# DXO uh-oh?



## arcanej (Jul 24, 2014)

As DXO has given a near perfect score to the D810, they may have painted themselves into a corner. Their proprietary scale doesn't give DXO much room to heap hyperbolic praise on the next Nikon release.

http://nikonrumors.com/2014/07/24/nikon-d810-sensor-new-dxomark-leader.aspx/


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## candyman (Jul 24, 2014)

arcanej said:


> As DXO has given a near perfect score to the D810, they may have painted themselves into a corner. Their proprietary scale doesn't give DXO much room to heap hyperbolic praise on the next Nikon release.
> 
> http://nikonrumors.com/2014/07/24/nikon-d810-sensor-new-dxomark-leader.aspx/



Irrelevant since I don't use Nikon and I don't use DxO as review source.


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## mackguyver (Jul 24, 2014)

Yes, the sky is falling, what will us poor Canon shooters do now??? Keep taking great photos with our poor _underperforming _sensors, of course 8)


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 24, 2014)

No, their Biased Scores (abbreviated *BS*) are 'open ended' - they don't top out at 100. They planned well...their BS can go on steaming and stinking with no end in sight...


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## Orangutan (Jul 24, 2014)

Their scale goes up to 11...


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## MichaelHodges (Jul 24, 2014)

Congrats to Nikon for another world class sensor.


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## jrista (Jul 24, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> No, their Biased Scores (abbreviated *BS*) are 'open ended' - they don't top out at 100. They planned well...their BS can go on steaming and stinking with no end in sight...



LOL



Orangutan said:


> Their scale goes up to 11...



You mean their scale goes up to ∞! ∞ is to 11 as 11 is to 10 in this case.  MOAR!!


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## jrista (Jul 24, 2014)

arcanej said:


> As DXO has given a near perfect score to the D810, they may have painted themselves into a corner. Their proprietary scale doesn't give DXO much room to heap hyperbolic praise on the next Nikon release.
> 
> http://nikonrumors.com/2014/07/24/nikon-d810-sensor-new-dxomark-leader.aspx/



This really isn't a surprise. DxO and Nikon are inseparably joined at the hip. Plus, all this really means, particularly the new 14.8 stops Print DR number, is that Nikon is cooking their RAW files EVEN MORE. Nikon/Sony's biggest "cheat" is the fact that they clip to black point, instead of offsetting to black point. Nikon cameras just throw away a lot of low-level signal information. The Sony Exmor sensor gives them more room to do that, for sure, but they are still throwing away information.

Canon, on the other hand, does not clip, they offset. So ALL the noise in the deep shadows of Canon's signal is still there (it's always there, in every sensor). Canon could probably achieve better results by using a more significant offset...and at times, as they have improved their sensor tech and increased their bit depth, they have changed their bias offset. It used to be 128 to 256 back in the 10-bit days, it was 512 to 1024 in the 12 bit days. I think it's 1024 or 2048 with 14-bit cameras. 

The kicker is that RAW editors don't have to honor Canon's bias offset. The entire RAW signal is stored in Canon's files, and the offset is calibrated with a border of masked pixels. Who knows if editors like Lightroom, or DXO, or Aperture actually adhere to Canon's recommended offset. Even if they do, there is still negative signal information that can be pulled up, and the full noise signal is there. With Nikon RAW images...all that negative (deep noise) signal is simply discarded.

I use DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight to calibrate Canon RAW files for integration into a "stack". I use a 200-frame master bias image to subtract the bias signal from each light frame before integrating it. When the bias is removed from Canon RAW files, the dynamic range jumps by almost two stops...which puts it in the same range as Nikon files...


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## bdunbar79 (Jul 25, 2014)

MichaelHodges said:


> Congrats to Nikon for another world class sensor.



You mean Sonikon?


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## IsaacImage (Jul 25, 2014)

Actually Nikon D810 sensor are pretty impressive up to ISO 640


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## StudentOfLight (Jul 25, 2014)

I believe they use a benchmarking system. When a camera sets a new benchmark then it re-baselines the camera score database. If a camera sensor sets a new benchmark in all their metrics then I believe it will get a score of 100 and bump all the other cameras down to lower scores. I might be wrong, but I think that's how it works.


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## TheGreatOwl (Jul 25, 2014)

I swear I saw the Sony A7R on the top while the Nikon D800E was below... what changed?


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## bseitz234 (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> arcanej said:
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> > As DXO has given a near perfect score to the D810, they may have painted themselves into a corner. Their proprietary scale doesn't give DXO much room to heap hyperbolic praise on the next Nikon release.
> ...



I usually skip over these threads, as they seem to rapidly devolve to drivel... but this was a very interesting post to read. Things I never really think about in the pipeline of signal processing. Thanks for that! (and thanks for getting it on the first page ;-) )


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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^--- This ---^

Isn't a surprise, either.  ;D Our resident Nikon foreverfanboyyayz!

BTW, Dilbert...are you ACTUALLY asking me if Nikon and DXO are "literally" joined at the hip? ??? I mean, your asking for *"evidence"* of that...I've been racking my brain for a way to describe how organizations and companies have "hips", conjure up some kind of...evidence, for that...but I'm at a loss for...anything...here......


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## unfocused (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


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I hear in a song once that hips don't lie.


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## bseitz234 (Jul 25, 2014)

unfocused said:


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Nah, that only applies if you're Shakira.


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## Orangutan (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> I've been racking my brain for a way to describe how organizations and companies have "hips", conjure up some kind of...evidence, for that...but I'm at a loss for...anything...here......



Well, the US Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can have religious values, so presumably they also have all other aspects of human experience, including physical bodies. I'm sure if you ask one of the majority voters, *cough* Scalia *cough*, he could conjure up some hocus-pocus-juris-prudence to support hips on a corporation.

</snark>


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Seriously, dude? 

Your going to ask me for "evidence" when I'm using an *OBVIOUS* FIGURE OF SPEECH now? Every time I use a PLAY ON WORDS? ???







Don't be lame!


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> jrista said:
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> > I've been racking my brain for a way to describe how organizations and companies have "hips", conjure up some kind of...evidence, for that...but I'm at a loss for...anything...here......
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Yeah..._not_ gonna touch that...not on these forums...


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## Orangutan (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Well you're the one making the claim so what I'm doing is asking you to provide evidence to back up your claim.



You're making the prior claim, as yet unsubstantiated by other independent testers, that DxO's "overall score" has legitimacy. Given that DxO doesn't publish their weighting, you may have a harder time with your task than jrista does proving corporations have hips.

P.S. I believe Shakira is a corporation. ;D


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> dilbert said:
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|
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V



Orangutan said:


> P.S. I believe Shakira is a corporation. ;D



I'd touch Shakira's incorporated hips to reggae music, though....


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## Orangutan (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


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A guy tries to start a pleasant flame war and you just have to spray halon 1301 all over it.


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

Orangutan said:


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Hey, be careful with the BoTtoM man! We don't want to extinguish Shakira's Incorporated Hips!


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## sagittariansrock (Jul 25, 2014)

And this thread went the predictable route quickly enough...


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Because it is!  Man, Dilbert...it's always the same old thing from you. There wasn't even any material for you to REALLY get your fingers into this time...and yet you still can't let up. It was a simple figure of speech, one meant to be a little humorous. Everyone else got it...but you? No...you gotta make an issue out of a freakin figure of speech. Man...I kinda feel sorry for you...you MISSED SHAKIRA'S HIPS, MAN!!

And yes, just to be completely clear, it was, is, and will forever be *entirely appropriate* to say Nikon and DxO are joined at their virtual corporate hips. Because THEY ARE!


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## Aglet (Jul 25, 2014)

Well, the _interesting_ part of the test data is showing the d810 has a real ISO 50 (47) available, labelled as 64 and 32 extended.

The SNR at the new low ISO is now pushed down to .008% gray scale, a number only attained by Pentax' K5ii series at its measured ISO of 68 (80) until now. The pixel-level DR is increased to 13.67 in the d810 vs 13.59 in the K5ii

I'll keep my old d800e; at ISO 12,800 and lower, it has slightly cleaner shadows than the new d810 at all matching ISO settings. Not by much but it seems to show a slight compromise was made to the 810's sensor system to improve the measured spec in one(some) area at the expense of others.

So IMO for the D810 it's 2 steps fwd (iso 64 and 25,600) and 1 step back (increased shadow noise at ISOs 100 thru 12,800)
it does have a plethora of minor improvements tho, enough to make it an appealing upgrade option if you only have a regular d800 or lesser FF body.
i'd really like to make use of the electronic 1st curtain shutter and the better balanced mirror-shutter system for even more easily attained maximum sharpness. Other improvements. e.g. fps and AF options and better battery life, bring it a little closer to being an all-around useful camera, not just a landscape monster.


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Of course I don't believe they are "joined at the _hip_"...companies don't have hips. : The only person on these forums who could possibly take that comment as being "inflammatory", Dilbert, is you...and as I already stated, that isn't surprising. So, moving on...


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

Aglet said:


> Well, the _interesting_ part of the test data is showing the d810 has a real ISO 50 (47) available, labelled as 64 and 32 extended.
> 
> The SNR at the new low ISO is now pushed down to .008% gray scale, a number only attained by Pentax' K5ii series at its measured ISO of 68 (80) until now. The pixel-level DR is increased to 13.67 in the d810 vs 13.59 in the K5ii



That is interesting, as the K5 and K5-II both also use very heavy in-camera processing of the RAW to achieve that. Before Pentax started using Sony sensors, the sensors they were using were very noisy. Pentax combated that with RAW signal processing, which they brought over to their Sony sensor cameras, which is why they had the best SNR and some of the best RAW dynamic range of any cameras till now.


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Why are you making such an issue out of a trivial, pointless thing? Are you _personally _offended by a figure of speech? Seriously, who's the troll now? ??? Who's disrupting the potential useful discussion in this thread to grind their own personal axe? Hmm? :


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## jrista (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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I have no obligation to answer you, Dilbert. None whatsoever. I already explained why I said it, you either missed that, or it simply wasn't good enough for you. The thing that is most curious is how persistent and insistent you are that I "explain myself for my heinous, disgusting and evil words against the god of DXO!" You clearly have a personal issue here, this has nothing to do with what I said...what I said was and is meaningless. It's just a stupid phrase, it doesn't mean anything. This is you pushing me to see if and where I'll break. This is you being...well...you: A troll. You're the troll here. You've always been the troll here. You will ALWAYS be the troll here. Everyone knows that. I have nothing to defend myself about, and EVERYONE knows that. Your embarrassing yourself. You can go ahead and keep right on at it if that's what you intend, but it's just getting pathetic. Your one weird duck, and I have no interest in continuing ANOTHER pointless discussion with a guy who's got personal axes to grind and who can't get his head out of the DXO cesspool and stop irritating everyone. (Oooh...lets see how THAT sentence sets Dilbert off!  :)

Good NIGHT, Dilbert. (I'm really bummed that's your nickname...Dilbert in the comics was such a lovable guy...real shame...)


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## Ivan Muller (Jul 25, 2014)

whether DXO and the D810 is flawed or not...I sure wish Canon brought out something with those megapixel numbers....


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## Antono Refa (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


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That ∞ is Aleph naught, which is just the lowest infinitely high score DxO will score Nikon sensors.


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## 9VIII (Jul 25, 2014)

bdunbar79 said:


> MichaelHodges said:
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Maybe once both of them have sunk enough they'll merge and we'll actually get decent lenses for Sony cameras (best of both worlds).


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> This really isn't a surprise. DxO and Nikon are inseparably joined at the hip.



True. DxO is a service provider, and as the saying goes, the customer is always right.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 25, 2014)

Also...

[quote author=DxO]*All of the top ten DSC manufacturers* are DxO Analyzer customers as well as the top brands of smartphone and camera module.[/quote]

I don't see Canon's logo listed among their clients, yet Canon is certainly one of the 'top ten DSC manufacturers'. So either Canon refused to give DxO permission to display their logo, or the above statement by DxO is false.


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## StudentOfLight (Jul 25, 2014)

Admin lock this one down please, it's scaring my children! :'(


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## horshack (Jul 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> This really isn't a surprise. DxO and Nikon are inseparably joined at the hip. Plus, all this really means, particularly the new 14.8 stops Print DR number, is that Nikon is cooking their RAW files EVEN MORE. Nikon/Sony's biggest "cheat" is the fact that they clip to black point, instead of offsetting to black point. Nikon cameras just throw away a lot of low-level signal information. The Sony Exmor sensor gives them more room to do that, for sure, but they are still throwing away information.



Clipping the back point does not affect the DR measurements because DxO's methodology (and other testers whose independent results match DxO's) account for the clipping. Also, Nikon stopped clipping blacks starting with the Sony Exmor in the D5300 (see here: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52493166).


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## Kathode-Ray (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Read the quote on DxO's web page:
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> "Here is a sample of some of our clients."
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> It doesn't say that those listed are DxO's only customers. It also doesn't say those listed are the top ten DSC manufacturers. It just says that they are *some* of DxO's customers. So Canon could well be a customer of DxO and if they were, then the statement on DxO's webpage is still true.



This is sooo sad...


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Read the quote on DxO's web page:

"Here is a sample of some of our clients."

It doesn't say that those listed are DxO's only customers. It also doesn't say those listed are the top ten DSC manufacturers. It just says that they are *some* of DxO's customers. So Canon could well be a customer of DxO and if they were, then the statement on DxO's webpage is still true.
[/quote]

Yes, I can read and comprehend, a skill some lack. Perhaps you should read my post again to confirm for yourself that I did not indicate that DxO's statement *is* false, only that it could be... You might also note that I listed that possibility second, not first. 

EDIT: or perhaps you're suggesting a third possibility that I intentionally dismissed, namely that Canon is a client but _DxO chose_ to not display the logo of the *leading manufacturer of dSLRs* among their clients. Possible reasons for that could be to placate other clients more important to them, i.e. Nikon (which would certainly imply some sort of hip-joining) or simply because DxO is foolish. Is that what you're suggesting?


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 25, 2014)

dilbert said:


> What I want to draw attention to is where you effectively raise the specter of DxO being false on the web page, which is in completely in line with how you characterize their ratings, etc. There was no call for you to make that remark or even to suggest that and in that, it is you who is being false. Hide, if you like, behind the fact that you listed other options but the fact remains you went out of your way to allege that DxO was being false on their web site when you knew they weren't.



I know nothing of the sort, and given their history and "black box" methods, questioning their statements and veracity is certainly within reason. DxO has been guilty of a variety of falsehoods on their website. They have corrected (without acknowledging their errors), others remain.

You seem to be going out of your way to argue the point, are you suggesting that DxO is infallible?


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## mackguyver (Jul 25, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> They have corrected (without acknowledging their errors), *others remain*.


Like this one - 16-35 f/2.8L II vs. 17-40 f/4L - I'm very curious to see how the new 16-35 f/4L IS comes out - they'll probably say it's worse like the 70-200 f/2.8L IS vs. II


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## jebrady03 (Jul 25, 2014)

Wow... You kids ever heard of "private messaging"? Maybe a phone call? Good gracious... Get your squabble out of the public eye. It's pathetic. 

All others, carry on with the same ol' DxO bashing/defending and enjoy your day!


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 26, 2014)

dilbert said:


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Is there a community college near you that offers basic reading comprehension and logical reasoning courses? You really might want to consider taking one. Honestly, I'm not trying to be insulting (although I admit it could be taken as such). You really seem to have difficulty grasping the meaning of written statements, not just mine but those of many people on these forums. 

To clarify...and read carefully, please. DxO does not include Canon's logo among their 'sample of clients' which include 'all of the top ten DSC manufacturers'. Given Canon's status in the industry (#1 dSLR manufacturer for >10 years, and one of the top 10 compact camera makers), it would be a foolish business decision to _not_ display Canon's logo if they were able to do so. I assume DxO are not fools, so what are the other possible reasons to exclude Canon's logo? The most likely (and therefore, first-listed) reason is that Canon did not give them permission to display their logo. That's a reasonably common practice - I work for a Fortune 100 company, many small vendors request permission to include our logo on their list of clients, and for the most part we deny those requests. The other possible reason is that DxO is making a misleading statement on their website. Are they 'lying'? It's shades of gray. They state "all of the top ten DSC manufacturers" but don't specify what they mean by 'top ten'. Perhaps they mean 'top ten based on DxOMark Sensor Scores' and maybe Canon is not on that list. Perhaps they mean 'top ten based on sales in France' and maybe Canon is not on that list. 

Regardless, my statement which you call out, "I know nothing of the sort," immediately followed and was mainly in reference to your final statement: "...you went out of your way to allege that DxO was being false on their web site when you knew they weren't." As I stated, DxO has a history of 'being false on their website'...they have been guilty of that many times, so it's a reasonable _possibility_ that it may be the case with this particular issue. 

Perhaps you could state your reasoning which supports the idea that DxO is being truthful that their client list includes 'all of the top ten DSC manufacturers' as defined in a relevant way (any relevant way, e.g. global sales, would place Canon on that list), but has chosen not to display the logo of the #1 dSLR maker and BusinessWeek's #35 global brand (link) among their list of clients. What can you come up with, besides 'Canon didn't permit it' (which I have already suggested as the most likely possibility), DxO is accommodating one or more of the clients more important to them (e.g., they are 'joined at the hip with Nikon', which you have been arguing against), or DxO are makes foolish business decisions? 

Actually, I expect your response to be something pithy like 'we can't know' or 'it doesn't matter,' – both of which are copouts to which you've resorted in the past.


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## Don Haines (Jul 26, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


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I have wondered for a while about the possibilities that DXO and Nikon are tied at the hips. It looks like the ratings are heavily skewed towards what Nikon is good at and completely ignores what Canon is good at. After all, a Nikon 7100 beats a Canon 1DX in the sensor ratings..... yet in the real world, how many people are going to upgrade a 1DX with a 7100?

when you look at the specs for the two cameras on DXO, and you look at autofocus (the place where Canon really shines) you find that the Nikon 7100 has "Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); Continuous-servo AF (AF-C); auto AF-S/AF-C selection (AF-A); predictive focus tracking activated automatically according to subject status. Manual focus (MF): Electronic rangefinder can be used " while the Canon 1DX has "One Shot AI Servo ".

And drive modes.... the Nikon does 6 frames per second and the 1DX does 12.... so what does DXO say?
Nikon 7100 - Continuous low-speed [CL] mode; 1-6 frames per second Continuous high-speed [CH] mode; 6 frames per second Interval timer photography supported Mirror-up [Mup] mode Quiet Shutter Release Self-timer mode Single-frame  mode 
Canon 1DX - Single, Continuous L, Continuous H, Self timer (2s+remote, 10s+remote), Silent single shooting

Tell me that isn't biased......


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## bdunbar79 (Jul 26, 2014)

I'm going to use this example again:

When the 70-200 f/2.8L II IS lens came to the market and was tested, it got a lower score than the version I lens. Later, DxO mark used a different CAMERA to test them, then the v2 finally scored higher.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 26, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> I have wondered for a while about the possibilities that DXO and Nikon are tied at the hips. It looks like the ratings are heavily skewed towards what Nikon is good at and completely ignores what Canon is good at. After all, a Nikon 7100 beats a Canon 1DX in the sensor ratings..... yet in the real world, how many people are going to upgrade a 1DX with a 7100?
> 
> when you look at the specs for the two cameras on DXO, and you look at autofocus (the place where Canon really shines) you find that the Nikon 7100 has "Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); Continuous-servo AF (AF-C); auto AF-S/AF-C selection (AF-A); predictive focus tracking activated automatically according to subject status. Manual focus (MF): Electronic rangefinder can be used " while the Canon 1DX has "One Shot AI Servo ".
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I actually really doubt there's any collusion between Nikon and DxO. Their Scores are biased, but there's a logic to that bias (still...bias is bias, and they don't make it obvious). I also take issue with their 'black box' formulas. 

As for the specs issues, the Nikon ones are copies straight from Nikon's website, as are the Canon drive mode spec (yes, DxO really should have listed comparable specs including fps). The AF mode DxO lists for the 1D X differs from the Canon USA spec, likely they took it from the EU site. Good thing, though - Canon USA says the 1D X also has AI Focus, and it doesn't...a typographical error on Canon's part. 

Of course, DxO could have made 'honest errors' but as I said, their history argues against them. For example, when called on their mistake of stating the 70-200/2.8L IS II was not as good as the MkI lens it replaced, they defended their conclusion and explicitly stated no mistake was made...then a year later, they silently replaced the original data with new data supporting the opposite (and correct) conclusion.


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## dgatwood (Jul 26, 2014)

I'm pretty sure they would have to have permission from Canon to display their logo in this situation; I don't think it falls under fair use of the trademark. Not every company is willing to give that permission. Canon's absence from that list likely means very little other than that Canon is protective of their logo.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 26, 2014)

bdunbar79 said:


> I'm going to use this example again:
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> When the 70-200 f/2.8L II IS lens came to the market and was tested, it got a lower score than the version I lens. Later, DxO mark used a different CAMERA to test them, then the v2 finally scored higher.



Well, their Lens Scores are an even larger, stinkier pile of steaming BS than their Sensor Scores. Even the name itself is intentionally misleading, since the primary determinants of the Lens Score are the T-stop of the lens and the low light performance of _the camera body_ on which the lens is tested.


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## zlatko (Jul 26, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


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Last time I checked DxOMark, the very best lens that Canon makes was the EF 100mm f/2. Yes, the famous $499 100mm f/2 known by professional photographers all over the world as the very best lens that Canon makes ... not. That lens is from 1991.

Now that honor has gone to the EF 35mm f/2 IS. Yes, the $599 lens is better than ANY other lens that Canon makes ... according to DxOMark ... and no one else.

P.S. Nothing against either of those lenses (both excellent), but giving them the highest scores of all lenses in the entire Canon EF system is pretty much proof that the DxOMark scoring is faulty.


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## MacroBug (Jul 26, 2014)

Why does everyone respond to dilbert's nonsense? Can't we just ignore his posts and hope he goes away? It would make this forum much more enjoyable.


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## sagittariansrock (Jul 26, 2014)

MacroBug said:


> Why does everyone respond to dilbert's nonsense? Can't we just ignore his posts and hope he goes away? It would make this forum much more enjoyable.



I think he is quite good at writing short baited posts, and provoking people to respond with lengthy explanations as to why his arguments make no sense. 
For all I know, he might not even have an opinion about DxO and DR, just writes those posts for a nice laugh


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## StudentOfLight (Jul 27, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


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Yes, their lens scores really are a questionable. (See attached 300mm f/2.8 comparison)

Bearing in mind that the Nikon D600 has higher resolution than the 5D-III (24.49Mpx vs 23.38Mpx), it's clear that while both are excellent lenses the Canon lens is superior. The Canon 300mm f/2.8L II IS USM equals or betters the Nikon lens in every metric in DxO summary. Even when looking through the field map diagrams, the Canon is clearly superior but somehow earns the same score. 

A wise man once said: "WTF!?" ???


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## traingineer (Jul 27, 2014)

MacroBug said:


> Why does everyone respond to dilbert's nonsense? Can't we just ignore his posts and hope he goes away? It would make this forum much more enjoyable.



Much *LESS* enjoyable* ;D

And come on Jrista/Neuro, no need to be so harsh to the Mighty gods of d_X_o. After all, only d_X_o can defend us pixel peepers and sharpness lovers from those dreaded photographers non-believers!


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## Hillsilly (Jul 27, 2014)

Despite all of the negativity, I've yet to be convinced that the "vibe" of their scores is noticeably wrong. Even in the example above, sure, the Canon lens would seem to be the better lens and might deserve a better ranking than the Nikon lens. But I think that's largely irrelevant. All I would want to find out is their view on the Canon lens - and they think it is pretty good. If I was in the market to buy one, their good testing results would be a positive factor in that decision.

Putting all petty Canon vs Nikon squabbling aside, can anyone actually point to a Canon camera sensor or lens that we all consider is excellent, but which DxO trashes? I struggle to find one.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 27, 2014)

dilbert said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Is there a community college near you that offers basic reading comprehension and logical reasoning courses?
> ...



Since I stated the opposite, you've proven my point that you have difficulty comprehending what you read. 




dilbert said:


> I don't really care why Canon isn't listed or not. It makes no difference to me and I can't see it meaning anything.



"I don't care." The last bastion of someone unable to prove their point and incapable of admitting they are wrong. Pathetic and sad, but not surprising. In fact, I was fairly certain that would be your response...as I already stated:



neuroanatomist said:


> Actually, I expect your response to be something pithy like 'we can't know' or 'it doesn't matter,' – both of which are copouts to which you've resorted in the past.



...and true to form, you delivered the expected copout response.


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## ewg963 (Jul 27, 2014)

I will continue to go out and shoot improve my skills with my outdated 5d Mark III & II camera. Oh DXO you sealed my faith I'm ******* :


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 27, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Let me make it simple for you..
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Let me try to help you read and comprehend what I originally wrote:



neuroanatomist said:


> EDIT: or perhaps you're suggesting a third possibility that I *intentionally dismissed*, namely that Canon is a client but _DxO chose_ to not display the logo of the *leading manufacturer of dSLRs* among their clients. Possible reasons for that could be to placate other clients more important to theme, i.e. Nikon (which would certainly imply some sort of hip-joining) or simply because DxO is foolish. Is that what you're suggesting?



In other words, I was providing plausible explanations for a possibility that I had already indicated I thought to be so unlikely that I didn't even mention it initially. 

Seriously, look into some remedial education. Maybe we can have this discussion someday when you've learned how to comprehend what you read. Until then, it's merely a waste of time.


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## Don Haines (Jul 27, 2014)

dilbert said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



I am sitting in a duck blind at the end of the yard, waiting for some mergansers to wander closer for pictures, enjoying a cup of tea, and looking at CR on a laptop (gotta love wifi) while I wait. Canon being listed by DXO makes no difference to me.


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## sanj (Jul 27, 2014)

MacroBug said:


> Why does everyone respond to dilbert's nonsense? Can't we just ignore his posts and hope he goes away? It would make this forum much more enjoyable.



It is bit extreme to stop anyone from posting their viewpoints.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 27, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Look, I'll be easy on you and give you the chance to respond to one request at a time.
> 
> * Please explain how DxO is accomodating [f]or more clients more important to them.



First, you can explain why you think it would be a good idea for you to take remedial courses in reading comprehension and logical reasoning.


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## unfocused (Jul 27, 2014)

dilbert said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > MacroBug said:
> ...



An alternative explanation is that most people really don't care one way or the other. 

The inconvenient truth is that DSLR technology has progressed to the point where differences between brands and even between formats is so insignificant that it seldom, if ever, has any real world impact on the final product – the photograph.

This forum provides daily proof of Sayre's law: "the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake."

Perhaps DxO is biased. Perhaps Nikon and Sony have decided to "build to the test." Perhaps the differences being tested are so insignificant that the ratings have only academic and no real-world application. Most likely it's a combination of all three. 

It's not like the scores have the tiniest bit of impact on the market. So really, who cares?


----------



## Sporgon (Jul 27, 2014)

unfocused said:


> It's not like the scores have the tiniest bit of impact on the market. So really, who cares?



Or even an impact on practical use. If the there was any real, practical value to their 'metrics' photographers serious about low ISO performance would be deserting to Sony and Nikon in their droves, yet they are not because in the vast majority of low ISO circumstances there is just no difference, despite all the crap about read noise levels, FPN etc. 

I remember he-who-shall-not-be-named once posted two identical shots from a 5DII and a D800 to show, in his opinion how much better the shadows were from the Nikon, but in his blinkered vision of pulled shadows he had overlooked the noise in the blue sky from the Nikon ! When I pointed this out there was a very hasty edit ;D

So who cares ? Well unfortunately there are a growing number of web based review sites that quote DxO, perhaps because of the way in which DxO present their data; it's seen as being very scientific. Obviously to date this has had no detrimental impact on Canon's sales, so it would seem that at the moment the majority of purchasers don't take any notice of what they are saying, but I wonder if in time it could start to impact, but I suppose by then Canon may have a sensor that scores better on DxO.


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## MacroBug (Jul 27, 2014)

sanj, I never stated dilbert couldn't post. However, we control how and when we respond to his posts. I noticed he has not addressed any of the unemotional, logical points made in a number of posts regarding lens ratings. He continually beats the 'joined at the hip' statement to death which got old in the first 2 pages of this thread. I learn a tremendous amount through this forum but not in this thread. I'm out on the rest of this one...


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## MLfan3 (Jul 27, 2014)

as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.


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## jrista (Jul 27, 2014)

MLfan3 said:


> as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.



The problem is that DXO's "science" is in dispute. How can you trust something that produces inconsistent and obviously incorrect results?


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> MLfan3 said:
> 
> 
> > as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.
> ...


I would be a lot happier with them if they left out the magic ratings numbers.....


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> MLfan3 said:
> 
> 
> > as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.
> ...



Perhaps they should submit their 'science' to the _Journal of Irreproducible Results_. They may even be worthy of consideration for an IgNobel Prize.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> MLfan3 said:
> 
> 
> > as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.
> ...



I agree. Science demands transparency so the measurements can be replicated by others. Little about their process is transparent. It's not scientific, it's almost pseudo-scientific.


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## horshack (Jul 27, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > MLfan3 said:
> ...


DxO documents their sensor testing procedure here:
http://www.dxomark.com/About/In-depth-measurements/DxOMark-testing-protocols/Noise-dynamic-range

DxO results have been independently reproduced at various times. For example:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/33806693
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/33833501


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## MLfan3 (Jul 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> MLfan3 said:
> 
> 
> > as a multi-system user I have to agree with DXO guys, they are honest, much more so than DPR or any other unscientific review sites online.
> ...



so what are the so-called incorrect results?
I think all what they have posted are right, at least mirror to my own experience. only one issue I found with DXO mark is their stupid overall score D810=97, D800E =96, 5D3=81,etc. But other than that almost all graphs and numbers they provided there seem very correct. Why do you think they are inconsistent with some obviously incorrect results?
but I think you know much more than me in this kind of things , so I would like to hear your view on DXO.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 27, 2014)

horshack said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



Your DxO link describes one of their _Measurements_, which as I've stated on multiple occasions (at least dozens, if not hundreds on these forums) I find generally well done and useful (except when they make errors and deny it, which seems to occur mainly in their lens tests). The problems are not with their Measurements, but with their _Scores_. Can you provide a link where DxO explicitly describes how their Scores are calculated from the Measurements? No, because they don't disclose the specifics of how those Scores are calculated. Nor do they explicitly describe the bias inherent in their Scores. 

FWIW, Peter van den Hamer suggests an approximation he states usually falls within 1-2 points: DxOMark_Sensor_Score = 59 + 4.3*(ColorDepth-21.1) + 3.4*(DynamicRange-11.3) + 4.4*log2(ISO/663) -0.2. He also states, "My guess is that the actual formula is non-linear and may use (under some conditions) coefficients of 5/5/5 rather than 4.3/3.4/4.4." His suggestion that the 'master formula' which DxO uses may be modified under some conditions further supports the claim that DxO's scoring is biased. Yeah, that sounds like good science. NOT. 

As for your 'independent reproduction,' I clicked your first link but to be honest, I stopped reading after, "_For some obscure reason - sunspots or moon phase or other strangeness - photons are behaving better today, and I achieved higher FWC results for my D3's than I have before._" Sorry, but independent verification of poor pseudoscience with worse pseudoscience is even less valid than two wrongs making a right.


----------



## horshack (Jul 28, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> horshack said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...


You can read about the methodology of their scores here:
http://www.dxomark.com/About/Sensor-scores

And I describe in detail their low-light score, the score which typically produces the most Canon vs Nikon controversy in online debates:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/41265241



neuroanatomist said:


> As for your 'independent reproduction,' I clicked your first link but to be honest, I stopped reading after, "_For some obscure reason - sunspots or moon phase or other strangeness - photons are behaving better today, and I achieved higher FWC results for my D3's than I have before._" Sorry, but independent verification of poor pseudoscience with worse pseudoscience is even less valid than two wrongs making a right.


She wrote that as tongue 'n cheek, and it actually represents a sign of humility and willingness to be open to contrary points of view, signs of a good engineer/scientist. As for her credentials, if you follow her posts on dpreview you'll see she one of the most informed technical minds for camera sensor info. To cite a specific example, she reverse-engineered Nikon's long-exposure noise algorithm, identified serious problems with it, devised a much improved alternate algorithm which was relayed to Nikon by Thom Hogan and then later adopted by Nikon in subsequent camera designs.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 28, 2014)

horshack said:


> You can read about the methodology of their scores here:
> http://www.dxomark.com/About/Sensor-scores


One of the tenets of scientific research is that you publish your methods in sufficient detail that someone knowledgable in the field can repeat your experiments and derive equivalent results. Sorry, on the page you linked or elsewhere on their site, I cannot find where they state the formula used to calculate their scores. If that is an oversight on my part, can you please link to where they publish that part of their methods? If not, my claim of their "Image Science" being poor pseudoscience remains valid. 



horshack said:


> She wrote that as tongue 'n cheek, and it actually represents a sign of humility and willingness to be open to contrary points of view, signs of a good engineer/scientist.


So your contention is that to paraphrase her post, 'I cannot get consistent absolute measurements from one day to the next, so I'll present relative data instead,' is the sign of a good scientist/engineer? Sorry, but I develop and validate assays for a living, and absolute data with significant inter-run or inter-day variability means a poor assay that needs to be corrected appropriately, if possible (and if not, an alternate assay must be developed).

What I _am_ getting from your posts is a better idea of why your 'dot tune' method doesn't stand the test of independent validation, at least in my hands.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 28, 2014)

horshack said:


> You can read about the methodology of their scores here:
> http://www.dxomark.com/About/Sensor-scores



I'm sorry, could you point out where the formula is given? I see a few hints about what's considered important, but not the actual formula for the score. All I was able to find was this:



> How is Sensor Overall Score measured?The Sensor Overall Score is an average of the Portrait Score based on color depth, the Landscape Score based on dynamic range, and the Sports Score based on low-light ISO.




It says "an average:" presumably that's a weighted average, but they don't give the weightings.

Thanks.


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## bdunbar79 (Jul 28, 2014)

<She wrote that as tongue 'n cheek, and it actually represents a sign of humility and willingness to be open to contrary points of view, signs of a good engineer/scientist. As for her credentials, if you follow her posts on dpreview you'll see she one of the most informed technical minds for camera sensor info. To cite a specific example, she reverse-engineered Nikon's long-exposure noise algorithm, identified serious problems with it, devised a much improved alternate algorithm which was relayed to Nikon by Thom Hogan and then later adopted by Nikon in subsequent camera designs.>

Right. Scientific GARBAGE. There are many scientists on this forum, myself included. This doesn't count, sorry. In science you don't get to "tongue 'n cheek" or get it right the majority of the time. Either you do good science that's meaningful or you don't. DxO mark does NOT. We've all read that link and they do NOT disclose how scores are done/derived from the measurements. 

Besides, DxO mark isn't relevant. Despite them scoring Nikon/Sony higher and higher against Canon product head to head, Canon still went from a 4% market share lead 4 years ago to a now 20% market share lead. Nobody cares or nobody believes because of just that: The garbage "science" they are doing.


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## Don Haines (Jul 28, 2014)

"For some obscure reason - sunspots or moon phase or other strangeness - photons are behaving better today, and I achieved higher FWC results for my D3's than I have before." 

Translation: "The results are inconsistent and I don't know why"

and that is supposed to give me confidence?????


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## horshack (Jul 28, 2014)

The margin of error in her D3s measurements were very small; she included them for completeness, and was open about not understanding their source. The variance was small enough to be immaterial to the results.

As for the exact formula DxO uses for their composite scores, I have not seen them published. If you look at the scores for a cross-section of cameras and then relate them to the individual data points DxO publishes (SNR, DR, color selectivity), you can get a general idea of their weighting, but yes, the precise formula is not published. If it were I imagine we would instead be discussing how the weighting unfairly favors one camera over another, which is the natural consequence of any subjective composite score, and why DxO publishes the individual data points for those wanting to look behind the curtain.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 28, 2014)

horshack said:


> The margin of error in her D3s measurements were very small; she included them for completeness, and was open about not understanding their source. The variance was small enough to be immaterial to the results.



Sorry, but your statement does not align well with hers:

_I re-tested both of my D3 bodies, plus the new D3s, for this - just to make sure I produced a valid comparison. For some obscure reason - sunspots or moon phase or other strangeness - photons are behaving better today, and I achieved higher FWC results for my D3's than I have before. Because of this discrepancy, I am only going to report relative performance between the D3s and D3, instead of giving absolute measurements._

She states the discrepancy was significant enough that she would not report the absolute values. If the source of the discrepancy could not be identified, it cannot be assumed to be a systematic error, i.e. one which would affect the measurements of the new D3s with similar magnitude and direction as it would the old D3 bodies. 

Inconsistent data, flawed assumptions...bad science. 




horshack said:


> As for the exact formula DxO uses for their composite scores...yes, the precise formula is not published.



'Black box' methods...bad science. 

I think we're done here.


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## horshack (Jul 28, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> horshack said:
> 
> 
> > The margin of error in her D3s measurements were very small; she included them for completeness, and was open about not understanding their source. The variance was small enough to be immaterial to the results.
> ...



She has a high standard for what she publishes. Her relative D3s vs D3 results still match DxO's results, and her absolute results are very close as well.



neuroanatomist said:


> 'Black box' methods...bad science.
> 
> I think we're done here.



Seems we couldn't come to an agreement but I appreciate the discussion.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 28, 2014)

Admittedly, informational posts for an internet audience don't really need to be held to the rigorous standard of peer-reviewed scientific publication (not to mention that many things that _are_ published in scientific journals turn out to not be independently reproducible). 



horshack said:


> Seems we couldn't come to an agreement but I appreciate the discussion.



As do I...thanks!


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## Joe M (Jul 28, 2014)

Does any subject get people going like DxO scores? I'm sure they are smarter than I when it comes to doing whatever they do but personally I don't pay much attention to it when buying my gear. Are there really people who buy stuff according to their tests? Well, if it works for you I guess that's great. We all like to see our stuff quantified in some way. It's up to the individual in how much faith you put in the tester or reviewer. 
Oh, and in response to the original post....I expect DxO will just create a new scale. Just like one of my least favourite lines in movies when they are exaggerating an event..."it's off the scale". Who says they have to stop at 100? Meh


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 28, 2014)

dilbert said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



I don't have to wonder, I know what I wrote, what you wrote, and when. You obviously do not. You didn't ask _first_, you asked _after_ I had already indicated that I don't believe is DxO is in collusion with Nikon (although it certainly is a possiblity, just a remote one). 

Let me repeat, you need to learn how to comprehend what you read. I'm done replying to your inane comments in this thread.


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## 3kramd5 (Jul 28, 2014)

dilbert said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Why would you want someone to explain how something is true that he has clearly stated above (I am not privy to whatever history you two have) he believes to be untrue?

Playing Devil's Advocate is a useful tool in learning formal debate, but what exactly are you looking for in this discussion? To improve Neuroanatomist's debate prowess? 

In case you haven't noticed, the bit you are asking him to explain "how DxO is accomodating..." wasn't an allegation, it was a possible explanation.



> "What can you come up with, besides 'Canon didn't permit it' (which I have already suggested as the most likely possibility), DxO is accommodating one or more of the clients more important to them (e.g., they are 'joined at the hip with Nikon', which you have been arguing against), or DxO are makes foolish business decisions?"



Those are one person's ideas to explain the lack of a logo on a website; they are not presented as certain. Further, as stated, he doesn't even think the "joined at the hip" part is the most likely reason. He thinks Canon didn't permit it. I tend to agree. One possible reason for that possible reason is that Canon doesn't like how its products stand up on the scoring metric, and thus aren't willing to imply approval by permitting their logo. I hope you don't ask for evidence of a possible reason for a possible reason.


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## zlatko (Jul 28, 2014)

dilbert said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > ....
> ...



Do you agree with DxOMark _lens_ scoring, which currently ranks the EF 35/2 IS and the EF 100/2 above all other lenses made by Canon? If so, why? If not, why not? Either way, how is DxO's scoring of these two lenses as the highest among all Canon EF lenses relevant to photographers? Do these two lenses truly deserve higher scores than any L lens or any other Canon EF lens? 

On the 1DsIII, DxOMark scores for these lenses are:
100/2 = 30
35/2 IS = 29
85/1.2L II = 28
24/1.4L II = 28
300/2.8 II = 28
400/2.8 II = 27
35/1.4L = 27
85/1.8 = 26
100/2.8L = 26
200/2.8L II = 24
180/3.5L = 19


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## Sporgon (Jul 28, 2014)

zlatko said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > unfocused said:
> ...



If anyone can pull out historical web pages from DxO mark you will find that at one time they had the 85/1.8 as the highest rated Canon lens. 

Now I am an 85/1.8 fan, but really ...... 

???


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## msm (Jul 28, 2014)

Seeing how much energy people here spend on DXO, it seems their ratings serves their purpose very well


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## Sporgon (Jul 28, 2014)

msm said:


> Seeing how much energy people here spend on DXO, it seems their ratings serves their purpose very well



I think that in many cases it is generated by frustration from those who find DxO's software really excellent, and it's hard to believe the same organisation can produce such drivel in it's performance 'scores'.


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## 3kramd5 (Jul 29, 2014)

dilbert said:


> 3kramd5 said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



"What can you come up with other than...?" doesn't serve as a sufficient qualifier? You honestly read one of several possibilities presented in the context of a question as a statement of fact?


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## Keith_Reeder (Jul 29, 2014)

dilbert said:


> jrista and neuro obviously care a lot because they go to great lengths to shout down DxO's results.



No they don't - they go to great lengths to shout down your obsession with the scores as "proof" that nothing else matters.


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## Don Haines (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I'm a long time reader, first time poster, but I have to address Neuro here.
> 
> I had the Canon D60, the D400, the 5D Mk1, 2, and the 3 for about 2 months till I decided that it was a huge disappointment after waiting 3 years for the successor to the wonderful Mk2.
> 
> ...


Well said!
Welcome to Canon Rumours.

BTW, as a user of multiple brands, I have been telling people for years when they ask about cameras to think of how/what/where they will use the camera before they look at specific brands or models... and to look at the whole package of camera/lens/flash/accessories. For me, the general rule of thumb for cameras is if you shoot action, go for Canon..... if you shoot studio or landscape, go for Nikon.... and if portability counts above all else, go Panasonic/Olympus/Sony... I think that Nikon has the best sensors and that Canon has the best AF.... People have to choose the camera that best meets their needs and to take other people's opinions with a grain of salt.

If there was such a thing as "the best camera", the maker would have the market cornered....


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## candyman (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> ...........
> http://www.deanagar.com.au/tag/landscape-photography-brisbane-gold-coast-new-zealand/
> ............




You made some magnificent photos. Just wonderful!


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## Keith_Reeder (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> But lets not deny reality.



Nice pics - but I bet that I'm not alone in thinking: "Hmmm... And he couldn't do that with a Canon camera?" And I mean in one shot, without multiple exposure HDR, or multiple Raw conversions.

There's nothing about those images that's beyond the ability of Canon: and that's the issue with all of this. Yeah, I imagine that it might be a little bit easier to get there with a current Nikon, but if you're honestly trying to persuade anyone that _only_ Nikon cameras can do this, I'm going to tell you you're just plain wrong.

As has been said a million times already: despite the obsessive ranting of some about it on here and elsewhere, in reality the Nikony low ISO DR advantage is a marginal, somewhat niche advantage, and one which can - for the most part - easily be worked around.


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## Sunnystate (Jul 29, 2014)

Very well said!

Being so articulate (that I never could, due to my language barrier), open about identity and professional credits, it really makes me sad that you have to be so apologetic just for trying to issue honest and polite critique of someone, is like you trying to critique a sensitive boss or teacher. 
How many times did you said how smart Neuro is? 
All that only shows the state of the affairs here on this site. 
I was warned so many times for trying to say something that is just not with the current of this site that I have lost count, and I have just eighty something posts so far (few were deleted). 
I think that anybody able to think clearly will agree with me that so called blind brand loyalty is in the end rather proof of poor ability to experience and perceive the world. 
Anyway maybe it is better to obsessed about sensors superiority, and trying to figure out how to discredit "enemies" like DXO, than to do other things, like obsessing about people in personal life or coworkers. 
Thank you for voicing your opinions!



zigzagzoe said:


> I'm a long time reader, first time poster, but I have to address Neuro here.
> 
> I had the Canon D60, the D400, the 5D Mk1, 2, and the 3 for about 2 months till I decided that it was a huge disappointment after waiting 3 years for the successor to the wonderful Mk2.
> 
> ...


----------



## Sporgon (Jul 29, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Keith_Reeder said:
> 
> 
> > Nice pics - but I bet that I'm not alone in thinking: "Hmmm... And he couldn't do that with a Canon camera?" And I mean in one shot, without multiple exposure HDR, or multiple Raw conversions.
> ...



No it doesn't. When done competently it delivers much better results. 

zigzagzoe's landscape pictures are flat as a result of under exposing and then lifting the majority of the data. In my opinion the lift has been over done anyway as they do have a cartoon 'HDR' look to them, but that is just personal taste, and he may want them like that. Indeed if this is your 'look' you are better of with Exmor as it requires unrealistic lifting of shadow areas. 

However in my opinion the landscape pictures are technically wholly inferior to the social photography that he has on his website which is highly competent. 

I agree with Keith_Reeder; Canon is quite capable of shooting that scene in one frame. In fact even the 2005 5D could do it, never mind the likes of the 5DIII and 6D.


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## msm (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> The darkest area of the RAW is 36, 36, 33. There is no shadow under 7% in the RAW.



Agree with much of what you say, but your landscapes are not high DR scenes which Canon would have any problem with shooting in a single exposure and this quote just confirms that. It is when pushing deep shadows Canon would struggle and your landscapes don't have them. You have increased contrasts dramatically, which like you say some like others don't, but Canon raws handle that just as well.


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## Orangutan (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I went to the D800 and spent 12 grand switching, and I never looked back. Crop modes, clean shadows and highlights and DR were the main attractions.
> 
> Images from my D800 look like drum scans from MF/LF film, and that's the first time I'd seen a digital camera hit that goal.



I'll let Neuro defend himself, he's usually pretty good at that, but I have a few comments.

I don't think anyone disputes that the D800 sensor is better at base ISO. That advantage disappears at the higher ISOs. If you only need base ISO then the D800 might help you.

Your entire post is from personal experience: religious wars have been fought over personal experience, with each side being certain it was right. As the saying goes "a pile of _anecdotes_ do not constitute _data_." Personal experiences may make you feel good about your purchase, but do not provide objective evidence.

How many photos have you missed due to poor focus?

Depending on time of day, I believe my 60D could have made those photos you linked. (but that's just opinion, not proven fact)

I'm glad you're happy with your Nikon kit: in the end, that's all that matters. I doesn't prove anything objectively.

Keep making images you enjoy.


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## Don Haines (Jul 29, 2014)

You realize this argument will be pointless when the 7D2 comes out with the 120Mpixel sensor, ISO 204,800, and 18 stops of dynamic range....


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## Orangutan (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> "That advantage disappears at the higher ISOs"
> 
> That's a myth, and I'm not sure where it started.


Can you cite sources, or is this your personal opinion?



> The Mk3 to me always had this 'painterly' look at 800 and beyond. That's the best word I can think of.


Again, not objective. Personal impressions are not authoritative.



> Web tests expose both cams the same, and that's stupid. If one cam holds on to it's shadows so much better, you can expose differently in the real world.


How would one objectively determine the proper exposure for each sensor?



> It's not something you can be told, it's something you have to see for yourself.


This is 100% unpersuasive to me, as are nearly all appeals to personal experience. If it can't be demonstrated in double-blind experiments, there's no reason to be believe it's real.



> After all, there is nothing that replaces using two types of tools yourself and pushing them to the limit.


Except reproducible double-blind experiments.

As an example of how "experts" can be fooled: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/

These types of experiments have been replicated many times, and the summary is that you can't trust your own perceptions. Show me objective tests, or you've shown me nothing.


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## Joe M (Jul 29, 2014)

Quote from Orangutan.....
(Except reproducible double-blind experiments.

As an example of how "experts" can be fooled: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/

These types of experiments have been replicated many times, and the summary is that you can't trust your own perceptions. Show me objective tests, or you've shown me nothing.)

------
Exactly. Sometimes people believe what they want to believe. Your expectations shape reality. Hence the quest to find some definitive source that can tell them what really is good and what's junk. The problem then lies in whether or not you truly trust the source of this information.


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## 3kramd5 (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > You realize this argument will be pointless when the 7D2 comes out with the 120Mpixel sensor, ISO 204,800, and 18 stops of dynamic range....
> ...


24 bit ADCs and RAW files .

The D800 is nice. That would be difficult to deny. If i felt like incurring the expense of a system change, I'd likely look towards the d600 first, until Nikon's lens infrastructure catches up with the sensors. Granted, any increase in detail is a good thing, but when on average across the lens lineup (per DXO) the 23MP 5D outresolves the 36MP d800, it makes me wonder about the efficacy of changing systems at this point.


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## scyrene (Jul 29, 2014)

I've no doubt that the D800 and D810 are good for landscape work - having all those extra megapixels, and I don't think anyone here disputes that Nikon is better at base ISO (I only know this from reading this forum). They may well be the best full frame cameras for this purpose, I don't know (I don't do much landscape work).

But to claim Canon is bad at ISO 100 is hyperbole. And to claim the 5D3 is 'painterly' at ISO 800 (or just over) is... perplexing. It's a subjective term of course. But the raw files look good much higher than that - depending on what and how you shoot. I find bird photos can look okay up to ISO 6400-8000 - using the technique of slightly overexposing and then reducing the brightness later (to reduce shadow noise) - and I'm very happy with results at ISO 3200.

As for the shots linked to, I loved the second one, but the one with the jetty was... not to my taste. That's fine, it's stylistic, and I'm happy with people who love their gear. But to trash other people's choices based on that opinion is unwise. After all, if the D800 was so obviously superior, why did it not sell so well (again, something I've seen repeated here often).


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## unfocused (Jul 29, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> Except reproducible double-blind experiments.
> 
> As an example of how "experts" can be fooled: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/
> 
> These types of experiments have been replicated many times, and the summary is that you can't trust your own perceptions. Show me objective tests, or you've shown me nothing.





Joe M said:


> Exactly. Sometimes people believe what they want to believe. Your expectations shape reality. Hence the quest to find some definitive source that can tell them what really is good and what's junk. The problem then lies in whether or not you truly trust the source of this information.



Yes, almost all the threads on this forum are filled with endless examples of confirmation bias. 

If I spent $12,000 switching camera systems, I would swear on a stack of bibles that I could see a difference in the results. And, I would really believe I could. 

Neuro used to argue incessantly that there was no discernible difference between APS-C and Full-Frame. Then be bought a 1D-X and now he argues the exact opposite. It's not hypocrisy. It's not enlightenment. It's just that everyone sees what they want to see. 

There's another thread started here referencing a Zach Arias rant on APS-C vs. Full Frame. Amusing, but makes valid points about how little difference there is between the two format sizes http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=21991.msg418802#msg418802 yet the response that really struck me was that this was just a "Fujifilm commercial."

Point being we all selectively hear and see what we want. 

This forum works and generates the traffic that it does because the selective use of facts, confirmation biases, pseudo-scientific testing, etc. etc. that everyone likes to quote or argue about is never truly objective and never completely accurate, so the arguments can just go on and on forever.


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## Don Haines (Jul 29, 2014)

scyrene said:


> I've no doubt that the D800 and D810 are good for landscape work - having all those extra megapixels, and I don't think anyone here disputes that Nikon is better at base ISO (I only know this from reading this forum). They may well be the best full frame cameras for this purpose, I don't know (I don't do much landscape work).
> 
> But to claim Canon is bad at ISO 100 is hyperbole. And to claim the 5D3 is 'painterly' at ISO 800 (or just over) is... perplexing. It's a subjective term of course. But the raw files look good much higher than that - depending on what and how you shoot. I find bird photos can look okay up to ISO 6400-8000 - using the technique of slightly overexposing and then reducing the brightness later (to reduce shadow noise) - and I'm very happy with results at ISO 3200.


Exactly!
Whatever you go for now is way better than just a few years ago... Anyone want to buy my Olympus E-300? ISO 400 was as high as you would shoot at, 800 was tearful, and now a GoPro takes better quality stills.....

I am currently shooting with a 60D... ANY Canon/Nikon/Sony/Panasonic/Olympus DSLR or mirrorless out now beats it for IQ, yet somehow I keep getting great pictures with it......


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## Aglet (Jul 29, 2014)

@zigzagzoe
Thanks for your posts.

There's a few of us here who will heartily agree with most of what you said. I was a Canon fan until the superior raw files from a $400 Nikon consumer body blew my 5D2 into the weeds! Well, at that time I was already a Canon fan in decline and searching for better options as I'd realized the 5D2, so hyped by fanboys, was a bit of a turd with very noisy low ISO raw files and a tendency to underexpose; or at least the one I had was.

Your example of the model, whose arm was in deep shadow, and looking like it has a bad rash because of the read noise, is a good one.
When pushing the limits, sure, there are plenty of "work-arounds" to make Canon cameras able to produce the desired shot. People doing that seem to be forgetting they're compensating for under-performing hardware! Poor hardware IS a good way to improve your skills as a photographer, as you have to be extra creative to overcome the limitations of your tools. Reduce the limitations placed on your shooting by those under-performing (Canon) tools and you're now free to benefit from a range of other advantages like less setup time, less time in post, more freedom and flexibility in lighting and exposure, etc.

Ardent fanboys will continue to argue that technique matters more. It sure does, especially when you chose to use gear with more limitations for certain kinds of shots.

As for the lens argument some make, sure, Canon has some excellent lenses. But there's also plenty of good glass for Nikon and no matter how bad the Nikon lens may be, it still doesn't change the read noise issue.

My D800/e are my favorite bodies for my kind of shooting yet and I only wish I would have not been so prejudiced in the past so I could have benefitted from using the advantages of other camera brands much earlier. I haven't purchased a new Canon camera for years now. But I have purchased Nikon, Pentax, Fuji and Olympus and have enjoyed the benefits they all bring while none of them are as limited by FPN and read-noise issues as Canon. 
Despite the sales and marketing success, Canon is now the underdog, and I actually hope they can perform some sort of a comeback miracle; it might give me one more tool to use.

EDIT: BTW, I would not be surprised if Nero isn't already pondering and composing an acrid response to your posts.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I'm a long time reader, first time poster, but I have to address Neuro here.



Welcome to the Forums. I have to say, I find your characterization of me to be rather rude and offensive. You are, of course, welcome to your own opinion...but it's unfortunate that your opinion is apparently based on comments by the likes of dilbert, rather than my own posts. 

Can you find a post where I claim that Canon sensors deliver better low ISO dynamic range than Nikon/Sony sensors? No, because the opposite is true, as I've stated more times than I can count. I've also lost count of the times I've stated that if I were primarily a landscape shooter, I'd be using a D800E and 14-24/2.8G.

The issue at hand is that for you, like most people, everything is colored by your personal viewpoint and experience. For example, I say DxO's Scores are biased, but you say they back up your experience. Given your statement, "I am not a high ISO shooter," perhaps you don't see the bias inherent in their Scores...because that bias favors _your_ shooting needs. How is that 'open minded'? 



zigzagzoe said:


> ...but please, can we have some debate that actually understands what DR is...



Ok, but you'll have to excuse yourself from that debate. When you make statements like, "_With over 14 stops at 100 ISO (14.8 at 32ISO on the D810 it would appear),_" you demonstrate that your understanding of the relevant technical issues is quite poor. The D810 has a 14-bit ADC, it is not capable of recording over 14-stops of DR in a RAW image. DxO's 'Landscape Score' of 14.8-stops of DR results from a mathematical simulation of downsampling that 36 MP image to 8 MP. If you go out and meter a scene that shows a 15-stop difference from darkest to brightest, and take one image with your D810, you'll lose 1.25-stops of some combination of shadows/highlights, depending on your exposure. That's at low ISO...once you get above ISO 800, the D800/810 DR advantage evaporates. 

I don't believe in the concept of "pure IQ" – I believe in taking pictures. A better sensor coupled with a worse lens does not make for a better picture. A sensor with 20-stops of DR coupled to a 600mm f/4 lens that I cannot handhold would not adequately meet _my_ needs. 

Everyone's needs are different. Aglet needs to shoot images (sometimes with the lens cap on) and push the files 4-5 stops in post. It's rare that I need to push an image more than 1 stop, and I don't think I've ever needed to push an image more than 2-3 stops (in those rare cases when I completely screw up the exposure). 

The problem I have is when people assume their needs represent the needs of the majority, and what they find to be a limitation is universally applicable. 

If the D800/810 meet your needs better than your Canon gear did, then switching was the right decision and good for you. You didn't like the 5DIII? That's fine. 

The D800/810 sensors have better low ISO DR than any Canon sensor. But...people don't buy bare silicon sensors, they buy *cameras*. I believe the 5DIII is a better 'all around' camera, and the sales figures are consistent with that belief. More people chose to buy 5DIII's than D800/E's, just as more people have chosen Canon dSLRs over Nikon dSLRs for at least the past 10 years. That's objective reality. Does it mean Canon is 'better'? No...only that Canon is chosen by more people to better meet their needs.


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## scyrene (Jul 29, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> With over 14 stops at 100 ISO (14.8 at 32ISO on the D810 it would appear),[/i]" you demonstrate that your understanding of the relevant technical issues is quite poor. The D810 has a 14-bit ADC, it is not capable of recording over 14-stops of DR in a RAW image. DxO's 'Landscape Score' of 14.8-stops of DR results from a mathematical simulation of downsampling that 36 MP image to 8 MP. If you go out and meter a scene that shows a 15-stop difference from darkest to brightest, and take one image with your D810, you'll lose 1.25-stops of some combination of shadows/highlights, depending on your exposure. That's at low ISO...once you get above ISO 800, the D800/810 DR advantage evaporates.



I nearly mentioned this, because I thought I'd heard it before, but I'm not confident enough to talk about these things. I'm glad you did  As you say, it's a system that matters, not one element.

It's funny how the people accusing folk of being 'fanboys' are the ones making the most extreme sweeping statements like Canon's offerings are 'blown away' by competitors. It's not as if we're even talking about fundamental differences - just fairly minor incremental improvements.


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## Haydn1971 (Jul 29, 2014)

Hmm, I smell a troll ;-)


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## Don Haines (Jul 29, 2014)

There are two things that we can't forget. The first is that technology marches on. The steps are not even... sometimes there are incremental improvements that are almost indistinguishable from what came before, sometimes they go in leaps. The Nikon/Sony sensors took a jump ahead in quality a few years ago... now they are the hot ticket. In comparison, Canon has had several years of tiny incremental improvements and are long overdue for a jump. That Jump may very well be the 7D2 with DPAF, on sensor A/D, finer lithography, etc etc... They know what they have to do to jump ahead and they are not idiots.... it will be done at some point and then Canon fanboys will be able to rightfully sneer at Nikon fanboys. And I expect that in another few years it will be Nikon jumping back into the lead.... and then Canon.... and then Nikon.... and so on....

The second thing you can't forget is that a camera is more than the sensor. While Nikon has been fixated on it's sensors, Canon has been fixated on it's focusing system. The end result is that the AF system on Canons is far more capable than on Nikons.... The people at Nikon are not idiots... you can bet that they are working on ways to counter this and that the next few rounds of their cameras will have better and better AF systems.

and getting back to the main topic, DXO...
DXO ratings are biased. period. The camera ratings are biased towards DR. The lens ratings are biased towards T-stops. I doubt that anyone would argue that no such bias exists because it is prominently shown in their numbers. Is it a pro-Nikon bias or an anti-Canon bias? Odds are no, the bias is there because that's what the people who came up with the rating scheme believe in... It is very easy to look at things and believe great conspiracy theories, but it is far more likely that things are the way they are because that is the easiest way to do things.

We all have different likes and different needs and there are various genres of photography. A simple rating scheme ending up with a magic number is not a good solution.... but it is an easy solution. A far better solution would be for the user to be able to enter in weights for the various parameters to reflect their needs... but this solution is far more complicated to set up and has even greater potential to give poor results unless the user has a solid grasp of the subject..... in which case, they don't need that rating number anyway.


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## Sporgon (Jul 29, 2014)

Haydn1971 said:


> Hmm, I smell a troll ;-)



I think you smell someone who blew £19,000 changing and is determined to believe it was worth it. 

I'm a low ISO shooter. I tried the D800 some time ago and I'm about to get my hands on a D810. I can't speak for the D810 but with the D800 there is simply not the 'night and day' difference that these people refer to.


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## Haydn1971 (Jul 29, 2014)

I honestly can't get my head around why anyone would chuck in a full kit of either Canon or Nikon to swap to the other, the gains to be had are just not worth the hassle.... Sure if you've a camera and a kit lens, swap away, but I'd need my head seeing to if I sold up and moved wholesale to Nikon, Fuji, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, Samsung or other.

Both Canon and Nikon are great camera ranges, with great bodies and lenses, just a few differences that balance each other out, really, get a grip !


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## Orangutan (Jul 29, 2014)

Haydn1971 said:


> I honestly can't get my head around why anyone would chuck in a full kit of either Canon or Nikon to swap to the other, the gains to be had are just not worth the hassle.... Sure if you've a camera and a kit lens, swap away, but I'd need my head seeing to if I sold up and moved wholesale to Nikon, Fuji, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, Samsung or other.
> 
> Both Canon and Nikon are great camera ranges, with great bodies and lenses, just a few differences that balance each other out, really, get a grip !



Chasing shiny things -- the same reason people dump solid employment for marginally more promising employment, or change spouses once the "magic" is gone (i.e. after hormones have diminished) 

At least changing your kit is just money, though more than I'd want to spend.


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## unfocused (Jul 29, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Haydn1971 said:
> 
> 
> > Hmm, I smell a troll ;-)
> ...





Haydn1971 said:


> I honestly can't get my head around why anyone would chuck in a full kit of either Canon or Nikon to swap to the other, the gains to be had are just not worth the hassle...



If they wanted to sponsor me, I'd switch. 

Seriously though, I absolutely agree. And, while I'm convinced that the refresh rates of DSLRs will be extended with maturing technology, they are still not exactly long-term investments. So switch today and then when the next model comes out, what? Switch back?

When the Canon 5DIII came out with its high ISO performance, I could understand wedding photographers who live in low light and cutthroat competition switching because every little advantage is important. And, I suppose the five or six people who actually can earn a living shooting large scale landscapes might want to move to Nikon, but for most people, I just don't get it.



Orangutan said:


> Chasing shiny things -- the same reason people...change spouses once the "magic" is gone (i.e. after hormones have diminished)
> 
> At least changing your kit is just money, though more than I'd want to spend.



I've changed spouses twice in my life (once my choice, once her choice). Talk about money...

I'm hanging on to the current one...third one the best ever and worth the wait. Besides, I don't imagine I have that many years left anyway.


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## edknuff (Jul 29, 2014)

Personally, I'd love to have the Nikon D810, but only if I could put my Canon glass on it!
Nikon doesn't make the high quality glass that I need, for the lenses that I use. For example: Canon TSE 24mm mark2.


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## Orangutan (Jul 29, 2014)

edknuff said:


> Personally, I'd love to have the Nikon D810, but only if I could put my Canon glass on it!
> Nikon doesn't make the high quality glass that I need, for the lenses that I use. For example: Canon TSE 24mm mark2.



I'll take this opportunity to trot out one of my favorite photo wishes: an industry-standard SLR mount so we can freely interchange cameras and lenses across manufacturers.

Ain't gonna happen in the U.S. Hey, EU! We need your regulatory assistance here! 8)


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## Sporgon (Jul 29, 2014)

unfocused said:


> And, I suppose the five or six people who actually can earn a living shooting large scale landscapes might want to move to Nikon



You're right about five or six people compared with wedding photographers, maybe less, but one of those is a British guy called Colin Prior. He is one of the world's best known landscape photographers and has shot primarily on LF film with same MF film for more inaccessible places. However in mid 2013 he began using digital - FF - and Canon at that, 1Dx and 5DIII. He is on record as saying the files from the 5DIII are the cleanest he's ever come across. So here you have a _real_ landscape photographer using a 5DIII.

As I said earlier, there just isn't the dramatic difference at low ISOs that these people like to believe.


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## Don Haines (Jul 29, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Haydn1971 said:
> 
> 
> > Hmm, I smell a troll ;-)
> ...



If I had £19,000, I could invest it at a rate of return that would allow me to buy 6 beers per day forever..... My photography wouldn't be any better, but I'd be too drunk to care


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## jrista (Jul 29, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I can’t give up clean shadows and over 14 stops at 100 ISO, even if my heart is really with Canon due to my history with them.



Only complaint I have, and the reason I persist in my critique of DXO, is the native RAW files actually have 13.2 stops of DR. The 14+ stops of DR _*ONLY *_occurs when you downsample your images to a very specific size: *8x12 @ 300ppi*. I believe that is a very _critical _point, as theoretically it is impossible to have more than 14 stops of dynamic range when using a RAW image that uses 14 bits per color channel. It's also critical that we always edit our RAW images at full size...otherwise, we wouldn't be editing RAW, we would be editing exported TIFF or JPEG images produced from RAW, and that amazing editing latitude would disappear into thin air.

You can downsample (or upsample) your images to any range of sizes, from 1x1 pixel to tens of thousands by tens of thousands of pixels. The dynamic range that each individual photographer may get from a D800 is completely arbitrary. Using the 8x12" print @ 300ppi ONLY has relevance when comparing cameras on DXO's site. Referencing the 14.2 stop number (or 14.8 stops in the case of the D810) outside of the context of DXO, such as you have (not to fault you, your post was great) here is actually invalid, and it's *THAT*, THAT very thing, that gives me persistent cause to call DXO out for producing misleading results: When _actually editing_ a RAW in a RAW editor like Lightroom, the dynamic range of the D800 files is 13.2 stops, no more. (Similarly, the dynamic range of Canon files is somewhere between 10 and 11 stops, so that doesn't give Canon any kind of benefit, the same issues apply to DXO's tests of Canon sensors...in reality, Canon users are still stuck in the realm of ~10.5 stops of dynamic range instead of ~13, so there IS a benefit to using a Sony Exmor sensor if you use low ISO a lot.)

When your in a tool like Lightroom, lifting shadows, then all you have is the 13.2 stops of the only real "measure" of dynamic range that DXO does: Screen DR (it's something you can select when browsing through DXO's results on their site.) 



zigzagzoe said:


> I want them to blow everyone out of the water and deliver a killer high MP, hi DR sensor and give me my well missed rate button back.
> 
> But life goes on, and Canon have a following that means they are still the number one as far as sales go due to their reputation from prior to 2012, and I guess that won’t change for 2-3 years yet, so they have time to get it right.
> 
> ...



*I couldn't agree more with all of this!*  While for someone like myself, who pretty much always shoots at ISO 400 or above for the vast majority of my photography (birds, wildlife, astrophotography), the difference between Canon cameras and any camera from the competition is negligible. If you always shoot at low ISO, there is no denying that Canon has noise problems, and anything that uses a Sony Exmor (which is now a fairly good number of cameras from a range of brands now) is going to produce superior low ISO results. Canon hasn't really, fundamentally changed their technology in...what...a decade plus? They have made evolutionary improvements every couple years...added microlenses, removed the gaps between microlenses, increased quantum efficiency (although recently, their improvements there have been less), and a few other things, fundamentally the core technology is the same: 500nm process, off-die, high frequency ADC, HIGH read noise. 

I do agree, if Canon doesn't do _something _to catch up to and compete with the competition, the high Canon is still riding will fade, then disappear, and then the bottom will fall out. Canon is the top camera manufacturer in the world...but pretty much every company that just sits and rides on their past success has ultimately failed (i.e. *Kodak! *They were THE film camera company of the masses for decades...where are they now? Do they even hold any more patents? They are a pitiful shadow of their former shadow, let alone of their former self.) I personally really do not want to see Canon go down that route. I LOVE Canon glass...I think their lenses are second to none in all but a very few cases (less than a handful.) I don't think I could do without Canon ergonomics (that whole package deal, the body shape and size, the button placement, options, and configurability), the menu system.) 

Nevertheless, I do photograph landscapes on occasion, and I would really love to have a better full frame camera with phenomenal dynamic range and resolution, along with some improved wide angle glass (a 14-24 would be nice, but I'd settle for a kick-ass 16-35mm f/2.8 III with excellent corner performance, as I've enjoyed my 16-35mm II.) I would love to be able to lift shadows and not have to apply extra work removing banding, crosshatch noise, and the sprinkle of salt and pepper noise that shows up in the really deep shadows of Canon sensors. (Although, it should be noted, it is possible to remove banding, and when Canon's banding noise is removed, the DR of their files increases considerably...maybe not the full 2.2-2.4 stops difference between a Canon file and the Nikon D800/600/810, but enough... The key difference is sometimes you have to take a shadow detail hit when denoising, which you don't have to do with a Nikon file). 

I am still a big fan of my Canon equipment, and I'll always be involved in the DXO debates (which is more what this whole thread is, a debate about the validity of many of DXO's results (which apply to ALL cameras tested by DXO, not just Nikon cameras...it's just that the skew is so much greater with Nikon cameras...14+ stops of editing latitude is impossible when the files are only 14-bit) and particularly their scoring, rather than a Canon vs. Nikon thing), *but I can't help but think I'll lose some faith in Canon's ability to compete* _if the 7D II and 5D IV hit the streets AGAIN with...not even eleven stops of dynamic range and their nasty banded read noise._ Canon needs to use some of the billions they make every year to bring their still image sensor technology into the 2010s (and out of the late 1990's).


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## unfocused (Jul 29, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > And, I suppose the five or six people who actually can earn a living shooting large scale landscapes might want to move to Nikon
> ...



Yeah, well, looking at your website, it's pretty obvious you're no slouch when it comes to landscape/scenics. Makes me think of one of my goals when I retire – contact some of the pros on this forum and ask to be a free assistant for a few weeks.


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## arcanej (Jul 30, 2014)

jrista,

If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to get a walk through of your post processing. You mentioned using DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight to boost the DR of your files. I'd love to get a a step-by-step look at what you do. Thank you!


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Well, I never intended it to be offensive...



In that case, let me say that you have a blind spot when it comes to sensor technology, and it's the kind of blind spot typical of a 16 year old high school student flunking out of physics. 

Hmmmm...not offensive at all, right?




zigzagzoe said:


> ...DXO scores seem to be on the money, not just with the D800, but with all the cameras I have personal experience.
> The GH4 scores mimic what I expected form using it for a few weeks before the score popped up.



Are you suggesting that everyone's usage pattern mimics yours? Speaking as someone who shoots a significant proportion of my images above ISO 1600, with a fair number above ISO 6400, I can tell you that DxO's Scores absolutely do not mimic the cameras with which I have personal experience. 

That doesn't particularly bother me, because I understand the general nature of the bias in their scores (even if I don't understand the specifics or the magnitude of that bias, because DxO does not disclose their formulae). But it's unfortunate that many people accept their scores as generally applicable, when that's far from the truth. It's even more unfortunate when people support them without knowing (or caring) that they are equally biased. 




zigzagzoe said:


> If there is any system justification going on, it is on this forum, where no matter what any other manufacturer does, Canon are still the best.
> 
> And few see that that's that's going on. It's not a forum, it's a fan club.



Well, it's *Canon* Rumors, after all...not Nikon or Sony or Photography Rumors. But still, I don't see that particular attitude very often here. What I do see are a handful of people who have decided (long ago or recently) that Canon is not the best system _for them_, and come here to convince others that means Canon is not the best system _for anyone_. Where is Nikon's PC-E 17mm? Why don't most Canon bodies (except the 1-series) allow spot metering linked to any AF point? Where is Nikon's handholdable 600mm f/4? Where is Canon's sensor with 13-stops of DR at base ISO? Where is Nikon's 1-5x super-macro lens? Where is Canon's sharp-to-the-corners f/2.8 ultrawide zoom? 

A system comprises many components. Having one part of one component (the sensor in a camera, in this case) that is better than the equivalent part in a competitor's system does not make the system using that part 'the best'. Individuals make decisions about what is best _for them_. As I stated previously, it's an objective fact that more people have decided Canon makes the system that best meets their needs, which is why Canon has been the dSLR market leader for >10 years, and remains so today.

People who argue that Canon 'is behind' and 'needs to catch up, or else,' as you are arguing, don't seem to grasp that simple, objective fact. Does that mean Canon can do nothing and remain on top? Probably not. But consider...Nikon chose to buy Sony sensors with better low ISO DR, an issue with which relatively few people have needs that aren't met by Canon's sensors. Canon chose to develop a groundbreaking new AF system for video/live view (a system subsequently incorporated into their Cinema line)...a system you praised. I think far more people will feel that an improved AF system adds to overall system performance more than improved low ISO DR.

Canon seems to be 'skating to where the puck will be,' whereas Nikon is playing catch up. For example, did you notice that Nikon is now using fluorite elements in their supertele lenses? When only Canon used it, Nikon said fluorite "easily cracks," but now fluorite's "superb anomalous dispersion properties...effectively correct chromatic aberration," and it allows "a more effective lens with less weight," (all of those are quotes from Nikon's lens glossary). I guess Canon knew what they were doing when they first started using fluorite elements in SLR lenses...*45 years ago* (in fairness, Nikon has used fluorite elements for many years in their microscope objective lenses, since fluorite transmits UV better than glass, an advantage for fluorescence microscopy).

Time will tell, of course, but for the past 10 years Canon has made the right choices to drive sales, and while they're predicting slight a loss this year, Nikon is predicting a substantially bigger loss.


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

arcanej said:


> jrista,
> 
> If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to get a walk through of your post processing. You mentioned using DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight to boost the DR of your files. I'd love to get a a step-by-step look at what you do. Thank you!



+1

I'd love to see it too!


----------



## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I guess many of the responses were to be expected



Just out of curiosity, did you read my reply to you? I did not see a response from you about it...just curious.



zigzagzoe said:


> Troll? Of course, anyone who has a different viewpoint is a troll.





zigzagzoe said:


> They are, and to get back on topic, DXO scores seem to be on the money, not just with the D800, but with all the cameras I have personal experience.



Well, I'm not here to call you a troll or make any kind of assumption that I know your reasons for switching, and whether you were pre- or post-biased or anything like that. You do, to me, seem as though you made a well educated decision, and if it improved the quality of your work, which it seems is also your living, then I'm happy for you. 

I do have to say that I disagree with this one point, though. I am not going to deny the DR advantage cameras built on Sony Exmor sensors have. The day I saw Fred Miranda's comparison review of the D800 and 5D III some years ago now, there was simply no denying it. I actually ran Fred's images from that review through all my denoise tools, and while I was able to recover some DR, it was at the cost of some detail particularly in the signs, and was never quite as much as the D800 had natively. 

The D800 has better IQ at low ISO, plain and simple. I don't think anyone really denies that, it's kind of hard to really ignore, even if you have a brand affinity. The reason for that is Sony Exmor sensors don't throw away useful information by injecting noise into the lower echelon's of the image signal. Canon's fundamental problem is that they DO inject a lot of noise into the lower echelons of the image signal. That costs Canon IQ that their sensors (according to Roger Clark) are capable of resolving in the first place (around 15.1 stops in the case of the 5D III, which has an FWC of 68900e-, minimum read noise of 2.05e-, which leaves us with (20 * log(68900/2.05)) / 6, or 15.088 stops of sensor dynamic range. Reference: http://clarkvision.com/articles/evaluation-canon-5diii/index.html. Note, Roger Clark actually made an error in his calculation of dynamic range, he claimed it was 14.7, however he mistakenly used 2.5e- as the minimum read noise, when in actuality it was listed as 2.05e-. Hence my different result of 15.1 stops.) 

The DR improvement aside, which is ultimately just opening up more bit space for usable, recoverable image data to go into, IN PRACTICE, I rarely see any major differences between landscape photos taken with the 5D III and the D800. There are a few cases where I've seen photos from the D800 that you could tell took full advantage of it's edge, but for the most part, similar kinds of landscape photos taken with different but similar cameras all ultimately have very little discernible differences in quality. Here is a random sampling off of the first 5 pages of a 500px search for "flower mountain":

http://500px.com/photo/56726642/eastern-fjords-by-boris-michali%C4%8Dek
http://500px.com/photo/39464968/spring-flowers-by-lazy-vlad
http://500px.com/photo/66442921/superstitious-twilight-by-peter-coskun
http://500px.com/photo/77534433/loowit-dreams-by-michael-bollino
http://500px.com/photo/75522371/stormy-friday-by-zsolt-kiss
http://500px.com/photo/47847750/louis%27-heaven-by-lijah-hanley
http://500px.com/photo/74066923/if-2-by-zsolt-kiss
http://500px.com/photo/75963645/miss-independent-by-rami-jabaji
http://500px.com/photo/52348676/cruel-summer-by-ryan-dyar


This sampling includes photos from the D700, D800/E, 6D, 5D III, 5D II, and even a 5D! They are all of fields of flowers in front of a mountain or some landscape. Aside from a couple images that looked overly compressed, I am hard pressed to know, just by looking at the image, which camera took which photo. Even if you start picking each image apart, if you did not have EXIF metadata telling you which camera created which photo...you could simply never tell, except in maybe the 5D case (that camera is REALLY dated now), and one photo that nicely captured the setting sun and clear detail in the foreground that I don't think would have been possible with any current Canon camera (but I still had to look at the image for a moment and think: "Wow, the sun isn't blown, and the foreground has colorful detail!"). 

That is generally the case, when I spend time on 500px looking at photography, while there are some rare cases of say a close up headshot portrait where you can really tell it was well lit and that the image had a ton of resolution, for the most part...I can't _see _DXO's _scores _being indicative of ANYTHING when it comes down to real-world photography. While I don't agree with Neuro's interpretation of your original post, and I think he misread it and took it the wrong way and ultimately responded poorly, I think that was kind of the kernel of his retort: DXO scores...*don't* really seem to be indicative of real-world photography. They may be somewhat indicative of _post-process editing latitude_, and in many cases having improved latitude is very possibly the most important factor for some percentage of photographers (I fully understand the "time spent on each photo" argument, especially coming from pros), but I don't think that image quality boils down to two additional stops and more resolution. I believe those are factors of IQ, two of a greedy handful, but in the end...at least, based on the photography I've personally seen when browsing around sites like 500px, 1x, Flickr, etc...*I think the tool simply compliments the photographer's skill* in the end. (And a better tool in the hands of a skilled photographer can, and probably will, produce better results, so the D800 in the hands of a skilled photographer can be put to more effective use than a 5D III in the hands of the same photographer.)

Just for kicks, here is a landscape photo taken with a 40D. In a blind test, I highly doubt anyone would have figured that the 40D was used to make this photo:

http://500px.com/photo/69401533/casteil-by-julien-delaval

There is actually quite a lot of DR here...from the bright sun in the upper right corner to the deep shadow detail in the foreground grass. 


In my search, I did come across ONE photo taken with a D800 that just made me go WOW, and I could tell tell it took full advantage of the increased DR:

http://500px.com/photo/46785278/mt-bromo-under-the-stars-by-elia-locardi

This photo is...just...wow. This kind of photo is what makes me want to get a D800, however I'm still, at least at the moment, holding out hope that Canon will release a competitor so I can stick with my preferred ergonomics and lenses (although I would like either a much improved 16-35 or a Nikon-quality 14-24).


----------



## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> arcanej said:
> 
> 
> > jrista,
> ...



Well, keep in mind, I usually use DSS and PixInsight for astrophotography. There is nothing DSS can do to improve your regular still photography, as it is explicitly designed to calibrate, register, and stack individual sub frames from an astro imaging sequence into a final "integrated" result. The primary cause of dynamic range improvement there is the calibration (the use of dark frames, bias frames, and flat frames to remove read noise and bias signal from the deep deep shadows of each individual light frame) and the stacking (which averages together dozens, even hundreds, of individual light frames to GREATLY reduce noise and actually increase the output resolution and detail.)

PixInsight can be used for normal photography, and some of it's tools might actually be good to run, lightly, on normal photography images. One of them would be TGVDenoise, which is absolutely phenomenal at eliminating (and I really do mean eliminating, not just reducing) high frequency noise. TGV has to be run carefully on astro images, as lower frequencies of noise are still usually present in astro images even after integration...but on a normal "terrestrial" photo, if used at the right setting, it could completely wipe out all high frequency (i.e. per-pixel) noise pretty handily. I haven't done much experimenting with that...I just poked around with a few bird photos that were taken at ISO 12800 to see what it could do, but I didn't put a lot of time into it. The vast majority of the time, I use PixInsight to reduce the noise of my astrophotography integrations, recover and enhance detail, then "stretch" them to do a kind of shadow lifting that would indeed put even the D810 to shame. 

As an example, I used PixInsight to turn this:







Into THIS:


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## Joe M (Jul 30, 2014)

jrista said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > arcanej said:
> ...


That is stunning!!! I never would have guessed that beautiful image was hiding in that dark mass. I suppose it also demonstrates that while a capable camera is a good starting point, good software helps too.


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## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> That's the kind of inconstant debating I'm referring to. Giving more weight to a small Canon advantage, and less weight to a larger Nikon advantage.



Could you post specific examples? I find Neuro unreasonable in other ways, but I've never noticed that fault.


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## arcanej (Jul 30, 2014)

That's stunning, jrista! Thank you!


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## privatebydesign (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> There is this constant hi iso issue. When i shoot on my D800 at 1600 ISO and then size that image to 22 meg, or 3000 pixels for an 8x12 print, it's the equal of my 5D Mk3, and superior to my 5D Mk2.
> 
> Would it matter if I shot at hi ISO's a lot anyway? The D800 lacks in hi iso DR to the Mk3 by maybe a quarter to half a stop max.
> 
> ...



You are doing what so many people do here, taking things out of context. Is a half stop DR advantage worth anything? Probably not, but if the camera with the high iso DR advantage also has a handholdable 600, which you need and are using, and it has better AF, which you also need and are using, only a fool would buy the camera system with the half stop worse DR, worse AF, and heavier lens. 

You need to keep context, for you the Sony sensor offers real advantages, for many it simply doesn't, for many people other system features are far more important. But nobody here that I have ever seen has questioned the DR advantage the Sony sensor has, just how useful it is in real world shooting for them when compared to other system advantages or disadvantages.

I have some respect for what you are saying, though think you went about it wrong, but that is up to you. As for your being a pro that clears $6,000 - $12,000 per week, I find that a bit of a stretch, I also wonder why you aren't shooting what pretty much every other $500,000 a year photographer is, medium format digital, it seems to me you'd get a far higher IQ increase going to Phase One or Hasselblad with their true 16 bit files, more MP, more DR, more everything, than pissing about with any 135 toys. Oh, and didn't you realise any trade in value for your Canon kit? Last time I knew a photographer who did a large system change from Canon to Nikon it cost him less than four thousand to get a very similar setup.


----------



## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> zigzagzoe said:
> 
> 
> > There is this constant hi iso issue. When i shoot on my D800 at 1600 ISO and then size that image to 22 meg, or 3000 pixels for an 8x12 print, it's the equal of my 5D Mk3, and superior to my 5D Mk2.
> ...



You nailed it! 8)


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## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > zigzagzoe said:
> ...



He was talking about at *high ISO,* _not low ISO_. At high ISO, from 800 onward, the difference in stops is at best half a stop, if even a quarter stop, in favor of any given brand. The advantage with an Exmor is only about two stops or a bit more _specifically _at ISO 100 (it's about a stop at ISO 100, less than a stop at ISO 400).


----------



## privatebydesign (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > zigzagzoe said:
> ...



So what do you do, take the f!!!!!g comment out of context, that has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen here!. 

If it takes you an hour to make an HDR you need to go on an Adobe course, even with a slow computer it takes 3-4 minutes to make a genuine 32 bit file with more than twice the DR of the Sony sensor in PS.


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## Sporgon (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> but for what MF could offer me, thee's little point in going that way.



but for what D800 could offer me, there's little point in going that way.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> I've given you respect here, aside from commenting that you seem to show a different attitude when discussing DXO and DR.
> 
> I complimented you repeatedly in my original post...



I've complimented DxO repeatedly for their Measurements, and I use their software for RAW conversions. I certainly do have a different attitude toward their Scores, which I find biased and misleading for the reasons I've already stated. 

My attitude toward DR is that low ISO DR is not the be-all-end-all aspect of IQ for most people. There are some individuals for whom it is, and they should choose cameras other than Canon. I do take issue when those individuals use that one aspect of IQ to bash Canon as a whole. That is as silly as it would be for me going to NikonRumors Forums and posting repeatedly that Nikon isn't a good system because they lack a handholdable 600/4.




zigzagzoe said:


> I may or may not get dragged into a further debate with you on the other issues you chose to invent from my posts, but at this moment, with a shoot imminent, I'm not leaning towards it, I have to say.



Go shoot. You're skilled at it, and it's more fun than debating. I am curious, though...how many of your clients notice a difference in your output between your sessions before vs. after you switched gear? 




zigzagzoe said:


> Ok Neuro (if that is your real name), let’s begin again.
> 
> My name is Dean, as zigzagzoe isn't actually a name, which I'm sure is a huge surprise to you
> 
> My shoot is over and my last post was a little short, both in content and manners, so take it with a pinch of salt.



I'm John, it's early morning in Boston and I've got a busy day ahead, so this will be short and to be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm a research scientist (as stated in my TDP profile link in my signature). I have extensive experience in optics, microscopy (including designing and building multiphoton microscopes) and in digital image analysis. 




zigzagzoe said:


> I don’t shoot in the dark, I don’t see the point, others can do that if they want, but 1600 is my practical limit. If you need 12800, then either get some lights, a faster lens, or better clients



Why do you assume needing ISO 12800 means it's dark? Your clients are slow, right? Flying birds are fast, even on cloudy winter days or at dawn/dusk, artificial light isn't optimal (and not feasible in many cases), I'm not aware of any 600mm lenses faster than f/4 (and certainly not ones that can be carried on a long hike through a marsh), and birds are great clients in that they never criticize your work, although admittedly they don't pay very well (at least here, maybe there's a burgeoning market for bird droppings in Oz  ).

ISO 12800 is also needed with my fast-moving kids in poorly lit gymnasiums. Flash isn't permitted, I'm often using an f/2 lens, and they're great clients because even though they _do_ criticize the work, they pay in smiles, hugs and joy which are worth far more than money.


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## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> My point is, and always has been, that the D800's IQ at 100 ISO kills anything Canon have, and it keeps up with Canon in many other regards, despite the massive resolution that should hinder it as the ISO increases.
> 
> All I was ever doing here was raising my concern that the big advantage of the D800 to a professional is dismissed here as if premium quality was of no use to anyone and that anyone who wanted that kind of quality was a freak and somehow limited in skill if they couldn't get the same results from a Canon.
> 
> ...



Hey, I think the discussion has become a lot more reasonable and that's good. But I have to point out (as a fairly disinterested party - i.e. decidedly NOT a fanboy) what I perceive to be a double standard here. From what most people are saying, the low ISO difference (in most situations) is not that big. So, it shouldn't 'kill' Canon files. On the other hand, you're saying that Nikon's lenses aren't that much worse - which is true (again, from what I've heard). So an unreasonable exaggeration anti-Canon and a reasonable assessment anti-anti-Nikon. You can see why some people might find that problematic?

[quote author=zigzagzoe]
12800 wasn't even a possibility not long ago, and in film, an impossibility, and now we have photographers with such a low skill level they require it simply to get their shot.

The skill of moving with the subject, a staple of F1 and other sports photographers for decades, has seemingly disappeared in the digital age if you want me to take you bird example seriously?
[/quote]

I can't speak on motorsports, but I can say that advancing technology has indeed allowed for shots of wildlife that could not have been taken before. Better autofocus, better high ISO, and lower weight super telephoto lenses amongst other things. We can take kit to more awkward places (because it weighs less), photograph subjects at dawn and dusk, under trees, or in very overcast conditions (because of better low light capability), etc. Not that great wildlife shots weren't taken in the past, but we are freer now. That's a good thing.

ISO 12800 is an extreme, but 6400 is fairly reasonable for, e.g. small birds in flight in the shade/on a cloudy day. I find it a useful technique to overexpose (without clipping the highlights) then pull the exposure down to reduce shadow noise - so the final shot may have the appearance of a 3200 exposure, but I need a useable 6400 to get there.

[quote author=zigzagzoe]
The BBC doesn't shoot their nature docos in HD at 12800, I'm pretty sure of that, as I have the blu rays and on my 65" TV they look mostly noise free 
[/quote]

Not a good comparison. First, the resolution at HD is 2MP - i.e. less than 1/10th the 5D3's sensor, let alone the D800. Downsizing to 2MP will reduce the appearance of noise. I bet some of the footage in low light is indeed at higher ISO. I doubt it would register on screen (even a massive HD tv) except with very high settings. Second, video is not the same as stills. For clean video (I am told), you want frame exposure times of 1/50-1/100 (for smooth motion). You can have motion blur in video frames with no problem, so that's okay. For a clean still of a bird in flight, you'd want between 1/1600 and 1/2500 I would say. That's a lot less light (4 or 5 stops)!


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## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

I should mention also that I'd still like better high ISO. I was photographing a jay in very dense woodland once, and 12800 wasn't enough. Some will say don't bother - but that's another way of saying accept the limitations of your kit, but that's incompatible with the attitude 'nobody ever needs these settings'. Also, I most frequently shoot at f/10 now for birds - using the 500L+2x stopped down a little for sharpness. So even in the very brightest conditions I need moderate ISO (a white bird in flight in full sun still needed ISO 400!). Again, I'd like the freedom to take more shots (although an improvement in autofocus would also be required in this case).

Sorry if I'm drifting off topic a little...


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Hey John, how you going. Dean here.
> 
> I think now we have a clearer picture of you, and I hope you have one of me.
> 
> ...


your logic is flawed. You ask people to accept that for the photography that the D800 (for a variety of reasons) is the best choice for what you wish to do. You can not accept that for other people, a 1DX and 600F4 is the best choice for what they wish to do and criticise those trying to do so as having poor technique because they may need ISO12800 to freeze motion under the shooting conditions.

You can not ask for understanding from others without reciprocating.

and by the way, I have said time and time again on this forum, "who cares what the DR is of a blurry picture". To my way of thinking, the big strength of the 1DX is it's autofocus system. Trying to track a bird in flight, through a 600mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter attached, where the bird is only a quarter the width of the view, is not a trivial task and take a phenomenal amount of skill and practice PLUS a kick-ass AF system.... and unlike race cars, birds do NOT fly in straight and level lines nor do they follow a repeatable pattern. Photographing race cars is a trivial problem in comparison.


----------



## weixing (Jul 30, 2014)

Hi,


zigzagzoe said:


> If you have kids running round a dimly lit gym? Get an A7s, because it will kill your Canon dead at 12800.


 Yes... with a 12.2MP FF sensor, I had no doubt that it'll kill all Canon dead at ISO 12800, but before you can get that killing picture, you need to first get the camera to focus on the kids running a dimly lit gym.... I don't put my bet on Sony A7s to be able to do that....

Have a nice day.


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## Keith_Reeder (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> 320 ISO, and this bike was moving very fast, and this isn't what I do really. I'm not good at tracking fast objects, but I didn't need 12800 to freeze this bike.


Which proves one thing only - you shoot in an enviable amount of light.

Oh - and a moto-x bike bottoming out in a berm _is not_ "moving very fast". 30 mph tops, and a much bigger, more predictable target than a small bird in flight.



> Now this sucker really was moving, around 180mph, faster than most birds I'd guess, on an overcast day in Melbourne.
> 
> ISO? 100 funnily enough


And it's soft and out of focus. Maybe a higher ISO would have been a good idea, eh?

I mention these points simply to underline the idea that "professional" does not automatically imply "expert", and these images demonstrate the point very nicely.



> 12800? Really? Isn't that just a technology to replace actual skill for most applications beyond scientific?


And again - if you _need_ 12800 ISO to get a shot, "actual skill" will not and cannot make the difference. If the light is crap, and you need a high shutter speed, a high ISO is the _only_ option once you're "out of lens".



> How many times does a skilled photographer need 12800? More than skilled photographers need 100 ISO?


Based on what we're seeing in this and all other similar threads on this subject, photographers - "skilled" or not - seem to have more need, all told, for better high(er) ISO performance, because most aren't shooting obliging, static, stable, predictable lumps of geography from a tripod.



> Anything in a studio is shot at 100 ISO, and that counts for a lot of paid work in this, or any other world.


Irrelevant, and a niche example: most photography _is not_ done at 100 ISO in a studio, is it?



> I'm sure people took some great shots of birds on film John, I've seen them in books when I was as kiddy windy.


Really, _they did not_. They took the best pictures the technology of the day allowed them to take, and for the most part at a quality that today wouldn't merit a second look.



> The BBC doesn't shoot their nature docos in HD at 12800, I'm pretty sure of that


Which is _again_ an irrelevant deviation from the points under discussion.



> That's fanboy horse S*@t and no mistake.


It's neither "fanboy" nor "horse S*@t" - it's a demonstrable fact. 

Again: nobody is denying that Nikony has a low ISO DR advantage over Canon, the dispute is over its significance (which for the most part, for most photographers, is small); and its _necessity_ in order to achieve "The Shot", and the case for _that_ is laughably weak - even taking into account the pitch-black bar image that Horshack/Snapsy has posted up in the past: impressive that it could be recovered from black to usable in post, but - really - _just use a higher ISO_.


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> 12800 wasn't even a possibility not long ago, and in film, an impossibility, and now we have photographers with such a low skill level they require it simply to get their shot.


OK.... I accept that I have a low skill level. Now tell me what I should have done here. This is the unedited jpg out of the camera, and yes, I do shoot in RAW....

ISO12800, F1.4, 1/25th of a second, in a venue where flash or other lighting is not permitted. What should I have done to have avoided using ISO12800?


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> 320 ISO, and this bike was moving very fast
> 
> ISO? 100 funnily enough



Decent example shots. Your subjects are pretty large and let you approach relatively close. I wonder if that makes a difference? I like the dirt bike shot. It must have been a really dark day for dirt biking, what with the clear blue sky and the sun on the bike and all. Your shutter speed of 1/320 s was several stops slower than needed to freeze bird wing motion, too. Guess what? I don't shoot at ISO 12800 on sunny days. 

The racing shots are less impressive, at least from a framing standpoint. Or maybe you were going for a Luke Skywalker landspeeder look in the first one? It wasn't dawn or twilight at the racetrack, was it? Again a shutter speed on the slow side, since you were panning and showing wheel motion, which is usually desirable in racing shots. I sometimes use shutter speeds _as slow as_ 1/1250 s to leave some motion in the wingtips of large birds, or as slow as 1/2000 s for small birds. Freezing wing motion means 1/2500 s to 1/30000 s (the latter being achievable with a feeder setup and several Speedlites at minimum power). 

Like I said, decent example shots...even if they don't illustrate anything truly relevant to the discussion.




zigzagzoe said:


> The BBC doesn't shoot their nature docos in HD at 12800, I'm pretty sure of that, as I have the blu rays and on my 65" TV they look mostly noise free



That red herring should have been thrown back, it's not big enough to make a meal. Surely you understand that video is generally intended to show smooth motion, and shutter speeds used to freeze fast motion are entirely different?


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> zigzagzoe said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...


My Dad was a police photographer. He did not have the option of saying "let's keep the debris and bodies all over the highway until a bright sunny day comes along". Sometimes you have to shoot NOW! with what you have under the conditions you are dealt... and you have to make do with the equipment you have. Setting up studio lighting is not always an option either.....


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Oh my, what on earth did people do to take photographs before these cameras were capable of 12800 ISO?
> 
> We have over a century of photography that is useless as nothing could go to such a high ISO.
> 
> Thank the lord for the last 2 years of technology or our world would go on un-photographed.



More tiny red herrings. Thank the Lord for the internet and Google. How did anyone do research and learn new information before the technological tools of today? Well, they went to a library, used a card catalog with the Dewey decimal system, and hoped the library had the relevant book. Sure, it worked. But it could take several hours (or days, if the book had to be transferred from another library) to get the relevant information that we can find in a couple of minutes today. As a result, the average person can learn more, and learn it faster, and kids today know a lot more (fact knowledge, which is different than experience) than adults did when photography was young. 

From an artitistic standpoint, photos from several years ago have merit. Pick up an old magazine, and look at the technical quality of the ad photos...do you think images with that level of technical quality are acceptable today?


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Keith_Reeder said:
> 
> 
> > Irrelevant, and a niche example: most photography _is not_ done at 100 ISO in a studio, is it?
> ...


Studio photography is a niche. A niche is a subset of the whole.

Nobody said that it was small. Nobody said that it was unprofitable.


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > My Dad was a police photographer. He did not have the option of saying "let's keep the debris and bodies all over the highway until a bright sunny day comes along". Sometimes you have to shoot NOW! with what you have under the conditions you are dealt... and you have to make do with the equipment you have. Setting up studio lighting is not always an option either.....
> ...



You can only do so much with a flash. I suggest you go outside on a rainy night and try illuminating a couple hundred meters of roadway...

And he shot from 1950 to 1985.... I think that predates digital photography.


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > Studio photography is a niche. A niche is a subset of the whole.
> ...



I don't think you know what that word means......

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niche?show=0&t=1406726074

niche noun \ˈnich also ˈnēsh or ˈnish\ 

: a job, activity, etc., that is very suitable for someone

: the situation in which a business's products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people


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## Sporgon (Jul 30, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> > Anything in a studio is shot at 100 ISO, and that counts for a lot of paid work in this, or any other world.
> 
> 
> Irrelevant, and a niche example: most photography _is not_ done at 100 ISO in a studio, is it?



Since when did you not have full control over DR in a studio ? It's amusing to see zigzag's argument for "kills it" difference beginning to unravel.

Likewise posting an example of lighting failure and recovering a picture from it continues the gravitational pull on his arguments. 

I still see nothing that couldn't be done on a 2005 5D never mind the latest generation Canon FF. 

I take the likes of zigzags posts to be personally insulting; the inference is that those of us who are Canon low ISO shooters should know better, and are missing out big time, yet I know that the difference is much more marginal than these guys - and the DxO scores - make out. 

Looking at Raw files at 50-100% on a high quality, calibrated screen is one thing. The final picture is another. I remember when the 5DII came out and I compared files with the 5D back to back, and thought: "hell - Ill never use the 5D again". But when it comes to the picture as a print on canvas, art paper or whatever, or viewed on a normal monitor, there is very little difference. Same with the D800. If your pleasure is in viewing files at 100% on a good monitor I suggest you get one. 

As Neuro asked, and got a waffle response; do zigzag's clients see the difference ?


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > You can only do so much with a flash. I suggest you go outside on a rainy night and try illuminating a couple hundred meters of roadway...
> ...



I hear the smell of rotting herring can be distracting, making it difficult to focus one's mind on a concept. I believe his point was that, unlike the BBC/NatGeo documentaries where the film crew can spend weeks on location waiting for ideal conditions (or recreate the natural environment and shoot on a sound stage, as was revealed a while back), sometimes you have to do your best in suboptimal conditions. I'm sure the result was often grainy and dark, but it was the best possible under those conditions. The difference is that today's 'best possible under the conditions' is a lot better.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

Can we *please* desist with the snark and _ad hominem_! 

As much as I disagree with many of zzz's arguments (not his personal experiences), he's trying to be sincere and honest. Let's not treat him like a troll.


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > You can only do so much with a flash. I suggest you go outside on a rainy night and try illuminating a couple hundred meters of roadway...
> ...


my point is that you make do with what you have and do the best you can with what you have. When a better tool comes along, you use it. For some conditions, ISO12800 is a better tool. using it when the conditions require it does not make you a bad photographer, but ignoring it when you need it does.

Go back to my picture of the lady playing the fiddle... it was taken with a 60D and this was pushing the camera to the absolute limits. ISO did not go any higher, faster lenses were not an option, and even this shutter speed was not enough to stop blur. Right now I can take the same quality with a 5D3 at ISO51200.... but 6 years ago I could not have pulled it off because my camera at that time produced absolute garbage above ISO800.... I would have had to shot at 2/3 of a second exposure and the motion of the bow would have been extreme.

If I were shooting that same venue today, I would be shooting at ISO 25600 and 1/100th of a second. Once again, my choice of ISO does not make me a bad photographer, but my ignoring the tools available to me would.


----------



## Joe M (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> zigzagzoe said:
> 
> 
> > 12800 wasn't even a possibility not long ago, and in film, an impossibility, and now we have photographers with such a low skill level they require it simply to get their shot.
> ...


There is nothing else you could have done because I know, as many others who shoot wherein you don't have control over the lighting, that you have to work with what's given to you and make the best of it. And it was a pretty good capture too. Nice timing.


----------



## Joe M (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Keith_Reeder said:
> 
> 
> > 12800 ISO to get a shot, "actual skill" will not and cannot make the difference. If the light is crap, and you need a high shutter speed, a high ISO is the _only_ option once you're "out of lens".
> ...


 I suppose supplementary lighting (and today still can be used otherwise Canon wouldn't be selling us flash guns) was used while now, we can let things happen naturally and remain unobtrusive. I do however remember many, many years ago attending night time concerts and shooting transparencies that I push processed, twice, in order to get the shutter speed needed to hand hold my 70-210 lens with a 2x converter on it. I'm not saying that it ought to have been a regular procedure for every style of photography but the results were amazingly usable.


----------



## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > Hey, I think the discussion has become a lot more reasonable and that's good. But I have to point out (as a fairly disinterested party - i.e. decidedly NOT a fanboy) what I perceive to be a double standard here. From what most people are saying, the low ISO difference (in most situations) is not that big.
> ...



I quite like the shots, but that's by the by. It's an interesting story, but peripheral - occasionally I've liked shots that were mistakes, but you can hardly recommend a system on that basis (I think the big guys here would say something along the lines of "how often do you need to pull up a shot by X stops?" - this is a legitimate example, but surely rare). Plus, although I don't know anything about studio work, couldn't you have achieved the third shot by having just the one strobe fire, but much brighter?

But of course we're talking about two different worlds. I don't doubt your choices are excellent for studio and landscape work, and your results (photographic and financial) speak for themselves. But if you're telling me I should jump ship to Nikon for what I do (birds and macro above all) and if so I'll see a magical difference in my shots - I simply don't buy it.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > If I were shooting that same venue today, I would be shooting at ISO 25600 and 1/100th of a second. Once again, my choice of ISO does not make me a bad photographer, but my ignoring the tools available to me would.
> ...



Lol, sorry but silence would have served you better.

Did you actually look at the shot of the violinist? The performer's face was reasonably free of motion blur, meaning she wasn't actively moving, which would certainly have been evident at 1/25 s. There's a little motion blur on the bow, which I think adds to the shot by showing the action of playing the instrument. So...the shot was well-timed. The light was just really, really dim (~1.33 EV, if you want to put a number on it). Please explain again how better technique can overcome dim light? You say you don't go above ISO 1600...so, you'd have shot that violinist in that setting with a *1/3 s* exposure? How would that have worked out, do you think?

By the way, I know many people in a variety of fields who are very well compensated for what they do...and suck at it.


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > If I were shooting that same venue today, I would be shooting at ISO 25600 and 1/100th of a second. Once again, my choice of ISO does not make me a bad photographer, but my ignoring the tools available to me would.
> ...


you did notice that she is paused at the end of a stroke? ? ? ? ?

and if I had the option of changing the lighting conditions, I would have gone back out to the car and brought in a studio flash or used the 600EX-RT that was sitting in my bag.


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## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> zigzagzoe said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



That's the 'I don't want to shoot what you shoot, so why should you?' non-argument. Shooting under cloudy conditions is one example - not the only one (in dense woodland is another I've given). Shooting in overcast conditions can actually be more visually appealing, depending on a lot of things - it's lower contrast (we don't all like high contrast all the time) and the colours are generally less tinted (the light being whiter than direct sunlight, especially at the ends of the day). That's obviously my opinion, but your statement is just as subjective. Basically, we don't all have the same tastes, so if some of us want cameras to do something better for what we want, who are you to call it invalid?


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## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

*sigh* ???


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## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

jrista said:


> *sigh* ???


Congratulations Jon..... you are the first person to say anything intelligent in this thread.....

Perhaps the thread title should be changed to DX-DOH!


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## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> By the way, I know many people in a variety of fields who are very well compensated for what they do...and suck at it.



Lol, I was about to get riled by the "if you don't get paid for taking pictures, your opinions are invalid" falsehood, but you summed it up better and made me smile 

What it seems to boil down to is this: the original premise was that Nikon's sensor superiority to Canon is so overwhelming that jumping ship is a no-brainer. Then some people pointed out that for what they do, it makes no sense, that Canon is as good or maybe even better for that. The response has been 'you're idiots, your technique sucks, you don't even get paid for this so you're talking rubbish'. But we're the irrational fanboys. Hmm.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

scyrene said:


> That's the 'I don't want to shoot what you shoot, so why should you?' non-argument. Shooting under cloudy conditions is one example - not the only one (in dense woodland is another I've given). Shooting in overcast conditions can actually be more visually appealing, depending on a lot of things - it's lower contrast (we don't all like high contrast all the time) and the colours are generally less tinted (the light being whiter than direct sunlight, especially at the ends of the day). That's obviously my opinion, but your statement is just as subjective. Basically, we don't all have the same tastes, so if some of us want cameras to do something better for what we want, who are you to call it invalid?



Does anyone shoot flying birds in cloudy conditions besides me? A few other photographers, apparently, and some in more interesting locations than places to which I can drag my three kids. But, they shoot for NatGeo, so what do they know? :


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

zigzagzoe said:


> Would I for performances? Yes, and I have, but 12800 as a requirement to get good shots? Are you kidding me?



A requirement, for all performance photography? Who suggested that? Don Haines posted a shot, and asked what you would do to avoid using ISO 12800 under those conditions. So, as the expert, highly compensated photographer you claim to be, what would you have done in 1.33 EV of lighting at f/1.4, with your shutter speed already down to 1/25 s? Your pithy answer? "_Learn how to do a job right... Don't use current tech to make up for not knowing what you're doing._" Nice. Helpful, too. 




zigzagzoe said:


> I still haven't seen your work, your site



Is one mouse click really so challenging? That's a pretty sad excuse.




zigzagzoe said:


> I have a job to do, and I'lll get back to it.



Where have I read that before?




zigzagzoe said:


> All the best.



Same to you.


----------



## jrista (Jul 30, 2014)

@zigzagzoe: You know, when you first posted in this thread, I thought you had some interesting things to say. I agreed with some of them, didn't agree with all of them, and I tried to reasonably counter those points (once even with some visual evidence...you blew right past that one, and I'm curious why...because it PROVED my point? The same point others are making?). However you have devolved to the same level as everyone you've been belittling and are now insulting. You are absolutely no better than anyone your trying to make fun of.

I had some respect for you personally at first, but the last few pages of your responses, you've done nothing but try and personally attack one particular guy. He may have misinterpreted your initial post, and I believe his response was not, in my opinion, an appropriate response. You could have walked off while still on the high ground...but you stooped. Your now at same lowest point, in hand to hand combat, using the same pitiful, spiteful word-weapons, as Neuro. 

I dunno man, hard to keep respecting you as I first did after the last several pages of spitfest. :-\ You may be a "pro", _but that does not automatically make you right in every single statement you make_. The D800 may have been excellent for *your *work, and based on your work, you certainly seem to have skill. However, as has been said, your either missing, or simply refusing to acknowledge, a number of other angles on the subject here, which isn't any better than anything anyone else may be doing in regards to the benefits of using cameras with Sony Exmor sensors.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

Another opportunity lost when neither side understands the other, and so chooses to interpret what he doesn't understand as a personal insult. Remember, folks: the interwebs does not have non-verbal cues (facial expression, tone of voice, thoughtful sip of beer) to help with context. Try to be generous in your parsing and interpretation of the words from the other end of the tube.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > What it seems to boil down to is this: the original premise was that Nikon's sensor superiority to Canon is so overwhelming that jumping ship is a no-brainer. Then some people pointed out that for what they do, it makes no sense, that Canon is as good or maybe even better for that. The response has been 'you're idiots, your technique sucks, you don't even get paid for this so you're talking rubbish'. But we're the irrational fanboys. Hmm.
> ...



And some have been angry at Nikon for poor AF and QA. The D810 looks promising for Nikonians, maybe it'll be a kick for Canon.


----------



## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > What it seems to boil down to is this: the original premise was that Nikon's sensor superiority to Canon is so overwhelming that jumping ship is a no-brainer. Then some people pointed out that for what they do, it makes no sense, that Canon is as good or maybe even better for that. The response has been 'you're idiots, your technique sucks, you don't even get paid for this so you're talking rubbish'. But we're the irrational fanboys. Hmm.
> ...



Lol if money was no object I would definitely have more gear! I'd keep my Canon stuff because I like it and am used to it, but I'd probably get a D810, a 645Z and an A6S when it's finally available 

I did actually consider swapping to Nikon once, partly for the extra resolution in the D800 and partly because their super telephoto lenses were cheaper. It wouldn't have cost much, given resale on my gear, but the differences weren't enough for me to bother. But that, again, is down to our personal taste (I'd feel more like you if I felt my kit was really constraining what I wanted to do).


----------



## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> Another opportunity lost when neither side understands the other, and so chooses to interpret what he doesn't understand as a personal insult. Remember, folks: the interwebs does not have non-verbal cues (facial expression, tone of voice, thoughtful sip of beer) to help with context. Try to be generous in your parsing and interpretation of the words from the other end of the tube.



   ;D    hehe


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

Here's my problem....

I am told "12800 wasn't even a possibility not long ago, and in film, an impossibility, and now we have photographers with such a low skill level they require it simply to get their shot."

So I post an example shot at ISO12800, F1.4, 1/25th of a second, in a venue where flash or other lighting is not permitted. and I ask "What should I have done to have avoided using ISO12800?"

I get lots of advice on changing lighting, even though this was not an option. I had a studio flash in the back of the car and a 600EX-RT in the bag with me. If I could have used them, I would have.

Then I get advice such as "to shoot on the beat", which I had already done.... note the lack of blur in a 1/25 second exposure... and to "hit that moment of a performer when everything stops, just for a 100th of a second" which is very hard to do at 1/25 of a second, but I did anyway.. and then I am told "someone with true skill and astronomical ISO's available to them will catch something even better, than the guy who needs 12800 to catch a frozen moment on the beat because he doesn't have the skill to get it any other way".

Then I am told "you're saying you need 12800 for to avoid motion blur has been done and it's been done well, on 400 ISO film, by people who took pride in practising it over and over again" despite that ISO400 would have required a shutter speed of 1 1/3 seconds, and then told "Don't use current tech to make up for not knowing what you're doing".

So lots of insults, but none of this answers the original question... "What should I have done to have avoided using ISO12800?" The only advice I got from anyone is to get a camera that shoots better at high ISO.... so if 12800 is bad, then 25,600 must be evil and 51,200 would make me the spawn of Satan...

so perhaps someone else can answer this question.... Why does my use of technology to shoot at ISO12800 make me a bad photographer, yet someone else`s use of technology to shoot with an additional 2 stops of DR make them a great photographer?


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:
 

> Here's my problem....
> 
> I am told "12800 wasn't even a possibility not long ago, and in film, an impossibility, and now we have photographers with such a low skill level they require it simply to get their shot."



By this time, I believe, the conversation was already poisoned.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> "What should I have done to have avoided using ISO12800?" The only advice I got from anyone is to get a camera that shoots better at high ISO.... so if 12800 is bad, then 25,600 must be evil and 51,200 would make me the spawn of Satan...
> 
> so perhaps someone else can answer this question.... Why does my use of technology to shoot at ISO12800 make me a bad photographer, yet someone else`s use of technology to shoot with an additional 2 stops of DR make them a great photographer?



The one answer you got for your first question – get a camera with better high ISO performance, is one reasonable answer (even if only renting to meet an occasional need). With a current Canon FF body you could shoot at ISO 25600 and still have less noise, allowing you an extra stop to 'spend' on shutter speed or DoF. Depending on your RAW conversion software (I know you said that was SOOC JPG, but you also shoot RAW), with the 60D you could have underexposed by a stop or so, pushed in post, and used the best available NR tools (DxO PRIME, for example), and that _might_ have been better, but might not. 

As to your second question, the answer is bias - if you think more DR at low ISO is important to you (especially if you spent a lot of money to get it), but you don't shoot at high ISO, then more DR is critical for your professional photography, but less noise and more DR at very high ISO is a technological crutch for unskilled amatur pichur takers like us.


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## unfocused (Jul 30, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> Another opportunity lost when neither side understands the other, and so chooses to interpret what he doesn't understand as a personal insult. Remember, folks: the interwebs does not have non-verbal cues (facial expression, tone of voice, thoughtful sip of beer) to help with context. Try to be generous in your parsing and interpretation of the words from the other end of the tube.



How dare you say such a thing! Clearly you are an idiot! _(note to moderators, this is what is called being facetious)_

On an only slightly more serious note, after following this thread through page after page, I find nothing that would make me change my earlier opinion. People use personal, subjective results to support blanket statements masquerading as facts.

Mr. Agar is clearly a very successful photographer. I don't know of many photographers who pull down more than $300,000 a year, which is what he indicated he is earning. And, yes, in my book, that does warrant some consideration and respect. 

On the other hand, I refer again to the parallel post discussing Zach Arias' amusing rant http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=21991.msg419168#msg419168 on sensor size. I suspect that Mr. Arias might be close or even exceed Mr. Agar in income, so here we have two highly successful photographers who appear to have reached nearly opposite conclusions. 

I have to say that in my experience (subjective observation acknowledged) from reading articles by commercially successful photographers, the bulk seem to fall more on Mr. Arias' side than on Mr. Agar's – that is, most tend to write that the differences between brands and formats are marginal. 

I don't doubt that Mr. Agar made his decision to switch systems after carefully considering what was better for him. I simply doubt that his personal decision can then be transformed into a blanket and objective assessment of the overall quality of either Nikon or Canon products. 

As was discussed earlier, confirmation bias is a powerful thing and we are all slaves to it.

On a much more random note, I am fascinated by the shadow pattern that Mr. Agar showed in that model's arm. I've never seen anything quite like that and I notice that it seems to appear throughout the image in the shadows. It's very bizarre and since I have no experience with it in my own photographs (which certainly have their share of shadow areas) I can't venture a guess as to what caused it to occur. But, of course, because I too am a slave to my own experience, I have a difficult time believing that it represents some flaw or issue with the sensor in that camera.


----------



## scyrene (Jul 30, 2014)

unfocused said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > Another opportunity lost when neither side understands the other, and so chooses to interpret what he doesn't understand as a personal insult. Remember, folks: the interwebs does not have non-verbal cues (facial expression, tone of voice, thoughtful sip of beer) to help with context. Try to be generous in your parsing and interpretation of the words from the other end of the tube.
> ...



Maybe that's in part why people want objective standards to measure stuff by. I doubt it's ultimately possible (without caveats), but what started all this was a discussion about a website giving scores based on purportedly objective measurements, ironically.

Confirmation bias is a real problem, but some people do try to account for it. Not enough though


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > "What should I have done to have avoided using ISO12800?" The only advice I got from anyone is to get a camera that shoots better at high ISO.... so if 12800 is bad, then 25,600 must be evil and 51,200 would make me the spawn of Satan...
> ...


That's what I thought.... I can borrow a 5D2 and get a 2 stop jump in noise, or buy a 5D3 or 6D and get an additional stop in value, or I could go out and get a Sony a7S and shoot at ISO409,600... but however you slice it, I would still be shooting at ISO12800 or higher. I am told not to go above 1600 so I need to find 3 stops somewhere... I checked at B+H and they don't sell a 50MM F0.50 lens so that option is out... I guess I should be shooting the subject at 1/3 second....


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> ... I guess I should be shooting the subject a 1/3 second....



That might work...if you're a pro who earns his living from photography. Are you a pro? Are you??


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > ... I guess I should be shooting the subject a 1/3 second....
> ...


I am a pro..... just not a photography pro...


----------



## msm (Jul 30, 2014)

Seems someones posts are missing from this thread, the entertainment is over :'(


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 30, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Don Haines said:
> ...



You caught me in an edit…


----------



## sdsr (Jul 30, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> edknuff said:
> 
> 
> > Personally, I'd love to have the Nikon D810, but only if I could put my Canon glass on it!
> ...



Agreed. I've probably said much the same thing in response to similar posts of yours, but you can come close to that with a decent mirrorless body + adapters, provided you're willing to forego fast AF or, in most cases, any sort of AF (which of course rules this option out completely for many). Of course, given that one of the best features of Canon lenses is their extremely fast, accurate AF, it would be nice if Canon were to provide us with such a mirrorless body....


----------



## sdsr (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> No, it's not an irrational fanboy problem, it is a money problem. If I could afford to sell out of Canon and replace all my Canon gear with Nikon, then I'd do it in a heart beat. But I can't. And I suspect the same is true for many others. We're all effectively held hostage by Canon so we're pretty much at the mercy of whatever Canon decides to deliver to us. Some of us are angry that Canon is lagging so far behind in sensor development when compared with what Nikon and Sony are doing, some of us aren't. And that's how Canon stays #1, just like a drug dealer, get 'em when they're "young" and you've got them for life.



Are you sure you can't afford to? Is that because the equivalent Nikon gear is more expensive? I completely jumped ship from Pentax to Canon a couple of years ago, selling all my equipment in the process. The only item where I clearly lost money was the camera body I had bought new at full price (I don't really consider it a loss anyway because I got a lot of use out of it while I owned it); everything else I sold for more-or-less what I paid for it (a bit less if I had bought it new, sometimes more if I had bought it used). I doubt that's unusual.

As for Canon the drug dealer, most of Canon's sales are of Rebels (and below), and most such customers probably stick to their Rebels and don't move either up or sideways. Those who feel trapped or who suffer from sensor envy are more likely the minority who are enthusiasts, and these days it's fairly easy for them to avoid Canon's evil plot (if that's what it is) by buying a mirrorless camera with a Sony sensor and using their Canon lenses on that....


----------



## Sunnystate (Jul 30, 2014)

There has to be a very good reason for that, i assume but I think who does not know what happened, and was following the tread should be informed. Thanks.



msm said:


> Seems someones posts are missing from this thread, the entertainment is over :'(


----------



## Don Haines (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...


Thanks for a good laugh....I tried the exact same experiment ages ago and found that the two cameras were off by a factor of two... and I can't remember if it was twice as high or twice as low... DOH! Glad to be in such good company


----------



## unfocused (Jul 30, 2014)

dilbert said:


> About 10 years ago I tried an experiment where I used the same speed settings on a film cameras as I had used on a digital camera. It didn't work - the film was exposed very differently to digital (I don't remember if it was under/over.) The ISO number that you get when you take a picture with your DSLR is not the same as the ISO number used for film. Try it for yourself.



That seems like a difficult experiment to conduct. There would be too many variables to use negatives and actually quite a few variables using transparencies. Did you develop the film yourself? What were the controls used to assure that temperatures, etc., were precise. If you sent the film to a third party to be developed, you lose all control over the process. 

How were the camera's calibrated. Did you verify that the mechanical shutter of the film camera was correct? Film cameras are notorious for the shutter speeds being off. Was it the same lens on both cameras? 

How did you compare the two images? Was it two prints? Transparencies? 

This conflicts with the whole idea of having ISO anyway (the "s" being for standardization). If it were different between film and digital, light meters, etc. wouldn't work properly.


----------



## Orangutan (Jul 30, 2014)

unfocused said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > About 10 years ago I tried an experiment where I used the same speed settings on a film cameras as I had used on a digital camera. It didn't work - the film was exposed very differently to digital (I don't remember if it was under/over.) The ISO number that you get when you take a picture with your DSLR is not the same as the ISO number used for film. Try it for yourself.
> ...



+1

I've heard of people routinely using their DSLR to meter for film cameras. I tried it once myself and it seemed to work. Of course, this is just an anecdote, and Unfocused made the important observation: the "S" in ISO is for "Standard." I.e., there's a group out there that tests this stuff in a standardized way.


----------



## CR Mod (Jul 31, 2014)

Sunnystate said:


> There has to be a very good reason for that, i assume but I think who does not know what happened, and was following the tread should be informed. Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Forum members can delete their own accounts and the member in question opted to do so. In that process a checkbox is presented (unchecked by default) for all of the user's posts to be deleted along with the account and the member apparently checked that box.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jul 31, 2014)

unfocused said:


> This conflicts with the whole idea of having ISO anyway (the "s" being for standardization). If it were different between film and digital, light meters, etc. wouldn't work properly.



You might think so, but in fact, they are governor by different standards (which is actually what the 'S' stands for, lots of different standards for lots of different things). ISO 6, ISO 2240, and ISO 5800 define speed for B&W negative, color reversal, and color negative film, respectively. ISO 12232 governs sensitivity for digital sensors.


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## Don Haines (Jul 31, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > This conflicts with the whole idea of having ISO anyway (the "s" being for standardization). If it were different between film and digital, light meters, etc. wouldn't work properly.
> ...


I did a metering comparison tonight... My Olympus OM-1, my Nikon FM, and my light meter all agree... They all date back to the good old days of film and film speeds are ASA numbers. On the test scene they all agreed at 1/400th of a second.

In the digital world, My 60D says 1/1000 sec, my Olympus E-510 says 1/800 sec, and my SX-50 says 1/1000. sensor speeds are ISO numbers.

I know ISO and ASA are supposed to be the same... but this is curious....


----------



## jrista (Jul 31, 2014)

dilbert said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Umm...this is plain and simply not true. I'm not sure where C36 came from. To my knowledge, today, there are two primary forms of color film processing: C-41 and E6. The former is used to process color negative film, while the latter is used to process color positive film (usually, slides or "transparencies".) C-41 and E6 are not the only two color film processes still in use. 

There are a lot of film photographers out there who like to use expired and old films. They prefer the edgy, "old" or "roughed up" look, and for some, the worse off the quality of film, the better. A popular kind of older color film is Kodacolor, which was primarily developed using the C-22 process, however the even older Kodachrome used the K-14 process. C-22 is probably one of the more commonly used "old film" color processes still used today, as Kodacolor was pretty pervasive for a while, and a lot of old Kodacolor film is still out there, locked away in freezers and buried on old shelves. I believe there have been other processes for developing older Fujicolor film as well (CN-16, although I believe that may be compatible with the C-41 process). That is nothing to say about Polaroid Instant film, which used a different and instant development and immediate fixation process, and there are actually quite a number of people who would love to see the classic Polaroid instant film brought back (I believe there is even a group working on replicating the film and development/fixing process independently.) 

There have been quite a number of color film processes over the decades, so to say that one single process is used to develop all color film is patently false. Not only that...I've never heard of C-36...searching for a variety of combinations of C-36, film, develop, process, fixing, machine, etc. comes up with nothing related to color film development (other than the tangential C-41, E6 and C-22 of course.)


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## Sporgon (Jul 31, 2014)

I thought it was pretty well known now that the indicated ISO speeds on digital cameras are not consistent even from model to model from the same manufacturer. So for example ISO 100 on a 6D is actually 80, on a 5DII it is 73, and on a 5D 92. 

This can be confirmed with an accurate hand held light meter. Set the meter to 100 and you get an under exposure of one third to two thirds depending on the camera you are using. 

We can thank DxO for this information.


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## Joe M (Jul 31, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> I thought it was pretty well known now that the indicated ISO speeds on digital cameras are not consistent even from model to model from the same manufacturer. So for example ISO 100 on a 6D is actually 80, on a 5DII it is 73, and on a 5D 92.
> 
> This can be confirmed with an accurate hand held light meter. Set the meter to 100 and you get an under exposure of one third to two thirds depending on the camera you are using.
> 
> We can thank DxO for this information.


I've noted the same. That means there is no comparing a dSLR to one shooting film nor even one dSLR to another. Most in depth testing I've seen shares this "cooking of the numbers" when it comes to most any advertized iso settings of camera bodies. This had led to many a thread where people wonder if something is wrong with their camera because it "always under exposes by 1/3 to 1/2 stop".


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## Click (Aug 5, 2014)

Google translate is very useful here.


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## Orangutan (Aug 5, 2014)

Yuriy said:


> Это видео резюмирует многое из того, что произошло между Никоном и Canon, D810 является гораздо более современные камеры, и Canon не может идти в ногу с развитием, потому что его старой технологии датчика
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7Kjeq2aH4





> <google>This video sums up much of what happened between Nikon and Canon, D810 is a much more advanced camera, and Canon can not keep up with development, because his old sensor technology</google>


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## Aglet (Aug 5, 2014)

ya, the d810's many little improvements make it a much better all-around camera than the previous 800s.
So now it certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.

As for Tony's videos... I'm not a fan.


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## Orangutan (Aug 5, 2014)

Aglet said:


> So now it certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.



Competition is good for the customers.


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## RLPhoto (Aug 5, 2014)

Aglet said:


> ya, the d810's many little improvements make it a much better all-around camera than the previous 800s.
> So now it certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.
> 
> As for Tony's videos... I'm not a fan.



Neat video. Too bad the primes on nikon aren't as nice and no 600RTs.


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 6, 2014)

Aglet said:


> So now <the D810> certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.



Yet Nikon IS still predicting greater sales losses than Canon. Some competition... :


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## Aglet (Aug 6, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > So now <the D810> certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.
> ...



as long as SoNikon sell enough to stay in production and a step ahead I'm OK with that.
I don't own stock in any of them. 

Edit: typo


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 6, 2014)

Aglet said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Aglet said:
> ...



Agreed. For some people, low ISO DR is critical, and for them it's good to have options.


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## East Wind Photography (Aug 6, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> I thought it was pretty well known now that the indicated ISO speeds on digital cameras are not consistent even from model to model from the same manufacturer. So for example ISO 100 on a 6D is actually 80, on a 5DII it is 73, and on a 5D 92.
> 
> This can be confirmed with an accurate hand held light meter. Set the meter to 100 and you get an under exposure of one third to two thirds depending on the camera you are using.
> 
> We can thank DxO for this information.



So to accurately measure that difference your really need to use the same lens. Different lenses even if they are all F2.8 have different light transmission qualities. The F2.8 is not an exact standard of light transmission. For example an F2.8 prime will likely have better light transmission than an f2.8 zoom due to having less optical elements. This difference is measurable. The same holds for ISO measurements. If you are not testing apples against apples then you cant really make the claim that ISO varies significantly when it could be the optics that are skewing the results.

This is particularly true when comparing different brands and sometimes models within the same brand if they have integrated optics or different sized sensors.


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## sarangiman (Aug 6, 2014)

bdunbar79 said:


> Besides, DxO mark isn't relevant. Despite them scoring Nikon/Sony higher and higher against Canon product head to head, Canon still went from a 4% market share lead 4 years ago to a now 20% market share lead. Nobody cares or nobody believes because of just that: The garbage "science" they are doing.



This particular argument always baffles me. How does correlating two entirely orthogonal things prove anything? If a scientist finds that sensor A is better than sensor B for some particular purpose, but sensor B sells 100x more, that somehow invalidates the scientist? 

Wait, what now?


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## East Wind Photography (Aug 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> arcanej said:
> 
> 
> > As DXO has given a near perfect score to the D810, they may have painted themselves into a corner. Their proprietary scale doesn't give DXO much room to heap hyperbolic praise on the next Nikon release.
> ...



And still another way is to use magic lantern dual iso...which will enhance the DR of even an old canon camera...and its free. Would not spend 3500.00 on a new body just to get more low iso DR and a few more MP.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 6, 2014)

StudentOfLight said:


> I believe they use a benchmarking system. When a camera sets a new benchmark then it re-baselines the camera score database. If a camera sensor sets a new benchmark in all their metrics then I believe it will get a score of 100 and bump all the other cameras down to lower scores. I might be wrong, but I think that's how it works.



No that is not correct. The score is not limited to 100, cameras will score more than 100 and when they do it just means it is "better" than one that scored less. A difference of 5 points equals approximately 1/3 stop, so a camera scoring 102 is 1/3 stop "better" than one that scores 97.

But as they won't tell us how they equate those 5 points, or 1/3 stop, it makes it all pointless.


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## sarangiman (Aug 6, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> The second thing you can't forget is that a camera is more than the sensor. While Nikon has been fixated on it's sensors, Canon has been fixated on it's focusing system. The end result is that the AF system on Canons is far more capable than on Nikons.... The people at Nikon are not idiots... you can bet that they are working on ways to counter this and that the next few rounds of their cameras will have better and better AF systems.



Well, this is a bit subjective - especially as I have yet to see a comprehensive AF accuracy test.

On the one hand, I agree - I still shoot with my 5D Mark III b/c the cross-type AF points across the frame are phenomenal. I have trouble understanding why Nikon hasn't released a camera with outer cross-type points.

OTOH, the lack of any sort of AF tracking across the frame in literally all of their cameras save for the 1Dx makes Nikon's '3D' AF tracking - available in almost all their DSLRs - stand out. When you're shooting at f/1.4 - where you can't focus & recompose - and you're trying to nail focus on, say, the eye of a baby that's constantly moving around, you'll fare much better with Nikon's 3D tracking than trying to manually move the focus point around quickly enough to capture the baby's eye at the moment of exposure.

But, of course, you'd probably fare even better with a 1Dx  But, really, the 1Dx is not for everybody (far too big/heavy/expensive if you have no need for the vertical grip & the extra battery life). It's particularly not for me, and I'm growing out of my 5D III now as well, because of the lack of programmable Auto ISO and poor to no implementation of exposure compensation with Auto ISO.

As usual, there are always compromises to every system.


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## jrista (Aug 6, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > So now <the D810> certainly IS competition for the 5d3 in more types of shooting.
> ...



With the D810, Nikon does actually have a competitive offering for "excellent general purpose DSLR" against the 5D III. 

To be frank, I don't think Nikon's sales problems have as much to do with their cameras, as with their execution and branding. I think there were plenty of mistakes made with the D800 and D600, missteps with things like AF issues, oil spots on the sensor, misplacement of buttons, funky ergonomics decisions, etc. These are all execution factors...things that irk the crap out of their existing customers, and maybe cost a few customers here and there. Their other issue is their marketing...Nikon is schizophrenic when it comes to naming...their naming is wacko, and (assuming they stick with what they finally have now) they are only just now barely getting a handle on it. Nikon also has the tendency to expend resources on extremely niche items, like the Df, or a gold plated, lizard gripped trophy camera. Those things are just a waste of money and resource, and just drag town their capacity potential. 

All of that, when you put it all together, just comes off as really sloppy. They used to be a fully integrated company, and I think they had some really excellent products when they were. They they trimmed off a bunch of parts of their company, made alliances with companies like Sony, and then just got...sloppy. They slap stuff together, hurriedly almost, like the Df. Interesting concept, but clearly designed and aimed at the die-hard retro fan. As a truly viable commercial product? It's a nitemare! The controls are horrid. It's clunky. I couldn't give a crap what kind of IQ it had, it could have 16 stops of DR and I wouldn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Nikon comes off as sloppy...and I think that hurts them.

There is value to having DR for certain things. Sony Exmor sensors are better at that, no question. I don't think that's ever been at issue, at least not since the clear evidence of the facts first came out years ago. That's what the DRiveling Fanatics just don't get...like Dilbert in the recent discussion about print and dynamic range. He clearly seems to think that everyone always shoots at ISO 100, and therefor is always capable of taking advantage of the improvements to DR. (He also really doesn't know the difference between bit depth, information precision, and dynamic range, it's all the same thing, so he misinterprets everything.) He misses the point entirely, like so many other DR fanatics out there...they are looking through the ISO 100 lens, and they can't imagine the simple concept of anyone ever using anything else. 

Nikon has a good product...their problem is executing, from a business and marketing standpoint, such that they can't maximize the potential of their product. THAT is why they don't have good sales. I don't think the D800 could have toppled the 5D III, however the D810 solves most of the D800's problems, boosts the frame rate, and is really a solid competitor now. It still doesn't have Canon's Mark II Great Whites, but the Nikon 800mm f/5.6 is practically a direct ripoff of Canon's fluorite lens designs...so it probably won't be that long before Nikon updates the 600, 500, and the rest to use the same general design. It still has the sensor IQ benefit on top of all that. If Nikon figures out how to get their act together, in the long run, Canon (assuming they don't do something about their sensor IQ within the next couple of DSLR releases) is going to start losing customers. It really doesn't matter if the differences are huge, minor, or non-existent...all that matters is the PERCEPTIONS of existing or potential customers. A lot of people don't give a crap about Canon glass (or Nikon glass, for that matter)...the prefer Zeiss or Sigma. A lot of people don't give a crap about the 600RT, they already have a third party system they are happy with. A lot of people never shoot at high ISO...they use nothing but ISO 100 and shoot nothing but landscapes. 

It seems impossible, and I think Canon is an excellent company with excellent products and execution. But the dominant company has failed in the past. Microsoft used to be one of the most profitable companies in the world, the single most profitable tech company in the world, and was at the pinnacle of the tech world. No one saw the Apple underdog with their iOS and iPhone coming. I still use Microsoft products myself (I gave Apple products a multi-year trial, and still really can't stand them), but there is no question that Microsoft tried to ride their past success for too long. Today, they are, by many, considered to be entirely irrelevant. They still exist, they still make great products (better products now than they had for over a decade, even), but they lost their status as the top tech company. If they hope to turn that around, it's going to be a very long, hard, expensive journey, and there is no question it will take a new CEO and probably an entirely new mindset to do it. Apple rakes in more revenue in a single quarter than Microsoft does in three or four quarters now. The underdog took over...and in a lot of respects their products are still inferior to the competition...they just have one feature no one else has: a gazillion apps. (Oh, and, a lot of sapphire...) 

That's all it takes...that one feature. I don't think the DR difference is all that it's cracked up to be. We had a guy on the forums for a short while back who really laid into Neuro, kicked up a lot of dust and started a big old fight, then deleted his account. He completely ignored actual real-world evidence I provided that demonstrated how little the dynamic range difference actually means in actual practice in all but a select few unique shots. (I even pointed him back to it a couple times, and he still ignored it.) It doesn't matter how significant the difference is, it doesn't matter how often it can be used (I still believe that the majority of photographers use higher ISO settings.) 

All that matters is the perception. Outside of CR and a couple forums on DPR, the perception is that Canon *has LOST*. Past tense. That's a really BAD place for a company to be in. I like Canon. I think overall they make a better product, just like I think the Nokia Lumia is a better product than the iPhone. I think their system overall is better...better lenses, better flash, better ergonomics. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if it is Nikon that's the underdog...technically speaking, it isn't just one underdog this time...its a horde of unerdogs, all barking the Sony Exmor midnight song...marching on Castle Canon like a bunch of hellhounds. Canon is now perceived, by a growing number of photographers and a growing number of reviewers as having bad sensor IQ and crappy sensors. It's pretty much the only thing I hear or read anymore...everywhere you go on the net, there is a horde of Canon haters and a small cluster of Canon defenders duking it out...and the Canon haters are growing by leaps and bounds. Even the Canon holdouts and die-hard fans all probably "secretly" want D800 level IQ in their Canon cameras, regardless of what they may say publicly. Canon _*has *_to address that. *Soon*. Either with the 7D II, or with the 5D IV. If they do not, they will eventually become as irrelevant in the digital photography world as Microsoft did in the tech world. Their competitors aren't stopping or slowing down...they just keep marching on. Nikon could probably go bankrupt even, and it probably wouldn't matter. Sony Exmor sensors are finding their way into everything. And Sony keeps improving Exmor...it hasn't just been a stagnant sensor design since the D800 was introduced. Soon, Canon won't just be facing Nikon and Sony as competitors...it'll be nearly every other camera manufacturer on the planet, in every segment of the market. It won't happen suddenly, it won't happen in a year, but they will go into decline unless they step up their game and *compete* on the sensor IQ front. Everyone wants Canon to make a better sensor. I DO MYSELF! AND I KNOW THEY HAVE THE PATENTS AND TECHNOLOGY TO DO IT, TOO!! And yet...they simply...aren't....


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## sarangiman (Aug 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> The kicker is that RAW editors don't have to honor Canon's bias offset. The entire RAW signal is stored in Canon's files, and the offset is calibrated with a border of masked pixels. Who knows if editors like Lightroom, or DXO, or Aperture actually adhere to Canon's recommended offset. Even if they do, there is still negative signal information that can be pulled up, and the full noise signal is there. With Nikon RAW images...all that negative (deep noise) signal is simply discarded.
> 
> I use DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight to calibrate Canon RAW files for integration into a "stack". I use a 200-frame master bias image to subtract the bias signal from each light frame before integrating it. When the bias is removed from Canon RAW files, the dynamic range jumps by almost two stops...which puts it in the same range as Nikon files...



As Horshack mentioned earlier, this has changed with some recent Nikon models. In fact, the D810 has a bias offset of 600 in a 14-bit Raw file at base ISO. This might make it more suitable for your astrophotography, no, jrista?

Also: jrista you mention averaged dark frame subtraction as increasing dynamic range (DR) by 2 stops for Canon DSLRs - putting it in the same range Nikon/Sony sensors. I'm sure averaged dark frame subtraction to remove bias and some forms of FPN can help for certain use-cases (e.g. astrophotography), but I'm confused why you mention this here as if it would help any typical, say, landscape shooter suddenly get as much DR with a Canon DSLR sensor as you would with, say, the Sony A7R sensor. 

That's simply not true. And I think you admitted this in a later post, but I do think it's important to stress the point.

Now, I know _you_ know this b/c clearly you have a grasp of all this, jrista (stunning image, by the way  ), but for everyone else - downstream (of ISO amplification) read noise essentially randomly varies the signal, so you can't simply 'subtract' out this random variation to reduce shadow noise (well, not without the usual costs typical NR software pay). Shadows suffer more simply b/c a constant source of electronic noise varies a smaller signal much more than a larger one; hence, shadows pay a larger SNR cost. 

The only way I know of recovering the 'sensor DR' (without the influence of downstream read noise) is to simultaneously shoot two ISOs and combine results. For example, what Magic Lantern does. One can show that a Canon 5D Mark III is - for most practical purposes - 'ISO-less' above ISO 3200. That means that if you simultaneously shoot different rows of pixels at ISO 100 & ISO 3200, you can effectively avoid the downstream read noise effects and get more of the actual sensor DR (which is quite good for modern Canon, and Nikon/Sony, sensors). But then there are all the downsides this method brings...

Also, I haven't yet seen evidence that the increased DR at base ISO on the D810 is due to 'cooking' the Raw file. In fact, DxO's full SNR curves suggest some sort of nonlinearity introduced into capture at the lowest ISO. The SNR at clipping - where the noise is dominated by shot noise - remains the same for ISO 64 and ISO 100. That indicates to me that for an increased


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## jrista (Aug 6, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > The kicker is that RAW editors don't have to honor Canon's bias offset. The entire RAW signal is stored in Canon's files, and the offset is calibrated with a border of masked pixels. Who knows if editors like Lightroom, or DXO, or Aperture actually adhere to Canon's recommended offset. Even if they do, there is still negative signal information that can be pulled up, and the full noise signal is there. With Nikon RAW images...all that negative (deep noise) signal is simply discarded.
> ...



I think it's unfair to say it's "simply not true." It depends. I've shot landscapes that are perfectly still, with only a slight amount of motion in the sky. Now, usually I photograph at ISO 100. However, if your going to be integrating frames, you could get away with using a higher ISO, and taking more frames at a faster shutter speed. If you bumped up to, say, ISO 400, took a bunch of frames, then integrated them together (you can do that with Photoshop, but it's still better to use a tool like DSS to do it, as it can work on the RAW images themselves, rather than demosaiced results), you would very likely GAIN DR in the end.

Why? Because when you integrate multiple frames, even if you don't even do any kind of dark or bias frame subtraction to remove read noise, your averaging those frames together. Averaging reduces noise. So, let's say you have the option of shooting one ISO 100 shot at 1/10th of a second, or four ISO 400 shots at 1/40th of a second. Integrate the ISO 400 shots, and you reduce noise by averaging. You reduce ALL noise, including deeper shadow read noise. In a Canon camera, ISO 400 has as much DR as ISO 100, so your did not lose anything by doing that, but because you could use a higher shutter speed, in the end, after integration, you gain something. 

At a shutter speed of 1/40th second, you could probably get away with eight ISO 400 shots. Eight integrated ISO 400 1/40th second frames are going to have 2.8x less noise than the single ISO 100 shot at 1/10th second. 

Now, such a thing is completely unnecessary with a camera that uses a Sony Exmor sensor. However people who use D800's still do true HDR, and some of them will take a good dozen frames for an HDR merge. Firing off eight ISO 400 frames at a relatively high ISO is trivial in comparison.

So, "simply no true"? Really? 



sarangiman said:


> Now, I know _you_ know this b/c clearly you have a grasp of all this, jrista (stunning image, by the way  ), but for everyone else - downstream (of ISO amplification) read noise essentially randomly varies the signal, so you can't simply 'subtract' out this random variation to reduce shadow noise (well, not without the usual costs typical NR software pay). Shadows suffer more simply b/c a constant source of electronic noise varies a smaller signal much more than a larger one; hence, shadows pay a larger SNR cost.



You don't subtract it out. Of course not. ;P You AVERAGE it out! Averaging attenuates the standard deviation of noise. You actually literally CAN NOT subtract noise because subtraction actually enhances the standard deviation, making the noise worse (this is intensely obvious when you start doing astrophotography...I accidentally subtracted a master flat frame once, and the noise was terrible because both the flat and the light frame had random noise. You normally divide out flat frames to avoid that problem.)



sarangiman said:


> The only way I know of recovering the 'sensor DR' (without the influence of downstream read noise) is to simultaneously shoot two ISOs and combine results. For example, what Magic Lantern does. One can show that a Canon 5D Mark III is - for most practical purposes - 'ISO-less' above ISO 3200. That means that if you simultaneously shoot different rows of pixels at ISO 100 & ISO 3200, you can effectively avoid the downstream read noise effects and get more of the actual sensor DR (which is quite good for modern Canon, and Nikon/Sony, sensors). But then there are all the downsides this method brings...



Shooting two ISOs is just a firmware hack to extract more dynamic range from Canon's whole readout pipeline. The best way to extract more dynamic range is averaging. Your basic noise reduction algorithm works by averaging. When you apply noise reduction to any single frame in Lightroom, or with Topaz Denoise, Nik Dfine, NoiseNinja, NeatImage, or any of those tools, you ARE increasing dynamic range. That's what noise reduction does. It increases dynamic range. 

I know LTRLI disagrees, but what were really talking about here is not actually dynamic range. Were talking about editing latitude. I wish these two things, DR and editing latitude, weren't so intrinsically linked, but they are. Editing latitude, as in the ability to lift shadows, is only one benefit of having more dynamic range. Fundamentally, DR is about less noise. Not just read noise, which only exists in the shadows, but ALL noise, which exists at every level of the entire image...shadows, midtones, highlights, whites, blacks, everything. Denoise algorithms reduce noise, which means, by definition, they are concurrently increasing dynamic range.

While the ML Dual ISO technique is certainly one way of reducing Canon's nasty banded read noise, it's not the only way. I have used Topaz Denoise 5 for a few years now. It has both debanding and DR recovery features. The debanding works wonders. I've used it on some really heavily banded astrophotography images to great effect. I've used it to remove the 7D vertical banding as well (which is actually not that difficult to remove, it has a very strict 8-pixel wide repeating pattern, and Denoise allows you to configure the band width or separation.

There are a lot of ways of recovering dynamic range. Canon doesn't clip their signal, they offset instead, so all the image signal data is there. It can be recovered (which is actually NOT the case with Nikon and Sony cameras), by denoising and debanding. There are certainly caveats and limitations to post-process noise reduction (which, btw, could also be called dynamic range recovery...same thing!) Like any algorithm, push denoising too far, and you'll start getting artifacts. But usually it doesn't really take all that much to really improve an image. A light touch of full-image NR and maybe a pass of debanding, mask and scatter a very light bit of artificially generated noise in the really deep shadows (to get rid of posterization)...and voila. More DR!



sarangiman said:


> Also, I haven't yet seen evidence that the increased DR at base ISO on the D810 is due to 'cooking' the Raw file. In fact, DxO's full SNR curves suggest some sort of nonlinearity introduced into capture at the lowest ISO. The SNR at clipping - where the noise is dominated by shot noise - remains the same for ISO 64 and ISO 100. That indicates to me that for an increased



You should search some of the astrophotography sites. There is a lot if information about how all the various DSLR manufacturers mess with their signals. Even Canon does, to a degree...Craig Stark from Stark Labs (maker of Nebulosity) actually wrote a fairly detailed article about an unexpected shift in Canon's noise curves as ISO is increased. Every DSLR maker cooks their signals...it's just that Nikon does it more. There is actually a Nikon hacker group that has been pounding away at Nikon's firmware in an attempt to remove their black point clipping, and recover the entire signal. They seem very close to cracking that nut as well, and they have found that Nikon does indeed to quite a bit of signal cooking.


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## Aglet (Aug 6, 2014)

> Why? Because when you integrate multiple frames, even if you don't even do any kind of dark or bias frame subtraction to remove read noise, your averaging those frames together. Averaging reduces noise. So, let's say you have the option of shooting one ISO 100 shot at 1/10th of a second, or four ISO 400 shots at 1/40th of a second. Integrate the ISO 400 shots, and you reduce noise by averaging. You reduce ALL noise, including deeper shadow read noise. In a Canon camera, ISO 400 has as much DR as ISO 100, so your did not lose anything by doing that, but because you could use a higher shutter speed, in the end, after integration, you gain something.



I'm gonna poke a small hole in this argument, even if i've made some math errors.
Otherwise, I know the basic premise is correct and I agree with you.

Averaging 4 at iso 400 vs 1 at iso 100 will not net as much of a return because the SNR of any sensor also gets worse at higher ISO by a ratio that's mathematically pretty close to the same as the benefit of the stacking, at the same ratio of iso to n images stacked.
Accordian tu Ducks-o-mark. 5.1 dB worth (39.7 - 34.6) on the 5d3, for instance, at 18% gray (screen) (similar for d800 as well)
stacking 4 gives about 6dB of benefit?? then, net 0.9dB improvement, not likely noticeable.
You'd need to stack more images at the same iso to get better results.

However, where it's needed most, in the deeper shadow areas, the SNR difference between 100 iso and 400 iso is much smaller and averaging 4 iso 400s will certainly make an improvement over 1 at iso 100. This is more a characteristic of Canon's sensors that can be exploited more effectively with this method.

Also, this is only applicable to random noise.
if theres FPN, then averaging can make it worse by reinforcing it unless you also apply a spacial shift to the images you're stacking and then realigning them later.


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## sarangiman (Aug 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> I think it's unfair to say it's "simply not true." It depends. I've shot landscapes that are perfectly still, with only a slight amount of motion in the sky. Now, usually I photograph at ISO 100. However, if your going to be integrating frames, you could get away with using a higher ISO, and taking more frames at a faster shutter speed. If you bumped up to, say, ISO 400, took a bunch of frames, then integrated them together (you can do that with Photoshop, but it's still better to use a tool like DSS to do it, as it can work on the RAW images themselves, rather than demosaiced results), you would very likely GAIN DR in the end.



Well of course. Image averaging increases SNR by the square root of the # of images averaged. You can mathematically derive this simply by knowing that noise adds in quadrature. Which is also why any additive or subtractive operations increase noise, as you mention later on.

But every camera benefits in this manner. And a camera that starts with a higher SNR (Nikon/Sony vs. Canon, assuming all else equal) will benefit just as much. So this is pretty irrelevant in the context of this discussion...

Actually, an easier way to understand all this averaging business is to think that - in terms of photon/shot noise - averaging 8 exposures that are each 1/8 shorter than one long exposure is very similar to just taking one long (8x as long) exposure to begin with. Or using a sensor w/ 8x the surface area. In reality, averaging n exposures is generally worse than taking one exposure n times as long (given you don't clip) b/c of the extra aggregate read noise of 8x as many read events.
[/quote]



> Now, such a thing is completely unnecessary with a camera that uses a Sony Exmor sensor. However people who use D800's still do true HDR, and some of them will take a good dozen frames for an HDR merge. Firing off eight ISO 400 frames at a relatively high ISO is trivial in comparison.



That's correct. And, yes, even a D800/810 or A7R benefit from HDR or graduated neutral density filters even with scenes that technically fall within their Raw DR capabilities b/c HDR/GNDs allow you to expose shot-noise limited shadows more - thereby increasing their SNR. So even if using a GND flattens your image such that you have to darken your shadows in post, noise performance will still be better than underexposing those shadows - even for a sensor with no read noise (i.e. a theoretical shot noise-limited sensor). Now, whether it's _necessary_ or not for any given scene/application is another matter entirely.



> So, "simply not true"? Really?



Er, yes I still stand by that, even though we appear to be on the same page 



> You don't subtract it out. Of course not. ;P You AVERAGE it out! Averaging attenuates the standard deviation of noise. You actually literally CAN NOT subtract noise because subtraction actually enhances the standard deviation, making the noise worse (this is intensely obvious when you start doing astrophotography...I accidentally subtracted a master flat frame once, and the noise was terrible because both the flat and the light frame had random noise. You normally divide out flat frames to avoid that problem.)



Yes, b/c noise adds in quadrature. But my initial point still stands - it seems misleading to point out that image averaging can get you near Sony/Nikon levels of DR. B/c image averaging would also help the Sony/Nikon sensors. Each would keep pulling ahead, and we'll end up right where we began - with a base ISO DR advantage going to the Sony/Nikon architectures with low downstream read noise.



> Shooting two ISOs is just a firmware hack to extract more dynamic range from Canon's whole readout pipeline. The best way to extract more dynamic range is averaging. Your basic noise reduction algorithm works by averaging. When you apply noise reduction to any single frame in Lightroom, or with Topaz Denoise, Nik Dfine, NoiseNinja, NeatImage, or any of those tools, you ARE increasing dynamic range. That's what noise reduction does. It increases dynamic range.



Actually, the higher ISO used when shooting two ISOs is just a way to get shadows well above the downstream read noise floor of Canon's architecture. It works, with the downsides of the resolution cost/artifacts, when image averaging is not an option. Also, with all this talk of image averaging, I feel compelled to point out that it's sometimes practically quite difficult to be thinking about image averaging when you're trying to shoot rapidly changing light, sometimes ND filters and long exposures to create motion, etc. It's essentially technology getting in the way of artistry, especially when you consider that there are better options out there _for this particular purpose_ (base ISO DR).

Yes, you can technically say that NR can increase DR, but it comes at the cost of detail retention. Hence, IMHO, the best tests of DR are done on unfiltered data (or however unfiltered one can get it).



> I know LTRLI disagrees, but what were really talking about here is not actually dynamic range. Were talking about editing latitude. I wish these two things, DR and editing latitude, weren't so intrinsically linked, but they are. Editing latitude, as in the ability to lift shadows, is only one benefit of having more dynamic range. Fundamentally, DR is about less noise. Not just read noise, which only exists in the shadows, but ALL noise, which exists at every level of the entire image...shadows, midtones, highlights, whites, blacks, everything. Denoise algorithms reduce noise, which means, by definition, they are concurrently increasing dynamic range.



Actually, since DR is defined as the range between clipping and some lower SNR threshold, DR is really not about ALL noise. Midtone/highlight noise is typically shot noise dominated (ignoring PRNU), but at this point the SNR is typically well above the lower SNR threshold people generally find acceptable. Save for very small sensors and/or very high ISOs. 



> While the ML Dual ISO technique is certainly one way of reducing Canon's nasty banded read noise, it's not the only way.



Just to be clear, I wasn't even talking about banding. I was talking about the downstream read noise that manifests itself as just random noise. The detrimental effects of this 'downstream' noise can be mitigated by amplifying the signal to the point at which the downstream read noise is irrelevant. This is precisely why Canon DSLRs can catch up in DR at higher ISOs... at these high levels of amplification, it's mainly sensor-level (upstream of the ISO amplifier) read noise that matters. And here, Canon is doing just as well as others.



> There are a lot of ways of recovering dynamic range. Canon doesn't clip their signal, they offset instead, so all the image signal data is there. It can be recovered (which is actually NOT the case with Nikon and Sony cameras),



Again, this is no longer true. The D810 has an offset of 600.



sarangiman said:


> Also, I haven't yet seen evidence that the increased DR at base ISO on the D810 is due to 'cooking' the Raw file. In fact, DxO's full SNR curves suggest some sort of nonlinearity introduced into capture at the lowest ISO. The SNR at clipping - where the noise is dominated by shot noise - remains the same for ISO 64 and ISO 100. That indicates to me that for an increased
> 
> [quote author=jrista]
> You should search some of the astrophotography sites. There is a lot if information about how all the various DSLR manufacturers mess with their signals.


[/quote]

Yes, I know that manufacturer's can 'cook' Raw files to a certain extent, but my point was that there's no evidence so far that this 'cooking' is what is leading to the extra DR at base ISO for the D810. I was pointing out that the SNR curve is significantly more non-linear at base ISO compared to ISO 100 for the D810:







Almost like an emulation (albeit very tiny magnitude) of negative film's decreasing response with increasing exposure. I think that's quite interesting, and am trying to get to the bottom of it. It's literally like a roll-off at higher input luminosities. Would love to hear some thoughts from folks here.


----------



## RLPhoto (Aug 6, 2014)

Jrista, that's quite a rant but agree that the d810 is what the d800 should have been when released. That would have really lit a fire under canon.


----------



## candyman (Aug 6, 2014)

Yuriy said:


> Он чувствует себя немного странно, что Canon больше не кажется, быть в состоянии конкурировать в таких областях, как качество изображения, шума датчика, даже сильных полях Nikon AF, кажется, догнал D810. немного волнуясь


 
Google translation: _"It feels a little strange that Canon no longer seem to be able to compete in areas such as image quality, sensor noise, even strong fields Nikon AF, seems to be caught up with D810. a bit worrying"_

I don't see it that way. But even if you do, be aware that it is a competition stepover.


----------



## jrista (Aug 6, 2014)

Aglet said:


> > Why? Because when you integrate multiple frames, even if you don't even do any kind of dark or bias frame subtraction to remove read noise, your averaging those frames together. Averaging reduces noise. So, let's say you have the option of shooting one ISO 100 shot at 1/10th of a second, or four ISO 400 shots at 1/40th of a second. Integrate the ISO 400 shots, and you reduce noise by averaging. You reduce ALL noise, including deeper shadow read noise. In a Canon camera, ISO 400 has as much DR as ISO 100, so your did not lose anything by doing that, but because you could use a higher shutter speed, in the end, after integration, you gain something.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sorry, I said noise, but I meant read noise, which only exists in the shadows. I agree, there isn't going to be a significant improvement in the midtones up, but if you averaged a bunch of ISO 400 images together that fit in the space of a single ISO 100 image, you WOULD reduce read noise with the ISO 400 stack below the levels of a single ISO 100 image. This is because ISO 400 in Canon cameras have considerably less read noise than ISO 100. Even if all you do is achieve roughly the same amount of noise in the midtones through highlights, you still have a better image overall...and more dynamic range and editing latitude...because in a Canon camera, DR/editing latitude is limited by their read noise.

That's all I was saying.


----------



## Sporgon (Aug 6, 2014)

Yuriy said:


> Он чувствует себя немного странно, что Canon больше не кажется, быть в состоянии конкурировать в таких областях, как качество изображения, шума датчика, даже сильных полях Nikon AF, кажется, догнал D810. немного волнуясь



3eBaTb

(Yawn)


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## Keith_Reeder (Aug 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> That would have really lit a fire under canon.



And _again_: what the D810 does that's demonstrably better than what can be achieved by Canon bodies is of importance to only a tiny subset of the potential userbase out there.

It wouldn't have lit (and didn't light) a fire under Canon, because most users _don't care_ about what is "superior" about the D810, and don't use their cameras in such a way as to make that "superiority" remotely relevant _to them_. 

The D810 is arguably less of a one-trick pony than the D800, but it's still nothing like as versatile and useful for photography _across the genres_ as the 5D Mk III.


----------



## Keith_Reeder (Aug 6, 2014)

dilbert said:


> And for a small but vocal group of people, high ISO is all they care about.



Nope, _nobody_ says that, and you know it.

High ISO gets cited purely as an example of _something other than low ISO DR that also matters_ - because it's obvious that some people simply can't comprehend the notion that low ISO DR isn't the be-all-and-end-all.


----------



## scyrene (Aug 6, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > And for a small but vocal group of people, high ISO is all they care about.
> ...



Mostly those of us who value higher ISO are after shots we literally can't get at present. Usable ISO 3200-5000 means I can shoot small birds in flight at 1000mm f/10 in cloudy conditions (some ask why bother, but that's a separate point). Usable ISO 25600 would allow even greater flexibility for very fast exposures in poor light - whether it's birds or people at parties. People clamouring for low ISO improvements are after a much subtler thing, I would say. They want slightly better/easier to process shots of landscapes or studio subjects.

_Both_ are valid, but for some reason the low-ISO proponents often reject that people wanting cleaner high ISO have a point (as you say).


----------



## neuroanatomist (Aug 6, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That would have really lit a fire under canon.
> ...



When the D800 came out, the usual suspects predicted doom for the 5DIII and for Canon in general, commented that with 36 MP Nikon had beaten Canon at their own MP game, that Canon was behind and needed to catch up, etc. 

Here we are, a couple of years later, and has _Canon_ released a 5DIII replacement to better compete with the D800? Nope, the 5DIII is doing fine. Instead, _Nikon_ felt the need to release the D810 in an effort to better compete with the 5DIII by addressing some of the D800's shortcomings. 

Of course, the same crew of usual suspects is now going on about how the D810 will 'light a fire under Canon' or whatever. 

It's amusing, but also a little sad, that some people can't see beyond their own limited needs, particularly when those needs are shared with only a small minority. Fortunately for Canon, they apparently _can_ see the big picture, which is one reason they've long been and remain the market leader.


----------



## RLPhoto (Aug 6, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That would have really lit a fire under canon.
> ...


Pretty much. The mk3 was the D700 replacement everyone wanted from nikon and the D810 addressed alot of those issues. Alas, Alittle too late but It would have given a solid reason for some nikon users not to jump to the MK3's practicality. (Which quite a few did both ways.)


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## jrista (Aug 7, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Keith_Reeder said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



Thing is, the D810 is actually a real competitor for the 5D III, as far as "general purpose DSLR" goes. It lacks in the ergo department, and is missing that 1 FPS, dunno about the AF system, although that was always pretty decent, but it is a LOT closer, and STILL has the better sensor IQ. 

I agree, the D800 wasn't really a competitor for the 5D III...but the D810 is. I don't expect Canon to rush a 5D IV to market, simply isn't their style. I do expect the 7D II to have a better sensor with better low ISO IQ. It's needed and necessary for Canon to remain competitive. As I've said before...it doesn't really matter if it *really* matters or not. Perceptions have changed. It's pretty difficult to go to any photography forum these days, and not hear about DR. Everyone talks about it. I know I want more of it, and I've been patiently awaiting Canon to do something about it...but they have lost momentum. 

The digital photography world is marching forward...and Canon is standing still. I like Canon, I like to defend them, I really don't like how DXO does things, and I don't think the DR issue is as all important as so many people make it out to be. I'll always be involved in those debates. But...the simple, honest truth is...I want my high res, high DR, full frame landscape DSLR...and I dont want to have to buy a Nikon to get it. I want to see the 7D II get a major sensor IQ boost...because if I don't...I'll lose faith in Canon to address their customer's primary concerns.

As much as you and I may be Canon fans, I think we still have to be realistic. You can't ignore the competition the D810 brings to the table. It's received meaningful improvements. Sadly, I agree with you. I don't think the D810 will light a fire under Canon...and quite honestly, I think that's sad. Canon's sensor IQ is rapidly becoming the worst in the industry, when it used to be the best. Even the medium format cameras, which used to have read noise as bad as Canons, are now using 50mp medium format Exmors... Half or more of Canon's DSLR and mirrorless competitors are using Exmors. Canon can only ride the wave for so long...


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## candyman (Aug 7, 2014)

Yuriy said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Keith_Reeder said:
> ...




Yuriy, no offense but can you translate your native language in Google translation and then post it? Thanks!


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 7, 2014)

candyman said:


> Yuriy said:
> 
> 
> > Почему вы ложью, видео точно показывает, почему датчик от Sony лучше, чем Canon.
> ...



I believe "Yuriy's" native language is actually Swedish. For example, he might say:

_Jag gillar att ta dåligt exponerade bilder av grillar, bodar och markiser._


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## candyman (Aug 7, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> candyman said:
> 
> 
> > Yuriy said:
> ...


 ;D


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## mackguyver (Aug 7, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> candyman said:
> 
> 
> > Yuriy said:
> ...


He must be from that Russian side of Stockholm or something as my Swedish friends don't use the Cyrillic alphabet...

I'd respond with the following (forgive the Google translation): 
Дорогой друг, это форум *Canon *и все мы говорим на одном языке, что практически не что *DxO *не следует доверять и *DR *может быть хорошо на бумаге, но это не делает все другие камеры устарели. Кроме того, сколько людей на самом деле стрелять в темноте?


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## Orangutan (Aug 7, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > candyman said:
> ...



If so, props to Миша for the creativity.


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## sarangiman (Aug 7, 2014)

jrista said:


> Thing is, the D810 is actually a real competitor for the 5D III, as far as "general purpose DSLR" goes. It lacks in the ergo department, and is missing that 1 FPS, dunno about the AF system, although that was always pretty decent, but it is a LOT closer, and STILL has the better sensor IQ.



First of all, 'lacks in the ergo department' is very, _very_ subjective. Yes the grip on the D810 is still too small & not fat enough for my hands, and the D-pad is not as good as Canon's joystick. OTOH, there are many more customization options on the D810 than on my 5DIII. So there's a greater chance I can configure the D810 to suit my needs over the Canon. And let's not forget the complete lack of EC in M mode w/ Auto ISO when it comes to Canon. The 1Dx's implementation is so nonsensical it's almost lacking - you either have to use the LCD screen to use EC in M mode, or dedicate the Set button to activate EC in M mode. The latter removes one of the largest advantages of Canon ergonomics in my opinion - the ability to press 'Set' even in shooting mode to instantly check focus on your last shot. Why you can't adjust EC using the dedicated EC button in M mode baffles me to no end...

Also - if you consider this an element of 'ergonomics' - programmable Auto ISO itself enough reason to choose Nikon. When I'm switching primes during a wedding shoot, I don't want to have to remember to go in there and change my minimum shutter speed (and Canon's choice of 'minimum shutter speed' is often unsuitable). With Nikon, I simply choose slower to faster in 5 increments based on if I'm shooting static vs. moving subjects. Game-changing for the types of photography I do.



> I agree, the D800 wasn't really a competitor for the 5D III...but the D810 is.



Now this I'd love some clarification on. Most people are pointing out how the D810 is not much of an improvement over the D800. DxO's own scores on image quality show this. So what suddenly makes the D810 a competitor to the 5DIII, but not the D800? The half-a-stop extra DR? The electronic 1st curtain [EFC] that can only be activated with mirror-up? Just curious exactly why you feel this way.

If I were to venture a guess - I'd say the EFC? I do wish, though, that Nikon had an option to implement EFC in all shooting modes with a short delay to allow mirror vibrations to dampen out. EFC only working in Mup mode is a bit silly - especially in Live View. 

My bigger point here is that the D800 was just as big a contender. Not only b/c of its superior image quality, but also b/c of Programmable Auto ISO, Exposure Compensation in M mode, spot-metering linked to AF point, and 3D AF tracking. The latter allows one to simply use the center AF point to initiate focus on a desired subject, and allow the camera to track that subject across the frame, as well as along the Z/depth-axis. This (1) obviates the need to select the proper focus point, which is time consuming, and (2) tracks moving subjects like running brides across the frame. With every Canon save for the 1Dx, I have to manually select the AF point when I can't focus and recompose (24/1.4 and 35/1.4). Try doing that with a 4 month old baby that constantly moves around. For this particular scenario, I believe my focus hit rate went from something like 10% to 80% simply going from a 5DIII to the D810.

Canon's complete lack of a separate sensor for AF tracking in all but the 1Dx is rather egregious. And I, personally, find it difficult to use a 1Dx b/c of its weight/size that, with serious glass, puts it north of what I'm willing to tolerate. The 5D III uses some tricks to track subjects to make up for its lack of dedicated hardware - e.g. I believe it cross-references data from AF sensors to check if a subject at some depth moved from one focus point to another, and I think it also uses some info from its 63 zone metering system to help track subjects. But none of these approaches come near the (lateral, X-Y plane) tracking accuracy of a dedicated 91,000 pixel meter, or the entire imaging sensor itself in Sony SLT designs. 

It's funny, if anything, I think the Nikon system is somewhat _less_ desirable now than it was a few years ago when the D800 was released. Why? B/c now Canon has some very, very fine lenses for it's system. The 16-35 f/4L IS & the 24-70 f/4L IS are great lenses for landscape photographers.


----------



## dgatwood (Aug 8, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> First of all, 'lacks in the ergo department' is very, _very_ subjective. Yes the grip on the D810 is still too small & not fat enough for my hands, and the D-pad is not as good as Canon's joystick.



Maybe I'm the only one, but I actually prefer D-pads to joysticks. They don't stick out from the camera as far, and as such, are less prone to breakage. I mean, it's significant that the first hit in a search for "5D mark III joystick" on Google was not a description of the product, but rather a discussion thread entitled "5DIII Joystick came off". Out of the entire first page on Google, all but two links were threads and blog articles talking about various failure modes. That doesn't sound like good design to me. A good D-pad can give you the same basic functionality without the fragility. But I'd rather have eye tracking than either one.


----------



## sarangiman (Aug 9, 2014)

The reason I prefer the joystick is b/c the D-pad requires too much travel for my thumb to change focus point. But neither the D-pad nor joystick are ideal. I can think of a much better way to select AF points quickly... can you? 

But given how spectacular the D810 is at tracking the subject across the frame in '3D' tracking mode, the joystick vs. D-pad debate is less of a concern for me as I'm jumping ship. However, I'd still prefer a faster way to select AF point for those situations where AF tracking fails - e.g. in very low light, low contrast subjects, heavily backlit subjects, etc.

Interesting about the joystick breaking. Ultimately I don't care - that can be fixed so I'd prefer function over longevity. But that's just me.


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## dgatwood (Aug 9, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> The reason I prefer the joystick is b/c the D-pad requires too much travel for my thumb to change focus point. But neither the D-pad nor joystick are ideal. I can think of a much better way to select AF points quickly... can you?



Indeed, eye can.


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## jrista (Aug 9, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> The reason I prefer the joystick is b/c the D-pad requires too much travel for my thumb to change focus point. But neither the D-pad nor joystick are ideal. I can think of a much better way to select AF points quickly... can you?
> 
> But given how spectacular the D810 is at tracking the subject across the frame in '3D' tracking mode, the joystick vs. D-pad debate is less of a concern for me as I'm jumping ship. However, I'd still prefer a faster way to select AF point for those situations where AF tracking fails - e.g. in very low light, low contrast subjects, heavily backlit subjects, etc.
> 
> Interesting about the joystick breaking. Ultimately I don't care - that can be fixed so I'd prefer function over longevity. But that's just me.



I really wonder why Canon doesn't bring eye control back. It certainly seems like fans of the EOS 3 ECF really want it. It would be interesting to have whatever it is your looking at in the VF be focused...that would just rock. I am guessing the system was expensive, at least that's what I'd read in the past...in a film camera, it was probably one of the most expensive things. However in a DSLR, it's just one more expensive thing to add to the mix...maybe it pushes cost over the edge.


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## zim (Aug 9, 2014)

7Dii - same sensor/IQ as 70D but with eye control af, slight up in fps all else as 7D

How would that be received?


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## DominoDude (Aug 11, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> candyman said:
> 
> 
> > Yuriy said:
> ...



Njae, Neuro, svenska är knappast Yuriys modersmål. Vi använder inte det kyrilliska alfabetet. Men vissa av oss är duktiga på att ta underexponerade foton. 

Transl.: Nah, Neuro, Swedish is hardly his native tongue. We don't use the Cyrillic alphabet. But some of us are good at taking underexposed photos.


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## sarangiman (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> I really wonder why Canon doesn't bring eye control back. It certainly seems like fans of the EOS 3 ECF really want it. It would be interesting to have whatever it is your looking at in the VF be focused...that would just rock. I am guessing the system was expensive, at least that's what I'd read in the past...in a film camera, it was probably one of the most expensive things. However in a DSLR, it's just one more expensive thing to add to the mix...maybe it pushes cost over the edge.



As much as I love the idea, eye AF never worked well for me on my EOS 3, or any of the Canon camcorders I used to use back in the day. I'd probably fare better with contacts, though. 

IMHO there's a simpler, better way to do it. Of all cameras, the Panasonic GH4 actually comes close to what I'm thinking- if you enable an option buried deep in the menus. It's not ideal, but it's a good start. With a little creativity, one could iterate on it or something similar to design a UI for AF point selection that'd be significantly faster & easier to use than a D-pad, or a joystick, or the cumbersome 4-way controllers on most mirrorless ILCs.


----------



## jrista (Aug 12, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I really wonder why Canon doesn't bring eye control back. It certainly seems like fans of the EOS 3 ECF really want it. It would be interesting to have whatever it is your looking at in the VF be focused...that would just rock. I am guessing the system was expensive, at least that's what I'd read in the past...in a film camera, it was probably one of the most expensive things. However in a DSLR, it's just one more expensive thing to add to the mix...maybe it pushes cost over the edge.
> ...



I currently don't have any problems whatsoever selecting the AF point with the joystick. I can move it around without ever taking my eye from the viewfinder. The toughest part is hitting that little M.fn button next to the primary dial...there is probably a more accessible place for that button. But once it's pressed, actually selecting the AF point is not difficult at all.


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## Eldar (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> The toughest part is hitting that little M.fn button next to the primary dial...there is probably a more accessible place for that button. But once it's pressed, actually selecting the AF point is not difficult at all.


I use the top right button at the back


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

One of the nicest FW upgrades Canon did to the 1Ds MkIII enabled the joystick to adjust AF point without pressing any other button first, I really like that feature.


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## scyrene (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> One of the nicest FW upgrades Canon did to the 1Ds MkIII enabled the joystick to adjust AF point without pressing any other button first, I really like that feature.



The 5DIII does something similar. I don't know if I enabled it somehow, or if it's part of the current firmware. If you press the shutter button halfway to engage the AF, then use the joystick, it moves the focus points without pressing any other buttons.


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## 3kramd5 (Aug 12, 2014)

Eldar said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > The toughest part is hitting that little M.fn button next to the primary dial...there is probably a more accessible place for that button. But once it's pressed, actually selecting the AF point is not difficult at all.
> ...



I center-press the joystick to return the AF point selection to the center. Doing that unlocks it. Thumb is already there, just press it and then toggle the joystick.


----------



## Sporgon (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> One of the nicest FW upgrades Canon did to the 1Ds MkIII enabled the joystick to adjust AF point without pressing any other button first, I really like that feature.



I thought all the joystick cameras could always be set up this way :-[

Certainly the 5D could so I'm sure the 5DIII can surely. 

By the way the 6D can't. Someone forgot to fit a joystick to mine


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

On the 1Ds MkIII that feature came with FW 1.1.2 in April 2008. Don't know about any other bodies.


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## Keith_Reeder (Aug 12, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> I thought all the joystick cameras could always be set up this way :-[



7D and 70D certainly can - although the 70D's option took some digging out.


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## sarangiman (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> I currently don't have any problems whatsoever selecting the AF point with the joystick. I can move it around without ever taking my eye from the viewfinder. The toughest part is hitting that little M.fn button next to the primary dial...there is probably a more accessible place for that button. But once it's pressed, actually selecting the AF point is not difficult at all.



Wow, you don't have the camera set up to automatically move the AF point when you engage the joystick (as scyrene points out)? I'm no longer surprised you don't have a problem with how slow the joystick itself is... When I shoot professionally (weddings) using the joystick, I'm always cursing myself for missing a shot b/c I didn't move the AF point over fast enough. Making shooting kind of like a FPS video game. This is with wide-angle fast primes, where it's critical the correct focus point is used.

There should be a better UI. Nikon's 3D AF tracking and 1Dx's subject tracking are formidable options, but in my experience the 1Dx fails quite frequently at sticking to the subject, and both cameras start to fail in low light. And Nikon's lack of cross-type sensors becomes limiting for portrait-oriented shots (has trouble focusing on eyes). No system is perfect, really.


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## psolberg (Aug 19, 2014)

boy if canon every scores high on DXO, so many people are going to eat crow when they suddenly praise their accuracy. fanboys. meh.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 19, 2014)

psolberg said:


> boy if canon every scores high on DXO, so many people are going to eat crow when they suddenly praise their accuracy. fanboys. meh.



But is the specific criticism of DXO methodology incorrect?


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 19, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> psolberg said:
> 
> 
> > boy if canon every scores high on DXO, so many people are going to eat crow when they suddenly praise their accuracy. fanboys. meh.
> ...



The criticisms will remain valid no matter who scores higher. The problems are the bias inherent in the Scores, and their unwillingness to disclose their formulae and weightings. 

One could argue that I'm a Zeiss fan. I believe their optics are good enough that I've spent millions of (research) dollars on Zeiss microscopes. A Zeiss lens is DxO's top-scoring lens...and I still think their lens Scores are BS. 

But some people (including some professional photographers who like to brag about now much money they make) enjoy breathing in the smell of DxO's BS, and then exhale that stench all over these forums.


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