who said Canon sensors suck?!?*



jrista said:


> I fully understand the point of normalization for comparison. I also think its a fundamentally flawed concept.



You think most of engineering and science is flawed then.



> You need to get some new material, because repeatedly trotting the "Well you have to compare on an equivalent playing field" argument out over and over just becomes abrasive after a while.



And what about your non-stop repeatedly claiming that this basic concept it flawed?



> I KNOW your argument. Listen to mine: What you do in post with scaling DOES NOT TELL YOU what the hardware can do IN TERMS OF DR. It only tells you what SOFTWARE can do in terms of SIMULATING a DR gain. Mucking with an image in post doesn't change the capabilities of the hardware though. ....
> I'm a printer. ....



No need to 'play' with software. Just print from the two cameras and stand far enough back from the higher MP print until it looks the same size as the smaller print or the details captured become equal.




> Normalized comparisons tell me about SOFTWARE. They don't tell me anything about DSLR HARDWARE.



Not really true at all.



> I can't photograph a scene with 14.4 stops in a single shot with the D800.



Not maintaining 36MP of detail you can't.

It just lets you give a fair RELATIVE comparison between the two cameras. It's not so much about the actual numbers, unless you do scale to the exact sized used.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

RuneL said:


> whatever did we do back when we had to properly expose.



If you knew how to properly expose you would realize that talk about wanting more DR is not primarily about 'proper exoposure'.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

bdunbar79 said:


> Canon cameras don't suck nearly as bad as this thread does.



I agree with that! ;D


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## elflord (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> When talking about DR on a sensor, I agree, its not the same thing as levels (since were talking about an analog signal). But if were talking about downscaling a D800 image and gaining dynamic range, everything is about levels of luminance.
> In my original example I simply defined noise in the context of a digitized image as being 3 levels. If we downsample an image and average noise by two fold, then the number of levels that constitute noise is between 1 and 2, and may vary a bit by pixel. I am not sure where your example of "previously, we could only resolve 800, 806, 812...now we can resolve 800, 803, 806, 809" is accurate in the context of downscaling an image. Were not talking about resolving anything here, were talking about a three-component pixel with a 0-16384 level range each, and there is nothing preventing us from using every single one of those levels. The thing that diminishes our post-digitization DR is noise, and averaging it by downscaling...as you described, reduces our noise from 3 levels to 1.5 levels. It doesn't change our ability to have digitized (post-ADC) pixels at any and every level between 800 and 812, it simply adds the ability to have levels between 1 or 2 and 3.
> 
> Yes, its a stops worth of improvement, but its not a hugely significant improvement.



It is what it is -- a 1 stop improvement in dynamic range. As we agreed, dynamic range is log2(saturation point) - log2(noise level).

I'd also point out that because you can either set exposure or use a different gray point, an extra stop in the shadows is interchangeable with an extra stop in the highlights -- you can always expose by a stop lower. So worrying about whether you gain a stop in the shadows or highlights is a bit off base. Dynamic range is dynamic range, number of levels is a different beast ... 

Now regarding the number of levels -- your ADC could have every level between 800 and 812, but that doesn't mean that you have that many distinct levels. At some point, if the noise is large enough, the number of "levels" you have doesn't matter. For example, suppose you start with 16384 levels. Suppose you add two low order bits and randomly assign them. I think we agree that after adding those bits we don't really have 65536 (16384 * 2 *2 ) "levels" even if we "used" that many. Back to the example we were discussing, if we have a 14 bit ADC and our noise level is 3, the lowest order bit is close to random. 

The number of levels we have is the number of levels divided by the number of noise levels (assuming read noise doesn't change across the dynamic range) -- it's essentially exp(dynamic range) * some constant 

By the way, when we pool multiple pixels, we don't just have possible 16384 levels any more -- we have 16384 multiplied by the number of pixels (we get multiples of .25 when we average. Or if you don't like fractions, you can just add the pixel values. Either way, you end up with 65536 distinct levels). Of course because of the above this doesn't mean that we can distinguish between all of them.



> If read noise is a whole stops worth (image from Exmor sensor), and it eats away from to "bottom", you aren't losing much. If read noise is a few stops (3 to 4) worth (image Canon sensor), you could be losing 7, maybe 15 distinct levels.
> This is highly simplified, the conversion from sensor to digital isn't as ideal and linear as this,



I think it's perhaps a bit too simplified. Recall my previous point -- dynamic range at the bottom is interchangeable with dynamic range at the top because you can always underexpose or overexpose. 

Now of course if you insist on putting a hard limit on the number of bits available for the signal, you are more likely to suffer quantization loss with a lower dynamic range. For example, if you have 14 bits to represent 12 sops of dynamic range, you get less quantization loss than if you use 14 bits to represent 15 bits of dynamic range. In practice it seems to me that quantization loss (at least in RAW) is not the problem. Also, as I pointed out, if your read noise is (has standard deviation of) 3, you don't "really" have 14 bits worth of distinct levels (the lowest order bit is almost as good as randomly assigned), so you really would get twice as many levels if you could reduce noise by a factor of 2. 

Now if you pool multiple pixels you do get more levels. The number of levels you get grows linearly with the number of pixels you pool, but as I pointed out, the noise goes in inverse proportion to sqrt(N), so your true number of levels increases by a factor of sqrt(N). But again, this is different from dynamic rang.e


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## The Hobbyist (Sep 28, 2012)

> You can take two shots but:
> 1. If the subject is moving, sometimes even just branches swaying or if mists are moving about or it's a person etc. it doesn't always work so well, or even at all, sometimes you can try to get it away with fixing modest motion and combining and masking various parts and so on but with hours of post processing and a long struggle and waste of time and it doesn't always work out all that well anyway.



You make a good point. I'll say, when I am out shooting in that scenario, I always shoot in RAW. From there, it's as simple as moving the exposure slider only, to create 3 different exported exposures out of 1 shot. I've done simple HDR's this way, and they look just fine. Yes, I'd rather take 3, 5, or sometimes 7 bracketed shots. But other times I know because of movement, I'll just create the HDR from 1 RAW file. I did this with a shot of a hummingbird, and it worked well.

Still, I guess the DR can be an issue for some folks, and their specific line of work. I'm just a hobbyist, not a pro. I guess for me, i am really never needing to crop things out that much for it to be an issue. If it is, like i said, ill try a simple HDR and that'll usually do the trick.


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > When talking about DR on a sensor, I agree, its not the same thing as levels (since were talking about an analog signal). But if were talking about downscaling a D800 image and gaining dynamic range, everything is about levels of luminance.
> ...



I don't necessarily disagree, however I think your starting to conflate contexts. I was trying to discuss DR in terms of a digitized image in the context of scaling, which I think narrows the scope and does simplify things a bit. Your now talking about DR in a much larger context, that of the sensor. That moves us out of the realm of the digital and into the realm of the analog, and I fully agree: Dynamic range in the analog realm of a sensor is an entirely different beast, and a much more complex discussion. But...we were originally talking about the dynamic range gained by the act of downscaling a high resolution image. In that context, I don't believe we can "interchange" the dynamic range gained by normalizing read noise...which always exists in the lower levels of a digital image...with highlights. You would always be gaining on the shadow end when you normalize and average read noise, however I think we've both demonstrated that gain is small, even though it can be called a "full stops worth".

Outside of that, _I agree with most of what you've said_, in the context of an analog signal on a sensor. Dynamic range is an entirely different beast when you move into an analog realm. I'm still adamant that the D800 sensor is only capable of what its capable of...which by all indications, including DXO's, is about 13.2 stops. However you distribute digital levels when reading the sensor out, that fact won't change, and I believe my answer at #95 is entirely accurate and realistic in that respect.


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## nonac (Sep 28, 2012)

Do you people actually take pictures or do you just sit around and analyze the camera and data all day long? Reading all of this gave me a headache and I had to GO OUTSIDE and take pictures!


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## bigmag13 (Sep 28, 2012)

nonac said:


> Do you people actually take pictures or do you just sit around and analyze the camera and data all day long? Reading all of this gave me a headache and I had to GO OUTSIDE and take pictures!


+1 !!!!! lol


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## sach100 (Sep 28, 2012)

Thanks Jrista! Although, i admit i haven't understood everything you've said (and there's a lot of it!). 

I think we've digressed a long way from what your very first post was trying to say. I've never played with a Nikon but i completely agree with you on the Canon's highlight recovery part (from my far less technical experience in recovering highlights).

If one is interested in the technology aspects of photography it doesn't make him/her any less a photographer than he/she already is (however good/bad that person is!)


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

nonac said:


> Do you people actually take pictures or do you just sit around and analyze the camera and data all day long? Reading all of this gave me a headache and I had to GO OUTSIDE and take pictures!



Has anyone ever heard of that timespan during our 24-hour day called "Nighttime"? Anyone here have a boring day-job with lots of empty space as you wait for...oh, say....some long-running extensive load test of that new workflow you designed and programmed to run to completion? Yeah. "Whitespace" is such a wonder.

Sure I take pictures. I take lots of pictures. I have over 300 pictures out of several thousand total I've taken over the last few weeks waiting to be trickled up to http://500px.com/JonRista over the next several more weeks. 

I love it when someone comes along who thinks you can spend each and every 525,960 minutes in a year with camera in-hand photographing something.  I like a good debate in my photographic downtime.


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

sach100 said:


> Thanks Jrista! Although, i admit i haven't understood everything you've said (and there's a lot of it!).
> 
> I think we've digressed a long way from what your very first post was trying to say. I've never played with a Nikon but i completely agree with you on the Canon's highlight recovery part (from my far less technical experience in recovering highlights).
> 
> If one is interested in the technology aspects of photography it doesn't make him/her any less a photographer than he/she already is (however good/bad that person is!)



Thanks. I guess I kind of dug my own grave by mentioning the D800. I really just wanted to demonstrate the highlight recovery power of current Canon cameras, but apparently the vultures were just waiting in the corner for someone to jump off the D800 cliff...and I seem happily obliged, and given them a fresh corpse to pick over. Entirely my own fault though....


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## straub (Sep 28, 2012)

One more thing regarding normalization. Suppose your read noise has standard deviation of S. With enough sample data X, the resultant noise will converge to zero. This is the base assumption of phrases such as "doubling resolution increases DR by Y".

However, in the case of D800 and other newer Nikons, there is no bias value in the NEF file data. For the very bottom end of the ADC output, all values for which X+S<0 are truncated to zero. The end result is that normalizing any samples X smaller than S will not any more result in the noise converging to zero, but rather towards (S-X)/2.

This puts a hard limit to the "normalized DR" claims--e.g. no matter how large the set is, the sample value 0 doesn't converge to 0 (which it should in order for the processed output to touch the max DR of 14 stops in this case). 

On the other hand, omitting the bias roughly doubles the "measured" DR in the black frame "tests"--half of the read noise is squashed to zero.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

nonac said:


> Do you people actually take pictures or do you just sit around and analyze the camera and data all day long? Reading all of this gave me a headache and I had to GO OUTSIDE and take pictures!



Hah I took like 7500 shots over the last two weeks. That said this thread does seem to have been ultimately pointless, to a certain extent, since it ended where it began.


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## elflord (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> I don't necessarily disagree, however I think your starting to conflate contexts. I was trying to discuss DR in terms of a digitized image in the context of scaling, which I think narrows the scope and does simplify things a bit. Your now talking about DR in a much larger context, that of the sensor. That moves us out of the realm of the digital and into the realm of the analog, and I fully agree: Dynamic range in the analog realm of a sensor is an entirely different beast, and a much more complex discussion. But...we were originally talking about the dynamic range gained by the act of downscaling a high resolution image. In that context, I don't believe we can "interchange" the dynamic range gained by normalizing read noise...which always exists in the lower levels of a digital image...with highlights. You would always be gaining on the shadow end when you normalize and average read noise, however I think we've both demonstrated that gain is small, even though it can be called a "full stops worth".



A stop of dynamic range in the shadows is interchangeable with a stop of dynamic range in the highlights because you can always meter differently (e.g. underexpose by a stop)

You went off on a bit of a tangent suggesting that the extra dynamic range does substantially not increase the number of "levels" of luminance available, and I showed that it actually does (more precisely, that if I reduce noise by a factor of two, I get twice as many luminance levels). I also showed that by downsampling you can interchange spatial resolution for both dynamic range and number of luminance levels. 

So the analysis where you try to demonstrate that the difference is "small" by using that table is incorrect. It's incorrect because when you add noise, you don't just lose the "bottom stop(s)" on the table (for example, levels 1-15) and keep all the others, you're really losing information content in the low order bit(s). You're not eating away at the "bottom of the table", you're eating away at the low order bits.



> I'm still adamant that the D800 sensor is only capable of what its capable of...which by all indications, including DXO's, is about 13.2 stops.



Yes, that's 13.2 stops per pixel. I'm not sure why this matters so much -- the Canon also drops (by about .8 EV) when you go from print to screen because the two cameras don't differ that much in megapixel count. Depending on whether you use DxO's "screen" or "print" number, the Nikon leads by 2.2Ev or 2.5Ev. I'm not sure why you think those 0.3 Ev matter a whole lot -- either way, the Nikon sensor trounces the Canon, so why devote so much effort to trying to prove that the Nikon is "only" 2.2Ev better ?

Back to your #95, the D800 user could underexpose by 1.2 stops. If he downsamples to 8mpx, he will be able to recover those shadows, and get 14.4 stops of dynamic range. I agree that he can't get 14.4 stops per pixel at full resolution.

As long as the destination for the image is some fixed size (print or on screen) and not a 100% crop, the "print" benchmark is the one you should care about. So I don't agree for example with the notion that medium format, full frame and crop cameras are equal in terms of dynamic range even if they are on a per pixel basis.


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## elflord (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> Thanks. I guess I kind of dug my own grave by mentioning the D800. I really just wanted to demonstrate the highlight recovery power of current Canon cameras, but apparently the vultures were just waiting in the corner for someone to jump off the D800 cliff...and I seem happily obliged, and given them a fresh corpse to pick over. Entirely my own fault though....



I'm not a D800 "fan" or even a Nikon user. I'm a satisfied 5DII owner. However, I do get a bit tired of the DxO bashing from Camera "fans". It's usually horribly ill informed.


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## zim (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista - Thanks for your very long and detailed reply the time you took is most appreciated

From way back in my film I've been used to bracketing (around what I believe to be the correct exposure) simply for insurance so I've been very laxed in my use of the histogram, well thats my excuse  anyway going to put my learnin head on and go for it!! ;D

Best Regards


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## jrista (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't necessarily disagree, however I think your starting to conflate contexts. I was trying to discuss DR in terms of a digitized image in the context of scaling, which I think narrows the scope and does simplify things a bit. Your now talking about DR in a much larger context, that of the sensor. That moves us out of the realm of the digital and into the realm of the analog, and I fully agree: Dynamic range in the analog realm of a sensor is an entirely different beast, and a much more complex discussion. But...we were originally talking about the dynamic range gained by the act of downscaling a high resolution image. In that context, I don't believe we can "interchange" the dynamic range gained by normalizing read noise...which always exists in the lower levels of a digital image...with highlights. You would always be gaining on the shadow end when you normalize and average read noise, however I think we've both demonstrated that gain is small, even though it can be called a "full stops worth".
> ...



Perhaps we are on different pages. Once an image is digitized, its digitized. It has a fixed bit depth. In the case of modern DSLR's, the 14-bit output of a RAW is fixed, and the physical dimensions of that image are also fixed (so downscaling really isn't an option to start with...not if you wish to continue working with the image as a RAW image.) If you do export that 14-bit raw to say, TIFF, then you now have a 16-bit image. The number of bits is fixed. It doesn't change. If you scale that TIFF image down, yes, you can mitigate noise. You'll really be mitigating two types: Photon Shot and Read Noise. When it comes to Photon Shot, the D800 doesn't have any real advantage over any other camera, and the benefit of scaling would be the same for any image. When it comes to Read Noise, that noise only exists in the black and shadow levels. If you scale an image down, your only affecting the bottom small percentage of the total tonal range of your TIFF image. You could certainly move the gray point around, but your not redistributing bits...your only redistributing the existing tonal levels in the image...so the gain in the shadows of a few levels isn't going to translate into thousands of highlight levels by moving the gray point around after downscaling.

Again, though, I've been trying to discuss this topic in the context of a digital image on a computer. You keep conflating the issue by bringing in the behavior of the hardware in a camera. I'm not talking about metering and adjusting the exposure value pre-exposure time. I'm talking about working an image in post after its been digitized by the ADC and imported off the camera/memory card, as the original debate was whether you can really actually gain over a stop of DR by the simple act of scaling an image down (an act that occurs well beyond the camera, so discussing how you can use the DR of the hardware to gain shadow or highlight range is out of context.) I believe you can gain a couple stops of DR by downscaling, however since it is in the "lower order bits", or in the darkest tonal levels of an image, the gain is minimal. Were not talking about a huge difference overall, we are talking about a very small difference overall. That difference well indeed may improve the dynamic range of your shadow detail a bit, but its not like your gaining more than double the total tonal range you had before (which I had mistakenly thought was the opposing argument.)



elflord said:


> > I'm still adamant that the D800 sensor is only capable of what its capable of...which by all indications, including DXO's, is about 13.2 stops.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That last statement is your mistake, though. It's also the same mistake DXO makes: *Why is the assumption that a "print" is always less than native resolution (the same as a 100% crop)?* The D800 has a native print size of around 17x22 (roughly speaking). If I print at native size, I am *not* downscaling. That effectively _is_ a 100% crop. There isn't any averaging of any pixels going on when I print at native size, and once ink is laid down on paper, at best (assuming I use something like Epson UltraChrome or Canon Lucia ink on a high luster paper) I might get a dMax of 2-2.3, which is around 6 to 7 stops. The only time DXO's "Print DR" actually results in greater dynamic range is when that 8x12" printable image is viewed on a computer, and even then...you would require a 14-bit display to actually observe the all the detail at any level offered by a 14 stop image. Generally speaking, if I buy a camera like the D800, I'm not going to print at just 17x22. I'm going to print huge: 24x36, 30x40, 40x60. Those prints will probably be on Canvas (maybe 6 stops), or possibly on a fine art paper (which have a limited dynamic range around 5 stops.)

I argue about this because the entire notion of "Print DR" is assumptive, misleading, and attempts to nail down a specific result in a world (the world of print) that has thousands of potential final output options, viewing distances, inks, color gamuts, lighting scenarios, etc. etc. Its a terrible concept, a very misleading concept. It doesn't belong in the world of objective camera testing, at least not the way DXO does it where its a primary factor of measure for Sensor IQ.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

elflord said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't necessarily disagree, however I think your starting to conflate contexts. I was trying to discuss DR in terms of a digitized image in the context of scaling, which I think narrows the scope and does simplify things a bit. Your now talking about DR in a much larger context, that of the sensor. That moves us out of the realm of the digital and into the realm of the analog, and I fully agree: Dynamic range in the analog realm of a sensor is an entirely different beast, and a much more complex discussion. But...we were originally talking about the dynamic range gained by the act of downscaling a high resolution image. In that context, I don't believe we can "interchange" the dynamic range gained by normalizing read noise...which always exists in the lower levels of a digital image...with highlights. You would always be gaining on the shadow end when you normalize and average read noise, however I think we've both demonstrated that gain is small, even though it can be called a "full stops worth".
> ...



+1


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> elflord said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



He is not conflating anything. You have a lot of knowledge but you are not getting the true conceptual meaning of one or two pretty important things it seems.


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## nightbreath (Sep 28, 2012)

jrista said:


> I argue about this because the entire notion of "Print DR" is assumptive, misleading, and attempts to nail down a specific result in a world (the world of print) that has thousands of potential final output options...


It's strange that they haven't yet applied some noise reduction algorithm to the test images ??? Oh, wait! New sensors from Canon produce images that are easier to clean up at high ISOs, so that won't work for them very well 

Seriously, I believe that knowing the fact that 35mm DSLRs are rated much better than medium format cameras is enough to stop looking at DXO ratings anymore.


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## Quasimodo (Sep 28, 2012)

I have spent two days reading about DR and complicated stuff here. I have found this thread interesting, and one of the main reasons I keep coming here, is that although I think some people here confuse the ball and the person, the level of knowledge and genuine interest for both technical and artistic aspects is amazing. 
I took a shot today on my way home after picking the kids up in the kindergarten, and I don't know why I thought of this thread.


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## elflord (Sep 29, 2012)

jrista said:


> Perhaps we are on different pages. Once an image is digitized, its digitized. It has a fixed bit depth. In the case of modern DSLR's, the 14-bit output of a RAW is fixed,



The part that you seem to not quite get here is that if you have a noise level of "8" and your scale goes from 1-16384, you don't really have 16384 distinct levels in your output signal. Nor do you have 16384 - 8 levels. You have 16384 / 8 levels (2048). 



> however since it is in the "lower order bits", or in the darkest tonal levels of an image, the gain is minima
> . Were not talking about a huge difference overall, we are talking about a very small difference overall.



I don't think you understood my previous post. Losing the lower order bits is equivalent to throwing away the bottom two bits. If you throw away the bottom two bits, you don't subtract the lowest 4 points from your range of values, you essentially divide everything by 4. 

But anyway, this focus on number of levels is a big red herring, because as we all understand well, dynamic range in the highlights is interchangeable with dynamic range in the shadows. A stop of dynamic range is a stop of dynamic range (and a stop of dynamic range in the shadows can be a stop in the highlights if you want it to be)


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## jrista (Sep 29, 2012)

elflord said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Perhaps we are on different pages. Once an image is digitized, its digitized. It has a fixed bit depth. In the case of modern DSLR's, the 14-bit output of a RAW is fixed,
> ...



I still have a problem with your terminology and context. You keep using the word signal. I agree that what you've said above is true when we are working with an analog signal. I am not sure its true if we are working with a digital image. I believe those two things are distinct contexts, but you seem to keep conflating the two, and as long as that is the case, I don't see the point in continuing the discussion.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 29, 2012)

jrista said:


> elflord said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



I don't understand why you keep going on about analog and saying he is conflating two different contexts.


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## jrista (Sep 29, 2012)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > elflord said:
> ...



This discussion started pages ago regarding whether downscaling an image in post could result in a gain of more than double the number of tones (levels of luminance) than you originally started with. The context of that discussion was explicitly related to a digital image on a computer, not an analog signal on a sensor in a camera. The nature of an analog signal is quite different than the discrete, integer nature of a digital image post-ADC. 

Most of Elflord's recent posts discuss DR in the context of camera hardware...sensor signals and metering and how you can change exposure to shift the tone of an analog signal around within the dynamic range of the sensor. I don't disagree with that at all...its an analog signal, with near infinite precision and the ability to be fluidly redistributed. I disagree that a digital image of discretely recorded luminance levels for each channel of an RGB image can be treated the same way, and I wanted to get back to the discussion about scaling a digital image. But whatever. This thread is so far off track now it doesn't matter.


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## elflord (Sep 29, 2012)

jrista said:


> I still have a problem with your terminology and context. You keep using the word signal. I agree that what you've said above is true when we are working with an analog signal. I am not sure its true if we are working with a digital image. I believe those two things are distinct contexts, but you seem to keep conflating the two, and as long as that is the case, I don't see the point in continuing the discussion.



I don't use the word "analog" or discuss analog anything anywhere. Since I'm discussing a value represented by a 14 bit integer, it should be clear that I am NOT referring to analog anything. In particular, when I discuss your table, I am referring to a *digital* signal. 

I agree that there's not much point continuing the discussion not because I'm conflating anything, but because you don't appear to understand what I've posted.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 29, 2012)

If you want better DR, Spend some Dosh on a filter set. :


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## nightbreath (Sep 29, 2012)

RLPhoto said:


> If you want better DR, Spend some Dosh on a filter set. :


Absolutely


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## Kernuak (Sep 29, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> elflord said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


While others of us simply have other priorities than dynamic range .


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## Razor2012 (Sep 29, 2012)

Kernuak said:


> Mikael Risedal said:
> 
> 
> > elflord said:
> ...



+1


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## Chuck Alaimo (Sep 29, 2012)

all this tech talk has gotten us away from the point, that being canon sucks (sarcasm)!!!. Come on now, we all knowthere was no such thing as a good picture before the d800 came out, I mean forget the wonderful images taken by photogs and letys just study charts and graphs...or...wait...no...I'm gonna go shoot a wedding with my mk3 and maybe my 7d might get some action too!


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## nightbreath (Sep 29, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> ... forget the wonderful images taken by photogs and letys just study charts and graphs...or...wait...no...I'm gonna go shoot a wedding with my mk3 and maybe my 7d might get some action too!


You'd better say "sorry, may I take a low dynamic range shot of you?" before shooting anyone with those cameras ;D


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## RLPhoto (Sep 29, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> all this tech talk has gotten us away from the point, that being canon sucks (sarcasm)!!!. Come on now, we all knowthere was no such thing as a good picture before the d800 came out, I mean forget the wonderful images taken by photogs and letys just study charts and graphs...or...wait...no...I'm gonna go shoot a wedding with my mk3 and maybe my 7d might get some action too!



I Know Let's post our horrible photos out of our horrible canon Cameras! ;D

Feel free to join in if you like. 8)


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## jrista (Sep 29, 2012)

RLPhoto said:


> Chuck Alaimo said:
> 
> 
> > all this tech talk has gotten us away from the point, that being canon sucks (sarcasm)!!!. Come on now, we all knowthere was no such thing as a good picture before the d800 came out, I mean forget the wonderful images taken by photogs and letys just study charts and graphs...or...wait...no...I'm gonna go shoot a wedding with my mk3 and maybe my 7d might get some action too!
> ...



Ah! Great shots, RL. I particularly love that last one...AWESOME WORK! 

EDIT: Derp. The one with the sombrero is gone. :'(


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## RLPhoto (Sep 29, 2012)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Chuck Alaimo said:
> ...



Thank you. Some people get carried away with Tech specs and honestly I could do all these photos with a Canon G2 if i wanted too. ;D

The 3rd one is back, I uploaded the wrong version.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 29, 2012)

That 3rd photo's me.


WHAT?? ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME?? YOU BETTER NOT, BE TALKIN'......TO ME!

8)


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## Kernuak (Sep 29, 2012)

And some to show off the low DR.




Upper Cascade by Kernuak (avalonlightphotoart.co.uk), on Flickr



Red Admiral Head-on by Kernuak (avalonlightphotoart.co.uk), on Flickr



Large Goldfish Projection by Kernuak (avalonlightphotoart.co.uk), on Flickr



Watchet Summer Sunset by Kernuak (avalonlightphotoart.co.uk), on Flickr


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## jrista (Sep 29, 2012)

Kernuak said:


> And some to show off the low DR.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That last one is great. Lot of DR in that scene. Can't say I see any banding though!


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## nightbreath (Sep 29, 2012)

Low DR shots from me


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## Kernuak (Sep 29, 2012)

Thanks jrista. It's an example of why the reported increased DR of the D800 isn't of interest to me. I'm of the opinion that you need a full tonal range, including shadows that only hint at detail. Also, the scene is probably close to 17-18 EV overall, so beyond what any camera can achieve. I basically compressed the dynamic range by using 6 stops of graduated filters. I haven't increased the shadows beyond shadow recovery in LR4 (probably around 0.5 EV, but could be as much as a full stop). For me it's all about using the available tools to get the desired look. If I can't achieve what I want, then I look for something that I can achieve.


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## elflord (Sep 29, 2012)

Chuck Alaimo said:


> all this tech talk has gotten us away from the point, that being canon sucks (sarcasm)!!!. Come on now, we all knowthere was no such thing as a good picture before the d800 came out, I mean forget the wonderful images taken by photogs and letys just study charts and graphs...or...wait...no...I'm gonna go shoot a wedding with my mk3 and maybe my 7d might get some action too!



I totally agree that the whole thing is a bit academic. I have a 5DII that I'm quite happy with and aren't planning to upgrade any time soon. 

Before then, I was quite happy with Rebel XS I was using, though the 5DII is in a different class when the ISO goes up. For the pictures I take (mostly family shots), dynamic range at low ISO isn't my main concern.

However, I do take exception to the knee-jerk criticism of DxO by "camera fans". The simple fact of the matter is that DxO have to implement raw conversion algorithms and therefore actually know what they are talking about and understand details and subtleties that escape most of the critics. The critics for the most part, while often very competent at using cameras and software tools, often get some very fundamental technical issues completely wrong that they really need to get right before second guessing DxO's methods.


----------



## nightbreath (Sep 29, 2012)

jrista said:


> Kernuak said:
> 
> 
> > And some to show off the low DR...
> ...


And the picture looks much more natural than the shadows push show-cased by all Sony sensors fans


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## Kernuak (Sep 30, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Cant it be because you can not do that with a Canon? There are to much noise and pattern noise.


Nope, it's because I have no desire to. Besides, the dynamic range that was present in the scene would have been beyond the capabilities of any camera without grad filters or HDR (which usually looks unnatural). As for being able to do it with an iPhone, it pretty much proves my point that you need shadows to create a more dramatic photograph. However, the shadows in the foreground are too blocked up and the dynamic range in the scene is nowhere near as great. In fact, the sky is unnaturally dark too. But you're missing the point anyway. The point is, that it doesn't matter what camera you have, you can still get memorable photos, including with an iPhone, you simply work with what you have available to get the best image possible. It's more about skill, than what the camera can or can't do, it doesn't matter whether it's a Nikon or Canon, medium format or camera phone.


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## Kernuak (Sep 30, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> iPhone 4s


This one is much better compositionally and is much more memorable.


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## Richard8971 (Sep 30, 2012)

Hmmm, if Canon sucks then why do they command the bulk of the market share? They both make excellent cameras but Canon is the "winner" simply by shear numbers. Whenever I go out shooting, I always see more Canon equipment vs Nikon. (and 'others')

I have been shooting with Canon for over 12 years, they don't suck. Period!

Oh, and you can keep your I-phone crap. LOL!!! Can you change lenses on it from a 100mm macro to a 1200mm zoom? Until then, keep that cell phone junk where it belongs! Oh, and can it take 8 frams per second? I would gladly put any photo from my setup agaisnt any photo taken from an I-whatever. Yes, they may take OK 4x6 photos, but until you can change the "zoom" and details of the photo you won't see me carrying one around at the rodeo! 

D


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## thepancakeman (Oct 3, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> yes it is nice , this is from iPhone 4s



I'm still waiting for that nice indoor sports photo from an iPhoney.


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## Kernuak (Oct 3, 2012)

thepancakeman said:


> Mikael Risedal said:
> 
> 
> > yes it is nice , this is from iPhone 4s
> ...


Or a shot like my 3rd one .


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## nightbreath (Oct 4, 2012)

Kernuak said:


> thepancakeman said:
> 
> 
> > Mikael Risedal said:
> ...


Or something like this:


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## verysimplejason (Oct 4, 2012)

nightbreath said:


> Low DR shots from me



Luv'd the last one.


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## verysimplejason (Oct 4, 2012)

Canon really sucks. An amateur camera taking this?

reduced size, dpi...


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## poias (Oct 7, 2012)

I see a lot of defensive and insecure posts here. Just because 5D3I has DR of 11.3 and D800/600 have 14+, it doesn't mean you have to attack DxO and others. If anything attack Canon for their inferior sensors recycled from circa early 2000s. Get a grip.


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## poias (Oct 7, 2012)

Furthermore, a good photographer can use his p&s to create more interesting shots than a retard with D800. So, as you can see there is no need to project inferiority complex. Be happy with what you have, or switch.


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 7, 2012)

poias said:


> I see a lot of defensive and insecure posts here.


I see a lot of Nikon fanboy troll posts, too. 



poias said:


> Just because 5D3I has DR of 11.3 and D800/600 have 14+, it doesn't mean you have to attack DxO and others.


Ok, I give up. You're right - DxO are technological geniuses, their Scores are the epitome of scientific analysis, the D800 does have 14.4 EV of real, measurable DR, and because of that DR, you were able to recover amazing shadow detail from a backlit shot - detail that revealed a winged pig flying over snowbanks in hell. 

Whatever.


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## friedmud (Oct 7, 2012)

Let's see if I can be a bit inflammatory here but still get my point across:

(new) Canon cameras suck... FOR THE PRICE!

The problem is not that you can't take wonderful photos with Canon cameras... you absolutely can. And while it is somewhat dodging the question to say "it's the photographer that counts" that is totally true. I've taken tons of great photos with my "crappy" XSi and "sucky" 7D: http://500px.com/friedmud

However, if you're out to buy a new piece of equipment and you have $X to spend... you can have a camera that gets you better IQ for less money by buying Nikon (at the moment). Go look at any D600 review and it will tell you the same (like this one: http://gizmodo.com/5946258/nikon-d600-review-images-this-spectacular-have-never-come-so-cheap )

Personally, I love everything about my 7D... EXCEPT the image quality for the price I paid. I don't feel like the IQ was worth $1,500. Everything else about the camera _almost_ makes up for it... but when I get home from a few weeks in England (like I recently did) and load up my photos for the first time... I sigh a bit when I see all the noise (even at ISO100!)... and when I try to pull back some cloud detail on a slightly missed exposure (even when I did use ND grads I still slightly missed)... and when I need to add a butt ton of color and play with the curves to get those ocean sunsets to look they way they did in real life.

Then I shoot with a D600 for 5 days on a rental... and it is immediately clear that the IQ is _worth_ $2100 and I say to myself "Why didn't I get this from my 7D? It's not that big of a difference in price and even though the sensor tech is older, Canon is still putting it in brand new cameras and obviously believes that there is nothing wrong with it..."

Then I see reviews where the 5Dmk3 is basically on-par with the D600 in terms of IQ (some tests showing D600 is better some showing 5Dmk3 is better)... but there is a _$1400_ price premium on the 5Dmk3!

So, to that, I say: Canon (IQ) sucks... for the price.


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## elflord (Oct 7, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> poias said:
> 
> 
> > I see a lot of defensive and insecure posts here.
> ...



There are a lot of silly Nikon fanboy posts. However, the vast majority of the criticism of DxO comes from people who not only do NOT understand this stuff better than DxO, most of the critics on closer examination have no idea what they are talking about. You would think that showing a little humility would be good form when criticizing someone who knows this stuff in some depth (as vague hand waving doesn't cut it when you implement software -- you need to have a very solid grounding in the theory behind it) 

Most of the critics, however, despite (or perhaps because of) knowing very little have no such inhibitions. Indeed, it seems that the less knowledgeable the critic, the less nuanced and the more forceful the criticism. 

It could well be the case that there is a better method to benchmark sensors than those used by DxO -- however, no-one (including the know-nothing loudmouth camera "fans" on the internet) is able to present and follow through on better methods. 

The criticism of the 14.4 stops for the 14 bit ADC is not only just plain wrong (their method is just fine -- the point is that you gain dynamic range by downsampling), it's also a bit of a red herring when you're comparing cameras of comparable resolution. Those who object to downsampling (usually because they don't understand it) are welcome to the screen numbers instead never mind that this number is only relevant if you customarily view images as 100% crops. The screen numbers also show the Canon sensor struggling at low ISOs).


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 8, 2012)

I repeat: Whatever.


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## dtaylor (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> Personally, I love everything about my 7D... EXCEPT the image quality for the price I paid. I don't feel like the IQ was worth $1,500. Everything else about the camera _almost_ makes up for it... but when I get home from a few weeks in England (like I recently did) and load up my photos for the first time... I sigh a bit when I see all the noise (even at ISO100!)...



For all the people who claim to see noise from 7D files at ISO 100: What the **** are you doing to get that noise? Seriously. I don't see it in my shots. I don't see it in review site shots. And it's certainly not backed up by DPReview's noise graphs.

Are you consistently underexposing by 4 stops or something? Are you just completely mismanaging your RAW converter settings? What?

According to the DPReview noise graphs the 7D at 100 is as clean or cleaner than a D4 at 400. So are you going to tell me that Nikon's full frame, low light, professional sports flagship at 400 is noisy? Disappointing? Not worth the money? The RAW graphs pretty much overlap for the 7D and 5D3 at 100. I suppose a 5D3 is noisy and not worth the money to?



> It's not that big of a difference in price and even though the sensor tech is older, Canon is still putting it in brand new cameras and obviously believes that there is nothing wrong with it..."



Canon is not recycling and selling you old tech. They are not sitting on their rear ends. But Sony has a patent on how they read data off the sensor, and Canon cannot work around that patent at this time. From what I've read, Canon actually has superior tech across other aspects of the sensor, i.e. if the patent didn't exist they would have less total noise.



> Then I see reviews where the 5Dmk3 is basically on-par with the D600 in terms of IQ (some tests showing D600 is better some showing 5Dmk3 is better)... but there is a _$1400_ price premium on the 5Dmk3!



But it can't be. The noise values are practically the same with a 7D at 100. So it must just be a horrible camera :

How did anyone ever make photographs with a 1Ds? Or the original 5D? Or...film???


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## friedmud (Oct 8, 2012)

dtaylor said:


> For all the people who claim to see noise from 7D files at ISO 100: What the **** are you doing to get that noise?



Pressing the shutter button.



dtaylor said:


> Are you consistently underexposing by 4 stops or something? Are you just completely mismanaging your RAW converter settings? What?



Well - I just so happen to have a full res jpg that shows the phenomenon well: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8038/8061766184_b8b02fc089_o.jpg

Just look at the sky. But it's not just in the sky... it's everywhere. If you do any sharpening you can see it on any surface that is fairly uniform. If you try to remove some you lose detail.

I am NOT mismanaging anything. This camera leads to a direct tradeoff between noise and detail. I'm not the only person on the planet to see it. The above image is perfectly exposed (possibly ever so slightly over exposed). Very little postprocessing has been done to it.

And please don't come at me with "but it won't show up in a 24" print!". I can clearly see the noise on my 30" monitor (2560x1600) at work where I use my photos as my desktop background... it _does_ show up in at least one use case that is important to me ;-)



dtaylor said:


> According to the DPReview noise graphs the 7D at 100 is as clean or cleaner than a D4 at 400.



What are you trying to prove with that statement? Why do you think ~ISO 400 noise is acceptable at 100? This is actually making my point that ISO 100 is not good on a 7D.



dtaylor said:


> The RAW graphs pretty much overlap for the 7D and 5D3 at 100. I suppose a 5D3 is noisy and not worth the money to?



Ummm... that's exactly what I'm saying. I've been linking to this review quite a bit but I'll do it again: http://gizmodo.com/5946258/nikon-d600-review-images-this-spectacular-have-never-come-so-cheap

Look at the shot with the buildings (click on it to get a zoomed view). Compare the skys. Look at uniform surfaces and look at the amount of noise.

I went over to the Imaging Resource and compared the Still Life scene for the 7D at ISO 100 and tried to find the ISO setting for the D600 that most closely matched. To me, it was in-between 400 and 800... just like I said a bit ago.

This is a systemic problem with Canon. They simply do not care about LOW ISO performance. That's ok, I realize that a lot of people care more about high ISO performance... but Nikon does seem to be putting a lot of effort into good low ISO and at a more affordable price.



dtaylor said:


> Canon is not recycling and selling you old tech. They are not sitting on their rear ends. But Sony has a patent on how they read data off the sensor, and Canon cannot work around that patent at this time. From what I've read, Canon actually has superior tech across other aspects of the sensor, i.e. if the patent didn't exist they would have less total noise.



Really? The 7D was introduced in mid 2009. That exact same sensor has also been used in:

2010: 550D and 60D
2011: 600D
2012: 650D and 60Da (with slightly different filtering)

How is that not "recycling and selling of old tech"?

On the patent issue:

1. If this is really THE problem and Canon really cared they would license that patent from Sony.
2. If this is really the problem and Canon really cared they would have put the R&D effort in and come up with the advancement first.
3. Why, in 3 years has Canon not come up with a better idea?

Also, I love how you first say "there is no problem" and then simultaneously blame a Sony patent for the problem. You can't have it both ways. Do Canon sensors have more noise or not?



dtaylor said:


> But it can't be. The noise values are practically the same with a 7D at 100. So it must just be a horrible camera :
> 
> How did anyone ever make photographs with a 1Ds? Or the original 5D? Or...film???



Apologist at work. Yes, great images can be made with any modern DSLR (we've been over that before). But what I'm concerned with is: all other things being equal (which we know they're not, but we have to start somewhere to come to conclusions) which machine will generate the best image? Even better, which machine generates the best image per dollar I put into buying it?

On that second measure Canon is not even close (at least at low ISO).


----------



## friedmud (Oct 8, 2012)

Oh - here's a link to the Flickr page for that image so you can see the Exif (should be embedded in the jpg as well though)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/friedmud/8061766184/#in/set-72157631709494328


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## friedmud (Oct 8, 2012)

BTW - I know that everyone here hates DXO Mark... but they do have decent data behind their cooked up "scores". Here's some:

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/(appareil1)/834%7C0/(brand)/Nikon/(appareil2)/795%7C0/(brand2)/Canon/(appareil3)/619%7C0/(brand3)/Canon

Click on the "Measurements" tab (about halfway down the page) then the SNR 18% test. Also check out the Dynamic Range test....


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## jrista (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > For all the people who claim to see noise from 7D files at ISO 100: What the **** are you doing to get that noise?
> ...



There is a hell of a lot more to photography than simply pressing the shutter button. You have to use the camera in your hands to maximum effect to get the most out of it. If simply "pressing the shutter button" is all you do, you are probably better off with a "point and shoot" camera. 



friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > Are you consistently underexposing by 4 stops or something? Are you just completely mismanaging your RAW converter settings? What?
> ...



I think I remember you. I believe I may have actually recommended the 7D to you almost a year ago now? Seriously, dude.... that blue sky is a thing of WONDER. It is a clean, smooth gradient that looks fantastic on my screen. Simple irony here.... if there was ZERO noise, your sky would probably look a hell of a lot worse.... you'd get posterization and banding as the DR of the camera is compressed into the DR of your computer screen, and you start getting quantization error. Why the heck are you complaining about the noise in that photo? As I told you a year ago...that photo looks great, and IMHO, is a superb example of how WELL the 7D performs.



friedmud said:


> Just look at the sky. But it's not just in the sky... it's everywhere. If you do any sharpening you can see it on any surface that is fairly uniform. If you try to remove some you lose detail.



That "uniform" nature? Thats called photon shot noise. It's a physical effect caused by the NATURAL random distribution of light that follows Poisson distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_noise#Poisson_noise_and_characterizing_small_occurrences). FYI...*every single camera on earth experiences photon shot noise, regardless of who makes it or how good it may be.*


----------



## jrista (Oct 8, 2012)

NOTE: Sorry for the multiple posts. This junky forum software keeps giving me a "Security Block" if I try to post it all at once.



friedmud said:


> I am NOT mismanaging anything. This camera leads to a direct tradeoff between noise and detail. I'm not the only person on the planet to see it. The above image is perfectly exposed (possibly ever so slightly over exposed). Very little postprocessing has been done to it.



Thats great! Because that photo, particularly its sky, looks great! I'd like you to just try removing all the noise in the sky, then tell me how much more you like the posterization and banding you'll inevitably end up with. I'll gladly take the small, barely visible amount of photon shot noise there myself (which, BTW, is exacerbated because the sky is heavily dependent on blue pixels, which comprise only 25% of the total pixels in the sensor...so noise is always exacerbated in the blue channel...on every bayer-type camera.) 



friedmud said:


> And please don't come at me with "but it won't show up in a 24" print!". I can clearly see the noise on my 30" monitor (2560x1600) at work where I use my photos as my desktop background... it _does_ show up in at least one use case that is important to me ;-)



I also have a 30" monitor that is properly calibrated to a proper brightness level that I am using right this very moment to look at your photo. If you have your screen set to minimum brightness, then your causing part of your own problem. Set it to at least 180mcd, in a dimly lit environment (you'll probably need it to be brighter in a well lit or sunlit environment) and see of noise is still really a problem. (If it is, either you have a crappy screen, your sitting WAY too close to your screen, or you have some ungodly good visual acuity and might benefit from some contacts that diminish your hypersharp vision a bit. ;P)



friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > According to the DPReview noise graphs the 7D at 100 is as clean or cleaner than a D4 at 400.
> ...



Again, this is a matter of physics. Take your tetons photo with a D800, and your experience with noise will be EXACTLY THE SAME as with the 7D. The only thing Poisson noise has to do with the sensor is that on a 1:1 viewing scale, it increases on a per-pixel basis as pixel size shrinks. The D800 has 4.6 micron pixels, the 7D has 4.3 micron pixels. Now, while I take issue with rating hardware capabilities according to the VIRTUAL results obtained by downscaling, as I believe it inflates the expected hardware capabilities to the unsuspecting reader, when it comes to observable noise, downscale is indeed necessary to make a normalized *visual* comparison. Downscale either the D800 or 7D image to D4 size and the IQ results will be very similar (regardless of how DR might be affected.)

Poisson (photon shot) noise shrinks as pixel size increases. If that is your primary concern, you need to get a camera with a LARGE sensor and FEW pixels. A 1D X, D4, or any one of the 12mp Nikon cameras will probably serve you superbly well. You won't be able to capture as much detail as the 7D in any focal-length limited situation, however since you don't seem to be much interested in enlarging for print, you won't really be at a disadvantage. This is all ignoring the fact that you can downscale an ISO 100 7D image to say 12mp size, and realize the same IQ as any one of those cameras mentioned above. 

As a matter of fact, somewhere on this forum I took one of the photos you took with your own 7D and uploaded here as an example of how bad things were. I took that photo, downscaled it a bit, and reuploaded it to demonstrate the results...which IMO were nothing less than an astounding near-total elimination of ALL the noise in ALL of the areas you were complaining about. Hmm...maybe I should go dig up your own "evidence" of the 7D's presumed suckiness and my own prior refutation of it....?


----------



## jrista (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > The RAW graphs pretty much overlap for the 7D and 5D3 at 100. I suppose a 5D3 is noisy and not worth the money to?
> ...



Your confusing a physical matter that we don't have control over...noise exhibited by the random nature of light as it follows a statistical poisson distribution, and noise introduced by the sensor. Sensor noise, which is indeed an aspect of engineering (although not a FLAW as many such as yourself seem to indicate by the way you talk about "noise"), is only visible in the deep shadows. You would have to do some rather major lifting to really see the really nasty stuff...such as FPN and HVBN. Your not complaining about a "sensor defect" or "crappy engineering". Your complaining about the physical nature of light, and how a sensor with small pixels exhibits that nature. It doesn't matter who makes the sensor, EVERY sensor with pixels around the same size as the 7D will experience the same thing.



friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > Canon is not recycling and selling you old tech. They are not sitting on their rear ends. But Sony has a patent on how they read data off the sensor, and Canon cannot work around that patent at this time. From what I've read, Canon actually has superior tech across other aspects of the sensor, i.e. if the patent didn't exist they would have less total noise.
> ...



You do realize that most of the patents Sony is now capitalizing on are a lot older than the 7D, right? Sony has been sitting on a goldmine mountain of CMOS and CCD sensor design patents for a long time. Some have been in use since the late 1990's, some since around 5-6 years ago when they would have had to start manufacturing prototypes and retail versions of the sensors for the likes of the D7000, and some are newer that have been introduced over the last several years in numerous sensors from phone cam sensors to the D800. They probably have a boatload more up their sleeve (such as a double-layered microlens for back-illuminated sensor patent that I haven't heard is actually in use anywhere but possibly some small form factor phone and P&S type cameras.)

It's not like Canon simply failed to innovate the technology 3 years ago. Its that Sony either created or purchased the technology starting well over a decade ago, and have only had the capability to fully integrate all of it into a single sensor more recently. It is no mean feat to pack the kind of circuitry needed for low read noise into the space of a single pixel, especially a 4.3 micron pixel. And thats nothing to say of on-die column-parallel ADC, which required some amazing feats of its own. That requires some very advanced manufacturing technology, some extremely skilled and intelligent engineers, and a hell of a lot of money to do. Sony can capitalize it as their sensors drive some half the total marketplace *for consumer and professional grade sensors in total*. Canon has to not only come up with something on their own, they have to come up with something that is different enough from Sony's patents that they don't get slapped with a lawsuit. There are certainly other ways to reduce read noise, but as indicated, it ain't cheap nor easy to invent, develop, and realize in commercial products.

Canon has long prided and sold themselves as a vertically integrated company that owns and controls the entire manufacturing process. That has worked well for Canon so far, and outside of the single issue of low ISO DR (which is only at most 20% worse than an Exmor sensor, and usually less than that), Canon's technology is stellar. Their high ISO performance is unparalleled, and high ISO use in very low light is the name of the game for the true drivers of DSLR sales...sports and photojournalism. Canon lens technology is well ahead of the competition, and rivals if not surpasses that of Ziess these days (you have to use one of their new Mark II supertelephoto lenses to really understand that, they offer the most mind-blowing IQ I've ever encountered.) All other Canon DSLR tech these days, at least when it comes to the cream of the crop, is at the pinnacle of the current generation. 



friedmud said:


> Also, I love how you first say "there is no problem" and then simultaneously blame a Sony patent for the problem. You can't have it both ways. Do Canon sensors have more noise or not?



Lets be more precise. Canon sensors have slightly more READ NOISE than Sony Exmor sensors. Canon sensors have the _same_ READ NOISE as pretty much any other sensor on the market, including those *manufactured* by Nikon, as well as those used in medium format cameras. In general, when signal is sufficiently stronger than read noise, the remaining noise quotient is the same across cameras when pixel-pitch is normalized. 

Noise is not the issue. Read noise, which only occurs in the lower fraction of the signal, only matters because of how it affects DR, and exhibits when you try to lift shadows. And that only occurs at ISO 100 and ISO 200, and is only worse in a Canon sensor when it is compared to a Sony Exmor sensor. 



friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > But it can't be. The noise values are practically the same with a 7D at 100. So it must just be a horrible camera :
> ...



Well, your last sentence is the only valid one, however as a weighted ratio relative to everything else involved in a DSLR, and all the other skill required to actually make a photograph...it affects a very small percentage of photographers in general. Those who will be affected most are probably landscape photographers, and them vastly more so than any other type of photographer. There are a far greater number of photographers who not only use but greatly need higher ISO performance, above ISO 400. For someone such as myself, who rarely uses anything lower than ISO 400, and is usually at ISO 800 or 1600, the 7D performs superbly. It took me some time to really fully come to terms with how to properly use the 7D for what I do, however once I did I learned that it can indeed make photos with phenomenal IQ. So, sure, the 7D may be inferior at low ISO vs. a whole lot of the competition. However *for what it is*, the 7D is still one of the best options available to those of us who can't shell out five, six, SEVEN GRAND every few years to buy the likes of a 1D IV, a 1D X, or a D4. The 7D is still the best offering of its class even when pitted against the newer options from Nikon.

For you personally, friedmud, I must apologize for my original recommendation to get a 7D. I was not aware of your full needs. The 7D is entirely the wrong camera for you, it always was (even before the D800 was released), and always will be. In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend the D800 either, as with its small pixel pitch you would still see the same kind of blue sky noise as the 7D, since that noise has nothing to do with sensor technology, and everything to do with the nature of light. You would really probably be better off with a 1D X or any one of the 12mp cameras from the previous generation of Nikon DSLR's.


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## tnargs (Oct 8, 2012)

Nice posts jrista


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## friedmud (Oct 8, 2012)

Firstly: I did read all of your posts... just don't have time to respond to a lot of it. You do have a lot of good points. I am very sorry I've been a thorn in your side since I asked for advice on buying a 7D ;-) It will surely be a relief to know that I'm going to be off to a different forum soon and will stop bugging you with all of this "7D is noisy!" business. ;-)

Thanks for taking the time to debate!



jrista said:


> the single issue of low ISO DR (which is only at most 20% worse than an Exmor sensor, and usually less than that)



Which is precisely the issue that I have.



jrista said:


> Canon's technology is stellar. Their high ISO performance is unparalleled, and high ISO use in very low light is the name of the game for the true drivers of DSLR sales...sports and photojournalism.





jrista said:


> Those who will be affected most are probably landscape photographers, and them vastly more so than any other type of photographer. There are a far greater number of photographers who not only use but greatly need higher ISO performance, above ISO 400. For someone such as myself, who rarely uses anything lower than ISO 400, and is usually at ISO 800 or 1600, the 7D performs superbly.



Ah - and now we get to the meat of why you argue with me over this quite often. You aren't mainly focused on landscapes and good low ISO performance. Further, you believe that to be fairly unimportant as a feature of DSLRs. I will give you that "landscapers" are a niche... and I've always maintained that... always caveated my posts by saying that I'm focusing on one aspect (low ISO performance). The whole reason for my current viewpoint that Nikon is better is because they seem to be catering to the landscape niche more than Canon... with better low ISO capabilities, better DR and better ultra wide lenses (Nikon 14-24 is a beast, Canon 16-35 and 17-40 leave a LOT to be desired) and at better prices.

None of that changes the fact that for my purpose Canon sensors are overpriced for the IQ.



jrista said:


> Canon lens technology is well ahead of the competition, and rivals if not surpasses that of Ziess these days (you have to use one of their new Mark II supertelephoto lenses to really understand that, they offer the most mind-blowing IQ I've ever encountered.) All other Canon DSLR tech these days, at least when it comes to the cream of the crop, is at the pinnacle of the current generation.



I loved my 70-200 f/4L IS. It was a damn fine lens! I can't say anything more than that personally, but from what I've read your statements are spot on.



jrista said:


> Noise is not the issue. Read noise, which only occurs in the lower fraction of the signal, only matters because of how it affects DR, and exhibits when you try to lift shadows. And that only occurs at ISO 100 and ISO 200, and is only worse in a Canon sensor when it is compared to a Sony Exmor sensor.



Yes, which is what is in the competition's camera. A camera that has similar on paper attributes to the 5Dmk3 and less noise and more DR at low ISO and costs $1400 less.



jrista said:


> So, sure, the 7D may be inferior at low ISO vs. a whole lot of the competition. However *for what it is*, the 7D is still one of the best options available to those of us who can't shell out five, six, SEVEN GRAND every few years to buy the likes of a 1D IV, a 1D X, or a D4. The 7D is still the best offering of its class even when pitted against the newer options from Nikon.



Negative. A D600 is only $600 more than a 7D. A 7D is still the right camera for a (possibly large) segment of users that want the AF system and the ability to use Canon telephotos. But for someone entering that "advanced enthusiast" segment I truly believe that the D600 represents a better value. It's not "SEVEN GRAND"... just $2100...



jrista said:


> For you personally, friedmud, I must apologize for my original recommendation to get a 7D. I was not aware of your full needs. The 7D is entirely the wrong camera for you, it always was (even before the D800 was released), and always will be. In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend the D800 either, as with its small pixel pitch you would still see the same kind of blue sky noise as the 7D, since that noise has nothing to do with sensor technology, and everything to do with the nature of light. You would really probably be better off with a 1D X or any one of the 12mp cameras from the previous generation of Nikon DSLR's.



Hehe! Don't apologize! It's definitely not your fault! The 7D _is_ a great camera... just, like you say, not the one I was looking for! The blame lies squarely with me... I was trying to do a cheap upgrade and use my existing EFs glass... that didn't really work out for me ;-)


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## wickidwombat (Oct 8, 2012)

http://gizmodo.com/5946258/nikon-d600-review-images-this-spectacular-have-never-come-so-cheap#13496783478033&{"type":"iframeUpdated","height":1972}

so after looking at this link that was previously posted I actually prefer the 5dmk3 images...

there is also a laundry list of other areas where I think the 5Dmk3 stomps all over the D600
so i'm still happily shooting away with my 5Dmk3 and I am extremely thankfull i never wasted any money on a 7D


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## dtaylor (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> Well - I just so happen to have a full res jpg that shows the phenomenon well:



What phenomenon? I don't see any noise in that photo. I have to zoom to 100% to detect a tiny unevenness to the pixels in the sky. jrista already covered the science behind this. I'm going to be more practical in my response. If this is what you're talking about...this "phenomenon" which would never be perceptible even in a 36" print...then it's eliminated with a single NR pass (Noise Ninja, 7D profile, auto settings except for turning down sharpening) without *any* loss of detail in the rest of the image.



> I am NOT mismanaging anything.



You're just purposely getting yourself worked up over absolutely nothing.



> And please don't come at me with "but it won't show up in a 24" print!". I can clearly see the noise on my 30" monitor (2560x1600) at work where I use my photos as my desktop background...



I can't see anything wrong on my calibrated monitor. Sorry.



> What are you trying to prove with that statement? Why do you think ~ISO 400 noise is acceptable at 100?



Are you kidding me? A 3 year old crop sensor has the same measured noise at 100 that Nikon's just released $7,000 full frame flagship has at 400...and you think that's bad performance?

The point...which was quite obvious...is that no one complains about the D4 at ISO 400, and no one hesitates to use it there. If the 7D were so awful at 100, then the D4 couldn't compete or sell at all since it would be awful by 400.



> Ummm... that's exactly what I'm saying. I've been linking to this review quite a bit but I'll do it again:



Don't bother. I'm not going to hold that review higher than DPReview or IR reviews. I don't see the controlled conditions that are necessary to properly evaluate this.



> I went over to the Imaging Resource and compared the Still Life scene for the 7D at ISO 100 and tried to find the ISO setting for the D600 that most closely matched. To me, it was in-between 400 and 800... just like I said a bit ago.



This is the most ridiculous thing you've said. I can't find any difference in noise between them at 100. In both images the only texture in the shadow by the cup is the paint on the wall. I can't find noise any where.

What is wrong with your monitor?



> This is a systemic problem with Canon. They simply do not care about LOW ISO performance.



Says who? An ISO hypochondriac?



> Really? The 7D was introduced in mid 2009. That exact same sensor has also been used in:
> 
> 2010: 550D and 60D
> 2011: 600D
> ...



And Nikon is still using the D7000 sensor. These things cost quite a bit to design and fabricate. They aren't changed every 6 months by anyone in the industry.

The 1DX sensor is brand new, and the 5D3 sensor is upgraded. There's rumors of a new 46 MP sensor, and we will soon see a new APS-C sensor. Canon's not sitting still.



> 1. If this is really THE problem and Canon really cared they would license that patent from Sony.



No, they wouldn't. It all depends on what Sony wants in exchange.



> 2. If this is really the problem and Canon really cared they would have put the R&D effort in and come up with the advancement first.



Who told you that money always means a company will innovate first? In what fantasy world does this happen?



> 3. Why, in 3 years has Canon not come up with a better idea?



Because there are only so many ways to read data off a chip.



> Also, I love how you first say "there is no problem" and then simultaneously blame a Sony patent for the problem. You can't have it both ways. Do Canon sensors have more noise or not?



I can have it both ways. They have more noise at high ISO in many (not all) cases, but it's not so much more as to be a problem.



> Apologist at work.



Hypochondriac at work. I'm sorry, but I've personally known people like you, and I don't have a high tolerance for this. I know a guy that would find a reason to complain if you gave him a brand new Corvette ZR-1. I hate that nonsense. You're looking for a problem that's not there because somebody told you a bigger chip was better. Since you will find a problem whether it's there or not...go buy a bigger chip and enjoy it. But don't lecture the rest of us on IQ.


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## dtaylor (Oct 8, 2012)

Oh yeah...jrista: high five my friend. *Excellent* posts 8)


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## dtaylor (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> Yes, which is what is in the competition's camera. A camera that has similar on paper attributes to the 5Dmk3 and less noise and more DR at low ISO and costs $1400 less.



While I believe the 5D3 should be priced lower, paper attributes can be misleading. I would put the 5D3's 1DX-derived AF against the D7000-derived AF on the D600 any day. That might not matter for a landscape photographer, but it does matter for the 5D3's target audience.



> Negative. A D600 is only $600 more than a 7D. A 7D is still the right camera for a (possibly large) segment of users that want the AF system and the ability to use Canon telephotos. But for someone entering that "advanced enthusiast" segment I truly believe that the D600 represents a better value. It's not "SEVEN GRAND"... just $2100...



I can't see a dime's worth of difference between the two at low ISO. I'll grant that the D600 will be more forgiving of exposure errors, and will have a wider DR. But >90% of the time 30" landscape prints...or monitor desktops...from both will look identical.

Quite frankly I was expecting at least some difference given the 6 MP difference.


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## Marsu42 (Oct 8, 2012)

wickidwombat said:


> so after looking at this link that was previously posted I actually prefer the 5dmk3 images...



Why's that? The d600 shots just show the higher dr of the Nikon/Sony sensor, so the images look more compressed and "dull". But you can crank up the contrast in no time, giving it the same "punch" as the 5d3 shots while keeping the ability to capture higher contrast scenes (or screw up more with the exposure). And have more mp at the same time. And a much lower price. Argh - if it wasn't for Magic Lantern I'd be a Nikon user by now, no matter the Canon ergonomics that I like much better.


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## jrista (Oct 8, 2012)

friedmud said:


> Firstly: I did read all of your posts... just don't have time to respond to a lot of it. You do have a lot of good points. I am very sorry I've been a thorn in your side since I asked for advice on buying a 7D ;-) It will surely be a relief to know that I'm going to be off to a different forum soon and will stop bugging you with all of this "7D is noisy!" business. ;-)
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to debate!



N/P  You were only really a thorn back when you first...decided...the 7D wasn't for you. ;P



friedmud said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Canon's technology is stellar. Their high ISO performance is unparalleled, and high ISO use in very low light is the name of the game for the true drivers of DSLR sales...sports and photojournalism.
> ...



Sure. I am a landscape photographer as well. Personally, when I have the chance (which is sadly all too infrequently) I do use the 7D for landscapes. It's a "good" camera for that purpose, but definitely not the best. I'd take a D800 over a 7D any day for landscape work. I like my Canon glass far too much (which included the 16-35mm f/2.8 L II, which is a DAMN GOOD, solidly built lens that is just as good as the 14-24 from Nikon...the only difference is, well, 2mm on the wide end...THATS IT!! People blow the Nikon 14-24mm lens out of proportion a bit too much.) Since I really love Canon glass, I'm content to sit and wait for Canon to release a good low ISO performer (although at the moment the rumors that are shaping up are a bit dismaying...$9000 price range for Canon's rumored 46.1mp camera?? :'( SAD!) Dynamic range is pretty much the most essential sensor factor for landscape photographers, and I'm glad that SoNikon have made DR a competitive issue. It'll only mean good things in the future.



friedmud said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Noise is not the issue. Read noise, which only occurs in the lower fraction of the signal, only matters because of how it affects DR, and exhibits when you try to lift shadows. And that only occurs at ISO 100 and ISO 200, and is only worse in a Canon sensor when it is compared to a Sony Exmor sensor.
> ...



Regarding the D600, it will probably be a fantastic entry-level landscape body. However from what I've heard and read so far, its AF system is still a classic Nikon system...an APS-C derived (or actual) unit that very tightly clusters AF points around the very center of the lens. That'll make it tough for the D600 to be useful in types of photography where the AF system is a critical factor, so it kind of limits the D600's versatility. For the average Joe who just wants to make the (now shorter) leap to FF, its a better all-rounder option than the Canon 6D, for sure.



friedmud said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > So, sure, the 7D may be inferior at low ISO vs. a whole lot of the competition. However *for what it is*, the 7D is still one of the best options available to those of us who can't shell out five, six, SEVEN GRAND every few years to buy the likes of a 1D IV, a 1D X, or a D4. The 7D is still the best offering of its class even when pitted against the newer options from Nikon.
> ...



Your still thinking with the landscape cap on, and putting the 7D in the "landscapers bucket". *For what it is*, which in the case of the 7D is the prosumer or low-end pro *wildlife and bird photographer's* camera, Nikon still does not have anything that really competes well. The D600 is a full frame camera, which doesn't make it a real competitor...you lose all that extra reach that is one of the key BENEFITTING factors of the 7D. You would need lenses 1.6x longer to have the same reach, which greatly adds to the cost. What you could do with a 400mm lens on a 7D, you would need a 640mm lens on the D600. Since there are only 500mm and 600mm lenses as options, you would at least need a 500mm lens with a 1.4x TC (700mm) to get the same general kind of performance as the 7D for photographing wildlife and birds. 

The idea that many photographers have, that larger sensors are just plain and simply better, is kind of a naive viewpoint. So long as pixel density remains higher, a cropped sensor will always offer extra reach above and beyond what a full-frame sensor can. Even a 46.1mp camera from Canon would still fall a little short of the 7D...you would need a 47.6mp sensor to exactly match it, and a 46.1mp camera will never have the same readout rate (unless it has a dedicated crop mode that reduces the pixel area read to only the 1.6x APS-C crop area, and could get 8-9fps.) My guess is that if Canon introduces a FF with 4.3 micron pixels (7D size), then it will introduce an APS-C with even smaller pixels...3.7 microns, maybe 3.5 microns? That would put Canon's flagship APS-C at around 24.3mp to 27.1mp, preserving the reach advantage of APS-C sensors (and again taking the DSLR pixel size crown.)


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## jrista (Oct 9, 2012)

ankorwatt said:


> For what it is, which in the case of the 7D is the prosumer or low-end pro wildlife and bird photographer's camera, Nikon still does not have anything that really competes well.
> 
> Connect a battery pack and set the D800 in APS mode and you get a APS camera with 15,3 MP 6 frames per second and you also get a better pixel quality in terms of signal/noise at low iso and similar results at high iso.
> 
> ...



The frame rate is one of the key features of the 7D, and 2fps can mean a LOT (even the 8fps of the 7D is sometimes lacking, and a mere two more frames per second to 10fps can make a useful difference). Comparing a 15.3mp camera @ 6fps is a far cry from an 18mp camera @ 8fps. Additionally, you would have to spend $3500 to get the D800 combo, vs. $1200 for the 7D today ($2300 difference!) On all counts, Nikon doesn't have anything remotely like the 7D that offers a high frame rate with high resolution and a quality AF system in a weather sealed body for a reasonable price.


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## earwaxxer (Oct 9, 2012)

My only comment would be that the 40D really did suck! I had one and the shutter quit working. It was several years old, and the 7D just came out so I realized that it was time to upgrade. 

I wasnt really ready to upgrade but I'm glad I did. I ended up giving the 40D to a friend of less means. The 7D blows it away in every respect. One other 'Canon sucks' comment would be on some of their 'L' series lenses. I have a couple of their telephotos and I like them. The 70-200 f4 is made pretty cheaply, now the manual focus ring doesnt work right. I have not bought their wide or standard 'L' lenses because I dont believe they compete well with the competition, for the price.


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## K-amps (Oct 9, 2012)

friedmud said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > For all the people who claim to see noise from 7D files at ISO 100: What the **** are you doing to get that noise?
> ...



ROFL !!   


Why should us Canon customers accept less than stellar IQ (the 20% mentioned by jrista) while paying the equal or higher prices than the Nikon boys do for comparable bodies and get better low ISO noise...and then there are these guys that apologize for Canon's shortfalls; are mistaking us for being anti Canon, which is not the case... we are Canon guys trying to let Canon know that they should not be slacking off. Let’s just say we are trying to be the conscience for Canon (Albeit self serving in this case).

Also before anyone brings up the weak argument that Canon is a large successful corporation and knows what it is doing; let’s just say corporations fail all the time, sometimes they can rectify their failings, sometimes they cannot.

All of us want Canon to succeed and get their priorities where they need to be. We wish them the same excellence that their lens division has been enjoying lately.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Oct 9, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> poias said:
> 
> 
> > I see a lot of defensive and insecure posts here.
> ...



Name one poster in this thread. Count me out for starters since I currently have a 7D and a 5D3 and zero Nikons.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Oct 9, 2012)

elflord said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > poias said:
> ...



+1

(now that some seem to be starting to think you are correct, they are left with a comeback of "whatever" haha)


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 9, 2012)

The person I quoted in my reply, for one. 

A method that produces impossible data is flawed, no matter how you rationalize it. The 'whatever' was not an acknowledgement that the rebuttal was correct, but rather boredom and a realization of the futility of arguing the point further.


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## Razor2012 (Oct 9, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> The person I quoted in my reply, for one.
> 
> A method that produces impossible data is flawed, no matter how you rationalize it. The 'whatever' was not an acknowledgement that the rebuttal was correct, but rather boredom and a realization of the futility of arguing the point further.



+1


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## dtaylor (Oct 9, 2012)

K-amps said:


> friedmud said:
> 
> 
> > dtaylor said:
> ...



Were you not following the thread? He made that claim, then provided an example with *absolutely no noise.*



> Why should us Canon customers accept less than stellar IQ...



I don't get anything less than stellar IQ from my Canon cameras. Perhaps you should take a course on digital photography at your local JC? ;D


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## K-amps (Oct 9, 2012)

dtaylor said:


> K-amps said:
> 
> 
> > friedmud said:
> ...



Chill Dtaylor.... you can't bully people into agreeing with you... everyone has their own sense of reality that governs their perceptions and opinions.

I saw the noise... He saw the noise.... He made a witty remark, I fell off my chair laughing, whats your problem.


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## nightbreath (Oct 9, 2012)

K-amps said:


> Chill Dtaylor.... you can't bully people into agreeing with you...


I find this thread the most interesting on the whole forum, so please don't draw them away from sharing valuable information on how things really work in camera world! 8)
There's so much new one can get just by reading these posts, that I don't want this to stop ;D


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## TheSuede (Oct 9, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> The person I quoted in my reply, for one.
> 
> A method that produces impossible data is flawed, no matter how you rationalize it. The 'whatever' was not an acknowledgement that the rebuttal was correct, but rather boredom and a realization of the futility of arguing the point further.



This statement actually just shows that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, AND that you don't know first base in signal theory. It is perfectly normal to have signal accuracies higher than the signal quantization, and there are several universally accepted way to indicate this. The linear one used with almost all types of imaging sensors is actually the most easily understood and logical one.

DR has a very strictly locked down definition, and it is:
[maximum signal strength] / [minimum noise floor]

And the only correct way to do this is to take the average of several (at best, several thousand!) individual pixels and then work with their AVERAGE result or error in stead of doing it with single-pixel steady-states - which are heavily biased by things like individual impurities in the photo-cell, individual sensitivity deviations and small amplificiation deviations. You would get 22 million individual results for a 5D3, and this isn't very practical.

So, if you accept the (for any person versed in the area) natural and self-explanatory necessary fact that any and all signal measurements are to be taken as AVERAGES of as many individual samples as possible to get the most accurate end result, you can get results that look very strange when you look at them from a purely numerological PoV - but they're still valid, and also very easily proven with practical empirical tests.

This also kind of explains the mechanism behind down-scaling results.
If you take a 2000x2000px crop from an image and scale it down so that the end result is 1000x1000 you have effectively binned four pixels into one. This lowers the average error 'per pixel' in the crop by a full stop (1Ev) by averaging the errors - but it doesn't lower the maximum value of each individual pixel. Hence you get 1Ev more DR in the 1MP image compared to the 4MP image. Lower resolution, same maximum value, half the average amount of noise per pixel.

One practical test is to put any Sony high-DR sensor based camera at 12-bit raw output, and then compare the end image result to that which you get from a Canon-based 14-bit raw. The Sony-based solution will STILL be a lot cleaner in the shadows at low ISOs, and it will STILL have about 13Ev's of DR, even though the raw file is "just" 12 bits. AND this will still be easily visible in the image.

_(not a very "nice" way to introduce myself to a forum, but it just annoys me when people that have no idea what they're talking about makes self-assured remarks like that. My advice would be to STOP being such an adult. Growing up seems to totally stop some people from being able to accept (or admit) that there are lots of things they don't know or understand. Children have a much more open mind to new knowledge and learning new things - and we could learn a lot as humans by adapting their openness to new knowledge.)_


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## Razor2012 (Oct 9, 2012)

Neuro you know you're popular when people join just to comment on your posts.


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 9, 2012)

TheSuede said:


> This statement actually just shows that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, AND that you don't know first base in signal theory.



Right. Because with a PhD in Neuroscience, I've never studied signaling. Synaptic transmission and neural networks tend to involve complex signaling - at least in some brains. 



TheSuede said:


> _not a very "nice" way to introduce myself to a forum_



A demonstration of good metacognition, at least. 

Your 'intro' notwithstanding, welcome to the CR forums!


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## dtaylor (Oct 9, 2012)

K-amps said:


> Chill Dtaylor.... you can't bully people into agreeing with you...



Bullying? : I don't think I'm the one who needs to chill.



> everyone has their own sense of reality that governs their perceptions and opinions.



Silly me...I thought we lived in a common, measurable reality.



> I saw the noise... He saw the noise....



Allow me to quote jrista:


> That "uniform" nature? Thats called photon shot noise. It's a physical effect caused by the NATURAL random distribution of light that follows Poisson distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_noise#Poisson_noise_and_characterizing_small_occurrences). FYI...every single camera on earth experiences photon shot noise, regardless of who makes it or how good it may be.



There was no noise. There was nothing that could be interpreted as noise until 100% pixel peeping, at which point you see the natural random distribution of light. And even that is difficult to make out. If that bothers you...if you want plastic skies while pixel peeping at 100%...it is stupid simple to make the sky plastic in PS.

But I hope I'm not being a bully in pointing that out 8)


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## thepancakeman (Oct 9, 2012)

ankorwatt said:


> Razor2012 said:
> 
> 
> > Neuro you know you're popular when people join just to comment on your posts.
> ...



You do realize of course that by this statement youare saying the majority of people on this forum are ignorant, because neuro is highly respected around here. Maybe you'd be happier on a different forum where you don't have to tolerate all us ignoramuses.


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