# 5DS-R DR test on DPReview



## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 11, 2015)

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7181402796/dynamic-range-test-added-to-canon-eos-5ds-r-first-impressions-review


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## ahsanford (May 11, 2015)

Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.

Juicy conclusion-y bits for the TL/DR folks:
_
"Our preliminary Raw dynamic range analyses indicate that Canon's new 50MP resolution cameras bring not only a whole lot of resolution to the table, but also some increases in dynamic range over its predecessors. As we saw with the 7D Mark II, Canon’s been making some, albeit arguably slow, progress with respect to dynamic range, and we're pleased to see this trickle down to the 5DS cameras. We were skeptical when Canon first told us that dynamic range would be similar to the 5D Mark III - if the 5DS' sensors are essentially scaled 7D Mark II sensors, then we’d have expected roughly 1EV (at best) dynamic range improvement over the 7D Mark II, which itself was almost on par with the 5D Mark III with respect to dynamic range. Indeed, this is essentially what we see, with the 5DS R ISO 100 shot pushed 6 EV appearing to have roughly similar noise levels to the 5D Mark III ISO 200 shot pushed 5 EV. That's at least a stop improvement over the 5D Mark III, with little to no banding to boot, and this is particularly impressive given the massive increase in resolution.

That said, the 5DS cameras cannot compete with the massive base ISO dynamic range we see from on-chip ADC architectures from Sony sensors in cameras from competitors like Nikon, Pentax, and Sony itself. Those shooting high dynamic range scenes may still have to rely on filters and HDR techniques more than they might have had to if shooting with some of the better performing peers, and in general you will have to take more care to ensure proper exposure due to the more limited exposure latitude compared to some of the competition."_

- A


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## neuroanatomist (May 12, 2015)

ahsanford said:


> Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.



Clearly, you're not a _real_ photographer. _Real_ photographers need to do it all the time. For example, say you're shooting with the lens cap on, like a _real_ photographer. A 6-stop push can really save that shot. Or say you want that flat, washed out, front-lit, shadowless look for your photography, like a _real_ photographer. Again, that 6-stop push really helps.


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## jaayres20 (May 12, 2015)

This is great stuff. For a sensor to be good, you must be able to shoot at base ISO at all times and be able to adjust accordingly in post. They should just remove the ISO button from the camera, what is the point? I mean seriously, who needs to get it right in the camera now? Another quote said something about taking care to make sure the exposure is correct with the 5DS due to dynamic range limitations. I would hate to have to make an accurate exposure, what kind of photographer does that anyway?


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## ahsanford (May 12, 2015)

jaayres20 said:


> This is great stuff. For a sensor to be good, you must be able to shoot at base ISO at all times and be able to adjust accordingly in post. They should just remove the ISO button from the camera, what is the point? I mean seriously, who needs to get it right in the camera now? Another quote said something about taking care to make sure the exposure is correct with the 5DS due to dynamic range limitations. I would hate to have to make an accurate exposure, what kind of photographer does that anyway?



My midnight Yeti and Loch Ness Monster photography is only shot at ISO 100, even if I underexpose by 11 stops. Post-processing feels like developing film because I have no @#[email protected] clue of what pictures I took. Because chimping a completely jet black picture is like looking at a Christmas present before Christmas day: _who knows what good stuff is in there_, amiright? 

- A


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## mackguyver (May 12, 2015)

I've taken about 10 (landscape) photos at ISO 100 in the past 5 years, but *if you live somewhere without wind or like to shoot at Noon*, I'm sure being able to push your shadows 6 stops would be mighty handy. If the 5DS has more DR, that's good, but if not, I'm not going to sweat it.


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## Sporgon (May 12, 2015)

ahsanford said:


> Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.
> 
> - A



Applicable : When you're testing sensors that are otherwise all pretty well identical

Useful : When you've become so bored testing sensors that are otherwise all pretty well identical

Relevant : Err...........want to sell more Nikons on Amazon perhaps ? 

I have only ever gone 1 stop pull, 1.5 stop push. That's it. On a correctly exposed frame 1.5 stops is a major shadow lift.


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## meywd (May 13, 2015)

Yes sometimes pushing shadows in post is a nightmare, so if you don't have a flash it becomes handy, in some situations, but 6 stops is really too much, and to make it a test in a review is ridiculous.


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## LOALTD (May 13, 2015)

ahsanford said:


> Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.
> 
> Juicy conclusion-y bits for the TL/DR folks:
> _
> ...




It's a good way to test for DR in a controlled space. I'd love for them to go out and shoot the same beautiful NW landscape scene with every camera, but it's not practical.


My Mk III has problematic shadows at +2EV and +100 shadows, at ISO 100. That's not even a very aggressive push. I often use bracketing and HDR to overcome this, but I'd much rather get it in a single shot because...life moves.


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## KateH (May 13, 2015)

ahsanford said:


> Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.
> - A



DP Review stated they've switched to this new, subjective, DR rating system as it provides a more real-world comparison of _useable_ dynamic range as opposed to the absolute DR ratings of the old DPR test and DXO's ratings. This new method isn't about pushing exposure for sake of doing it, rather it's the "expose to the left" philosophy, assuming that photogs will underexpose to ensure their images' highlights don't clip regardless of their camera's DR, and therefore _shadow_ performance is actually more important as it affects how much noise and detail will be in images once exposure is normalized. I agree wholeheartedly with this new testing system because it fits more with the way digital sensors work; highlights are universally clean and have a hard limit but shadows can look vastly different from camera-to-camera and don't have the same hard cutoff.

For example, my EOS M and 5D "Classic" both received a DR rating of 11 stops from DXO Mark, and images shot of the same scene with the same exposure values will have basically the same histogram, yet in actual use, if I expose each to preserve highlights, the 5D images look better because the shadows are cleaner.


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## Aglet (May 13, 2015)

Gheez! Even I think a 4EV push is enough to show weakness in the sensor system. 6 is a bit much.
Looks like the new FF 5Ds may have have dropped the vast majority of the plaid plague. Finally. Still pretty blotchy color noise. Will have to wait for DxOmark to do a complete and proper test before I can decide that I still really don't want one.


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## e17paul (May 13, 2015)

One viewpoint from the tech world is at http://gizmodo.com/we-took-some-50-megapixel-shots-with-the-canon-5ds-for-1702954029


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## rs (May 13, 2015)

Finally the single most important aspect of a camera is getting the attention it deserves. And to think some manufacturers are stupid enough to put metering systems into some of their cameras to avoid all of this pushing in post?


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

rs said:


> Finally the single most important aspect of a camera is getting the attention it deserves. And to think some manufacturers are stupid enough to put metering systems into some of their cameras to avoid all of this pushing in post?



Metering systems are for wannabe amateurs. _Real_ photographers eschew them because they know pushing your exposure 6-stops in post gives the best IQ.


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## rs (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> rs said:
> 
> 
> > Finally the single most important aspect of a camera is getting the attention it deserves. And to think some manufacturers are stupid enough to put metering systems into some of their cameras to avoid all of this pushing in post?
> ...


What _real_ photographers need isn't just enough DR to push 6 stops in post, but light field so they can focus in post, 360 degree image capture (like google street view) at > 1 gigapixel resolution to allow them to frame in post, and 240fps capture to allow them to choose the decisive moment in post. Now if only they could get the camera to be positioned correctly in post too...


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## sanj (May 13, 2015)

dilbert said:


> ahsanford said:
> 
> 
> > Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.
> ...



I guess what you are saying is that this tests it _theoretically. _


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## 9VIII (May 13, 2015)

rs said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > rs said:
> ...



In the future when Google sets up a live feed of the entire surface of the Earth a bunch of people will just track every eagle alive and every time one catches a fish they'll use a computer to "interpolate" the satellite feed into a picture of the event from any angle.
At this point "being there" will mean you had your browser window on the spot of that event sometime that day.


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## roguewave (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Clearly, you're not a _real_ photographer. _Real_ photographers need to do it all the time. For example, say you're shooting with the lens cap on, like a _real_ photographer. A 6-stop push can really save that shot. Or say you want that flat, washed out, front-lit, shadowless look for your photography, like a _real_ photographer. Again, that 6-stop push really helps.



You're mistaken, REAL photographers don't shoot lens caps. They are too busy hanging out on photography forums, making fun of anybody mentioning any area where Canon is behind the competition . Even if the opinion comes from a well known professional review site that posts a "Real World Dynamic Range" example.

Seriously though, to me their summary seems to be spot on - it's not Canon bashing, but an objective conclusion:
That said, the 5DS cameras cannot compete with the massive base ISO dynamic range we see from on-chip ADC architectures from Sony sensors in cameras from competitors like Nikon, Pentax, and Sony itself. Those shooting high dynamic range scenes may still have to rely on filters and HDR techniques more than they might have had to if shooting with some of the better performing peers, and in general you will have to take more care to ensure proper exposure due to the more limited exposure latitude compared to some of the competition.


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## gary samples (May 13, 2015)

I fear no Evil as I walk through the Valley of the Trolls !! :
but seriously though are there any Canon fanboys here. 
I never have been to the Nikon are Sony web pages because I shoot Canon. 
would never dream of bashing them .
if any of you know where I can go to be among Canon Family shoot a link


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## jrista (May 13, 2015)

I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

roguewave said:


> Even if the opinion comes from a well known professional review site that posts a "Real World Dynamic Range" example. dynamic range we see from on-chip ADC architectures from Sony sensors in cameras from competitors like Nikon, Pentax, and Sony itself. Those shooting high dynamic



I guess reposting the DxO numbers just wasn't enough. 




roguewave said:


> Seriously though, to me their summary seems to be spot on - it's not Canon bashing, but an objective conclusion:
> That said, the 5DS cameras cannot compete with the massive base ISO dynamic range dynamic range we see from on-chip ADC architectures from Sony sensors in cameras from competitors like Nikon, Pentax, and Sony itself. Those shooting high dynamic range scenes...



I see. 12-stops is pitifully small and terribly limiting, but 14-stops is massive. Obviously, those who shoot high DR scenes always use base ISO. Yeah, that all makes since because a well-known professional review site says so.


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## 9VIII (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.



Have you actually fallen so far?
Have you actually forgotten that all of these comments are in the context of a constant barrage of absurd statements implying that a camera is useless without 14 stops of DR?


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## meywd (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.



Tbh I want more DR, as much as I want more FPS, less noise at high ISO, and better AF, but unlike these other things, the cases where I need more DR can be dealt with using workarounds like HDR, Dual_ISO, Flash, blending multi-exposures


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.
> ...



I wonder if he considered donating his Canon 5DIII to a worthy charity, but decided against it for ethical reasons, much like donating clothing that's stained and ripped to shreds.


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## ahsanford (May 13, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.
> ...



This thread, along with my prior 5DS DXO vigil:
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=25991.0

...walks that fine line between comedy and insanity. Start the thread in earnest and it becomes a joke. Start the thread in jest and people get serious. It's a wonderfully mad metamorphosis.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to shoot pictures of total darkness in a sensory deprivation chamber -- at ISO 100, handheld, of course. If my darkness comes out plaid after I push it 9 stops, I will smash my 5D3 to bits and leave Canon forever. 

- A


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## 3kramd5 (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing?



I'm not sure I've ever witnessed a specification (or lab-based determination of related capability) be demonized here. Nor have I seen the notion that having more DR is a bad thing. Granted I can't bring myself to read the endless pages, but has even one person made the suggestion that lowering sensor noise or expanding DR in other ways is a bad thing?

I bet if you took a poll, "More Dynamic Range - Good or Bad," you'd see approximately 0% choose "bad" (and those who did would be trolling).


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing?
> ...



+1

No one is anti-DR. Some people recognize there's more to making images than low ISO DR.


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## bdunbar79 (May 13, 2015)

I think we need some clarification:

12 stops of DR at ISO 100 is horrendous. 14 stops is magical. 

High ISO DR doesn't matter at all. Nobody shoots at high ISO or at least they shouldn't. They just don't know what they're doing if they do. 

There I think that sums it all up.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

One more point of clarification about why DPR has a 6-stop push tool and rating. DPR is not a public service website, they exist because those who run it want more dimes. So they develop a new 'tool' to drive traffic to their site. DxOMark exists for exactly the same reason. So much the better if the tool makes the most popular brand look bad – the latest film/TV star scandal is always a lead-in teaser item on the nightly news.


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## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 13, 2015)

The following is from a poll on the DPR site:

HAVE YOUR SAY
What's most important to you in a camera?
Dynamic range
23.8%
Resolution
18.1%
High ISO image quality
22.9%
AF performance
22.7%
Continuous shooting speed / buffer
10.5%
I don't care - I'm just putting pics on Facebook
1.9%
Total voters: 1,505


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## msm (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> One more point of clarification about why DPR has a 6-stop push tool and rating. DPR is not a public service website, they exist because those who run it want more dimes. So they develop a new 'tool' to drive traffic to their site. DxOMark exists for exactly the same reason. So much the better if the tool makes the most popular brand look bad – the latest film/TV star scandal is always a lead-in teaser item on the nightly news.



Oh so you are saying these tools are just there to make Canon look bad and produce more traffic and not because DR is actually a relevant property that has impact in real world photography?


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## msm (May 13, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.
> ...



Yeah, who is making a constant barrage of absurd statements in this thread?


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> The following is from a poll on the DPR site:
> Total voters: *1,505*



That's about 0.01% of the dSLRs sold per year.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

msm said:


> Yeah, who is making a constant barrage of absurd statements in this thread?



Here's a good example of an absurd statement in this thread:



msm said:


> Oh so you are saying these tools are just there to make Canon look bad and produce more traffic and not because DR is actually a relevant property that has impact in real world photography?


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## msm (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> msm said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, who is making a constant barrage of absurd statements in this thread?
> ...



It is not a statement, it is a question to what to me seems like an absurd post.


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## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> 
> 
> > The following is from a poll on the DPR site:
> ...



You don't have to poll everyone in order to get a statistically significant sample set.

This 'demonstrates' that DR is as important as AF and High ISO to a reasonable number of people. Which seems about right. I bet that these percentages will not change.


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## Sporgon (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.



This is the danger of fixating on something: you start to see it everywhere. 

I would happily throw down a challenge for you or anyone to pick which picture has been taken on Nikon out of ten, the remaining nine having been taken on Canon at 100 ISO.


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## Sporgon (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> ...



I'm not at all surprised given how the whole DR thing is so Internet driven anyway.


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## bdunbar79 (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> The following is from a poll on the DPR site:
> 
> HAVE YOUR SAY
> What's most important to you in a camera?
> ...



Me personally, high ISO DR. In sports you don't get time to edit RAW files; only time to crop JPG's, if that.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

msm said:


> It is not a statement, it is a question to what to me seems like an absurd post.



My apologies, I will correct my earlier statement. Your post was a good example of an absurd rhetorical question.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

bdunbar79 said:


> Me personally, high ISO DR. In sports you don't get time to edit RAW files; only time to crop JPG's, if that.



Wait a minute, are you actually suggesting that DR is important at anything other than base ISO? Then again, we are in the midst of a discussion about absurd statements (or was that questions?).


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## 3kramd5 (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> The following is from a poll on the DPR site:
> 
> HAVE YOUR SAY
> What's most important to you in a camera?
> ...



Sorta a silly poll, though. I can't prioritize one single thing in a system, and I don't see how anyone else can either. 

For example, does choosing "resolution" mean that I'd prefer a camera whose 1,000MP sensor musters 2 stops of dynamic range, has a single contrast detect AF point, only operates at ISO160, and turns out a rate of 5sec/frame, to one with *only* 20MP, but 14 stops of DR, a host of phase detect AF, capable of 52,000 ISO at 12FPS?

Maybe they're reading it as: all else being equal, where you would like to see an improvement. If that's the case, maybe 23.8% of responders use Canon cameras and 22.7% use Sony


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## rs (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> ...


While improved DR performance at ISO 100 is not something worth turning down, DR captured by DSLR's at base ISO has for a long time exceeded the DR of current generation output medium, be that screen or paper. Making use of the expanded DR offered by Exmor sensors at base ISO either compensates for a shot taken where the metering system misses by a large margin, the photographer selects the wrong setting, or more usually to create the weird washed out HDR mush effect. While I can see the need for certain types of specialist photography (e.g. astro), it is certainly not a mainstream problem with photography.

I bet you if you show a selection of prints to a non-trained eye showing typical problems caused by lack of base ISO DR, high ISO noise, AF tracking issues, frame rate/buffer issues (resulting in missing the decisive moment) and resolution, the chances are missing the moment would be number one noticed problem (if its an action shot), focus issues would be number two, high ISO noise would be number three, and no-one would pick up on a typical lack of resolution or lack of DR _if exposed correctly_.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> ...



Are you suggesting that a self-selected population of 0.01% of the market is a statistically significant sample set that accurately represents the views of that entire market?

I guess that means we have conclusive evidence that Canon makes the top rated cameras:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/top-rated/photo/3017941/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_tr


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## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 13, 2015)

rs said:


> CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



+1


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## LOALTD (May 13, 2015)

DR is measured on a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.


So yes, 2-stops is quite a big difference over 14-stops.


Not to worry, if the 1Dx Mk II ends up having class-leading DR, the spec will finally matter again. I cannot wait!


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> DR is measured on a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.
> So yes, 2-stops is quite a big difference over 14-stops.
> Not to worry, if the 1Dx Mk II ends up having class-leading DR, the spec will finally matter again. I cannot wait!



So, f/1.2 lenses are massively awesome, and f/2.8* lenses are practically useless. Good to know. 


(*Yes, that difference is more than two stops. However, it was painfully and laboriously explained to me sometime back that when I round the DR of a Canon sensor up to 12 stops from 11.7, I am drastically under representing the true superiority of Exmor's 14-stops of pure awesomeness.)


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## msm (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> bdunbar79 said:
> 
> 
> > Me personally, high ISO DR. In sports you don't get time to edit RAW files; only time to crop JPG's, if that.
> ...



I think the topic is absurdness. Speaking of which, how much time of your life have you spend reading these topics and making 16000 posts which seems to be mostly in threads like this?


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## rs (May 13, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> Not to worry, if the 1Dx Mk II ends up having class-leading DR, the spec will finally matter again.


Base ISO DR of Canon DSLR's already exceeds the DR of all output medium I know of. If the next batch of Canon sensors make Exmor sensors look prehistoric from the DR point of view, I fail to see the advantage for 99% of photographers. While it is a metric which cameras can be measured by, and improvements don't hurt, this aspect of camera performance has been blown out of all proportion.


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## msm (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > DR is measured on a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.
> ...



Nice comparison, that really made sense!


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## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Typically, population based polls only require a few thousand responses in order to be statistically accurate.
I'm not really trying to say that the DPR poll is accurate. It's too general to draw any real conclusions other than that a bunch of people think that DR, AF and High ISO IQ are important. 

I wonder how many DPR readers would think that the differences between Canon and Sony low ISO DR is important? Probably a lot, but, only because they read about it every day.

Canon probably does offer the best cameras when you look at the whole pie: IQ, software, support, build quality, etc.


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## Orangutan (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.



I guess I missed it, I don't see any demonization. Everyone here would like more DR, that's not the question. The question is under what conditions the Sonikon advantage is significant. We have a great many people saying it's significant for them; we also have others saying they've shot both in DR-limited circumstances and don't find the difference compelling. I've heard others say they agree Canon DR is worse, but that Nikon color rendition is worse, and that's more important for them than DR.

All of us with Canon glass will be happier when we can buy bodies with better sensors (for all reasonable definitions of "better"). My frustration with the pro-DR crowd is that I feel like I'm being called stupid (not by you) for not recognizing the obvious inferiority of Canon sensors. I see a bit of a difference, but it just doesn't make that much difference for my shooting style and budget -- I can only justify buying crop sensors now anyway, so wouldn't get full benefit.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

rs said:


> While it is a metric which cameras can be measured by, and improvements don't hurt, this aspect of camera performance has been blown out of all proportion.



How can you say such a thing? We're talking about DR, for crying out loud. For all intents and purposes, DR *is* photography!


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## roguewave (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> roguewave said:
> 
> 
> > Even if the opinion comes from a well known professional review site that posts a "Real World Dynamic Range" example. dynamic range we see from on-chip ADC architectures from Sony sensors in cameras from competitors like Nikon, Pentax, and Sony itself. Those shooting high dynamic
> ...



Where do you see me drawing that distinction? All I said is that I agree with the reviewers on the additional DR being useful in some situations. But obviously neither test numbers nor real-world samples matter when neuronatamist says that 12-stops is enough for any _real_ photographer. That makes sense, who cares about these reviews coming from people who make their living reviewing camera gear.

In your own words, it's not like f/2.8 lenses are useless and f/1.2 are massively awesome - so anyone claiming that faster glass may be useful in some situations is a DOF troll?


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> Typically, population based polls only require a few thousand responses in order to be statistically accurate.



First, 1500 is not a few thousand. Second, and more importantly, for that to be valid the respondents must be *randomly* selected. I will certainly accept that the poll numbers adequately represent the views of _frequent visitors to the DPR website_, but not the general population of dSLR buyers.


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## jrista (May 13, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.
> ...



Fallen so far? What the hell does that mean?

More DR means better IQ. It's a simple equation. Yet everyone here takes every mention of dynamic range as some _personal_ affront. That is just...incomprehensible to me. It's a technological aspect, as important as any other. Anywhere else on the web, everyone recognizes that. Anywhere else on the web, people are happy to have more DR.

Here on CR? It's a personal insult to _even mention_ DR. ONLY HERE could that ever be possible. And it's only possible because Canon has persistently had LESS. Well, have fun with your war, guys. Glad I stopped posting on this site.


----------



## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 13, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> 
> 
> > Typically, population based polls only require a few thousand responses in order to be statistically accurate.
> ...



You brought up the notion of 'DSLR buyers'. It's a poll of DPR users who (it's assumed) randomly decided to answer the poll.

As for 'a few thousand', that is for a population of a country. When we are talking about a population of English speaking DSLR users who happen to have logged onto DPReview, 1500 is sufficient.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

jrista said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



Demonization of DR? Please...provide some examples of people here stating that more DR would be a bad thing. Can you? If not, then you've clearly fallen into the hell of hyperbole and false accusation.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> ...



In that case, let's revisit your earlier statement and correct it:



CaptureWhatYouSee said:


> This 'demonstrates' that DR is as important as AF and High ISO to a reasonable number of people English speaking DSLR users who happen to have logged onto DPReview. Which seems about right. I bet that these percentages will not change.



I completely agree with the revised statement.


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## neuroanatomist (May 13, 2015)

dilbert said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> ...



Apparently Australians can't punctuate it.


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## meywd (May 14, 2015)

jrista said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



I hope that is not 100% true, losing a source of very helpful and educational posts is a loss to this forum, and I understand, this debate is becoming more and more fruitless, I am sure this will be ignored but I think I understand both parties, the below is not targeted at jrista, but to all.

So yes Sony has the best low ISO DR, but hold it, Canon has the best high ISO performance, then again the a7s can't be beaten, but wait its doesn't have the resolution for high detail landscapes, nor the FPS and AF for sports, but the 1DX is very expensive, while the Sony MLCs has high FPS, lightweight, and the Sony sensor, still Canon's lens collection is the best, while the 5D3 is the best all rounder, the 6D is the best at low light, and the 7D II is the best at action under a budget.

Yes i know you all know that each System has its merits and each camera has it pros and cons, yet you dream of the ultimate camera that is under $1k, well wish as much as you want, still that will not happen, at least not in your lifetime, do you think that Sony got to this result - the higher DR sensor - easily, or they don't protect it with patents?, mostly Sony had to do serious investing on R&D to reach it, and they ignored other things or at least didn't priorities it, while Canon focused on AF\Video\Cinema, Samsung on BSI, and Sigma on affordable high IQ lenses.

I know this forum is here to debate rumors and discuss wishes, but really, discuss without predicting the DOOM of Canon, or declaring Canon cameras obsolete, because first, this is a Canon related forum, and second this is just your opinion, its not a fact, it may be or may not be.

And one question to those anti-current-Canon-sensors do you think that if you rally enough people to change sides, that Canon will listen and change their strategy? if yes, then what will you do when that happen, say its too late now - which is pointless as you can switch without all this - or will you switch back and betray all those who converted because of you? again I don't say its an unreasonable request, but you are debating it to current *OWNERS* of Canon cameras, and not to Canon it self, its like when you debate that a football/soccer player is good or bad, you just get more angry, and he keeps playing with the team.


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## jrista (May 14, 2015)

meywd said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > *Glad I stopped posting on this site.*
> ...



No, not entirely. I just don't like to bother with these threads anymore. Not worth it.

Regarding the rest of your post...Canon will do what Canon does. Who knows what would make them change, but personally I no longer care. The only thing anyone can do is change their own purchasing choices. If you want better DR, it's easy to get. If you want a faster frame rate, it's easy to get. If you want a bigger sensor, it's easy to get.

In my case, I tend to buy a new body every couple/three years. I'm more interested in diversifying and getting the best camera for the job, than trying to find the single most ultimate camera. I couldn't give up my 600mm f/4 lens for anything, and I'll be using Canon cameras for birds/wildlife as long as that lens lasts, and since most of that photography is at high ISO, I'm not suffering in any way. However I'm adding Sony and Samsung to my kit as well. The A6000 just gives me far more portability and excellent IQ in a package that Canon doesn't compete with. I can't always haul my big kit around, and I miss shots...plus, that camera delivers great IQ across the board. The Samsung NX1, if/when they deliver a nice supertele prime (a 300mm f/2.8 is in the works, which with a 1.4x TC would put the NX1 on par with a FF+600mm f/4), would be a better camera for my purposes than the 7D II. Even though it "only" does 12 bit at 15fps, that's better than Canon's effective 11-11.5 bits worth of DR. A Sony A7r II would fit right in for landscapes, and with an EF adapter, I could repurpose my Canon lenses, so it's a fairly cheap way to get better IQ without having to buy a bunch of lenses as well (plus, the A6000 shares the E mount, so I could build up a collection of lenses for those cameras over time.)

Three years down the road, I'll replace these cameras with whatever delivers the best capabilities at that time. If that so happens to be Canon, cool. If it's Samsung, cool. It may even be Nikon, although they have so much parity with Canon for the most part that I don't see that really happening unless it's something smaller. I generally no longer care about brand. The only way I'm locked into Canon is for use with my 600mm f/4 lens, but outside of that, it's open game.


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## K (May 14, 2015)

jrista said:


> I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.




With the exception of a few fanatical Canon fanboys here who will defend Canon no matter what the situation - I think the vast majority of people here, all agree that more DR is a good thing. It is these few Canon zealots that generate the most noise on the subject, and yes - it is for no other reason other than the fact that Canon is indeed behind in this area.


ON the other hand...

DXO, DPP and the Exmorites, have a radical bias and they are literally propagandizing the web in favor of Sony/Nikon with downright misleading reviews and articles.

While they do not lie on a single individual statement - the whole of their reviews and focus, the emphasis they place on DR at low ISO and the OMISSION of other other valid concerns constitutes a huge bias.

To put it simply, they are taking Sony's ONE advantage and making it into 90% of the story. This is misleading to anyone interested in good IQ. In reality, and where anyone knowledgeable and reasonable agrees - higher DR is merely one part of improved IQ. The fact that these sites are obsessed with low-ISO DR indicates a bias. To those without critical thinking skills as well as the facts and a balanced perspective - they end up becoming these Exmor fanatics spewing their idiotic drivel across the web about how they can crank an underexposed image at ISO 100 over 4 stops. They are bragging about something not nearly as significant as they think it is, and they don't not realize how sophomoric this makes them appear.


All that said...


I personally would appreciate the amount of low-ISO DR that the Sony sensor has, because it can't possibly hurt or hinder my photography. However, it just isn't that big of a piece of the total IQ pie to justify switching to Nikon or Sony camera platforms. Not only is it not that critical in IQ, but it is even less significant when you weigh in other factors that one considers when buying into a camera system. Such as lens selection. Ergonomics. Features and much more.


DPP is fixated on DR. DXO skews their weighting on sensor scores to the point that the D3300 is superior to the 1DX, which to anyone with EYES to SEE, just isn't true on IQ. The Exmorites are just Nikon/Sony fanboys who are just as juvenile and hostile as the Canon fanboys who instantly swarm to attack anyone or anything that might even suggest that Canon is weak in any area.


Most people are grounded in reality and realize that the Exmor isn't leaps and bounds better. If it were that much better, it would translate to that much better IQ and photos. It would be visibly noticeable. If this were truly the case, there would be a mass exodus from Canon to Nikon/Sony. This simply hasn't happened. Does anyone here challenge this? Does anyone here not believe that if the major photography sites started filling up with noticeably superior images due to low-ISO high DR that everyone would jump ship?

Because this has not happened, and because there just isn't a stark difference in IQ advantage is proof that the DR advantage just does not translate entirely into improved IQ. You can say the DR is 2x better than Canon. Great! The image quality is NOT 2x better. 

So you can lift the shadows 4-5 stops? Big deal. Who does that anyway? In a high quality image, nothing is being pushed more than 1 stop at best. If that. Anymore than that, and it looks like crap. Exmor or not. It just looks bad. 

99% of Exmorites are not world-class landscape photographers looking for a few percentage points less noise in shadow areas pushed up 2 stops for images they will print 8 feet wide for a gallery showing. What a load of bull crap. Yet, this is the common message spread by them all.

The reality is, the Exmorites are a gang of amateurs who either:

1. Cannot expose images consistently or correctly, and huge exposure adjustments are used as their crutch to salvage ruined exposures.
2. Are people who do not light their subject properly and they substitute cranking the shadow adjustment for a proper lighting setup.

3. A combination of 1 and 2 above.

The result is bizarre, unrealistic, flat looking images. Low detail shadow areas. Poor color. Bad contrast. The worst is the Exmorites that don't even care about shadows. They use the Exmor sensor as a substitute for a fast prime in a natural light situation and just crank up dark scenes. They think their images look good, but they really are awful.


My advice to the Exmorites. You have a great sensor. However, it's no substitute for mastering lighting. Don't be cheap. Don't fear the lights. Jump in and learn. Others have, and they aren't geniuses.


My advise to the Canon fanboys. You people need to relax. You completely undermine your own position with your vicious pouncing on anyone saying anything remotely negative of Canon, even when it is 100% accurate and completely justified. Sometimes pointing out flaws or weaknesses is a good thing. Generates awareness and assists in progress. If every single consumer was a blind zealot worshiper like them, Canon could be put out total junk and stay in business. That's not how a market place ought to work.


----------



## ritholtz (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Comparing at +3EV and +6EV...
> 
> The extra noise present in the 6D/5DsR images is characteristic of why many people are critical of Canon's sensor development over the last 7 or more years. And that's considering that the 6D is now considered to be Canon's leading example of a "better" sensor than is in the 5D3.
> 
> Canon still has a long way to go to catch up to the other guys.


Hi Dilbert,
Can you please let me know how to copy these comparisons from dpr into jpeg file.


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## jarrodeu (May 14, 2015)

Uh Oh. Looks like K just laid out a well thought out map of the DR debate. Things are going to be boring around here now. (not!)

Jarrod


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## 3kramd5 (May 14, 2015)

K said:


> I personally would appreciate the amount of low-ISO DR that the Sony sensor has, because it can't possibly hurt or hinder my photography. However, it just isn't that big of a piece of the total IQ pie to justify switching to Nikon or Sony camera platforms.



I agree. I only use my A7R sparingly, and when I do it's because I want higher resolution than my 5D bodies. I still try to shoot landscapes when the light is right and, when I can't, the wider DR of the Sony sensor doesn't particularly change anything I do.




K said:


> The reality is, the Exmorites are a gang of amateurs who either:
> 
> 1. Cannot expose images consistently or correctly, and huge exposure adjustments are used as their crutch to salvage ruined exposures.
> 2. Are people who do not light their subject properly and they substitute cranking the shadow adjustment for a proper lighting setup.
> ...



Nonsense. Dynamic range is a perfectly acceptable (indeed perhaps the best) measure of sensor output capabilities. Wanting/demanding/appreciating the best available capability in your I/O device is a reasonable position, and it doesn't mean you're incapable or lazy.

Within the imaging industry (i.e. discounting some specialized low resolution sensors), whomever builds the sensor in the Epic Dragon provides the widest DR and thus is the most capable of accurately digitizing scenes with extreme brights and dark shadows. The Sony exmor line is arguably the runner up (not sure where Samsung, Toshiba, etc. lie since I don't particularly care). 

The situations in which the difference between the 30-ish dB of a Canon system and the 40-ish of a Sony system would make a difference for ME are few and far between, and therefore I prioritize other things. But assuming people who want wider DR do so because they are incompetent and rely on crutches or don't want to light scenes is unfounded.


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## Moulyneau (May 14, 2015)

Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports. I'd suspect they took the more advanced tech of the Sony sensors over Canon as their benchmark. Now, people like me who'll stick to Canon for their awesome lens line and overall system which I think has no equivalent, should agree that Canon should take up the DR challenge very seriously. Super high DR and its 6eV shadow recovery corollary might be overblown, but it's time to see significant improvement in this department. And Canon should stop saying - or worse, thinking - that they don't see any difference between their sensors and the competition.

It goes beyond our desire to have better cameras overall, it's a matter of sustainability in this shrinking market. Some and not the least testing sites seem to be all out to kill the big giant (hidden sponsoring, daddy issues, generating traffic, who knows...) and at the end, if Canon fails to deliver what the masses are brainwashed to want, this spells trouble, well, for us. In terms of research funding, cost, distribution, support and all. Please, don't let us with Sony only on the shops shelves. Yuk!


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## Sporgon (May 14, 2015)

jrista said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



In the DR debate the s**t hits the fan when people refer to Canon as having 'low dr'. 11.7 stops is far from low in photographic terms; it's actually high. 13.8 is higher still. You then have to set up contrived parameters to show the advantage in that difference. Consider that in a sunlit landscape scene with the sun behind you the EV range in the scene will be in the region of 6 stops, and that includes the white clouds. 

As virtually everyone who uses both 11.7 Canon and a '14 stop' capable sensor has stated, there's not as much difference in range as you might think. In fact highlight headroom advantage seems to be with the Canon, shadow range advantage to the Exmor. I put '14' in inverted comas because I think that in practical terms the dynamic range of both sensors is about the same but the Exmor has more latitude in the shadows. 

Perhaps we could start a "Show your low DR (sarcasm) shots" thread, where we can post images that we have taken using the full range of the Canon sensor, and the images will make a mockery of 'low DR'.


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## rs (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



It's all about relevance. Yes, the high ISO noise difference is not as big as the low ISO DR difference. But which is more useful for most people?

It's like saying a car from brand A gets 50% more MPG (half a stop) than a car from brand B, but then for some reason some people keep harking on about car B having a dry sump system to allow the engine to operate at 4 times the angle of car A (2 stops). OK, it's a bigger difference, and 4 times the angle is indisputably better. This would be a major advantage if the inclines or corners motorists tackle cause car A to not pick up oil, but presuming it's good enough to handle any ordinary road driving already, an improvement there would be of no concern to the average motorist. It's all about relevance.


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## GMCPhotographics (May 14, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> ahsanford said:
> 
> 
> > Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.
> ...



Rolf! Like a "real" photographer....dial in M mode without a clue....just use random settings (like a real pro) and that 6 stops push will make your image work!


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## Corneria (May 14, 2015)

Not that we talk about Canon sensors falling behind in some aspects...

This has been going on for years already. But it's not that Canon has lost sales to Nikon because of these facts, as far as I know. My idea was that Canon keeps this strategy as long as they can sell sufficiently, but with a significant profit margin. And since Canon develops their own sensors (and already has set up the R&D for this), they can have higher profit margins (regarding the sensors of course) than Nikon, who buys most of the sensors nowadays. If this "lack of quality" was truly an (economical) issue for a company as big as Canon, they would have done something about it. What do you think?


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## Eldar (May 14, 2015)

Corneria said:


> My idea was that Canon keeps this strategy as long as they can sell sufficiently, but with a significant profit margin.


Well, they are not. They maintain market share, but volume and profitability is down a lot more than any company would be comfortable with.

And just for the record, these threads, which always ends up in the stupid and sarcastic discussions about why no real photographer needs more than what Canon can supply, because they don´t have a clue on how to set exposure, or alternatively Canon will go bankrupt unless they produce >14.8 stop DR at 100 ISO, are totally pathetic and it is difficult to comprehend that grownups actually participate in them ... But please continue, I´ll just ignore them, while I wait for my 5DSR.


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## neuroanatomist (May 14, 2015)

Corneria said:


> Not that we talk about Canon sensors falling behind in some aspects...
> 
> This has been going on for years already. But it's not that Canon has lost sales to Nikon because of these facts, as far as I know. My idea was that Canon keeps this strategy as long as they can sell sufficiently, but with a significant profit margin. And since Canon develops their own sensors (and already has set up the R&D for this), they can have higher profit margins (regarding the sensors of course) than Nikon, who buys most of the sensors nowadays. If this "lack of quality" was truly an (economical) issue for a company as big as Canon, they would have done something about it. What do you think?



Exactly...and a point I have been making for years.


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## K (May 14, 2015)

One has to wonder....

If Canon released a camera with a sensor having 16 stops of DR, would DXO, DPP and all the Exmorites champion the Canon sensor as they have the Sony? Would DXO rate the T7i sporting that sensor as superior to the Nikon D810 or D4S?

Would they flood the Camera gear Internet world with the same kind of vociferous enthusiasm promoting Canon and its superior sensor? Would there be all these articles, blogs, posts, tests of 6+ stop pushes at ISO 100? Would there be masses of whiners and complainers stating they can't lift a shadow on a D810 as well as the Canon, and begin tearing Nikon and Sony down as a company?

I think not...


I think they would change the subject to something else. I think they would start saying that 14 stops is plenty enough for what they need.

Notice how with the announcement of the 5DS, the megapixel bashing has stopped. Prior to the 5DS, Canon not only got bashed over low ISO DR, but for not having more than 22.3 megapixels. We all heard how superior Nikon/Sony is for having 36mp. Where are these megapixel braggers to come out of their caves and give credit and praise to Canon for making a huge leap over Nikon/Sony? *silence* *sound of crickets*

With 50mp, the Nikon trolls have abandoned that subject entirely. It vanished from the web. It will come back when Nikon/Sony release a sensor with as many or more megapixels. Until then, it is mighty quiet on that front.

Anyhow,

There is a degree of insincerity in the "DR is everything" crowd. Everyone wants more DR, and they do too. But that's not the whole story. There is a bit of Canon hate in there. It's not uncommon for people to want to tear down the big dog. Intel, Microsoft and other market leaders experience the same thing.


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## tron (May 14, 2015)

I would love much higher DR. In the meantime I am busy getting new Canon lenses for my 5DMkIIIs to save them from boredom ;D ;D ;D


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## Orangutan (May 14, 2015)

K said:


> There is a degree of insincerity in the "DR is everything" crowd. Everyone wants more DR, and they do too. But that's not the whole story. *There is a bit of Canon hate in there*.



I don't think this is it. It seems pretty clear to me that many of the vociferous DR advocates are upset for basically one reason: they think Canon is intentionally hobbling new cameras with older sensor tech using its market dominance, taking extra profit and planning to up-sell its customers later. The arguments I hear repeatedly are (1)other companies are making "better" sensors in reasonably-priced bodies, so if Canon can do the same, why don't they? (2)If Canon can't make "better" sensors at reasonable prices, why don't they just buy from someone who does?

I understand these arguments, and even think they might be true. I just don't think it's any different from business practices in any other commodity market. Any market leader in their position would do the same, there's nothing illegal about it, and the shareholders like the extra profit. In other words, even if it's true it's my problem. I have the option to buy from another brand if I choose, and that's pretty much the only choice I have. I wish it were different, but I've got more important things to be upset about.


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## 3kramd5 (May 14, 2015)

K said:


> One has to wonder....
> 
> If Canon released a camera with a sensor having 16 stops of DR... Would DXO rate the T7i sporting that sensor as superior to the Nikon D810 or D4S?



If the constituent measurements making up their composite score were higher, then yes. I doubt very much they'd adjust their weighting to minimize dynamic range just to spite canon.


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## Sporgon (May 14, 2015)

I would think that if you were able to extrapolate out the percentage of interchangeable lens camera's users who actually want to lift shadow detail by an enormous amount in post it would be minuscule. 

For a start I would say that most people that I come across are shooting in jpeg anyway, and that includes many professionals - event photographers, wedding etc. So if we are going to talk reality an important feature for most people is OOC jpeg quality. Not something you hear much about here on CR.

There are also many, many photographers using Canon who shoot for high quality at low ISOs, and some of the comments made on here regarding ''low ISO IQ'' are downright insulting to their integrity. But then of course this is the internet, so there is so much b*****ks anyway. However you could argue that unlike most other things, as a pastime, profession, or anything else, photography and the internet are inextricably linked, so maybe in time enough of this mud will stick, but I would think that by that time Canon will have moved on anyway. 

The well known digital guy Roger N Clark of Clarkvision fame made a brief appearance on CR and was soon bemused by posters here being "obsessed with DR & Noise".


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## Orangutan (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> rs said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Could you share your sampling and analysis methods?


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## jrista (May 14, 2015)

K said:


> One has to wonder....
> 
> If Canon released a camera with a sensor having 16 stops of DR, would DXO, DPP and all the Exmorites champion the Canon sensor as they have the Sony? Would DXO rate the T7i sporting that sensor as superior to the Nikon D810 or D4S?
> 
> ...



I believe this is incredibly naive. While I don't agree with everything DXO does, I do believe they in their way try to be as scientific as they can be. I think they leave some things too obscure, and I believe they improperly weight certain bits of data.

However, if Canon ever released a 16-bit camera that scored somewhere in the 15.x stops DR range, I think DXO would be quite delighted. Same goes for DPR.

They are not impressed with Canon sensor quality because both groups have been testing their sensors for over a decade now, and at a low level, Canon sensors still perform more closely to where they were a decade ago than to where their competitors are today. I'd be a little bored with testing their sensors too, if that's what I did.

When Canon finally delivers something intriguing, I think testers will be intrigued. That doesn't necessarily mean a huge increase in low ISO DR either. I think that DXO and DPR would both be intrigued with Canon's cameras if/when they finally release their layered sensor technology, even if it does not topple DR records. I think layered sensor technology (especially the kind Canon owns) would be something new and different and interesting to talk about, rather than "more of mostly the same old thing".




K said:


> I think they would change the subject to something else. I think they would start saying that 14 stops is plenty enough for what they need.
> 
> Notice how with the announcement of the 5DS, the megapixel bashing has stopped. Prior to the 5DS, Canon not only got bashed over low ISO DR, but for not having more than 22.3 megapixels. We all heard how superior Nikon/Sony is for having 36mp. Where are these megapixel braggers to come out of their caves and give credit and praise to Canon for making a huge leap over Nikon/Sony? *silence* *sound of crickets*
> 
> ...



Of course the megapixel bashing has stopped. Canon finally did something about it. It would be entirely illogical to continue bashing Canon over MP count when they hold the record by a good solid margin. Of course it will come back if/when someone creates something with significantly more than 51mp. The same thing goes for DR. Why would anyone continue to bash a brand for a problem when the problem no longer exists?

There is one guy I would say for sure had pure Canon hate, and wasn't just looking for more DR. He still spouts his drivel on other forums, same old thing. For most people who complain about DR, I think it's that they see better IQ from other brands, but are or feel "locked into" Canon because they own a collection of Canon equipment and can't or can't justify dumping their kit (even though that is not necessary, a simple augmentation with adapters and mirrorless will usually do.) 

It's the whole greener grass syndrome. People want the things they don't have. In Canon land, we used to not have either the DR or the resolution. Well, Canon has solved the resolution issue, leaving only DR. When the day comes that Canon solves the DR issue, people will obviously stop complaining about it...but they *will *find something else to complain about. AF-linked metering or something. Not enough frame rate. Whatever. The Nikon crowd has the DR and has had the pixels for a while...but they still complain about what they don't have. A high FPS crop body, for example.

There may indeed be a rare individual who just plain and simply hates Canon (or whatever brand). Again I think it is naive to think that everyone who wants more DR is just plain and simply a Canon hater. It's not about hating anything for most people, IMHO...it's about wanting the things you do not have. That is just plain and simple human nature.


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## rs (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> rs said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...


So most pictures on Flickr are shot at < ISO 400 _and_ have the shadows pushed by > 4 stops? I'm sure you'll find the odd photo like that, but certainly not most. 

I haven't done the research, but I'd be staggered to find more photos like that than high ISO photos on Flickr. 

It's about relevance.


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## ritholtz (May 14, 2015)

rs said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > rs said:
> ...


Hi rs,
Can you please tell me if shadows slider is in terms of stops or levels. Canon has shadow slider range -5 to 5. Does it mean each level is a stop. DXO Optics has shadow slider ranging from -100 to +100. DRreview keeps on talking about pushing shadows by few stops but I am yet to find out how to do that. 

Another thing I noticed based on their ISO in-variance test, pushing exposure +5 stops for ISO 100 image is nothing but making it a ISO 3200 image. What is the point of under exposing a lot using high DR camera and turning it into high ISO image. If some one wants to make use of high DR, they need to properly expose image at ISO 100 and make use of sensor DR right?


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## ritholtz (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Moulyneau said:
> 
> 
> > Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.
> ...


Why does some one push ISO 100 by +5 stops and turn it into ISO 3200 image. If some one wants to take advantage of high DR at base ISO 100, they need to expose image properly right? How does underexposing is going to help in terms of capturing high DR. Just trying to understand.


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## jrista (May 14, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> K said:
> 
> 
> > There is a degree of insincerity in the "DR is everything" crowd. Everyone wants more DR, and they do too. But that's not the whole story. *There is a bit of Canon hate in there*.
> ...



Aye, there are definitely people who believe Canon is intentionally hobbling their equipment. I don't think those people hate Canon, although those who truly believe that are (from their own perspective) justifiably angry, for the very reasons you stated.

I find that much less likely than simply that Canon hasn't figured out (for whatever reason) how to improve their DR more than they have, and are at the current time simply incapable of doing better. If their most recent sensor patents are any indication, it seems Canon is investing in sensor innovation in a different direction, which is neither surprising nor bad. Different avenues of research are a better way to innovate than if every company pursues the same avenues of research. I just hope the technology doesn't end up sitting in a corner of someone's office somewhere collecting dust.


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## 9VIII (May 14, 2015)

jrista said:


> ...Again I think it is naive to think that everyone who wants more DR is just plain and simply a Canon hater.



Jrista, again you and others have somehow come to the conclusion that people here are anti-progress. It couldn't be further from the truth.

I look at the clean shadows and high ISO range with envy, I almost bought an A7Mk2 last month, being held back only by the lack of native Sigma FE mount lenses.
It seems that everyone on either "side" of this debate (even though technically we're all on the same side) thinks people on the other "side" are practising wilful ignorance.
It seems like the whole thing is a giant meta-narrative of people looking at a few strong or sarcastic opinions and labelling an entire group based off of what a few people say.

I have posted more than a few "sarcastic" comments here lately, and then a few weeks ago I took the same type of comment from someone else as "not sarcastic" and began a thorough rebuttal to their comments.
Only to discover the whole thing was said in jest.
If I can misread sarcasm from people who hold entirely the same opinion as me, it follows that a large portion of the joking that has been going on here lately is being taken literally.

No one in their right mind wants "less dynamic range" and I assure you that 99.9% (well, maybe 99.8%) of the people posting here are entirely sane.
I assume that the same applies to other communities, that the majority of the comments implying that Dynamic Range is the defining factor in the quality of photography equipment are an exaggeration and the authors of those comments don't expect anyone to take those comments completely literally.

I will stop this behaviour in my own comments, I will no longer speak in jest about Dynamic Range.
This is my official response on the subject, to be taken entirely seriously:
Canon performs poorly compared to the competition in the area of sensor noise, and delivers less Dynamic Range.
They also have the best lens selection and quality in the industry, and their controls and user interface are second to none.
I wish that Canon would continually improve all aspects of camera performance, including Dynamic Range and Sensor Noise.


----------



## Orangutan (May 14, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > Could you share your sampling and analysis methods?
> ...



To do that I would need to know how Flickr chooses photos for the front page, and whether the "explore" feature has an algorithm behind it. I can't say if or how your selection process is flawed and biased. I also can't say that it isn't. For casual opinions your selection methods are fine; however, to draw a conclusion with scientific validity it's not sufficient to say "I have no reason to believe they're biased," you need to be able to say "I have strong reason to believe they're UNbiased." And to make that statement you'd need to know the mechanism used to bring those photos to your attention.


----------



## LOALTD (May 14, 2015)

rs said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > Not to worry, if the 1Dx Mk II ends up having class-leading DR, the spec will finally matter again.
> ...




I have shot tens of thousands of frames with my Mk III, I have hundreds of examples where pushing the shadows in an ISO 100 shot results in noise. The noise is visible in all output mediums. This is ridiculous for a modern camera.


I primarily do landscape/adventure/timelapse photography, so maybe my use case is unique. If I shot sports or people I don't think I would much care about DR.


As it is, I hate having to merge exposures just to get a mild shadow push in a high DR scene. It becomes even more labor intensive if it's a high-DR panoramic (as they usually are)


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## Sporgon (May 14, 2015)

I've always said the issues are when you try to expose for the actual light source, and it's not something that I normally do. However yesterday I thought I'd see how far I could go in holding the sun about three hours before sunset, so it was still very bright.

I shot this as a single exposure. The bottom of the sun itself is clipping just into the top of the frame. There is _nothing _blown. ( Well there are one or two pixels in the sun itself). So in order to expose for the sun the picture is way underexposed, including the rest of the sky.

The first picture is the straight raw converted to png.

To get all this into perspective the second one is a two stop lift in raw then converted. The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance. There is no noise etc etc. I post this to show how much a two stop lift is in reality. 

Of course jrista will come along and say there's not much DR in this scene anyway


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## jrista (May 14, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > ...Again I think it is naive to think that everyone who wants more DR is just plain and simply a Canon hater.
> ...



Once again, where do you get that from the statement you quoted? ??? I said that not everyone who wants more DR is a Canon hater...that has nothing to do with claiming people are anti-progress. My comments here are about this communities reaction to anyone brining up DR...it's a vitriolic reaction, and if there is any hate, it is hate for the people who want more DR and talk about it (even if it's in a complaining manner, there should be a different reaction.) That is a matter of people reacting to people...not about progress. At least where I come from, people have the right to freedom of speech. Here on these forums, your free to speak _unless its about DR_...if you do speak about DR, then everyone else is free to hate on you, belittle you, and be as nasty to you as much as they like. That doesn't strike me as the kind of mature behavior one would expect from a bunch of adults.

There is a truly vitriolic and hateful sentiment here on these forums for anyone who ever brings up DR. There are some good heated debates about the issue on DPR forums, and some good old flame wars between brand fanatics, but I haven't often seen those debates degrade into the kind of vitriol and hate I see here...here on CR, it's taken on a persistent dark and nasty form. I think that reaction prevents any kind of reasonable discussion on the subject...and since it IS one of the areas where Canon technology lags, it's going to be an area that people want to discuss. This community could have a wholly different atmosphere, a brighter one that isn't continually mired by nasty comments and endless DR wars, if everyone could discuss the subject without bringing in the hate. 

I prefer to avoid these threads for the most part these days because of the reaction locals have to anyone bringing up DR. No one can discuss this subject rationally, it's all just hate...not hate for the brand...hate for the individuals involved. I would much rather people hate the brand than hate the people...I think hating Canon would be far preferable to the hate people have for each other on these forums just because they have differing opinions about a piece of technology. Why is it that someone like K is upset by the fact that someone else "hates" K's preferred brand? Why does that matter? More so...why is that grounds for K to hate that someone else in turn (not saying he actually does...but there is a lot of that that seems to go on around here)? It's a brand...an unfeeling, inanimate piece of equipment...here today, gone in a year or two, replaced by something better.

This community needs to stop hating on each other for having differing opinions... :-\ (And truly, I think there is significantly less "brand hate" here than some people seem to think...there is undoubtedly "brand frustration" and certainly some strong desires for Canon to produce a better sensor...but I really don't think there is much brand hate, not as much as there is people hate by any means.)



9VIII said:


> I will stop this behaviour in my own comments, I will no longer speak in jest about Dynamic Range.
> This is my official response on the subject, to be taken entirely seriously:
> Canon performs poorly compared to the competition in the area of sensor noise, and delivers less Dynamic Range.
> They also have the best lens selection and quality in the industry, and their controls and user interface are second to none.
> I wish that Canon would continually improve all aspects of camera performance, including Dynamic Range and Sensor Noise.



It's good to hear someone be honest and objective for a change.  I totally agree about their lenses. I've warmed up to Sony UI, although I still don't like their control layouts as much.


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## K (May 14, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> rs said:
> 
> 
> > LOALTD said:
> ...




You need to buy a Nikon DSLR that has a Sony sensor.


----------



## msm (May 14, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > ...Again I think it is naive to think that everyone who wants more DR is just plain and simply a Canon hater.
> ...



You should be careful of speaking on behalf of others. And I think it just reeks of jealousy and I find it quite pathetic. When some people probably spend several hours every day for the last 3 years defending Canon at every opportunity, bashing cameras of competing brands and the people who mentions Canons deficiencies I have a really hard time believing they are actually indifferent :


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## neuroanatomist (May 14, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance.



Your demonstration is ineffective. Why? Because there are still _shadows_ in your image, both in the foreground and at the distant treeline. The point of having a 6-stop lifting capability is so you can totally obliterate shadows from your images. 

Not to worry, technology will eventually solve this problem for Canon users. No, I'm not suggesting they'll change their sensors, but rather we will soon have space flight and planoforming capability such that we will colonize planets with several suns, thus eliminating shadows effectively even for those poor fools still using Canon cameras.


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## Orangutan (May 14, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance.
> ...



What's funny over a pint isn't always funny over the interwebs.


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## Sporgon (May 14, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



I think two suns is a great idea as long as they both rose at the same time, otherwise we'd get weak sunsets and sunrises. 

Anyway, why don't cartoons have shadows ? 

(Of course I know the answer to that one, but hopefully with advanced computerization we will get cartoons with shadows, and then lifting shadows by six stops will look out of fashion - as if it was ever in fashion).


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## rs (May 14, 2015)

ritholtz said:


> Hi rs,
> Can you please tell me if shadows slider is in terms of stops or levels. Canon has shadow slider range -5 to 5. Does it mean each level is a stop. DXO Optics has shadow slider ranging from -100 to +100. DRreview keeps on talking about pushing shadows by few stops but I am yet to find out how to do that.
> 
> Another thing I noticed based on their ISO in-variance test, pushing exposure +5 stops for ISO 100 image is nothing but making it a ISO 3200 image. What is the point of under exposing a lot using high DR camera and turning it into high ISO image. If some one wants to make use of high DR, they need to properly expose image at ISO 100 and make use of sensor DR right?


DPP is certainly not measuring stops, and DXO can't be at +/- 100 stops. Nothing appears to be documented about a direct correlation between sliders and stops, and I can't see how it could be - it is tuned to a range of tones, mainly the shadow areas, but typically tailing off in the deep shadows, and also tailing off in the mid range.

I have had a bit of a play with the shadows in DPP using the before/after comparison and the shadows alerts (threshold of 32/255). In my limited testing pushing the shadows by +5 requires the exposure to be pushed down by 1 stop to get the alerts area to match.

You're right; there is little point in exposing at ISO 100 when 3200 would do exactly what you want.


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## 3kramd5 (May 14, 2015)

Should be able to correlate it with some experimentation. Take a series of photos, adjusting exposure in camera by 1 stop at a time. Then go into software and adjust the middle exposure up and down until the luminance matches the others. Ideally it's linear (e.g. if +25 is one stop, +50 is two stops), but I suspect it may not be.


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## 9VIII (May 14, 2015)

msm said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



What reeks of jealousy? The people posting about the same deficiencies we've known about for the last three years on every possible thread?
There's an antagonist for every defender. We could play the Chicken and Egg game but that's pointless now.
It really is just a game, the pictures and technology are just a front for getting in heated arguments. You will find these people in every corner of every society.
I will not participate in the games anymore.


----------



## ritholtz (May 14, 2015)

rs said:


> ritholtz said:
> 
> 
> > Hi rs,
> ...


Thanks RS. Does it mean pushing all 5 levels of shadow slider up in DPP is equivalent to 1 stop. Canon added another slider (Auto Light optimizer) which seems to do good adjustment instead of playing around selective sliders. DXO optics also has similar slider and much broader selective sliders (-100 to 100). But pushing these sliders (specifically shadow slider) seems to add some kind of orange caste. Any ideas to fix color issues arises while pushing these sliders.


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## mb66energy (May 14, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance.
> ...



Theses statements confirm my opininion that canonrumor debates are sometimes far away from real concerns about photography and photographic tools - on the other hand: It helps me to stop reading forum entries and to try to do some photography ... so thanks for that.


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## Sunnystate (May 15, 2015)

+100 

I was always saying that certain, most ferocious Canon advocates here in the end cause more damage than immediate benefits. 
Not only on Canon rumors anyway. Unfortunately in the large scope of things and in the long run the consequences can be dire.



mb66energy said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...


----------



## LOALTD (May 15, 2015)

"There is a bit of Canon hate in there. It's not uncommon for people to want to tear down the big dog. Intel, Microsoft and other market leaders experience the same thing."


Who cares? Corporations are not people. Is hating them going to hurt their pwecious wittle feelings?


Are people married to their camera brand? Is Canon going to get jealous if you flirt with other cameras? Afraid they're going to loose the house in the divorce if you leave Canon?


At the end of the day, much of this forum boils down to:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization


"Post-purchase rationalization, also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, is a cognitive bias whereby someone who has purchased an expensive product or service overlooks any faults or defects in order to justify their purchase. It is a special case of choice-supportive bias.


Expensive purchases often involve a lot of careful research and deliberation, and many consumers will often refuse to admit that their decision was made in poor judgment. Many purchasing decisions are made emotionally, based on factors such as brand-loyalty and advertising, and so are often rationalized retrospectively in an attempt to justify the choice."




I'm a photographer. I care about what people say about my images, not about what brand of camera I shoot with.


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## Orangutan (May 15, 2015)

dilbert said:


> But of course nobody is going to admit that and you see it in the people parroting on about "the system", etc, when "the system" is irrelevant for most purchasers.



Each person defines "the system" as suits their own needs. If you need just the body and kit lens for family photos, then you should make your purchase decisions based on that "system." In that case, several brands will do for you. "The system" merely refers to the collection of equipment that best meets your current and anticipated needs. A good example of this: we've had several on this forum say that if Nikon had TS lenses to compare with Canon's they would buy Nikon kit, and that's completely reasonable. If I were starting now I might well buy Nikon kit because it does have all the things I need, but I can't justify the expense of change relative to my needs.

It doesn't really matter what "most purchasers" want, nor the total system as a collection. The way business works is that each individual makes their decisions based on individual needs. Then the manufacturers attempt to address the needs based on market research. There's nothing to be upset about -- just buy what you need from whatever manufacturer, and don't take Canon's market strategy as a personal insult.


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## jaayres20 (May 15, 2015)

All of the RAW images I have opened in LR are very impressive. I read the review but I am not quite sure the reviewer is completely unbiased and therefore took the best image to show off the 5Ds. There is a lot you can do to an "objective" test to make the results show what you want. Just look at polls that supposedly show public opinion. You can get a poll to say whatever you want. Regardless the 5Ds looks fantastic, the noise is better than I expected and the colors are superb. Can't wait to get one. Did he use an f/22 shot? F/22 is a little narrow for the best results correct?


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## gary samples (May 15, 2015)

After looking at the raw files have my 5Ds-r is on preorder @ B&H


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## STM Photography (May 15, 2015)

Being a passive CR user for a while, I just have to add my take on the DR debate now before I will return to passive mode again. Not that the debate wouldn't be hot enough already, but there are a few aspects that I can't remember being mentioned here. 

How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me. If some of you think that getting all the tonal values in a shot is only a matter of correct exposure, I can only assume that you have spent more time on this forum than outside in high contrast scenes. Of course, in many cases you can help yourself with bracketing. Then again I wonder how many people here have actually already done some exposure blending by hand. I am asking because without some advanced techniques such as the use of luminosity masks it is sometimes almost impossible to do perfect blends which really hold up in a big print. It is all a matter of technique (and time) to pull off some perfect exposure blending, I just want to say it is not at all as easy as many here make it sound. 

I am mostly a landscape/cityscape photographer and started out with a Canon 6D, which I loved right from the very beginning. When the A7R came out, I felt obligated to test it but I really wanted to dislike the Sony body in order to to save myself some money.
When I looked at those A7R files, I was blown away by just how much better the overall image quality and the detail level was. Keeping that body was one of the best decisions I have made. I soon realized how limiting the Canon DR was for my shooting style and that bracketing simply was not necessary in many cases now. It gave me the freedom to do some advanced stuff such as long exposure panoramas and to return from Iceland with a couple of shots that I had not seen before. That freedom certainly is inspiring! I have printed (and sold) some of these images up to 150x61cm in absolutely astonishing quality. Trust me- doing this with any Canon body would have been virtually impossible (unless you tried to bracket long exposures but good luck merging images with cloud movement and spending all the sunset for a single final frame). Just to give you an idea of what I am talking about, you will find a long exposure panoramic image below. To have a look at similar stuff, feel free to visit my website. 

I agree that for some photographic genres with very controlled lightning conditions DR is secondary and many casual shooters will be happy with what dynamic range they got out of their cameras. 
Depending on your genre however, you will be faced with dramatic, high-contrast light and if you really try to break the boundaries (or save yourself a lot of pain) you just need the gear that enables you to handle those situations. 
The A7R has opened some new creative possibilities for me. I would love a Canon 5dsr with comparable dynamic range and I would happily be back with Canon again- I am however not that optimistic. 

I will now return to passive mode. 
To some of you- please let other photographers decide for themselves what they actually require in a camera body and be glad that Canon DR suffices for your needs. There is no reason for undue sarcasm towards people who spend their time outside, know their gear and technique and still use all the DR they can get to eventually make for the most important final product- a high quality print.

Good light everyone.


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## neuroanatomist (May 15, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.



It's beyond you how some people can decide *for themselves* how much DR *they* need?


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## LOALTD (May 15, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> Being a passive CR user for a while, I just have to add my take on the DR debate now before I will return to passive mode again. Not that the debate wouldn't be hot enough already, but there are a few aspects that I can't remember being mentioned here.
> 
> How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me. If some of you think that getting all the tonal values in a shot is only a matter of correct exposure, I can only assume that you have spent more time on this forum than outside in high contrast scenes. Of course, in many cases you can help yourself with bracketing. Then again I wonder how many people here have actually already done some exposure blending by hand. I am asking because without some advanced techniques such as the use of luminosity masks it is sometimes almost impossible to do perfect blends which really hold up in a big print. It is all a matter of technique (and time) to pull off some perfect exposure blending, I just want to say it is not at all as easy as many here make it sound.
> 
> ...




Your work is incredible, STM, thanks for sharing. Great post as well, couldn't agree more.


High DR is not necessary for many types of photography, but it is for the stuff I like to shoot, and apparently you as well


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## jrista (May 15, 2015)

Thank you for posting, STM. Your photos are amazing, truly. Love your style, the contrast and deep shadow detail, and the color. Beautiful work. I agree 100% with everything you've said, and appreciate the way you put it. Best of luck with your photography, you have some wonderful skill!


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## Click (May 15, 2015)

Welcome to CR STM Photography. Awesome shot. 8)


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## Orangutan (May 15, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> STM Photography said:
> 
> 
> > How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.
> ...


(1) Read his post more carefully, the part about "and others."

(2) Is this all you have to criticize about the post, just some editing?


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## 3kramd5 (May 15, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.



To me, it's not about deciding that Canon provides enough DR for me (I'll leave that "and others" off; not my place to choose other people's gear). It's about learning to work with the equipment I have to get the results I want. I own several 5Ds and one one A7R. The range of the A7R doesn't make the range of the 5Ds deficient. It doesn't change my approach (YMMV).

Maybe if I bought camera with the best available DR in a reasonably high resolution package (red epic dragon w/ 16 stops at 19MP) it would change how I shoot, but that game is too rich for my blood.


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## neuroanatomist (May 15, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > STM Photography said:
> ...



I read it. There is a difference between 'decide for themselves and others' and 'decide for others', had he stated the latter I'd have no objection. 

Reading the rest of his post, you'd think that landscape/cityscape photography with large prints as an output was impossible before Exmor, and that no one could be using Canon equipment for such purposes today. Not a very defensible position, IMO.


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## STM Photography (May 15, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



With my reduced capabilities as a non-native English speaker I think my post was still easy enough to understand, no need to pull a single sentence out of context if the content is still plain enough. 

As for if the position is defensible or not: I would like you to tell me what you would have done in said situation with the Canon body of your choice (long exposure scene for the silky and magical waterfall effect and in order to keep harsh clouds from detracting from the soft waterfall). A Canon solution to that problem would be interesting to know. Btw the final image is stitched from 3 single images (75 sec each) and the light only lasted for a couple of minutes. Yeah, not shoot it at all in the first place?

To all the others, thank you very much for your kind words! I really appreciate it!


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## jrista (May 15, 2015)

isabella said:


> Hi
> what a nice picture
> please tell me how can you obtain these shades?
> I have myself a Canon 5dmk3 and have problem with RAW and to get out the details, nuances in the lowest levels



It looks like there is a bit of soft contrast technique being applied. There are a few ways to achieve that...it looks like he has his own technique. But I would look up "soft contrast landscapes" for some insights.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> With my reduced capabilities as a non-native English speaker I think my post was still easy enough to understand, no need to pull a single sentence out of context if the content is still plain enough.



Your English is fine, your meaning was plain, I just disagree with your premise. 




STM Photography said:


> As for if the position is defensible or not: I would like you to tell me what you would have done in said situation...



A specific situation isn't at issue. Rather, your broader premise illustrated here:



STM Photography said:


> I agree that for some photographic genres with very controlled lightning conditions DR is secondary and many casual shooters will be happy with what dynamic range they got out of their cameras.



So...how is it that professional landscape photographers – who do not shoot in controlled lighting conditions and are not casual photographers – can use Canon cameras? Many do. For that matter, you're a skilled photographer – what did _you_ do before Exmor?




STM Photography said:


> To some of you- please let other photographers decide for themselves what they actually require in a camera body...



Absolutely agree. That is, I agree if you mean that to apply broadly, including to those who frequently make statements such as Canon delivers, "...poor, sub-par, unacceptable IQ."


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

Sorry, never saw Good Will Hunting. Life's great, though. Enjoying my weekend, I suggest you do the same.


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## Dylan777 (May 16, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> Being a passive CR user for a while



Welcome to CR STM Photography 

Visited your site, beautiful photos


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## Orangutan (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> STM Photography said:
> 
> 
> > With my reduced capabilities as a non-native English speaker I think my post was still easy enough to understand, no need to pull a single sentence out of context if the content is still plain enough.
> ...



The problem is not *that* you disagree, it's *how* you disagree. I happen to disagree with STM as well, but I'd prefer to be curious about his meaning rather than argumentative.

Neuro, you remain a contradiction.


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## Orangutan (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sorry, never saw Good Will Hunting.


Nothing to be sorry about: I saw it and wish I hadn't. Crappy, formulaic and contrived.


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## Sunnystate (May 16, 2015)

Don't you find funny that most rude bullies in the end have thinnest skin? Poor individual.


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## 9VIII (May 16, 2015)

I think this forum would be better if Neuro were a moderator.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



Several nice people on this forum are blind to the facts: 1. Wanting high DR has nothing to do with proper exposure. 2. There are many situations where a photographer (outside studio) is required to expose correctly for the highlights or the shadows. Then he/she hopes that they will be able to get some details back which were not exposed properly. Here 'more the better' DR comes into play. I don't understand how anyone can fight such a simple logic. Unless of course they are worshippers of the Canon Gods. For them to face some realities is akin to shattered religious beliefs. Have compassion for for they know not harshness of light in real world.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> STM Photography said:
> 
> 
> > How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me.
> ...



This is simple. They go out in the field and take photos in all kind of light. Then they sit on the computer and make the best of it. At that point they want to 'fix' as many faults of the photo they can. Then several times they wish they could bring up the shadows a bit from dark areas without it looking grainy - like some other sensors allow. So so simple. At least to me.
No one I believe is asking for anything special. We are just pleading that Canon sensors come to par with other sensors. If 'others' can do it why not Canon? 'The system' logic does not work for me.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance.
> ...



hahahaha. NO. Sorry NO NO NO. Increase in DR is requested for situations when it may be required. Every photographer uses light and shadow.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Moulyneau said:
> 
> 
> > Since DPR married DXO, I have been a bit skeptical about the full objectivity of their testing results and reports.
> ...



Maybe so. But I use ISO 1600 and above regularly. And I am interested in that. (Not to say I am not interested in lower ISO)


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

K said:


> One has to wonder....
> 
> If Canon released a camera with a sensor having 16 stops of DR, would DXO, DPP and all the Exmorites champion the Canon sensor as they have the Sony? Would DXO rate the T7i sporting that sensor as superior to the Nikon D810 or D4S?
> 
> ...



Possible. But personally I love using Canon gear and there is nothing in the market to compete with the 1dx. BUT I want the sensor tech to improve. And I am sure it will. They lagged behind for years with high resolution cameras where Canon God lovers said Nikon high MP cameras are rubbish. Canon has given us high MP, will give industry best DR as well. Hope soon, starting with 1dx2.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > DR is measured on a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.
> ...



Loaltd can you point me to where you said that please?


----------



## sanj (May 16, 2015)

ritholtz said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Moulyneau said:
> ...



I do not think that anyone wants to underexpose on purpose. But many time one wants to bring back details in blacks when bracketing or lighting was not possible (backlit scenes) subject in shadow etc etc.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I just love the demonization of dynamic range here. It's an expanded capability. More dynamic range means less noise. How could that ever be a bad thing? You don't even have to lift the shadows to see improved IQ at ISO 100 from having 1/10th the read noise.
> ...



I visit the forum whenever I can. I have never seen anyone say that a camera is useless without 14 stops DR. But I have seen people pointing out that Canon has lower DR than some other cameras and they should fix that. Something so wrong with that?


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## jrista (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Moulyneau said:
> ...



I have actually tried to determine if there are actually any real statistics about such claims as the one by Dilbert that you higlighted in red. I used to think action photography at higher ISO was most likely to be the most common, but these days, it seems it's pretty evenly spread between nature, sports, and various people/portraiture, and rather evenly spanning a pretty wide range of ISO settings.

You can try to glean such information off of sites like 500px or flickr, but there is no way to just rank all photos by ISO. Bing and Google searches for photos by ISO and a wide variety of permutations of similar searches yield very little even related to photography at all, let alone any concrete or statistically valid information that ranks what ISO setting is used most by photographers. You can look through a dozen pages of landscape photos on 500px, and get the impression that ISO 100 and 200 are used most, but do the same thing with wildlife or sports photos, and you get the impression that ISO 800 or 1600 is used considerably more often. Try to figure out which ISO is used most often just by the top dozen or so pages of Popular is misleading, as those pages are often heavily weighted towards landscape and other nature photography. 

In the end, we really don't know what ISO settings are used most often. We really don't know what kind of photography is done most often. Landscapes? Sports? Portraiture? There is no way to tell for sure, since I don't believe anyone has actually done a valid statistical analysis from a broad enough and diverse enough body of digital photography.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

STM Photography said:


> Being a passive CR user for a while, I just have to add my take on the DR debate now before I will return to passive mode again. Not that the debate wouldn't be hot enough already, but there are a few aspects that I can't remember being mentioned here.
> 
> How some people on this forum can "decide" that Canon provides enough DR for themselves and others is beyond me. If some of you think that getting all the tonal values in a shot is only a matter of correct exposure, I can only assume that you have spent more time on this forum than outside in high contrast scenes. Of course, in many cases you can help yourself with bracketing. Then again I wonder how many people here have actually already done some exposure blending by hand. I am asking because without some advanced techniques such as the use of luminosity masks it is sometimes almost impossible to do perfect blends which really hold up in a big print. It is all a matter of technique (and time) to pull off some perfect exposure blending, I just want to say it is not at all as easy as many here make it sound.
> 
> ...



Very good and TRUE points. WELL SAID. Nice photos and that makes me more biased towards your viewpoint because I respect your work. Besides we think exactly the same on the DR religion. (Btw The photo you posted of the waterfall looks tad oversaturated on my screen. And photo 'decision' shows oversharpning artifacts.) Good light to you too!


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

jrista said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Each photographer would have a most used 'range'. Many who shoot just in studio rarely use anything except ISO 100. I shoot varied kind of stuff so use all ISO. But I think 800 is my most used ISO.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

rs said:


> CaptureWhatYouSee said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Keeping the lowest common denominator in mind is not the way I like to lead my life.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > STM Photography said:
> ...



I presume you mean on par in terms of low ISO DR, since Canon just exceeded all those 'others' in terms of MP. The question isn't why can't Canon, it's why _should_ they? How many constitute this 'we' of which you speak? There seem to be some Nikon users asking for a D300s replacement...are they asking for something special? It's also 'so so simple'. 

The 'system' logic has two components. One is that there are finite resources for R&D, so Canon must choose where to invest. The size of the 'we' matters for that. The other is simple reality - there are available products and systems with different features, you can make your own choice, but you can't buy something that doesn't exist. Neither component has to 'work for you'...they are just reality.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Agree with most. It makes sense. What I do find odd is that for last 5 years Canon has not chosen, in their limited R&D resources, to fix the DR and banding of their sensors. You must be right, there are not enough 'we'. They obviously know the business better than others.


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## bdunbar79 (May 16, 2015)

I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well. Remember the 5D Mark II? To me that was a fairly revolutionary camera. A big complaint at the time was high ISO noise. And so Canon came through big with that one. It pretty much changed the game with regards to high ISO shooting. People didn't have to spend $8k on a 1Ds3 either. But then people complained about the AF system on the 5D2. So what did Canon do? They introduced the 5D3 which pretty much matched every spec of the 5D2 except with class-leading AF. It's like there is just not as big of a concern over low ISO DR because people in general don't notice that. They sure as heck notice high ISO noise, however. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.


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## Sporgon (May 16, 2015)

bdunbar79 said:


> I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well. Remember the 5D Mark II? To me that was a fairly revolutionary camera. A big complaint at the time was high ISO noise. And so Canon came through big with that one. It pretty much changed the game with regards to high ISO shooting. People didn't have to spend $8k on a 1Ds3 either. But then people complained about the AF system on the 5D2. So what did Canon do? They introduced the 5D3 which pretty much matched every spec of the 5D2 except with class-leading AF. It's like there is just not as big of a concern over low ISO DR because people in general don't notice that. They sure as heck notice high ISO noise, however. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.



Exactly. When you can shoot straight into the sun and still push shadows to a level that's greater than most people will ever want, it is hardly a priority compared with the other points you mention. There are of course, a few people who want to make this kind of shooting the foundation of their photography. Unfortunately they all seem to post here.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> Agree with most. It makes sense. What I do find odd is that for last 5 years Canon has not chosen, in their limited R&D resources, to fix the DR and banding of their sensors. You must be right, there are not enough 'we'. They obviously know the business better than others.





bdunbar79 said:


> I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well.
> 
> I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.



Exactly the point. Canon _does_ listen to their customers, but their responses are based on their own priority, namely to return value to shareholders. If they believe they need to do something to sell more cameras, they'll do it. 

Some people seem to take it very personally when Canon doesn't incorporate a feature _they personally_ want. It's just business. 

If the 5Ds has <12 stops of DR and still sells strongly (as I expect it will), what message will that send to Canon?


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## mkabi (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> If the 5Ds has <12 stops of DR and still sells strongly (as I expect it will), what message will that send to Canon?



And, what if it doesn't sell well?
Can you *always* blame it on a shrinking market? Saturated market? Cell phones are invading?
Why is the M3 only selling in Europe and Asia?


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

Neuro u have mocked the supposed failure of d800 stating so many mp are redundant . Now y do u suppose 5ds will sell well?

Btw I will most likely buy 1.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

mkabi said:


> And, what if it doesn't sell well?



Then I expect that would send a different sort of message to Canon. Either way, *those* are the messages they listen to, not complaints about lack of DR on the interweb forums.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> Neuro u have mocked the supposed failure of d800 stating so many mp are redundant



When have I done that? Show me a quote or two, please... 

In fact, I stated on many (many!) occasions that if landscape photography were my primary interest, I'd have a D800 and 14-24... I've also stated that 18 MP are sufficient _for me_, but that I wouldn't say no to more. I, for one, won't be getting a 5Ds/R. 

Got any more revisionist history to share?


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

I thought so. Must be mistaken. No energy to go into history. But thought u did. Sorry


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> I thought so. Must be mistaken. No energy to go into history. But thought u did. Sorry



I've mocked other things about the D800 - like the green cast, and Tony Northrup's views on the camera.  But not the MP count.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > I thought so. Must be mistaken. No energy to go into history. But thought u did. Sorry
> ...



I stand corrected.


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## sanj (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > Agree with most. It makes sense. What I do find odd is that for last 5 years Canon has not chosen, in their limited R&D resources, to fix the DR and banding of their sensors. You must be right, there are not enough 'we'. They obviously know the business better than others.
> ...



That they can go on longer on their brandname and that their advertising is in place.


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## Lee Jay (May 16, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> If the 5Ds has <12 stops of DR and still sells strongly (as I expect it will), what message will that send to Canon?



That base ISO DR isn't a real issue.

Which it isn't.


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## 9VIII (May 16, 2015)

sanj said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


It's like pointing out to your amputee friend that he's missing a leg every time you see him.
Yes there is something wrong with that.


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## dak723 (May 16, 2015)

I can't wait for the day when cameras have 15 or 16 stops of DR. All the techno-geeks will be overjoyed as they process their photos and remove all hint of shadow. And the real photographers who understand that contrast is more important than DR will be wondering why they have to process their photos so much to give them the "punch' that they used to have in the old days. 

I understand that in certain situations, more DR would definitely be a plus, but having bought a Sony A7 II to compare with my Canon 6D, the Sony was returned because it did not - under any circumstance I shoot, which is landscapes under daylight conditions including sunsets - produce a single better photo than my Canon. It numerous cases, in my opinion, of course, the results of the Sony were sub-par as it produced photos that seemed washed out in comparison, both in terms of contrast and color. I realize that the image we get is the result of tone curves and other algorithms that may have nothing to do with the sensor, but all I can go by is the image (both RAW and JPG) that those algorithms give me. Sure, I like to bring up the exposure slightly in the shadows, too - but there was nothing within the range of adjustment that the Sony did better than the Canon.

So all the DR enthusiasts - no we do not all think the Sony Exmor is better. If you have tried both sensors, you are free to choose the one you think is better and wish Canon could equal the results. That is what i have done. I choose the Canon because 1) Contrast is more important. 2) I prefer the overall look of the pics from my Canon and need to do minimal or no post processing. 3) I don't need to print any larger than 8" x 12" in which case all the noise issues and banding have never, ever, been an issue.


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## jrista (May 16, 2015)

dak723 said:


> I can't wait for the day when cameras have 15 or 16 stops of DR. All the techno-geeks will be overjoyed as they process their photos and remove all hint of shadow. And the real photographers who understand that contrast is more important than DR will be wondering why they have to process their photos so much to give them the "punch' that they used to have in the old days.
> 
> I understand that in certain situations, more DR would definitely be a plus, but having bought a Sony A7 II to compare with my Canon 6D, the Sony was returned because it did not - under any circumstance I shoot, which is landscapes under daylight conditions including sunsets - produce a single better photo than my Canon. It numerous cases, in my opinion, of course, the results of the Sony were sub-par as it produced photos that seemed washed out in comparison, both in terms of contrast and color. I realize that the image we get is the result of tone curves and other algorithms that may have nothing to do with the sensor, but all I can go by is the image (both RAW and JPG) that those algorithms give me. Sure, I like to bring up the exposure slightly in the shadows, too - but there was nothing within the range of adjustment that the Sony did better than the Canon.
> 
> So all the DR enthusiasts - no we do not all think the Sony Exmor is better. If you have tried both sensors, you are free to choose the one you think is better and wish Canon could equal the results. That is what i have done. I choose the Canon because 1) Contrast is more important. 2) I prefer the overall look of the pics from my Canon and need to do minimal or no post processing. 3) I don't need to print any larger than 8" x 12" in which case all the noise issues and banding have never, ever, been an issue.



This is not what DR advocates want, to remove all hint of shadow. That is a myth perpetrated by the die hard pro Canon fans on this forum as part of their mockery of those who don't see photography or camera technology the same way they do. It's a straw man.

Dead black shadows lacking any detail and are not realistic. In real life, there are very few circumstances where you have shadows completely devoid of detail. The only reason shadows in photography often have no detail is because photographers are trying to hide noise. The benefit of having more DR is that you can reveal detail IN the shadows, without them having unsightly noise characteristics (banding, blotch, salt & pepper, etc.) We want shadows to be shadows, we just don't want them to be dead and devoid of detail. The goal isn't to lift shadows to the point where they become highlights. ??? ??? The goal is to lift shadows so we can replicate what we see in real life.

DR advocates are frequently called out for bashing on *the brand*, as if doing so was some kind of personal insult to Canon users. (For the record, IT'S NOT! It's not intended as a personal insult, in general it should be taken as a critique on and frustration about Canon's sensor technology, and only that. This:



9VIII said:


> It's like pointing out to your amputee friend that he's missing a leg every time you see him.
> Yes there is something wrong with that.



This is a load of crap. It blows the entire situation WAAAY out of proportion.)

Canon advocates, upon hearing DR advocates bash on an inanimate object, then turn around and bash *the DR advocates themselves*. One group complains about unfeeling inanimate hardware, the other group insults, mocks and berates actual people. Now there is _truly _something wrong with _that_. There is a serious misunderstanding on these forums about dynamic range and why some people want it. It's truly sad. I mean, really, truly sad. This forum could be a really great place, but somehow the mention & discussion of, and yes often complaining about dynamic range became synonymous with "personal insult" on these forums. However that conflation occurred, I honestly do not know. (It's a rather disturbing conflation, that a brand choice for a camera becomes so important that when someone "insults" the brand, you take it deeply personally...as if someone was reminding you that your leg was amputated ???) Outside of a couple personalities who have shown up on these forums in the past and persistently hated on Canon just for the sake of hating on Canon, most DR advocates just want Canon to deliver competitive IQ on all fronts, and it should be understandable that they are frustrated after many, many years without much progress on the issue they personally consider most important. It's _personal frustration_ _*with a brand*_ 99% of the time...not some backhanded means of throwing around personal insults to all Canon fans on these forums. The blatant mockery and insults dished out to DR advocates (and yes the subsequent reciprocation, and reciprocated reciprocation, etc. etc. ad. inf.) is the true travesty here. There is such a thing as the high road, guys...

Anyway...this same old straw man, that DR "techno-geeks" just want to remove all hint of shadow, or the other common insulting mockery that "they don't know how to expose"...none of that has any shred of truth to it. That isn't the goal of wanting more DR, and those who want more DR are not automatically buffoons who can't expose properly. We know exactly how to expose, and our goal for having more DR really has nothing to do with removing all hint of shadow. Just for the record.


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## Eldar (May 16, 2015)

jrista said:


> dak723 said:
> 
> 
> > I can't wait for the day when cameras have 15 or 16 stops of DR. All the techno-geeks will be overjoyed as they process their photos and remove all hint of shadow. And the real photographers who understand that contrast is more important than DR will be wondering why they have to process their photos so much to give them the "punch' that they used to have in the old days.
> ...


I wonder why this is so difficult to understand and accept ...


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## johnnycash (May 16, 2015)

bdunbar79 said:


> I think Canon over the years has listened to their customers quite well. Remember the 5D Mark II? To me that was a fairly revolutionary camera. A big complaint at the time was high ISO noise. And so Canon came through big with that one. It pretty much changed the game with regards to high ISO shooting. People didn't have to spend $8k on a 1Ds3 either. But then people complained about the AF system on the 5D2. So what did Canon do? They introduced the 5D3 which pretty much matched every spec of the 5D2 except with class-leading AF. It's like there is just not as big of a concern over low ISO DR because people in general don't notice that. They sure as heck notice high ISO noise, however. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just trying to explain from a business standpoint that Canon is of course trying to sell as many cameras as possible.



Good point.


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## jrista (May 16, 2015)

Eldar said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > dak723 said:
> ...


I don't really think it is. I think it is understood...it's just that we must be discredited.


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## 9VIII (May 16, 2015)

jrista said:


> dak723 said:
> 
> 
> > I can't wait for the day when cameras have 15 or 16 stops of DR. All the techno-geeks will be overjoyed as they process their photos and remove all hint of shadow. And the real photographers who understand that contrast is more important than DR will be wondering why they have to process their photos so much to give them the "punch' that they used to have in the old days.
> ...



I have to disagree, when you look into a basement window on a sunny day you can't see anything inside until you shade your eyes and allow them to adjust.
Maybe looking into a hole in the Earth is an extreme example and not particularly applicable to general landscape photography, but there certainly are deep shadows in real life.The extent of which is debatable.
We've had this conversation before and I don't think either of us will ever be satisfied with answers from the other.
As someone who has done a lot of reading and debating on similar topics I can certainly understand how it feels though.
In both our cases (mine is resolution and yours seems to be DR) most people will never have the same appreciation or drive for new technology as we do, even among enthusiasts and the elite of the genre.
I want an 8K resolution laptop, I've done the testing and according to my experiences it's within the abilities of my body to use. If every human alive today had the same experiences as me we would probably have 8K laptops next year. But is it ever actually going to happen? Probably not, I'm sitting here typing on a 1 megapixel resolution screen and for the transmission of text it works flawlessly. Most people will truly never care about anything more than minimum specs required (e.g. MP3). Even among enthusiasts it's a bleak situation. Only a small fraction of people will bother to pick up a high end camera, and only a small fraction of those will pursue that hobby past their first purchase, and only a small fraction of those will have any passion for the subject left to put out any effort into one particular aspect of it.
You love your shadow detail, you've seen new possibilities and it's exciting and you want everyone to share your excitement, I get that, but there's nothing wrong with people having a different focus. Whether the topic is MP3's, Computer Monitors, keyboards, Archive Grade Paper, Minivans, Toolboxes, Ammunition... We can't all get excited about everything.


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## Sporgon (May 16, 2015)

Well before the days of photography artists generally exaggerated shadow depth and general contrast. These artists could of course have painted their shadows as light as they wished - but they didn't wish. 

http://www.artble.com/artists/john_constable/more_information/style_and_technique


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## pvalpha (May 16, 2015)

I looked at the images for the 5DS-R. I was suitably impressed by what I saw and liked what the camera was capable of. The images were very Canon. And I own canon cameras because I like those images. But I'd never get a camera like the 5Ds and 5Ds-R because the files are too "expensive" in terms of size and storage, and pushing that many bits out to your card is going to take a while until we have SSD speeds on SDXC/CF/CFast. It doesn't suit well to what I want to photograph. Your buffer is small, and you have a lot of work to set up a good shot, because that's what the camera demands. 

DR is one element of a very large range of optical and technical properties that combine to form the image. In the long run, it means jack-all if your goal is *art* and you're satisfied with the results the _system_ produces. If your goal is squeezing very last possible usable photon to most accurately represent what the sensor is _technically_ capable of (and don't give a crap about your subject, only how much you can manipulate it after the fact)- then you might be disappointed and canon might not be the instrument for you to use. 

Otherwise the passionate discourse on this subject is almost entertaining. While the math might point to some interesting ideas - when taken out of context with the rest of the technical aspects of the Camera, DR is miniscule in importance. However, if you like "pushing" your photos outside your camera, then it has value to allow you to manipulate the image as you will. Then again, there are other ways to push the image in pleasing ways. I have never been left wanting with an image from my canon cameras when everything was in focus and exposed correctly. I wouldn't say "no" to more DR. But at the end of the day, the camera does what I want it to do. Isn't that the ultimate proof of success for any tool?


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## jrista (May 16, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> Well before the days of photography artists generally exaggerated shadow depth and general contrast. These artists could of course have painted their shadows as light as they wished - but they didn't wish.
> 
> http://www.artble.com/artists/john_constable/more_information/style_and_technique



And because some artists in the past preferred exaggerated contrast, everyone in every form of art throughout time always should?


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## Sunnystate (May 16, 2015)

I am sorry but as an trained and professionally active for over 30 years artist, I have to say that this statement about classical art is ridiculous. 

One of the first thing you learn studying classical paintings in the art school is to never use pure black straight from the tube, as well as pure white especially on large areas. 
Please show me a classical, prephotography era, known painting with blown off highlights (like sky, white dresses, windows views, painted with pure white) or shadows painted with pure black without any details avail.

I am so sick of people here making completely false statements as needed counting on lack of knowledge of others just to make a false point.
Thank you.



Sporgon said:


> Well before the days of photography artists generally exaggerated shadow depth and general contrast. These artists could of course have painted their shadows as light as they wished - but they didn't wish.
> 
> http://www.artble.com/artists/john_constable/more_information/style_and_technique


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## jrista (May 16, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > dak723 said:
> ...



Again, I have to ask, because _you _look into a basement window and just see black until you give your eyes time to adjust, therefor, everyone does?

My guess is you disagree because you see something different than I do. When I look into a basement window on a sunny day, I don't see pitch black. I see shadow for sure, but I can see things within those shadows. More importantly than that...when I look at a landscape, at the trees, and the shadows under the trees...again, I don't see pitch black. I see, within the shadows, a scattered blanket of pine needles, boulders, deadfall, small plants and tiny splashes of color from flowers, etc. There is detail within the shadow. Shadows, at least for me, are never devoid of form or structure in all but more rare circumstances (i.e. on a moonless night, shadows get deep enough to become formless black...but even if there is only a crescent moon, I can look out a window and see some faint detail in the shadows without having to wait ten minutes for my eyes to adjust. (Of course, I don't see any horizontal banding when I look out the window either. ;P)

When I look at the world, I don't see a world of high contrast, clipped highlights, and crushed black shadows devoid of detail. That doesn't mean I don't see the world with contrast and color, but it doesn't seem to me as though the world is crushed into a very limited range of contrast...not nearly as limited as some photography might otherwise indicate. For me, my photography and my photographic style is about rendering interesting things in the world _as I see it_, and maybe telling little stories to go along with the photos that depict what I saw. I want people to see what I saw...and sometimes, that means I need more DR.

Constantly having people tell me (or for that matter, people similar to me) I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to expose or that I'm just looking for DR to save me from my laziness or that I'm just interested in turning all shadows into midtones...that gets rather tiresome and irksome after a while. I regularly share my photography on these forums...every single one of you knows that I know how to expose, that I know how to create an artistic shot, and that I'm not some fumbling idiot who needs DR to save him from his "inexperience." I know what I'm talking about, and I know exactly what I want and why I want it when I say I want more dynamic range. I make no claim to be the world's greatest photographer by any means, but I do assert that I am a skilled photographer. Maybe I see the world differently than most of you guys...fine...but please, accept that you may not see the world the way I do, and please, accept that your goals for presenting the world through your photography are not the same as my goals. I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...and you guys should be mature enough to accept that, from me, or from anyone else who wants more dynamic range than Canon currently offers, to give them more freedom and opportunity to produce the kind of photography THEY want.



BTW, I'll take both more resolution and more DR, thanks.  I've said this before...I really want the best quality across the board. I don't just want resolution, or just want DR, or just want sharpness. Thankfully, I _can _get that all in a single camera, so long as the camera isn't Canon. I'm quite fine with that, too, especially since many of those other cameras can be adapted to use my existing Canon lens kit if I need. I no longer have to fret about Canon not delivering something I personally need, so I don't care all that much what Canon does anymore. 

The 5Ds looks like a good camera, but, it still doesn't meet my personal needs, and I'm not surprised it doesn't meet many other photographer's needs. I'm not surprised people on sites like DPR are still wondering why there is still banding and color blotch when you lift the shadows three stops. Some of us want more than that, and were well within our rights to want it. Personally I'd rather get an A7r II when they hit the shelves, and I'd be quite happy if it was still a 36mp sensor. I was impressed with the IQ from the original A7r, it was mostly body issues that held me back, and the Mark II should resolve at least some of those. It's an interesting new world of photography these days, and I for one am much happier with my choices since I decided to stop restricting myself to a single brand.


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## Sporgon (May 16, 2015)

Sunnystate said:


> I am sorry but as an trained and professionally active for over 30 years artist, I have to say that this statement about classical art is ridiculous.
> 
> One of the first thing you learn studying classical paintings in the art school is to never use pure black straight from the tube, as well as pure white especially on large areas.
> Please show me a classical, prephotography era, known painting with blown off highlights (like sky, white dresses, windows views, painted with pure white) or shadows painted with pure black without any details avail.
> ...



Well done Sunnystate, you'll fit into the DR debate on CR like hand in glove. 

Pure black straight from the tube...

Pure white especially on large areas....

Blown off highlights...

Shadows painted pure black....

Without any details avail.....


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## Sunnystate (May 16, 2015)

Of course that is the best you can do, very eloquent supported by facts answer... 
Neuro is really derailing standards on this forum, to bad so many is following his example.



Sporgon said:


> Sunnystate said:
> 
> 
> > I am sorry but as an trained and professionally active for over 30 years artist, I have to say that this statement about classical art is ridiculous.
> ...


----------



## Sporgon (May 16, 2015)

Sunnystate said:


> Of course that is the best you can do, very eloquent supported by facts answer...
> Neuro is really derailing standards on this forum, to bad so many is following his example.



I originally wrote 'artists generally exaggerated shadow depth" and gave a link to a famous English landscape artist, John Constable. 

Just where precisely in any of that would you find your "shadows painted pure black, pure black straight from the tube" and other such drivel ? 

Pitty that in those thirty years you didn't learn to read better.


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## neuroanatomist (May 16, 2015)

I guess if I had 20/10 X-Ray vision, maybe I'd be disappointed in Canon sensor output, too. :

As for being discredited, you accomplish that quite effectively on your own. Care to demonstrate how Canon's IQ is unacceptable?



jrista said:


> The latter claim, about poor/sub-par/unacceptable IQ, however, _isn't_ untennable. It can actually be demonstrated.


----------



## Orangutan (May 16, 2015)

9VIII said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > But I have seen people pointing out that Canon has lower DR than some other cameras and they should fix that. Something so wrong with that?
> ...



+10

Everyone here (including Neuro, I'd bet) wants more DR at all ISOs. However, we don't want to pay for it by losing other Canon advantages and, as we all know, tech improvements do not come free of cost. We do not need constant reminders that our gear is not perfect -- we already know that.


----------



## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Dead black shadows lacking any detail and are not realistic. In real life, there are very few circumstances where you have shadows completely devoid of detail. The only reason shadows in photography often have no detail is because photographers are trying to hide noise.



I can tell you why I want more DR: when I photograph a dim forest scene with strong sunlit areas or sections of open sky, I want to expose the shadows properly (not equal to foreground, but I want some detail), without blowing out the sky. Cases like this are a regular frustration. However, I'm not sure 14 stops of DR will do it, it seems like often 16 or 17 would be required. Sure, 14 is better than 12, but the bright clouds are still blown out.

But Canon doesn't care about my single voice, nor the voices of all posters in all camera forums. I want more DR at all ISOs, it simply isn't worth getting upset about because it won't do any good. If it were important enough to me I'd go buy a D610 or a Sony MILC.


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Eldar said:
> 
> 
> > I wonder why this is so difficult to understand and accept ...
> ...



From my perspective it's so well understood that when someone tries to explain it further it sounds condescending, as if they think I need to be taught how to tie my shoelaces.

I certainly do not discredit (most of**) those who want more DR, because I'm one of y'all, as are most on this forum. I'm also in the group that believes "OK, we've addressed that topic, can we move on to something else?"

**We've had a few who've ranted about the need for more DR in studio photography, and that blows my mind.


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## Sunnystate (May 17, 2015)

Ok, did not meant to be rude.
In the end, I am glad you have brought classical art in to this discussion, for the reason that it would be rather crazy to accuse Rembrandt or Leonardo of reducing human eye natural DR to suit some strange theory that we not suppose to see details in the shadows when we see details in highlights or the opposite: if we see details in the shadows than we should have flat lacking details white highlights. 



Sporgon said:


> Sunnystate said:
> 
> 
> > Of course that is the best you can do, very eloquent supported by facts answer...
> ...


----------



## jrista (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > sanj said:
> ...



Why would innovation on the sensor front _cost _you other existing Canon advantages? That doesn't make any logical sense. ???

Canon _already has_ those advantages...AF is covered, metering is covered, fps is covered, lenses are covered. They have been covered for years at this point. You aren't going to _lose _any of those if Canon invested more in sensor technology. 

You already have them. Canon already spent the money to develop those improvements. 

At this point, outside of some radical new way of thinking about AF (say lightfield, which not everyone cares for), I don't think you can have much more than evolutionary improvements to what Canon delivered in the 1D X. Which is exactly what we received with the 7D II...a handful more AF points. An increase in resolution for the RGB metering sensor in iTR. Maybe they could trickle down AF-linked metering to the whole pro line of bodies. Maybe they could increase FPS another frame or two per second. The advantages already exist...they aren't going to suddenly disappear if Canon spent some time on their sensor technology.

On the other hand, fairly significant improvements could be made on the sensor front. I am also still confused how saying that is taken as a "reminder that your gear isn't perfect." I mean, either you think your gear is fine, or your dissatisfied with it (and _if _you are dissatisfied...there are other options out there that could meet your needs). Since you already have all those other advantages...and they aren't going anywhere...why wouldn't you want Canon to focus their R&D on the thing where the most gains in IQ could be made? What else is there that is that Canon really needs to improve? (I mean, maybe I'm missing something...)

Personally, I no longer care that much. There are other brands that are already ahead of the curve and I can pick any one of them at any time. It just seems confusing to me that you guys take every mention of DR as a "constant reminder that your gear isn't perfect", rather than musings and hope that Canon could take the opportunity (now that they DO have AF, metering, FPS and lenses pretty solidly covered across the board) to take care of their weakest IQ factor, and deliver better IQ in the next generation of your preferred brand.


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> However, I'm not sure 14 stops of DR will do it, it seems like often 16 or 17 would be required. Sure, 14 is better than 12, but the bright clouds are still blown out.



I've made this point before as well. Yes, I want more DR...but the situations where 12-stops is insufficient but 14-stops is sufficient are few and far between in my experience. It's been argued that that extra DR saves work in post. That's true...the extra two stops means only 2-3 shots are needed to bracket, vs. 3-4 shots, and that difference might save me a up to 30 seconds during capture and up to 10 seconds in post. Woo-hoo...sort of. :


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Why would innovation on the sensor front _cost _you other existing Canon advantages? That doesn't make any logical sense. ???
> 
> Canon _already has_ those advantages...AF is covered, metering is covered, fps is covered, lenses are covered.



Your logical sense needs a reboot. 

Let's look at recently announced products, and consider a choice between a 5Ds with 1-1.5-stops more DR or the EF 11-24mm f/4L lens. 

I know which I'd pick....


----------



## jrista (May 17, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Why would innovation on the sensor front _cost _you other existing Canon advantages? That doesn't make any logical sense. ???
> ...



And Canon, since they don't NEED to also innovate a new AF system and metering system and ways to beat the competition on frame rate, is incapable of innovating _both _a better sensor and an 11-24mm lens? This monstrous company that rakes in more money than any other photography company, is only capable of innovating one kind of product at a time? 

Who needs a logical reboot here?


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


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



You. 

Everything has an opportunity cost, but you're correct that they're capable of innovation on many fronts. Yet...they haven't made strides in low ISO DR. Given that, what does your logic tell you about their corporate view on the strategic importance of low ISO to their business?


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > 9VIII said:
> ...


Perhaps I could have been more clear. A sensor with more DR is not technically incompatible with those other advantages; however, it costs in two important ways: (1) If it's a real market advantage, it will be priced into the product. E.g. Canon is now (arguably) equal or better in all ways except DR; if Canon gains that position with DR as well it will create greater demand for the product and the price will rise. In that sense, I want Canon to remain perpetually about .6 (  ) stops behind its competitors. (2) More importantly, R&D funding, while not a zero-sum game, is also not an infinite pot of money. If Canon puts R&D (or fab) money into DR, it will have less for maintaining its lead in lenses, and all the other advantages Canon currently has. I've previously made the point that Canon's "poor" sensors would have cost it market share if only its competitors weren't so lame in so many other areas. We all have to bear in mind that Canon is, above all else, a for-profit business. Any improvement will have ripple effects on other parts of the brand: it's simply not possible for a product to be the best in everything and also price-competitive.



> I am also still confused how saying that is taken as a "reminder that your gear isn't perfect." I mean, either you think your gear is fine, or your dissatisfied with it (and _if _you are dissatisfied...there are other options out there that could meet your needs).



I'm both satisfied and dissatisfied with my gear, and this is not a contradiction. I like my lenses, and I think my 70D does a great all-around job for the price. But I'm dissatisfied in that I can always imagine better. Money is always a constraint in the equation: if I were starting over maybe I'd buy Nikon. But for this hobby I can't justify buying multiple kits, or even selling my current kit to buy another brand. I'm aware of its limitations, and it just feels like I'm being told that if I were competent enough to fully appreciate its deficiencies I would be outraged. I don't want to be outraged, nor incited to outrage. I want to go take photos.


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> This monstrous company that rakes in more money than any other photography company, is only capable of innovating one kind of product at a time?



It's just business. I'd save the word "monstrous" for companies that pollute, cause harm to their employees or nearby people, bribe officials, etc. I have no interest in being outraged at Canon's camera division.


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## jrista (May 17, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > And Canon, since they don't NEED to also innovate a new AF system and metering system and ways to beat the competition on frame rate, is incapable of innovating _both _a better sensor and an 11-24mm lens? This monstrous company that rakes in more money than any other photography company, is only capable of innovating one kind of product at a time?
> ...



It tells me that Canon is currently lacking in the skill to innovate _competitively _in the current sensor market, not that it isn't of strategic importance. Canon has a certain momentum thanks to existing market share that can act as a buffer, but I don't think Canon sees the DR issue as one of no strategic importance. Canon has on a couple occasions stated they are working to address it, which implies they acknowledge that it's a key issue for many photographers. To date, it simply seems they have not yet succeeded in addressing it. I am not sure if their layered sensor technology will address it or not...it doesn't seem as though they are pursuing that technology with as much gusto as competitors in the sensor arena, given how many years it's taken a handful of layered sensor patents to trickle into the public eye (to the dozens of sensor patents per year by competitors.) 

I don't see any shortcoming of people who want more DR from Canon cameras. It's probably one of the single most talked about thing on photography-related sites around the net particularly whenever a Canon camera is announced, including monsters like DPR. Only here on CR is there a significant dichotomy between members who really want more DR and those who don't seem to care or actively deny it's benefits. The rift is much more balanced elsewhere. It's also clear that Canon knows that, as much as they try to save face in their interviews and pretend the issue doesn't matter, or claim that their sensors are currently the best on the market (they would be naive to truly think that and I don't believe Canon is naive, saying it is just a matter of glossing over their shortcomings in public venues).

It doesn't really matter if all the people talking about DR are just a monstrous horde of idiots or not, either. It's something people talk about, are interested in and want, and logically, it would be naive for Canon to ignore the issue and give it no strategic importance in their business plans.


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## 3kramd5 (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > This monstrous company that rakes in more money than any other photography company, is only capable of innovating one kind of product at a time?
> ...



One definition of monstrous refers to size, which was clearly Jon's intent.


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> I'd save the word "monstrous" for companies that pollute, cause harm to their employees or nearby people, bribe officials, etc. I have no interest in being outraged at Canon's camera division.



Young fool...only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the *D*a*R*k side.


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


I thought he meant it both ways.


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> It tells me that Canon is currently lacking in the skill to innovate _competitively _in the current sensor market, not that it isn't of strategic importance.



_Currently_ lacking? They've been behind on low ISO DR since 2009. Six years. An eternity in terms of technological development. Heck, they could have hired 20 chip design engineers away from Sony in a year. 

>2000 patents per year for the past several years, but they lack the skill to improve low ISO DR?? 

You need to look harder for that reboot button. :


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## jrista (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Why would innovation on the sensor front _cost _you other existing Canon advantages? That doesn't make any logical sense. ???
> ...



I wonder if the price is more of "what the market can/will bear" and less of "this one thing cost us X% more to design, so we have to charge more for products X, Y and Z"... A LOT of people don't understand Canon's product pricing. I think they have a buffer with their DSLR markets, but it seems when it comes to their video products, people are less inclined to loyalty, and the XC10 was neither well received (everyone seemed to think it was an odd product at best), and the first review seemed to be rather...unimpressed. Some of the same goes for many of their other video products...priced extremely high relative to the competition, and yet less capable than the competition in many ways.

I honestly don't know why Canon is charging what they are charging, but it does seem a bit out of touch with the broader competitive marketplace. Is their R&D just less efficient than their competitors? How and why are their competitors able to produce extremely compelling products at amazing price points (i.e. A6000 or NX1), and yet Canon cannot seem to deliver even a mildly compelling EOS-M to American buyers? (I know that Americans are buying Sony mirrorless cameras and generally loving them.) Are they trying to over-leverage their existing market share and reputation? (I think that is a great way to lose customers.) 

I think product pricing is more complex than "We innovated X things so we must charge Y price to cover the cost." As for exactly how Canon derives their product prices...I cannot say...however they do seem to be demanding a premium, and many of their customers seem to be confused by that.



Orangutan said:


> > I am also still confused how saying that is taken as a "reminder that your gear isn't perfect." I mean, either you think your gear is fine, or your dissatisfied with it (and _if _you are dissatisfied...there are other options out there that could meet your needs).
> 
> 
> 
> I'm both satisfied and dissatisfied with my gear, and this is not a contradiction. I like my lenses, and I think my 70D does a great all-around job for the price. But I'm dissatisfied in that I can always imagine better. Money is always a constraint in the equation: if I were starting over maybe I'd buy Nikon. But for this hobby I can't justify buying multiple kits, or even selling my current kit to buy another brand. I'm aware of its limitations, and it just feels like I'm being told that if I were competent enough to fully appreciate its deficiencies I would be outraged. I don't want to be outraged, nor incited to outrage. I want to go take photos.



I don't know about others, but in my case, I'm not trying to tell people their gear is inferior. It's more about trying to add my voice to the throng of people talking about and asking for better DR in Canon cameras, in hopes that Canon might actually respond to the needs of that particular user group. Well, that WAS what my goal was. I don't quite understand Canon these days, and I think it's a less dire and depressing situation finding alternative ways to fulfill my needs.

Having used a number of other camera brands now, the single biggest thing I enjoy about my Canon DSLRs is the ergonomics. Other brands just don't fit as well...but...that is also a personal thing. I have also found that I'm getting used to Sony control layout...I wouldn't call their cameras the most ergonomic design...they are rather square...but I am getting used to the layout. 

On the other fronts...I have zero complaints about the IQ from other brands. It's phenomenal, I love the quality of the noise right down to the bottom of the signal (both with Exmor and the NX1 sensor), I have actually never seen any issues from Sony's 11+7 bit compression, etc. I am blown away by the 11fps frame rate of the A6000, and it actually performs very well at high ISO...so very soon here it is going to become my all-around all-the-time bird/wildlife and general photography camera. It's ultra light weight, the lenses are small and ultra light weight, yet they are Zeiss optics and the quality is excellent. I can't haul around my big 600mm lens all the time, and as a result, I miss shots. Canon simply doesn't have anything even remotely compelling as competition, either on the body front or the lens front. 

I am not, however, _replacing _my kit. _I'm augmenting my kit._ It's probably the best option out there for those of us like you and I who know about the limitations of our Canon gear, but don't want to dump another six grand adding a Nikon D810 and a handful of new lenses "replacing" our Canon equipment. The other really nice thing about the A6000 is it shared the Sony E mount of the A7 series cameras, so I'll be able to use any FF E mount lenses on the A6000 as well once I pick up an A7r II. There is also the adaptability of the Sony E mount, since it's a mirrorless mount, just about any lens can be adapted to it, including Canon lenses. You won't necessarily get optimal behavior out of them, AF may be slower, but at least you can use them and not have to dump your kit.

In my own plans, I think I'll be moving away from Canon for landscapes, and I'll probably sell my 16-35, my 50mm, etc. and put the money from them into buying similar lenses for the E mount. I may pick up a Samyang wide angle lens for milky way imaging IF the Sony 11+7 compression causes problems with milky way imaging on the A7r II. Diversity is a great thing. I believe my DSLR and 600mm lens are the best option for my serious wildlife and bird photography, and I believe the A7r and some E-mount lenses are ideal for landscapes (their size and weight are perfect for hiking around the mountains, whereas I always feel lately I am lugging bricks around with my Canon kit sans 600 in a backpack). I think the A6000 is a perfect all around general purpose camera for everything, when I can't have one of the other two with me (and it's cheap enough that if someone were to steal it, I wouldn't be devastated by the loss.)


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## jrista (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > This monstrous company that rakes in more money than any other photography company, is only capable of innovating one kind of product at a time?
> ...



I didn't mean they were an evil company.  I meant they were a huge company. I tend to use the word diabolical for companies like Monsanto, though. ;D


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

9VIII said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > 9VIII said:
> ...



  Yes some of us need to be more sensitive.


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> dak723 said:
> 
> 
> > I can't wait for the day when cameras have 15 or 16 stops of DR. All the techno-geeks will be overjoyed as they process their photos and remove all hint of shadow. And the real photographers who understand that contrast is more important than DR will be wondering why they have to process their photos so much to give them the "punch' that they used to have in the old days.
> ...



Yes yes yes. Perfectly said.


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

dilbert said:


> dak723 said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



Of course they don't.


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> Well before the days of photography artists generally exaggerated shadow depth and general contrast. These artists could of course have painted their shadows as light as they wished - but they didn't wish.
> 
> http://www.artble.com/artists/john_constable/more_information/style_and_technique



The point being?


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

"When I look at the world, I don't see a world of high contrast, clipped highlights, and crushed black shadows devoid of detail. That doesn't mean I don't see the world with contrast and color, but it doesn't seem to me as though the world is crushed into a very limited range of contrast...not nearly as limited as some photography might otherwise indicate."

Obvious fact.


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > sanj said:
> ...



I do not and never will understand this.


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

I think the 1dx2 will end this friendly discussion.


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> I'm not trying to tell people their gear is inferior.



Oh, I see. You're just trying to tell people that it can be demonstrated that Canon sensors deliver poor/sub-par/unacceptable IQ. 



jrista said:


> The latter claim, about poor/sub-par/unacceptable IQ, however, _isn't_ untennable. It can actually be demonstrated.



You tell people that Canon IQ sucks, but that's not anything like telling people who use Canon that their gear is inferior, oh no, not at all. :




jrista said:


> It's more about trying to add my voice to the throng of people talking about and asking for better DR in Canon cameras...



A few people on Internet forums is a throng? Thanks, I needed a good laugh. ;D


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > Perhaps I could have been more clear.
> ...


Yes, that's exactly the point. What it costs them is not as important to the price as what people will pay. On the other hand, the cost of R&D is related to the price.



> I honestly don't know why Canon is charging what they are charging, but it does seem a bit out of touch with the broader competitive marketplace.


It may be out of touch with a consumer's view of the marketplace, but they seem to maintain both market share and price better than the competition. To me the obvious conclusion is that, from the purely business perspective, their pricing is perfectly in line with the market as a whole, just not in line with the needs of those with particularly demanding expectations. 




> It's more about trying to add my voice to the throng of people talking about and asking for better DR in Canon cameras, in hopes that Canon might actually respond to the needs of that particular user group. Well, that WAS what my goal was. I don't quite understand Canon these days, and I think it's a less dire and depressing situation *finding alternative ways to fulfill my needs*.


This, market research and reviews from popular sites are the only voices Canon will hear. Look after your own needs and don't wait for Canon.



> Canon simply doesn't have anything even remotely compelling as competition, either on the body front or the lens front.


This is what affects markets and manufacturers, not much else does.



> I am not, however, _replacing _my kit. _I'm augmenting my kit._ It's probably the best option out there for those of us like you and I who know about the limitations of our Canon gear


I can't really justify augmentation like that right now. I'm pretty much stuck with one body at a time.


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## 9VIII (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Constantly having people tell me (or for that matter, people similar to me) I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to expose or that I'm just looking for DR to save me from my laziness or that I'm just interested in turning all shadows into midtones...that gets rather tiresome and irksome after a while.



Right, everyone feels like they've been offended by everyone else because we all seem to empathize with a few people in heated conversation.
This is literally the same situation as the classical multi-generational family feud where people who have never met before automatically think they hate each other because some distant cousins got in an argument half a century ago.


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## Orangutan (May 17, 2015)

sanj said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > 9VIII said:
> ...



See my previous reply to jrista. Regards, O.

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=26325.msg520420#msg520420


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



Fair enough.


----------



## Aglet (May 17, 2015)

dilbert said:


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


I don't think they can fix it .. yet.
Altho they've done a decent job of getting rid of the banding in the 7d2, 70d and, to some extent, the 6D. That makes all these cameras somewhat more useable.


----------



## Aglet (May 17, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > However, I'm not sure 14 stops of DR will do it, it seems like often 16 or 17 would be required. Sure, 14 is better than 12, but the bright clouds are still blown out.
> ...



The salient point is that ABC cameras have shadow areas with less noise and certainly, with few exceptions, no banding and pattern noise. That alone significantly extends the usable shadow range that can be delivered, if desired, even if they don't have more actual DR.
E.G. A Pentax Q at base ISO appears to have more overall noise, but less pattern noise than a Canon sensor. The Q may even have less DR than a Canon sensor, but you can, if desired, lift the Q's shadow zones and end up with a more pleasing result than you could from a Canon sensor of the Digic 4 series or other bodies up to the 70D/7d2.

The Q is an extreme example but useful in that comparison.

Take another crop sensor camera, like an old Nikon D5100 and compare it to one of the Canon bodies notable for shadow noise patterns. Expose both systems to retain cloud detail at 100 ISO without clipping.
Process both system's raw files with similar settings and you'll get similar results. But if you want to open up the shadows that Nikon file is going to provide a lot more editing latitude and provide more options than the Canon file.
So if you need 18 stops of DR to capture a scene, 10 is not enough, 12 is not enough, but to say the merits of having 12 is irrelevant is just disingenuous.


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## rs (May 17, 2015)

9VIII said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Dead black shadows are not realistic. In real life, there are very few circumstances where you have shadows completely devoid of detail. The benefit of having more DR is that you can reveal detail IN the shadows, without them having unsightly noise characteristics (banding, blotch, salt & pepper, etc.) We want shadows to be shadows, we just don't want them to be dead and devoid of detail. The goal isn't to lift shadows to the point where they become highlights. The goal is to lift shadows so we can replicate what we see in real life.
> ...


This is my point about output medium and its DR. Until a screen or a print can have you shade your eyes for you to see the shadows, recording this much DR at capture requires an out of the ordinary tone mapping to utilise it.

To all you DR advocates out there, I'm not saying more DR is bad. More of anything, if done correctly, is great. I definitely would not refuse to buy a new camera with more DR. It's just I feel too much emphasis is given to this one metric. It's as if photographic equipment has reached the level of maturity that now certain review sites are reduced to using one largely insignificant measurement to base an entire review on.

Photography is art, and we all have our own tastes. What one person sees as correct isn't necessarily what the next person thinks. Even with my taste, I have seen the odd photo taken with high DR mapped onto a low DR output which actually looks good. But for me, most HDR images (whether one shot from Exmor or multi shot) are very unnatural, and I'd rather just see shadows as shadows.


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Whilst it may have been "good enough" to keep some folks, they miscalculated on the competition angle and what they could get away with not doing.



I see. Your evidence for this miscalculation is....what? That you chose not to buy another Canon body? That a few people on Internet forums are whining about it? That Canon's market share is dwindling and they're no longer the market leader?


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## neuroanatomist (May 17, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Quite right. Canon is no longer the market leader where IQ is concerned. And world + dog knows that.



Yeah, and Betamax delivered better IQ than VHS.


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## dak723 (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> Constantly having people tell me (or for that matter, people similar to me) I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to expose or that I'm just looking for DR to save me from my laziness or that I'm just interested in turning all shadows into midtones...that gets rather tiresome and irksome after a while. I regularly share my photography on these forums...every single one of you knows that I know how to expose, that I know how to create an artistic shot, and that I'm not some fumbling idiot who needs DR to save him from his "inexperience." I know what I'm talking about, and I know exactly what I want and why I want it when I say I want more dynamic range. I make no claim to be the world's greatest photographer by any means, but I do assert that I am a skilled photographer. Maybe I see the world differently than most of you guys...fine...but please, accept that you may not see the world the way I do, and please, accept that your goals for presenting the world through your photography are not the same as my goals. I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...and you guys should be mature enough to accept that, from me, or from anyone else who wants more dynamic range than Canon currently offers, to give them more freedom and opportunity to produce the kind of photography THEY want.



Fair enough. You are quite correct that each individual may have different needs and wants from their camera and what they are looking for in their images. I have said it many times that there are those that want and need more DR - legitimately. We should all respect those people's opinions.

On the other hand, however, we have the DR advocates who believe that more DR is a must, that Canon cameras can't compete with the other brands; that those who don't agree are considered fanboys, incompetent at post processing, or ignorant. All I ask is that we are afforded the same respect. That some of us have seen the results from the different cameras - and for what we do - the Canon sensors are at least the equal if not superior to the other brands.

I recall an interesting review of an older Olympus DSLR. The reviewer was happy to report that the new model had more DR than it's predecessors. But, the reviewer also noted that the images didn't seem to have the same punch and "look" that Olympus was known for. In other words - Look at the increase in DR!!...although your images won't look as good....

If you think more DR gives your pics a better look - by all means get a camera with a sensor with more DR or continue to hope that Canon delivers such a sensor. But there is no reason to insult those that think Canon cameras delivers the best looking pics.


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## Sporgon (May 17, 2015)

jrista said:


> I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...



Do you think I have dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work then ?

http://www.buildingpanoramics.com

Just out of curiosity.


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## gary samples (May 17, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...
> ...


 Sweet Work !!


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## sanj (May 17, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...
> ...



N I C E!!


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## gary samples (May 17, 2015)

Canon 5DSR 50MP Sample photos varius lenses 
https://youtu.be/4WrZ1f29GOM


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## eml58 (May 17, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...
> ...



Beautiful Images Sporgon, truly lovely work.

In the 16 odd pages of this Post it's the only highlight, thank you.


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## Aglet (May 18, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...
> ...


I like the compositions and the colors but find them a touch too saturated and many of the images are a bit too contrasty (also a bit too local-contrasty) for printed display in anything but ideal lighting. Even electronic display looks a bit too contrasty but it's your style so carry on. It obviously appeals to many. 
SoNikon performance is obviously not required for this kind of end result.


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## Orangutan (May 18, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Canon is no longer the *market leader* where IQ is concerned.



You and I seem to have different definitions for the term "market leader." What you describe here I might call "technology leader." 

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-leader.asp

"_A company that has the largest market share in an industry, and which can use its dominance to affect the competitive landscape and direction the market takes_."

Technical advantages can allow a company to become market leader, but they are not the same thing.


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## neuroanatomist (May 18, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Canon is no longer the *market leader* where IQ is concerned.
> ...



Dilbert's definitions of many things are utterly inconsistent with reality. He thinks some lenses are cameras, for example.


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## sanj (May 18, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Heard this like 10 thousand times before. Wondering how many more times I will hear this again.


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## sanj (May 18, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Quite right. Canon is no longer the market leader where IQ is concerned. And world + dog knows that.
> ...



The point being? Do not get it even after reading it many times before. Because it sounds like you saying better technology fails... Don't understand.


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## unfocused (May 18, 2015)

dilbert said:


> ...Canon is no longer the market leader where IQ is concerned. And world + dog knows that.



Since "IQ" is a totally made up term that has no standards except for how any individual chooses to define it for himself or herself, I suppose this statement can be "true" for Mr. Dilbert. Yet at the same time it can be "False" for anyone else. 

I suppose in his world he and his dog may "know" this. But, apparently that world is very, very tiny because there seem to be many more people who find that Canon meets their standards of "IQ" better than Nikon, Sony or any other brand.


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## unfocused (May 18, 2015)

sanj said:


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



Actually, in the long run the "best" technology usually does fail. There has been quite a bit of research on this very topic and generally speaking, in the marketplace "good enough" technology displaces "best" technology. Betamax is only one example of that. 

There are multiple reasons for this, some (greatly simplified) are:

The incremental cost of moving from "good enough" to "best" is very high. Some companies succeed by offering the "best" to a very small niche market, but there are many more that fail because they miscalculate the demand for the "best."

Mass marketers (like Canon and Nikon) need to target their products to the bulk of the market, which means balancing price with a host of other criteria and features. They cannot price themselves out of the market.

Most consumers don't want the "best" (Or at least, they don't want it bad enough to pay for it.) CDs don't produce the "best" music, but it was good enough. MP3 isn't as good as CDs, but it is good enough. There are a handful of audiophiles who will spend large sums of money to get the "best" but Apple doesn't cater to them because they don't represent a large enough market.

The demand for quality is price-sensitive. Yeah, I'm sure I could hire someone to completely design and hand-build my ideal car, but not at a price I would be willing to pay for it. If the choice is between a perfect product that you can't afford to buy and an imperfect product that is affordable, no one will pick the unaffordable product. 

There are always trade-offs. In some respects, Direct Current was a better technology than Alternating Current. But the disadvantages ultimately outweighed the advantages. Similarly, the internal combustion engine was not the best technology, but it's advantages outweighed its disadvantages and, on balance, the market found it to be "good enough." This whole silly and interminable debate over Dynamic Range always ignores the tradeoffs. The small (and they are very, very small) differences in Dynamic Range among all camera manufacturers are concentrated at the low end of the ISO range. For me personally, Canon sensors are more than "good enough" because I need and want improved high ISO performance for my work.


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## 3kramd5 (May 18, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want dead, crushed, formless black shadows in my work...
> ...



Since discovering this forum, yours has long been a site of inspiration.


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## 3kramd5 (May 18, 2015)

Aglet said:


> SoNikon performance is obviously not required for this kind of end result.



Care to share an example of a photo which you believe the performance of a sony sensor in a nikon body was required to produce the end result? It would be even better if you have side-by-side shots from a SoNikon, a non-SoNikon, and a Canon, showing conclusively that the SoNikon was required.


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## Orangutan (May 18, 2015)

sanj said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



I agree: it's time to let that one go.


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## Orangutan (May 18, 2015)

unfocused said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...


I think this is really important: all the major camera brands make trade-offs, and people tend to dwell on whatever stands out as imperfect for their particular style of photography. 



> This whole silly ... debate over Dynamic Range always ignores the tradeoffs.


I don't think it's silly to want to want more DR and reduced shadow noise: those are legitimate interests for particular circumstances. What is silly is that some refuse to see Canon's sensor choice as a pure business decision. In business, if a particular product change does not have a net positive effect on profit then there is no reason to make that change. It's really that simple, and I don't understand why so many take personal offense at Canon's business choices.


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## 3kramd5 (May 18, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> > This whole silly ... debate over Dynamic Range always ignores the tradeoffs.
> 
> 
> I don't think it's silly to want to want more DR and reduced shadow noise: those are legitimate interests for particular circumstances. What is silly is that some refuse to see Canon's sensor choice as a pure business decision. In business, if a particular product change does not have a net positive effect on profit then there is no reason to make that change. It's really that simple, and I don't understand why so many take personal offense at Canon's business choices.



Wanting more DR isn't silly. I want more in my canons and I want more in my Sony. The debate however is silly, at least as conducted here. But hey, it's entertaining.


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## neuroanatomist (May 18, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > SoNikon performance is obviously not required for this kind of end result.
> ...



Have you not seen DPR's 6-stop push tool??


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## Sporgon (May 18, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



Gary, Sanj, Edward, 3kramd5: many thanks for your comments.

The reason I posted the link to my site and the reason I defend Canon 'DR' or 'IQ' is because there are literally thousands of people who visit this site. In fact as I type this there are 1849 visitors right now. This is a huge number and dwarfs many other sites. Take Luminous Landscape for instance; it's lucky to have 150 at any one time. 

I would think that the vast majority visiting are hobbyist who use Canon. Of course the fact that the site is so popular makes it a real target for those trying to peach the gospel of Sonikon IQ and in my opinion the constant barrage of derogatory comments needs balancing. In the vast majority of situations I cannot see _any_ difference between the end result shot on Canon or Sonikon. To see the difference I have to set up a specific EV range and even then I wouldn't want to use the resulting data anyway. I have found that in practice the difference between 11.6 and 13.8 stops is wildly exaggerated on the internet. 

If Canon were to supply a free filmware that gave my 5DII and 6D the same DR as the Exmor I might get around to downloading it - eventually - as long as it didn't effect highlight headroom, because I still think Canon is better here. 

Do I want improvement ? Yes, but it is going to have to be more of a practical difference than there is now before I'd be interested in spending money to get it.


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## neuroanatomist (May 18, 2015)

Sporgon said:


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



+1 for the comments, +106 for your images.


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## meywd (May 18, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


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



+1, really amazing images


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## Sporgon (May 18, 2015)

Aglet said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



All my pictures are produced for printing, the vast majority being on canvas, and I only use a high quality cotton medium. All pictures should be lit one way or another, but I think it is fair to say mine are based on ideal lighting.

Regarding saturation, it's what the vast majority of people want to see, it's as simple as that, but I do try to avoid being 'chocolate box'. There are a few artistic connoisseurs out there who like low saturation, but my market is the majority. Same with contrast; most people want to see a little punch in the pictures, so that's what I give. Bear in mind that these were originally produced for the tourist trade around England's ancient monuments. 

You wouldn't see any difference if they were shot on Nikon. Indeed, one of them might have been


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## Sporgon (May 18, 2015)

meywd said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > +1 for the comments, +106 for your images.
> ...



Neuro and meywd: Many thanks for those comments.


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## Speedster (May 18, 2015)

Absolutely fabulous pictures by Sporgon!  I love the Rievault Abbey scene.


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## neuroanatomist (May 18, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> Regarding saturation, it's what the vast majority of people want to see, it's as simple as that, but I do try to avoid being 'chocolate box'. There are a few artistic connoisseurs out there who like low saturation, but my market is the majority. Same with contrast; most people want to see a little punch in the pictures, so that's what I give.



Just look at the default calibration (color profile) for most monitors/displays - high saturation and contrast, that's what people expect. I've had people ask why my Apple Thunderbolt Display looks so 'flat' (it's properly calibrated).


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## Orangutan (May 18, 2015)

dilbert said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > sanj said:
> ...


It would also be nice if you were to acknowledge when you are in error.


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## Sporgon (May 18, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > Regarding saturation, it's what the vast majority of people want to see, it's as simple as that, but I do try to avoid being 'chocolate box'. There are a few artistic connoisseurs out there who like low saturation, but my market is the majority. Same with contrast; most people want to see a little punch in the pictures, so that's what I give.
> ...



It is all a personal preference. I should have added that the images on the website are the exact files for producing the canvas prints, reduced in size and converted to sRGB etc. To be fair, if I'm printing them on a different medium, say art paper, they are too dense and need a little alteration. That's the beauty of the high quality canvas; although you inevitably lose resolution due to the weave, the pictures just shine on them.


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## Sporgon (May 18, 2015)

Speedster said:


> Absolutely fabulous pictures by Sporgon!  I love the Rievault Abbey scene.



Thanks Speedster ! That is one of my favourites and I've tried to produce something similar at other places but have never managed it. 

Incidentally in the flavour of this topic, the area inside the remains of the little chapel on the far right were totally black on the original frames.

Aglet will say I got away with it because it was shot on the original 5D


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## neuroanatomist (May 18, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



Ding ding – we have a winner! But, I guess that old dogs can be stubborn…


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## sanj (May 18, 2015)

unfocused said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Yeah you sound so correct. All u say is so true. Sad truth!!!


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## unfocused (May 18, 2015)

dilbert said:


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



Not really. Technology advances. And sometimes what once was the "best" may eventually become the "normal." But, not always. Once a technology plateaus, the incremental cost of providing the "best" may still price it out of the typical consumer market.


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## unfocused (May 18, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > This whole silly ... debate over Dynamic Range always ignores the tradeoffs.
> ...



Agreed. But, actually what I was referring to was the silliness of cherry picking certain characteristics of sensor performance. 

Sure, no one would refuse more dynamic range, if it meant no other sacrifices. 

But, from all the sites that compare sensor performance I see the same thing – the trade-off for greater dynamic range at base ISO is more noise at higher ISOs. 

So, what frustrates me is that the "DR" fans only look at base ISO, which for me is irrelevant. I don't have the luxury to shoot at base ISO. I have to shoot at high ISO. So if improved dynamic range comes at a price of more noise at higher ISOs, I don't want it.


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## Aglet (May 18, 2015)

unfocused said:


> But, from all the sites that compare sensor performance I see the same thing – the trade-off for greater dynamic range at base ISO is more noise at higher ISOs.
> 
> So, what frustrates me is that the "DR" fans only look at base ISO, which for me is irrelevant. I don't have the luxury to shoot at base ISO. I have to shoot at high ISO. So if improved dynamic range comes at a price of more noise at higher ISOs, I don't want it.



sensor metrics on the recently tested d7200 blow that completely out of the water, it excels across the entire ISO range - tho I've not yet examined the files from one myself to discover any caveats.
And, to put the cherry on top, it's also got much better CFA results than anything else in its class.


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## Aglet (May 18, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> Aglet will say I got away with it because it was shot on the original 5D



HAHA! Hey, I happen to know you're matching the pattern noise to the weave of the canvas to hide the problem! 

But kudos to you for knowing what sells and producing the product that gets you the best returns, that's what it comes down to in most cases. Art-critics don't necessarily buy much and they rarely agree with consumers' tastes.


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## jrista (May 19, 2015)

Aglet said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > But, from all the sites that compare sensor performance I see the same thing – the trade-off for greater dynamic range at base ISO is more noise at higher ISOs.
> ...



You beat me to it. 

I was *just *talking with a friend who was out photographing birds at one of our local haunts not 20 minutes ago. He rented a D7200, and as shooting birds at ISO 3200 and 6400 with a 300mm f/4 prime. The IQ was excellent. The only drawback we saw was the frame rate...Nikon still really doesn't have a high FPS crop body to compete with the 7D II...but at 6fps, it was good enough to get some BIF shots of Swallows, which are a pretty tough, erratic subject. In every other respect, the IQ across the ISO range was excellent.


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

jrista said:


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



Competition is (usually) good for the consumer.


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## jrista (May 19, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> Competition is (usually) good for the consumer.



Indeed. Some pretty good competition in the photography segment these days.


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## Aglet (May 19, 2015)

jrista said:


> You beat me to it.
> 
> I was *just *talking with a friend who was out photographing birds at one of our local haunts not 20 minutes ago. He rented a D7200, and as shooting birds at ISO 3200 and 6400 with a 300mm f/4 prime. The IQ was excellent. The only drawback we saw was the frame rate...Nikon still really doesn't have a high FPS crop body to compete with the 7D II...but at 6fps, it was good enough to get some BIF shots of Swallows, which are a pretty tough, erratic subject. In every other respect, the IQ across the ISO range was excellent.


good to hear the d7200's AF system's decent and yes, many Nikonians are really itchin' for this kind of performance in a body that can also deliver higher frame rates.
I'm wondering how much action-AF-capable competition is coming from the ML gang too, with the new Pany G7 and Fuji's latest updates to the XT1 and even the new XT10 body.

Fuji looks to be taking up the challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaoIZXA5RMM

not sure what the G7 will do, but it looks nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNwmiLPHMFE


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## Aglet (May 19, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > SoNikon performance is obviously not required for this kind of end result.
> ...


maybe you missed this, it was nearly 3 yrs ago.
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=8105.msg161888#msg161888

plenty of other side-by-side comparo's out there for you to explore, I don't need to rehash it.


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## bwud (May 19, 2015)

Aglet said:


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



I rarely (maybe never) post out of the shared images forums, but this one has me curious. Nice photo you linked to, but I'm skeptical you couldn't have achieved it with canon camera, regardless of the Dynamic Range disadvantage. Had the foreground been shadowed (blocked) and contained a lot of detail, maybe. But I shot at a similar moment yesterday. It's not particularly good, but it has a similar amount of foreground detail (notwithstanding the forward side of the cliff, but metering suggested I needed about 4 stops to expose it roughly as it appeared). Single exposure of a 5Dmk3.


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## Aglet (May 19, 2015)

bwud said:


> I rarely (maybe never) post out of the shared images forums, but this one has me curious. Nice photo you linked to, but I'm skeptical you couldn't have achieved it with canon camera, regardless of the Dynamic Range disadvantage. Had the foreground been shadowed (blocked) and contained a lot of detail, maybe. But I shot at a similar moment yesterday. It's not particularly good, but it has a similar amount of foreground detail (notwithstanding the forward side of the cliff, but metering suggested I needed about 4 stops to expose it roughly as it appeared). Single exposure of a 5Dmk3.


5d3's marginally better than 5d2 for shadow noise.
My early 5d2 may have been worse for noise than some later models but it was exactly this kind of shot it could not do to my satisfaction because it left stripes all over the shadow areas and even lower midtones of non-pushed shots + visible banding in normally exposed blue sky.
I shoot a good number of intense sunsets and this is why I dumped the 5d2, 7d, & 60d and went Nikon and ABC. I don't have the time and patience to fix problem areas in photoshop and then defend the method as part of a normal workflow; I just get better tools to work with. 

I've got another shot from a 7D, posted in a different area, that's OOC jpg. I wanted to put some light into the foreground to change the feeling of depth. no-can-do w-o a lot of NR in post. Same shot would have been a simple fill-light slider adj in LR if it was shot with ABC.
www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=9299.msg169599#msg169599

another shot the next evening is further down the page and is even worse for banding noise preventing any push to change the feel of the image. My catalog is full of such shots taken with Digic 4 bodies that can only be rescued with NR methods that seriously soften the shadow details.

NOW... if I'd have made those shots with a 70D or 7d2, or even the 6D, the lack of pattern noise would have made it a LOT easier to process those images the way I want to. It looks like the new 5Ds series will also benefit from reduced pattern noise so, despite still having an absolute low iso DR disadvantage compared to ABC, at least users of these latest Canon bodies will no longer be frustrated by excessive FPN issues.

If Digic 4 had performed as well as Digic 3 I'd still be a Canon fan...now I'm just pragmatic.


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## Valvebounce (May 19, 2015)

Hi Aglet. 
Not very down with the dudes here, what is ABC for in your context please, Already Been Chewed, as in doe to death, A Better Camera? 

Cheers, Graham. 



Aglet said:


> NOW... if I'd have made those shots with a 70D or 7d2, or even the 6D, the lack of pattern noise would have made it a LOT easier to process those images the way I want to. It looks like the new 5Ds series will also benefit from reduced pattern noise so, despite still having an absolute low iso DR disadvantage compared to ABC, at least users of these latest Canon bodies will no longer be frustrated by excessive FPN issues.
> 
> If Digic 4 had performed as well as Digic 3 I'd still be a Canon fan...now I'm just pragmatic.


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

Aglet said:


> My early 5d2 may have been worse for noise than some later models



My 5DII is one of the very first, bought in early 2009, serial number begins with '0', and I have no such problems, but then I never try to push zero data, and it is only zero data that causes such problems with 5DII and 5DIII. Of course it causes problems with the Exmor too but some people find the noise pattern more acceptable. 

This has led to such internet myths that the 6D produces better 'IQ' than the 5DIII. In normal circumstances this just isn't true.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

ahsanford said:


> Can someone tell me how applicable / useful / relevant pushing an ISO 100 shot by six stops is? I am not a sensor aficionado -- so this may be a normal sensor review sort of comparison -- but I have never needed to do that with my shots.



We Canon folk know that good photography never needs more than 10 stops of dynamic range, that is unless Canon catches up with Sonikon of course :-> ... having said this, and if you actually want a matter of fact answer and this wasn't just to give Canon fanbois an opportunity to copy/paste their opinion:

Testing how much you can push shadows is not because you're meant to do this in your photography the same way, in this case 6ev would apply to very few situations. It's about testing if you can actually use the dynamic range of the sensor on a scene that makes full use of it, i.e. you've got data left to right in the histogram. It's like testing a car in borderline situations, even though you'll probably won't encounter this in your drive to the supermarket.

An example is shooting a sunset/sunrise like in the example on drpreview - in the raw file, you've got the sun's corona properly exposed and the rest will be nearly pitch black. You need to push that data to the right, +3ev is realistic, and then draw back some select parts for contrast. This procedure is only possible if the data on the left of the histogram doesn't drown in noise during that procedure.

Disclaimer: You could have bracketing in dpr's tulip shot, which would have resulted in a better image because of more data resolution (not 14bits, but n*14bits stacked). It would be different if something would move in the shot.


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Testing how much you can push shadows is not because you're meant to do this in your photography the same way, in this case 6ev would apply to very few situations. It's about testing if you can actually use the dynamic range of the sensor on a scene that makes full use of it, i.e. you've got data left to right in the histogram.



No. That is another complete internet driven myth. If that was the case then Sonikon really would produce a much higher image quality in a normally exposed scene that has an EV range running through it of say 10 stops. 

If dark tones are recorded on the response of the sensor in the correct place and left there, using the tonal range of the sensor this makes no difference whatsoever to the quality of the dark tones.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> If dark tones are recorded on the response of the sensor in the correct place and left there, using the tonal range of the sensor this makes no difference whatsoever to the quality of the dark tones.



I think two different things get mixed up often: 1) the higher dynamic range at low iso of Sonikon and 2) the very low noise floor because of their on-sensor exmor tech vs. Canon's higher read noise. Sure both are interconnected on a tech level, but imho it's different when it comes to actual photography usage.

My current understanding from shooting with and without Magic Lantern's dual_iso which expands dr (I'm happy to learn something unless it's pure fanboi-ism):

1. The scene has _higher_ dr than the sensor. Obviously this means clipping in a single exposure = bad (if movement is involved).

2. The scene has _lower_ dr than the sensor. In this case, Canon might actually be better because the data gets more evenly distributed across the 14bit range vs. compression on a 14bit sensor with higher dr. Higher dr just lets you expose lazily and sort it out in post.

3. The scene _just fits_ into the sensor's dr like a sunset (the sun's core will always be clipped, it's just a matter of the corona). Obviously this will happen much later on a Sonikon sensor plus if you ettr you can leave any shadow noise problem out of the equation. For Canon this is ML's dual_iso enabled - the latter's files produce higher dr than Sonikon, btw. 

I was talking about case 3 above, like shooting with a 11.5ev 20mp 7d2 vs. a 11.5ev 20mp 6d. You need to selectively raise and expand dark tones that are situated on the very left of the histogram even after ettr'ing. And this is where sensor noise matters as tested by dpreview. It's the same effect as enabling dual_iso even if the dr isn't maxed out - you get _cleaner_ shadows (though with dual_iso it's also b/c you end up with a 16bit raw file).


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > If dark tones are recorded on the response of the sensor in the correct place and left there, using the tonal range of the sensor this makes no difference whatsoever to the quality of the dark tones.
> ...



for case 3, is this shot considered to be properly exposed?


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## neuroanatomist (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> for case 3, is this shot considered to be properly exposed?



That depends...was it shot on Canon or SoNikon? 

A shot like this is where a SoNikon sensor would be necessary if you wanted to boost the exposure of the foreground by several stops. It's sunset, a time of day when shadows look odd and out of place.


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> I was talking about case 3 above, like shooting with a 11.5ev 20mp 7d2 vs. a 11.5ev 20mp 6d. You need to selectively raise and expand dark tones that are situated on the very left of the histogram even after ettr'ing. And this is where sensor noise matters as tested by dpreview. It's the same effect as enabling dual_iso even if the dr isn't maxed out - you get _cleaner_ shadows (though with dual_iso it's also b/c you end up with a 16bit raw file).



Even in this situation five or six stops is a joke.


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> for case 3, is this shot considered to be properly exposed?



Look how the dark tones are well within the range of the sensor. You'd have no problem lifting those shadows by two stops, and if you did you'd end up with a daft looking picture where the foreground is brighter than the sky. 

I'd say the exposure is spot on.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> for case 3, is this shot considered to be properly exposed?



Look at the right of the histogram for clipping (you can also enable LR to display histogram clipping). In your case, I'd say the shot is exposed just fine, the sun is clipped (of course), the shadows aren't in the noise area save some deep blacks which are nice for contrast.

You could have tried to ettr a bit more and make use of the highlight data "hidden" in the raw file and only recovered by 100% recovery though this method kills the rolloff w/o applying a tone curve.



Sporgon said:


> Even in this situation five or six stops is a joke.



Sure, as written above this is a test for extreme situations, an you are free to select +ev values below 6ev. Where does dpreview write that +6ev is the standard situation and most relevant? This is just an excuse for Canon fanbois. If a car is tested for a quick turn in an emergency situation, is it considered to be a joke because you very seldom do quick turns?


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > Even in this situation five or six stops is a joke.
> ...



I don't think that is an appropriate analogy. A six stop lift is academic. Simple.

Lets assume the sensor has a 13 stop range. You are saying that the 6 stop lift is a useful facility in an emergency when you cocked up the shot of a life time by being in M mode and forgot to twiddle one of your dials, and you underexposed horribly.

13 stop range, 6 stop lift. In practice you are going to be well into zero data. OK, so you prefer the pattern noise of the Exmor when black turns to grey. Big deal. 

I don't mean 'you' personally.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> 13 stop range, 6 stop lift. In practice you are going to be well into zero data. OK, so you prefer the pattern noise of the Exmor when black turns to grey. Big deal.



You're correct, the resolution when pulling very deep shadows from a 14bit file is extremely low, and you're going to post-clip it anyway for a nice contrast. But as you lift a broader range for example with LR's "shadow" slider, actual data gets moved that can become a picture. It's amazing how well this works, either with a high-dr sensor, dual_iso or after hdr merging.

I'm just arguing against the position "Oh, dpr tests +6ev, so they have to be bought by Sonikon and we can forget about this dr test no matter what". But I chose to do a +3ev screenshot above for a reason, and actually I find the 5ds does better than I'd have expected given the pixel density (though the d7200 is better).


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> "Oh, dpr tests +6ev, so they have to be bought by Sonikon and we can forget about this dr test no matter what".




I think a more plausible hypothesis is that they've tapped into a rich vein of clickbait gold. Exaggerating differences is a long-established, well-respected means of enticing people to glue their eyeballs to your advertisements.

I believe someone previously provided evidence that DxO has a business relationship with Nikon (but not Canon), which brings up questions of their neutrality.


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## tron (May 19, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > "Oh, dpr tests +6ev, so they have to be bought by Sonikon and we can forget about this dr test no matter what".
> ...


Their lens ratings are even more silly that cameras ratings... ;D


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

The reason i asked is because even though my case isn't as extreme as some case might be, I didn't need to rise the shadows, and even if I did, it wouldn't have much noise.


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > "Oh, dpr tests +6ev, so they have to be bought by Sonikon and we can forget about this dr test no matter what".
> ...



I don't respect such method.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> The reason i asked is because even though my case isn't as extreme as some case might be, I didn't need to rise the shadows, and even if I did, it wouldn't have much noise.



That's because this isn't what I'd call a high dr scene - it's a lush evening/morning sun providing little contrast, and everything's lit by it. Try shooting at noon against the sun and to recover detail in the harsh shadows.



meywd said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > Marsu42 said:
> ...



Ok, we're all in agreement that running a rumors or review site is about drawing attention, i.e. people talking about it and providing inbound links. We see what kind of attention any dr discussion brings over here, and for a site it's not that relevant if it's pure fanboi talk or people are trying to lean about real world relevance.

On the other hand, at what +ev value should have stopped dpreview not to draw too much hatred? 5ev? 4ev? 3ev? 2ev? 1ev? After all, it's just a synthetic test, and you could argue it doesn't matter at all unless you shoot a a color cards with plain areas, don't denoise and pixel-peep at 100% crop.


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > The reason i asked is because even though my case isn't as extreme as some case might be, I didn't need to rise the shadows, and even if I did, it wouldn't have much noise.
> ...



I know, but isn't that why there is a rule that the best time to shoot is @ the golden hour?



Marsu42 said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



I didn't mean the DR bit it self, but the Exaggerating differences part, as for the +ev I think if they use a real world photo it would be better to evaluate the need, since they are "specialists" they should be able to replicate a real world case where they show the difference between two cameras\technologies.


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> On the other hand, at what +ev value should have stopped dpreview not to draw too much hatred? 5ev? 4ev? 3ev? 2ev? 1ev? After all, it's just a synthetic test



I confess I haven't read it; however, my take is that "data" always requires context. If they test 6ev and let it stand there then it's deceptive. If they write something like _in the real world you'll rarely, if ever encounter this situation, but we just wanted to push it to the limits_, then it might be reasonable. They need to make it clear which synthetic tests are applicable to the real world, and which are just for fun (like the MythBusters blowing up a cement truck.)


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> I know, but isn't that why there is a rule that the best time to shoot is @ the golden hour?



I'm hesitant to subscribe to that legacy view, though noon shots on a high-dr system quickly run into a "hdr look" and have odd color balance when viewed in the comfort of your home. 

But often you have no choice. Think of a all day beachball game, do you want the players to stop outside the golden hour? Think of animals performing some behavior only during the day, do you want them to train otherwise?



meywd said:


> I didn't mean the DR bit it self, but the Exaggerating differences part, as for the +ev I think if they use a real world photo it would be better to evaluate the need, since they are "specialists" they should be able to replicate a real world case where they show the difference between two cameras\technologies.



Correct, real world scenes are missing - probably really because that everything is a wash from mobile phone to 1dx these days for regular photography.

In dpreview's defense, they don't do any as aggressive interpretation of these results as for example dxo - the latter make it appear as every sensor with a lower score is essentially crap even though some differences will never show for most folk.



Orangutan said:


> like the MythBusters blowing up a cement truck.



Which proves synthetic situations can be fun, I seem to remember that distinctive *boom* sound, too :->


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## Eldar (May 19, 2015)

I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends. 

This is a 7DII-shot, with the 200-400 @560mm and ISO320, straight from raw to jpeg, with standard LR settings. I just cropped it a bit. Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped. My current alternatives would have been to either make the shadow even darker, to get some structure in the white or I could have blown the white even further to get shadows worth looking at.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped.



Right, that's it, now you're on the Sonikon troll list for good :->

Dislaimer: As a fellow CR user under suspicion for un-Canonish behavior, I agree - these are the exact wildlife shots where some more dr helps a lot. Unless you use a 1dx I recommend to use dual_iso - drawback is that for most effective use, you need to shoot @iso 100 which limits your shutter speed.


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## Sporgon (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends.
> 
> This is a 7DII-shot, with the 200-400 @560mm and ISO320, straight from raw to jpeg, with standard LR settings. I just cropped it a bit. Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped. My current alternatives would have been to either make the shadow even darker, to get some structure in the white or I could have blown the white even further to get shadows worth looking at.



That looks to me as if there is way too much contrast already applied. Are you sure that your conversion is not carrying forward any profiles ?


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > like the MythBusters blowing up a cement truck.
> ...



True dat. But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom." We also see several seconds of them laughing and cavorting. Do we have that on the DPR review? I think it unlikely that we see any cavorting at all in the DPR review.


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Eldar said:
> 
> 
> > Having 2 stop more DR would, in my humble view, have helped.
> ...



Excellent! A legitimate real-world example!


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom."



Yeah, but in the later series unfortunately they changed their message into "science is shooting things or blowing 'em up". I guess that's why the original two hosts ousted their other team recently to get back to the roots, and the last couple of shows were really better in the regard of integrated science in a meaningful way.


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## Orangutan (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > But I have a strong recollection of one of them saying something like "this isn't science, this is just a big boom."
> ...



My understanding is that the "money" fired the co-hosts, and the two principals argued for keeping them. I have no inside info, though.


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## Eldar (May 19, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> Eldar said:
> 
> 
> > I don´t collect images I´m unable to fix, so I do not have lots of good examples. The majority would have been examples where I have missed the exposure for one reason or another. But here´s an example, where the histogram crashes in both ends.
> ...


Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.



Methinks zhe question was about camera profiles, i.e. did you shoot raw and what LR/camera profile (neutral or a nice contrasty landscape-something giving you more bang by default).



Orangutan said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > Orangutan said:
> ...



Do you have any sources for the reasons? I tried to research it, but failed - esp. as they don't have a forum anymore, but just Facebook.

But it seemed to me that (at least one of the) the original hosts had a falling out with the newbie team since a long time, after which they were moved to another facility (m6/m7 instead of Jamie's m5). All 5 Mythbusters were - to my knowledge - never seen again as a complete team even for promotional purposes. Plus some of the newbie three seemed seriously tired in of their job lately, it seemed they did little work themselves anymore but just went there, pushed a button and went home.

Anyway, one thing arguably has changed for the better: Now they don't say "We're experts" in the disclaimer anymore, but "We're advised by experts" as the former always sounded kind of ridiculous esp. in the case of Kari (who somehow always happened to be placed in front of the camera in tight jeans) and Tori.


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## Eldar (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Eldar said:
> 
> 
> > Exposure: 0,00, Contrast: 0, Highlights 0, Shadow: 0, Whites: 0, Blacks: 0, Clarity: 0, Vibrance: 0, Saturation: 0, Color: all 0, Sharpening: Amount: 25, Radius: 1,0, Detail: 25, Noise: Luminance: 0, Color: 25, Detail: 50, Smoothness: 50. No lens correction.
> ...


Camera Calibration: Process: 2012, Profile: Adobe Standard (all 0)


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## Eldar (May 19, 2015)

This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??



hahaha that's true, I agree that your picture shows a case where you need more DR, however there are two questions:


How much more DR is needed for such situation? can we really measure it? can we know for sure that the picture would have had more detail in the shadow area if a sonikon was used? 
How often is that case? is it really a show stopper? wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?

On the second question, think of it like the difference between a 1DX and a 5D3, like the thread that shows what the 1DX FPS can do and other cameras can't, like the shots done with a 1k or 10k FPS cameras, its a limitation that we must live with, I wish my 5D3 had 10k FPS, 1 Giga pixels, and 10 more stops of DR - I am really clueless in this regard but hey more is better, right? - but wishes remain wishes, still once again, I *agree* that is really a situation were I will be frustrated and wish I had more DR.


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## Aglet (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??



I think you broke the law by shooting a black & white duck in daylight with something other than medium format 25 ISO film. ;D

Even the mighty D7200 would have only provide about 1 extra EV worth of total DR at iso 320 (pixel level, more if normalized)
Tho, because of its drastically lower read noise, you could have shot at iso 100 or 200 and exposed to not clip the highlites, then pull the dark areas up in post without fear of introducing any noise issues to deal with.

FWIW, shooting that with a 7d2 should also have allowed you to underexpose a bit more to retain detail in the white feathers and bring up the rest without incurring too much of a noise penalty in the darker regions as the 7d2 I tested was at least devoid of FPN and the remaining chroma noise could be dealt with fairly easily.

You could have made some really (com)pressed-duck! 

That is a good example where it would be very handy to be able to compare different systems and different exposure and PP methods. is that duck for hire?


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

Eldar said:


> This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??



I know the effect, once you post something that requires actual thinking about a special or new subject before typing the comments cease because lotsa people cannot copy/paste what they always write :->



meywd said:


> How much more DR is needed for such situation? can we really measure it? can we know for sure that the picture would have had more detail in the shadow area if a sonikon was used?



Yes, you can - use Magic Lantern, their raw histogram show you the dr of the scene and even extrapolates how much dr is clipped if the sensor's dr wasn't sufficient. In my experience (and I shoot a lot of grey, black & white animals) it's usually 2-3ev missing. I can tell because that's how much you gain with ML's dual_iso.



meywd said:


> How often is that case?



Kinda depends on what and when you shot, doesn't it? For me (shooting wild horses a lot all day long) dual_iso definitely is extremely important, it allows as it allows me shoot against the sun and still get detail on the animals and not just silhouettes and I never get clipped sky.



meywd said:


> is it really a show stopper?



Yes, clipping in large areas definitely is.



meywd said:


> wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?



No, because photography is painting with light an (imho, ymmv) front-lighting often looks very boring even though it's easy to expose.


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## Aglet (May 19, 2015)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Aglet.
> Not very down with the dudes here, what is ABC for in your context please, Already Been Chewed, as in doe to death, A Better Camera?
> 
> Cheers, Graham.



hey, those are all good too. 

in this context, that TLA means
Anybody But Canon

or, if you're into politics
Anybody But Conservatives

or, A Beer Cooler


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## meywd (May 19, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > wouldn't the shot be better if the direction of the light was different and there were no shadows?
> ...



Then shadows should remain shadows.

I use ML dual ISO so I know of the benefits, though I didn't know that the histogram shows the clipped DR range.


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## Marsu42 (May 19, 2015)

meywd said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > meywd said:
> ...



I'm not arguing in favor of the dreaded "hdr look", but I like to have enough data in the shadows so *I* can decide what I want to push into deep shadows or raise a bit to provide texture. That's because personally I hate clipping, but ymmv a lot on this.


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## sanj (May 20, 2015)

Elder.
Am not arguing or fighting. Am not questioning your skills. God Forbid! I am on your side. Read my earlier posts. But you must figure out what is wrong with the duck photo. It looks just too contrasty. Perhaps an issue with your camera sensor? 
Could you post a drop box link to the RAW, I want to check it on my computer? Or else you may send the camera to Canon for a check up. 

And YES even 2 stop more DR can be a life saver in MANY situations. I am sure I have lots of examples in my files. Too lazy to dig them. And YES 'system' does matter as well.


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## Eldar (May 20, 2015)

sanj said:


> Elder.
> Am not arguing or fighting. Am not questioning your skills. God Forbid! I am on your side. Read my earlier posts. But you must figure out what is wrong with the duck photo. It looks just too contrasty. Perhaps an issue with your camera sensor?
> Could you post a drop box link to the RAW, I want to check it on my computer? Or else you may send the camera to Canon for a check up.
> 
> And YES even 2 stop more DR can be a life saver in MANY situations. I am sure I have lots of examples in my files. Too lazy to dig them. And YES 'system' does matter as well.


Sanj, I do not believe there is anything wrong with the sensor, but I´ll check it more thoroughly. I have been shooting this pond, with the same birds, with both the 1DX and 5DIII. I get pretty much the same results under these conditions. Be aware that this image is shot in Norway in early May, when the air can be extremely clear, as it was in this case and give a very harsh sunlight. 

Here is another, shot the same day, but with light clouds in front of the sun. Not the best example, but at least different lighting. Also straight from raw to jpeg. As you can see, apart from a slight under exposure, there is nothing wrong with this one. If you wish, just give me an email adr. I´ll send you the raw file of the first image.

Update! When I came to work and saw the image I realize it is a very poor example ... I'll find something more useful later.


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

Here's a self-portrait taken at ISO 400 and then pushed +0.65 EV and only +40 shadows.


My hat is flat-black, it doesn't have rainbow colors on it. That's just Classic Canon banding! (and lots of weird noise in general)


Taken on a 5D Mk III.


This is what I keep trying to say. You don't even have to push it 6 stops to see the noise.


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

Here's another:


Before:


After edits:


100% view, rainbow rocks!




I could literally post these all day long. Again, the photo was moderately pushed. I didn't even push 1 stop and already got banding and noise.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

sanj said:


> Elder.
> Am not arguing or fighting. Am not questioning your skills. God Forbid! I am on your side. Read my earlier posts. But you must figure out what is wrong with the duck photo. It looks just too contrasty. Perhaps an issue with your camera sensor?
> Could you post a drop box link to the RAW, I want to check it on my computer? Or else you may send the camera to Canon for a check up.
> 
> And YES even 2 stop more DR can be a life saver in MANY situations. I am sure I have lots of examples in my files. Too lazy to dig them. And YES 'system' does matter as well.



There is nothing wrong with his camera. This is actually a common scenario with bird photography. I have this exact problem with the exact same kind of duck, and a variety of other ducks and waterfowl that have strong contrast between their lightest and darkest feathers (or bright white feathers and a dark bill or legs...such as a Snowy Egret, or Black-Crowned Night Heron). Buffleheads, for example, are a notoriously difficult bird to photograph at higher ISO, because they have very dark feathers in small areas with a bright white body. It can be difficult to get the beautiful iridescence of their mating plumage without blowing out their white feathers in what is generally considered good lighting. Dimmer, more heavily diffused light is better, but it can still be difficult to fit the entire contrast range of the duck into the dynamic range of most cameras at higher ISO. 

This is one of the reasons I would love to have another two stops of DR at high ISO, or to have a sensor that is effectively ISO-less at lower ISO. The A7s delivers 9.9 stops at ISO 6400, and over ten at all other ISO settings. The 5D III doesn't top 10 stops until ISO 1600, where the A7s has over a stop more. I am really hoping the 5D IV delivers more DR in general, at low and high ISO, because I could most definitely use it. 

This is also one of the areas where the whole "ISO-less" nature of Exmor sensors can be really useful to nature photographers, and one of the prime examples where it can be useful to a field of photography other than landscapes, architecture, or studio. Exmors are essentially ISO-less from ISO 100 through 1600, meaning that I could lift the shadows of an ISO 100 shot by four stops, and they would look just as good as a shot done at ISO 1600. The difference, however, is that at ISO 100, you have the full 14 stops of dynamic range, so you can fit a high contrast bird, like a Bufflehead, into it without clipping the highlights or losing the iridescent detail in their dark feathers. After such a shadow lift, you can then use a tone curve to restore contrast to the adjusted tones, and get a nice, beautiful, appropriately contrasty image that uses data well outside the range of almost any other camera (of any brand) shot at ISO 1600 itself.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> Here's a self-portrait taken at ISO 400 and then pushed +0.65 EV and only +40 shadows.
> 
> 
> My hat is flat-black, it doesn't have rainbow colors on it. That's just Classic Canon banding! (and lots of weird noise in general)
> ...



I see "rainbow colors" in the shadows of the hat. I usually call that color blotch, but I see both blotch and banding there. My 5D III performs about the same. 

It should be noted that the 5D III is not indicative of _current _Canon sensor IQ. While you have the same random noise, and don't gain much in DR, banding is lower and color noise has been improved a good deal on the 7D II and 5Ds. Both deliver more aesthetically pleasing shadow noise than the 5D III, for sure.


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## Aglet (May 20, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> Here's a self-portrait taken at ISO 400 and then pushed +0.65 EV and only +40 shadows.
> My hat is flat-black, it doesn't have rainbow colors on it. That's just Classic Canon banding! (and lots of weird noise in general)
> Taken on a 5D Mk III.
> This is what I keep trying to say. You don't even have to push it 6 stops to see the noise.



Yup, that's "the-Canon-look" I moved to ABC to get away from.
other than midtone blue-sky banding on my old 5d2, a +1EV push would show up noise like that even in levels that were just 2 EV below metered 0.
While the banding's pretty much gone on 70D and 7D2, the blotchy noise is still there, tho perhaps a little finer grained. I think the 5Ds series may be similarly improved and, as someone stated earlier, the 6D wasn't much of an improvement and I concur. It tested the 6D and didn't like the results enough to buy it.


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

Eldar said:


> This was the fastest growing thread on CR, until I posted that picture ... What happened to the discussion??



I don't have any pictures of black and white ducks taken in bright sunlight, but I do have a black and white acrylic teddy, which is highly reflective.

The first image is a straight conversion with nothing added ( including sharpening Eldar !). There are some tiny specs that are blown among the 'fur', but they are just tiny specs, and it is bright white acrylic in direct noon sun. 

The second is a two stop lift prior to conversion.

The third is a quick blend of the two. There is zero noise reduction applied. I just don't see a problem. Obviously the the jet black is still black, but that is as I would want it.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> The third is a quick blend of the two. There is zero noise reduction applied. *I just don't see a problem.* Obviously the the jet black is still black, but that is as I would want it.



You don't see a problem because your stuffed puppy is inanimate. A duck moves. It moves far too much in the fraction of a second it might take to get a second frame to do any kind of multi-exposure blending of any kind. I rarely use less than 1/800th second shutter for birds, usually I'm over 1/1000th to 1/2500th, and when there is brighter light, I can easily be at 1/4000th or more. 

There is no such thing as multi-exposure blending with mobile creatures, even ones that may seem as "slow" as a duck floating through water. Micro-movements eliminate any possibility of blending in all but the most still of birds (say a Night Heron, which can stand pretty motionless for relatively long periods of time.)


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

jrista said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > The third is a quick blend of the two. There is zero noise reduction applied. *I just don't see a problem.* Obviously the the jet black is still black, but that is as I would want it.
> ...



;D ;D ;D


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



I'm not sure what your smiling about... ??? Here is an example of a Bufflehead I shot on a day with bright, direct sunlight (it was actually constantly changing light, patchy clouds, so getting a decent exposure was a PITA):







Real-world example, ISO 800, 5D III. This was actually shot at quite a distance with a 1200mm f/11 lens, (600+2x, stopped town a bit to sharpen things up and eliminate some CA from the 2x), so the bird was smaller in the frame. As "strait out of camera" as I can get from Lightroom...no edits, "Camera Neutral" profile. The blacks are barely above the read noise floor, the whites are obviously clipped. This is pretty common with birds like this in unobscured sunlight. 

This shot is from a few minutes later, when a cloud started to pass in front of the sun:






And here is the same shot recovered and enhanced a little with some clarity (other than that, no NR or other processing):






The highlights were right up against the clipping point. Agian, the blacks were just above the read noise floor. Most of the highlights were recoverable, but when you push the highlights so high up in a Canon DSLR, you get funky recovery artifacts, like the band along the edge of the white on the back of it's head where it blends into the iridescent mating plumage, where the white of it's body blends into the mating plumage and where the white of it's body blends into it's wing feathers:






That double-edged pattern is not what the bird actually looks like...it's a consequence of trying to use as much dynamic range as possible by pushing the whites into the short non-linear area of the signal. The alternative is to push more of the darker tones into the read noise, which results in them having more chroma noise, possibly banding (just about guaranteed at ISO 800 and under), etc. This is something you run into a fair amount of the time with bird photography, especially on days with bright sunlight or patchy clouds, and clipping the highlights is easy when the light is constantly changing due to patchy clouds. 

If I had 14 stops at ISO 100, I'd be using it in these situations, underexposing to get the shutter speed, but without fear that I would clip the highlights. With an ISO-less camera, ISO 100-1600, maybe even 3200, are effectively the same...so it's an ideal solution. It would be really awesome if Canon offered a sensor like this in the 5D IV. I'd take that in a heartbeat, given my investment in the 600mm f/4 lens. I'd pre-order one the day they went on sale.


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

jrista said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



I am sorry so that last one has shadows lifted or?


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> Here's another:
> 
> 
> Before:
> ...



I see the issue, but you don't need to push shadows that much, they are shadows, so they should be dimmer then than area in the background


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

jrista said:


> I'm not sure what your smiling about... ???



You must have some amazing ducks in Colorado if they move faster than 1/2000 of a second 

Of course I should be pleased that you thought my two stop lift in raw _of the same file_ was a separate, longer exposure, but isn't it the middle of the night where you are ? You must be half asleep.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not sure what your smiling about... ???
> ...



Oh, sorry. I originally read your post as though you had taken two different exposures. Reading it again, I guess it was just one.

Yes, it is the middle of the night here. I have severe insomnia...at this point, I haven't slept in several days... :\

At 1200mm, very small movements become pretty meaningful.  It is mostly the micro-movements...beads of water cascading off the duck or something like that, changes in the ripples in the water surface, small movements in their feathers as they swim, etc. Not to mention inter-frame lag time. They result in enough of a change frame to frame, at least at the 6fps frame rate of the 5D III, that I could never do any kind of exposure blending. Maybe if I had 10-11fps, and I could frame, track, and nail two different exposures in a small fraction of a second, exposure blending might be an option...but it still wouldn't be easy.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

meywd said:


> I am sorry so that last one has shadows lifted or?



Actually, the shadows were not lifted in these. They were shot "for" the shadows. Having worked with my 5D III for astro, I generally know where the read noise ends and the image data begins when looking at my histograms. I try to expose such that the darkest tones are separated from the left-hand edge of the histgram by a couple columns. It's kind of a twist on ETTR...basically applying an astrophotography technique of "swamping the read noise" with photon shot noise. To do that, you need the darkest tones in the image to be about 3x brighter than the read noise. 

IF (and I stress IF) I can do that, and it's not all that often I can in the daylight, then I don't need to lift the shadows at all...the are already G2G. I just need to recover the highlights, or, I reduce exposure by a stop or two, then recover shadows a bit, recover highlights a bit, and tweak the tone curve to restore contrast. If I can do this, I prefer to, as it effectively eliminates color noise, color blotch and banding in the shadows, right down to the darkest ones. It makes it very difficult to capture the highlights, though. I've learned the 5D III starts to act poorly in the highlights when they approach the clipping point. Color balance in the highlights can get wonkey, they start to burn out, and other odd things can occur when you get right up to the clipping point.

It also seems as though the 5D III has a strange reaction when you actually hit the clipping point...instead of simply clipping, it actually seems to "bounce" back, and fully clipped whites actually darken a bit. I first noticed this with M106 galaxy subs I gathered a few months ago...the brightest stars ended up clipping, however the centers of the stars were just a few tones dimmer than the first part of the halos, which were pure white. Some CCD sensors respond the same way, they will hit the clipping point, then they will actually rebound just a bit, and the fully-clipped tone is actually a few notches below pure white. That is usually because anti-blooming gates kick in, so there is a well-understood reason it occurs in a CCD. I'm not sure why the 5D III behaves that way, and unlike a mono CCD, it seems to behave slightly differently in each color channel, so that actually costs you a little bit more dynamic range, a you can't use all of the highlights. It's better to keep the highlights no brighter than about 250-252 (8-bit), leaving some headroom. 

So, anyway. The last one had the highlights recovered. However, since the highlights were so close to the clipping point, their recovery is not "clean"...Lightroom leaves an unnatural harsh edge where the nearly-clipped white feathers border the darker feathers of the birds head. The white feathers should transition abruptly but smoothly into the darker feathers, without that harsh edge. Just one of the consequences of trying to get the darkest tones above the read noise so you don't have to worry about banding or blotch. The alternative is simply to sacrifice some of the darker tones...which is what I usually end up doing with the buffleheads. (Bummer, too...love those birds. They are so much easier to photograph when the sky is lightly overcast...not patchy, fully covered, just lighter, so sunlight shines through...then you can get some amazing shots of the buffleheads.)


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

jrista said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > I am sorry so that last one has shadows lifted or?
> ...



I understand, but the noise seems high even in the background, that's why I asked, I get the highlight part, when the highlights are clipped I keep it or increase it so it won't be odd, in the picture below you can see that the clouds in the right corner are clipped and have darker edges.




Tree by Mahmoud Darwish, on 500px


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## tron (May 20, 2015)

jrista said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


Have you tried the DUAL ISO feature at your 5DIII? There is an option for alternating shots (one normal and one dual iso) in case something goes wrong with ML. Ok at ISO 800 you would have to use a setting like 800/6400 but even so you would gain a little more DR... Or you could possibly do with 400/3200 option...


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## Marsu42 (May 20, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> I don't have any pictures of black and white ducks taken in bright sunlight, but I do have a black and white acrylic teddy, which is highly reflective.



This scene isn't "high dr", esp if you don't want to recover details in the deep shadows but are happy with some mid-tone shadow and highlight recovery.

Magic Lantern lets you see how much dynamic range the scene actually has, or you have to measure it for yourself with spot metering or a light meter. Just because there's sun, black and white doesn't mean it exceeds Canon's default 11.5ev at low iso.



jrista said:


> If I had 14 stops at ISO 100, I'd be using it in these situations, underexposing to get the shutter speed, but without fear that I would clip the highlights.



Hint: you have 14.5+ ev at iso 100, it's called dual_iso. I keep being stunned how many people ignore it, even though it's obviously just what would fix their problem w/o buying a Sonikon or waiting for a new Canon sensor.


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > I don't have any pictures of black and white ducks taken in bright sunlight, but I do have a black and white acrylic teddy, which is highly reflective.
> ...



Yes it is high DR because of the intense white highlights created by the acrylic fur reflecting the sun. Because of this the EV range is actually over 12 stops. Without those intense highlights you are right; the range is actually very low, but the whole point was to expose in order to hold the very intense highlights. 

Incidentally beware of trying to judge DR in a scene with any form of reflective light meter, whether spot or not.


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## AmselAdans (May 20, 2015)

I would like to thank the users, who provided some example pictures here. In my opinion, this significantly makes this thread far more interesting to read.


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## AmselAdans (May 20, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> [...]The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance. There is no noise etc etc. I post this to show how much a two stop lift is in reality.



Sorry for digging up this old post, but there is something that bothers me since you provided this example shot, Sporgon. As you write, this third image (seen below) is the picture as you would represent it with an balanced exposure.

It is just me, or doesn't this look completely off in the foreground? It has this weird "HDR look", where something just doesn't seem right.

As I often visit your website just to gaze in awe at your work, I wonder, if you really would post-process that picture this way, if it was intended to be sold (of course, as this is a pure example shot about exposure, I explicitely do not consider composition). Is this the adjustment at which the picture looks best in terms of exposure in your opinion? If not, what would it look like then?
(I think, my confusion might result from misunderstanding what "balanced exposure" actually means...)


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## AmselAdans (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> So always try to look at shots in the same ambient lighting they were shot for optimum experience


"Darling, let's go for a drive to the countryside. I would love to look at the photo I once shot there."
;D


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

AmselAdans said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > [...]The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance. There is no noise etc etc. I post this to show how much a two stop lift is in reality.
> ...



You are absolutely right; I'd never want to produce a picture like that. I shot that as an exercise to see how far I could go, and I would never shoot into a clear sun at that angle unless I was wanting a silhouette of anything in the foreground. It does look like a weird HDR, but that was the point really; even when holding the (very bottom of) the direct sun in a picture even a two stop lift gives an 'HDR' effect, and you can lighten shadows more than the vast majority of people (with any taste whatsoever) would want. 

My comment on a 'balanced exposure' was directed at the fact that even if I wanted to see full detail in the gatepost I'd be coming down from the two stop lift anyway, so apologies for that. It was all done in the context of the DPR six stop lift, which I consider to be a totally academic exercise. 

The only picture that I can think of that I have shot straight into the sun is the Flamborough Head one, but this was literally just after sunrise, there was a sea fret (mist) and it's a double exposure anyway. 

To get the most range out of the Canon sensor I have found that you do need to push to the very limit of highlight recording, and this does mean that you have to be within half a stop right - in fact one third if possible if you are going to want shadow detail in a scene which has an EV range of around 12 stops. 

Thanks for your comments !


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Unfortunately some apps, including Lightroom, don't really seem to be optimized for a shot filling the histogram



Don't want to put the cat among the pigeons, but when dealing with a raw file that is of a maximum contrast scene I prefer to convert using DPP, (ensuring everything is set to zero, including in the back where it will carry forward the jpeg 'picture style' by default unless un-checked). 

I find ARC can be too aggressive in its default profile for this type of scene.


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## GMCPhotographics (May 20, 2015)

meywd said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > meywd said:
> ...



If you had under exposed the image with a view to meter for the clouds...then the greens of the tree could easily have been pulled with quite low noise. Only a stop would have been needed.


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## GMCPhotographics (May 20, 2015)

AmselAdans said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > [...]The third one is how I would present this as a picture in terms of exposure balance. There is no noise etc etc. I post this to show how much a two stop lift is in reality.
> ...



Hmm that image has some strange dark shadows for no reason, one under the tree (which should be bright) and one on the field to the right...


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## Orangutan (May 20, 2015)

GMCPhotographics said:


> AmselAdans said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...


I think that's an artifact of the angle of view: if you were up close on the tree it would be ropes of shadow from the limbs; from the low angle you're seeing the ropes compressed in space. Similarly for the field to the right, the shadows are caused by the blades of grass themselves: they cast light shadows on their neighbors due t the low angle and the decline of the hill. The shadows appear normal to me.


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## msm (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> ...
> 
> Hint: you have 14.5+ ev at iso 100, it's called dual_iso. I keep being stunned how many people ignore it, even though it's obviously just what would fix their problem w/o buying a Sonikon or waiting for a new Canon sensor.



Personally I don't find it usable. The noise reduction is impressive, but the detail removal is not. Even scaled down to 1080 lines my test pictures had an obvious lack of detail in the shadows compared to similar shot from my A7R.


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## tron (May 20, 2015)

msm said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...


A7R is 36Mpixel so aren't you comparing apples to oranges somehow?


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

GMCPhotographics said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



you are correct, while processing I pulled the exposure 1 stop down and raised shadows by 50+, I think maybe a half stop even would have been fine to avoid the highlight clipping, tbh I am finding it hard to check the exposure on the camera screen in day light, I don't check the histogram after every shot, but it seem that is needed even if it slows me down.


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## jrista (May 20, 2015)

meywd said:


> I understand, but the noise seems high even in the background, that's why I asked, I get the highlight part, when the highlights are clipped I keep it or increase it so it won't be odd, in the picture below you can see that the clouds in the right corner are clipped and have darker edges.



Where noise shows up entirely depends on how the tones of the image are distributed. There are bright white feathes in my image...then everything else is barely a midtone, or darker. There aren't really any other brighter tones outside of the feathers, whereas in your image, your entire sky and the background in general are much brighter than the water reflections in my bird image. 

I've also said this in the past on many occasions...detail eats noise for breakfast, but noise eats smooth surfaces and gradients for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The background of my image is more on the smooth side than the detailed side, and since it is in the midtones and darker, noise is more readily apparent. Another consequence of bird photography, as you often have smooth, darker backgrounds...or even just smooth backgrounds (a soft blue sky, even if it is brighter than midtones but not quite a highlight, will usually exhibit more noise.) 

Finally, these birds were more distant. I was at 1200mm f/11, and even then, the birds still did not fill even 50% of the frame. Fewer pixels on target, more apparent noise.

With my 5D III, once tones drop below a midtone 18% gray, they start to appear more noisy. One of the things I don't like about it.


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## Marsu42 (May 20, 2015)

tron said:


> msm said:
> 
> 
> > Marsu42 said:
> ...



Indeed it is, dual_iso is an emergency fix for Canon sensors, and it provides more detail than clipping for sure - plus you have a 16bit file, so the tonality should be just fine. If you want the highest quality low iso shots with high dynamic range in a single exposure, go buy a Sonikon, no doubt 'bout that, I'm no Canon fanboi. 

Btw I *am* a Magic Lantern fanboi though  and being able to program your camera yourself plus other features (like raw video) are a reason to stay with Canon. Next up with ML: user scripting in lua so you don't have to know any C to make your camera do what *you* want.


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

meywd said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > Here's another:
> ...




Cool, turns out it's not the camera, I just suck at photography!


In all seriousness, the rock was not black in real life. I climbed it, afterall, I didn't have any problems looking for holds. I could see all the various colors of lichen and imperfections of the rock.


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> meywd said:
> 
> 
> > LOALTD said:
> ...



Well each to his own, if you *need* to push shadows by that much, then getting a sensor with more DR is better for you.


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## Marsu42 (May 20, 2015)

tron said:


> msm said:
> 
> 
> > Marsu42 said:
> ...



Indeed it is, dual_iso is an emergency fix for Canon sensors, and it provides more detail than clipping for sure - plus you have a 16bit file, so the tonality should be just fine. If you want the highest quality low iso shots with high dynamic range in a single exposure, go buy a Sonikon, no doubt 'bout that, I'm no Canon fanboi. 

Btw I *am* a Magic Lantern fanboi though  and being able to program your camera yourself plus other features (like raw video) are a reason to stay with Canon. Next up with ML: user scripting in lua so you don't have to know any C to make your camera do what *you* want.



LOALTD said:


> Cool, turns out it's not the camera, I just suck at photography!



Well, there's some room for improvement  ...
1. it could be argued there's really no reason not to handhold-bracket these scenes if the shadow detail is of such importance as nothing's moving in the scene. 
2. the rainbow rock is underexposed by about 1ev (you raised it 2/3ev right in Lightroom, and if you'd have used ettr with 100% highlight recovery that's another 1/3ev). 
3. I advise not to use +black but (at least in combination with) the tone curve as the former raises zero resolution data which is nearly only noise.

Having said that, I do agree it's every photog's privilige to raise shadows as much as he/she likes for his/her creative vision, it's not up to the camera to make that decision just because it doesn't deliver clean shadows.


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## jaayres20 (May 20, 2015)

I am sure this has been discussed before and I just missed it, but why does the ISO 50 on the 5DSr have better shadow recovery than ISO 100? I thought ISO 50 was an expanded ISO and therefore had less DR. What am I missing here? I downloaded two RAW files from Imaging Resource and pushed them both +5 in exposure. ISO 50 looks much much better for some reason. Here are two screen shots.


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> tron said:
> 
> 
> > msm said:
> ...




This is just a demo image, to show that you can easily encounter noise with even moderate pushing of exposure.


E.g. to combat the "LOL Y WULD YOU NEED TO PUSH 6 STOPS ANYWAY? LEARN TO SHOOT LOL!" rhetoric of all the people that have a bad case of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization


I usually merge exposures like this, but with a better sensor, I wouldn't have to.


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## Marsu42 (May 20, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> I usually merge exposures like this, but with a better sensor, I wouldn't have to.



With the whole dual_iso hassle, I'm 100% agree ...

... but on the other hand, which *each* new sensor no matter how good it is people will push the boundaries and state "if my equipment would be able to do x, I wouldn't have to do x or switch to brand z". I already envision the future threads "Why only 15ev of dr? With 20ev, I wouldn't have to care about exposure at all!".



jaayres20 said:


> I am sure this has been discussed before and I just missed it, but why does the ISO 50 on the 5DSr have better shadow recovery than ISO 100? I thought ISO 50 was an expanded ISO and therefore had less DR.



I didn't look at the raw files myself, but if your tests are valid the 5ds might have a tweaked imaging pipeline that has more benefits at iso50 than older cameras. This is not impossible, after all iso 100 isn't the exact "base iso" of any camera anyway so there's room for improvement how native iso gets translated to the chosen full stop iso settings.


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## meywd (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > I usually merge exposures like this, but with a better sensor, I wouldn't have to.
> ...



exactly


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > I usually merge exposures like this, but with a better sensor, I wouldn't have to.
> ...




Yeah, I agree. If there weren't sensors on the market with better DR capability, I likely would not be bitching. I was perfectly happy with my 5D classic, and with my 5D Mk II....it all changed when the great Nikon D800/D600 refresh came out and I shot a wedding with both my 5D Mk III and a friend's D600... It was easy to tell which photos were shot with which camera.




And when I have the time, I love the results of a carefully blended multiple exposure shot. I just don't have time (or want to carry a tripod) when I'm running and gunning in the mountains! Although..usually the software is good enough these days to get decent exposure merging hand-held.


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## 3kramd5 (May 20, 2015)

jaayres20 said:


> I am sure this has been discussed before and I just missed it, but why does the ISO 50 on the 5DSr have better shadow recovery than ISO 100? I thought ISO 50 was an expanded ISO and therefore had less DR. What am I missing here? I downloaded two RAW files from Imaging Resource and pushed them both +5 in exposure. ISO 50 looks much much better for some reason. Here are two screen shots.



My understanding is that selecting ISO50 doesn't do anything but trick the meter; the gain is the same as ISO100. So, for those of us who shoot manual (and likely that's how those test images were created), changing from ISO 100 to ISO 50 and nothing else will yield an equivalent exposure. However, the ISO 100 image you posted has 1/2 the exposure time, thus it's 1 stop darker, thus there is more visible noise when you boost.


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## Eldar (May 20, 2015)

As an observation; Can we agree that this has become a more constructive thread, over the last couple of pages? ... A little less mud throwing and a bit more content ...


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## LOALTD (May 20, 2015)

3kramd5 said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > I am sure this has been discussed before and I just missed it, but why does the ISO 50 on the 5DSr have better shadow recovery than ISO 100? I thought ISO 50 was an expanded ISO and therefore had less DR. What am I missing here? I downloaded two RAW files from Imaging Resource and pushed them both +5 in exposure. ISO 50 looks much much better for some reason. Here are two screen shots.
> ...




The way I understand it, ISO 50 on the 5D Mk III is actually ISO 100, purposely overexposed and then pulled back. Meaning that ISO 50 actually has LESS DR than ISO 100.


I've done tests shooting waterfalls and I've found that the water is more easily blown-out at ISO 50.


In short, there is no real point to ISO 50...unless you hate ND filters!


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## CaptureWhatYouSee (May 20, 2015)

Eldar said:


> As an observation; Can we agree that this has become a more constructive thread, over the last couple of pages? ... A little less mud throwing and a bit more content ...


+5
When I started this thread, I hoped that it would create a lively debate/discussion. I will be upgrading within the next year and I wanted some data/photos to analyze. I am confident that people on this forum will be honest and forthright. So far, I am pleased, as are many others I'm sure.


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## Marsu42 (May 21, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> In short, there is no real point to ISO 50...unless you hate ND filters!



On the other hand, you didn't really test iso 50 on a 5ds, did you?

I know it's Canon and they're not under suspicion of changing anything unless forced by gunpoint by Sonikon, but on such an expensive camera they might have done some unexpected tweaks. Remember that on some cameras like the 6d iso50 isn't available at all, even though it is a 5d2 clone - so Canon re-enabling it might mean something.


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## LOALTD (May 21, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> LOALTD said:
> 
> 
> > In short, there is no real point to ISO 50...unless you hate ND filters!
> ...




Haha, all my comments are for the Mk III. I admire your optimism! It would be great if it were exactly the same as ISO100...just less-sensitive. I'll certainly be renting a 5DS/R for a week to see how it compares with my current body.


I wish we could have an ISO 1 mode to eliminate ND's altogether!


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## 3kramd5 (May 21, 2015)

LOALTD said:


> 3kramd5 said:
> 
> 
> > jaayres20 said:
> ...



Ah, that makes more sense. Since it's 100, I'd never bothered enabling it, but I just did and verified that it is indeed darker. So you're likely correct that it's pulled and suffers from a DR disadvantage accordingly.


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## thismercifulfate (May 21, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Remember that on some cameras like the 6d iso50 isn't available at all, even though it is a 5d2 clone - so Canon re-enabling it might mean something.


You are mistaken. ISO 50 is available on the 6D.


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## jaayres20 (May 21, 2015)

The ISO 50 file seems to have more highlight info than the ISO 100 file too. I am sure it is just because the image did not clip the highlights and therefore all of the tones were available for the proper curves adjustment. I wonder though if somehow the in camera adjustments made for an ISO 50 image are better than a picture taken at ISO 100 slightly overexposed, and then just pulled back down to the proper exposure in lightroom.


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## GMCPhotographics (May 21, 2015)

It really depends on the photo and what the photographer is trying to achieve.
Sure more DR will be useful in certain situations. But if the DR is too wide, it can be hard to achieve a high contrast shot. What we need is a dial-in option.


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## Lee Jay (May 21, 2015)

GMCPhotographics said:


> But if the DR is too wide, it can be hard to achieve a high contrast shot. What we need is a dial-in option.



That part is just not true.

I have merged shots to create an 18 stop raw file and I can create the exact same overall tonality from that shot as I can from a single 12 stop file or even from a 9-stop JPEG. The only difference is noise in the darker areas.


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## jrista (May 21, 2015)

Lee Jay said:


> GMCPhotographics said:
> 
> 
> > But if the DR is too wide, it can be hard to achieve a high contrast shot. What we need is a dial-in option.
> ...



Dead on.

The notion that more DR = no contrast is simply false. Dynamic range gives you more room to pack in usable data. You can then shift the data around. After shifting the data around, it is as simple as adjusting a tone curve to restore contrast if you ended up with contrast that was too low. You could lift shadows five, six stops, then apply a higher contrast tone curve to the image _after _that, and your shadows (which are no longer the same set of tones) are nice and rich again.


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## Lee Jay (May 21, 2015)

jrista said:


> Lee Jay said:
> 
> 
> > GMCPhotographics said:
> ...



No, I think you're wrong too.

If you put 18 stops of scene DR into a 6 stop file, you'll necessarily have lower contrast than if you put 6 stops of scene DR into a 6 stop file. That is, in fact, how you compress all that DR down to a final image. "Boosting shadows" and "pulling highlights" are contrast-reducing operations.

What I was pointing out is that I can extra 9 stops out of an 18 stop file just like I can from a 12 stop or 9 stop file, and throw away the rest, so there's no need to have a low-DR source to get any particular final contrast.


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## jrista (May 22, 2015)

Lee Jay said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Lee Jay said:
> ...



Well, for one, I don't think you put 18 stops of scene DR into a 6-stop file. You put only 6 stops of that 18-stop scene DR into a 6-stop file. The rest is either lost as clipped highlights, or shadow data buried unrecoverably in read noise (or the sensor may not even get any photons from particularly dark scene regions, which is probably at least partly the case if you photograph an 18-stop scene with a 6-stop camera.) You put 18 stops of scene DR into an 18-stop file. 

You also missed a critical part of my post. After compressing 18 stops (from an 18-bit raw file) into 6 stops, which is just a matter of shifting tones around, *you restore contrast by applying a contrasty tone curve*. The two are separate and distinct operations. One moves the full tonal range of the original 18-stop image around to recover highlights and/or push shadows. The other reattenuates those now redistributed tones to darken darker tones and brighten lighter tones.

You could compress 18 stops into a 6-stop range, and that may well indeed look dull and flat. However when you apply a contrast curve, it stretches all that back out again. Both operations redistribute tones, but they do it in different ways, so it is *not *impossible to end up with a contrasty image AFTER recovery of information with say shadow pushing or highlight pulling. You can also restore contrast using more complex techniques, like say some multi-scale soft contrast processing in Photoshop (where it is generally best to star with low contrast data that has some shadow footroom and highlight headroom anyway.)


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## Lee Jay (May 22, 2015)

jrista said:


> Well, for one, I don't think you put 18 stops of scene DR into a 6-stop file. You put only 6 stops of that 18-stop scene DR into a 6-stop file. The rest is either lost as clipped highlights, or shadow data buried unrecoverably in read noise (or the sensor may not even get any photons from particularly dark scene regions, which is probably at least partly the case if you photograph an 18-stop scene with a 6-stop camera.) You put 18 stops of scene DR into an 18-stop file.
> 
> You also missed a critical part of my post. After compressing 18 stops (from an 18-bit raw file) into 6 stops, which is just a matter of shifting tones around, *you restore contrast by applying a contrasty tone curve*. The two are separate and distinct operations. One moves the full tonal range of the original 18-stop image around to recover highlights and/or push shadows. The other reattenuates those now redistributed tones to darken darker tones and brighten lighter tones.
> 
> You could compress 18 stops into a 6-stop range, and that may well indeed look dull and flat. However when you apply a contrast curve, it stretches all that back out again. Both operations redistribute tones, but they do it in different ways, so it is *not *impossible to end up with a contrasty image AFTER recovery of information with say shadow pushing or highlight pulling. You can also restore contrast using more complex techniques, like say some multi-scale soft contrast processing in Photoshop (where it is generally best to star with low contrast data that has some shadow footroom and highlight headroom anyway.)



You're very lost.

If you cram 18 stops into 6 stops, you do it by reducing contrast. Stretching the resulting 6-stop file doesn't change it back to an 18 stop file, it's still just 6 stops with the tones pushed toward the edges.

There are two extremes.

You can keep all 18 stops by cramming them into a 6 stop file. This costs you contrast. The darkest tones in the file are no more than 6 stops darker than the brightest tones. If all 18 stops are in their, you've lost 12 stops of contrast no matter how you distribute those tones.

The other extreme is to crop the histogram. Here, you choose 6 stops of the original scene and keep only those, discarding the rest. This preserves original scene contrast, but costs you all those darks and lights you drove to saturation.

There are no other choices except all those between those two. You cannot preserve both the DR and the contrast, by definition.


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## jrista (May 22, 2015)

Lee Jay said:


> You're very lost.
> 
> If you cram 18 stops into 6 stops, you do it by reducing contrast. Stretching the resulting 6-stop file doesn't change it back to an 18 stop file, it's still just 6 stops with the tones pushed toward the edges.
> 
> ...



Well, I beg to differ. I'll demonstrate.

BTW, I never said you could "restore dynamic range." I also never said "preserve contrast", which I take to mean preserve the _original _contrast of the image. I said you could "restore contrast." I try to very carefully choose my words on this site, and when I say restore contrast, I mean exactly that, restore contrast. Not the original contrast of the image, I simply mean "restore some contrast to the image", the image you have sitting in front of you on the screen, so that it isn't simply some dull, lifeless, bland image.



Now for the benefit of everyone, this is what I am talking about, and how I see the value of dynamic range. I don't have any image with 18 stops worth of data, but I do have images with at least 14 stops of data. Sony A7r, image purposely exposed to clip the highlights a bit to ensure I was using maximum DR. (NOTE: Because the image was intentionally overexposed a little, I cannot fully recover highlights...this technique works much better when your highlights are not clipped, obviously.)

Original






Recovered





Contrast Restored





Recovery was done with LR in Basic panel:

Exposure +4
Blacks +100
Whites -100
Highlights -100
Shadows +50

Contrast restoration was done in LR in Tone Curve panel:

Highlights +20
Lights +10
Darks -30
Shadows 0

Dynamic range is the space within which the information resides. It's really a hardware thing, the ratio between the signal clipping point and the read noise floor. I think it is an oft misused term, and I honestly don't think there is any really meaningful way to apply "dynamic range" to a "file", or to the signal in the file. The signal itself doesn't have dynamic range...it has a signal-to-noise ratio, though...but that is not the same as dynamic range.

In the three images above, the loss in contrast is fairly obvious in the second image. That is a very heavy recovery, and unrealistically deep shadows in the original image (my living room was not even close to that dark when I took the photo) were lifted about a total of 6 stops. I did some quick testing, and a +100 blacks has about the same impact on the shadows as a +1 stop exposure adjustment in Lightroom. A +100 shadows has about the same impact on the shadows as a +2 stop exposure adjustment. So my +100 blacks and +50 shadows is about another two stop push for the shadows, on top of the +4 stop exposure shift. Similarly -100 whites is similar to a -2 stop exposure shift. Highlights is a different beast...at base exposure, -100 seems to behave like a -7 stop exposure shift, however after recovering exposure by +4, it seems to have a more muted impact of maybe a couple of stops. All told, I would say I compressed the original 14 stops worth of signal into the space of maybe 6-7 stops.

The restoration of contrast works on the post-recovery tonal distribution. I moved the tones around rather significantly, however I was still able to restore contrast. If dynamic range and contrast were the same thing, and recovering data only to restore contrast simply undid the recovery, then restoration of more contrast to the post-recovery image wouldn't be possible. However, as image three shows, it clearly is possible.

For everyone out there who thinks that more dynamic range means that you will always have dull, low-contrast processed photos and there is nothing you can do about that, well...your wrong.  Dynamic range is a camera trait, it's the space within which the tones of your photographs are distributed at a signal level. More dynamic range means less electronic noise, and that means more data deeper into the black depths of the signal can be recovered. Recovery is only the first step, though. You don't have to stop there. If you want your final processed photos to be more contrasty..._then make them more contrasty!_ You can also make them more saturated. You can do whatever you want to them after you have recovered the data buried deep in the "shadows" of the signal...because recovery is only the first step. Your own personal style, your artistic processing, starts AFTER recovery.



BTW, to stress the point about how the scene really looked to my eyes, vs. how it looked in the strait-out-of-camera RAW file. The real-world scene looked quite different than the original image above. The "shadows" of the original image above are unnaturally, unrealistically dark. We use the term shadows in an overloaded context a lot of the time, and that clearly leads to confusion for many photographers. I'm to blame for that, I apologize. But I think I have an opportunity to at least clear up my usage of the term in certain contexts.

If all I had presented you with was just that original image and no others, you might think that's actually what the room looked like at the time it was photographed. That is most assuredly not what my living room looked like when I took that photo. This is much closer to what it really looked like:






When I talk about "shadows" in a digital signal, I am talking about the part of the signal that looks very dark: blacks and the tones close to black. Not the midtones. I am also not talking about real-world shadows. As you can see from the above image, the real-world distribution of light and shadow in my living room at the time this photo was taken is quite different from the original untouched, "strait out of camera" version I posted farther up in this post. 

There are shadows, and there are "shadows." The "shadows" in a photographic signal in a RAW file may not be the same as the shadows your scene may have actually had in the real world. When I talk about "shadows" in the context of dynamic range on these forums, I am usually talking about the tones in the signal that are very dark, the tones below the broad range of midtones between the blacks and shadows and the highlights and whites. To put it into terms that may be more familiar, when I talk about the "shadows" of a RAW image, I am referring to the range of tones most affected by the blacks and shadows sliders in Lightroom. 

The amount of tones that fall into the "shadows" may be the majority of the tones in the photograph, and that may include real-world shadows, as well as real-world midtones and maybe even real-world highlights. Signal shadows are not the same as real-world shadows. Similarly, signal highlights are not the same as real-world highlights, etc. There is what the scene actually looked like at the time it was taken, and what the scene looks like when it comes strait out of camera. It's possible the two may be very similar, it is also possible for the two to be very different...depends on the scene.

When I talk about recovery, I mean restoring the potentially unnatural distribution of tones in the RAW to such a distribution that the image once again begins to look like the real-world scene did at the time the photograph was taken.


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## LOALTD (May 23, 2015)

Holy crap, jrista, 


Great demo! Thanks for taking the time to make that post!


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

Welcome. For what it's worth, these A7r images were taken as part of a comparison with my 5D III. I exposed the 5D III the same way, slightly clipped the highlights to maximize my utilization of the cameras dynamic range. 

The comparison, starting with a 3 stop push, then 4 stop push, then 5 stop push:






The 5Ds will have less banding, however in the grand scheme of things, it's read noise has not dropped very much. It's dark current is probably going to be much lower, which would improve it's performance at room temperature relative to my 5D III, however in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't expect the dynamic range to allow much more shadow recovery than any prior Canon camera. That's about three stops. 

FWIW, even at three stops, the read noise of the 5D III is already visible, and it's clear that the A7r has cleaner shadows and more detail.


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## neuroanatomist (May 23, 2015)

jrista said:


> The comparison, starting with a 3 stop push, then 4 stop push, then 5 stop push:



It's an effective demonstration of the Exmor shadow lifting capability, and makes the point. 

Of course, in a common real-world application of the full shot posted above, the idea would be to open the window blinds completely and see the view of outside world _and_ a pleasingly-lit interior. The fact that neither camera has sufficient DR to accomplish that makes a very different point...and one that many people find more compelling than the point you seem to have intended to make.


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > The comparison, starting with a 3 stop push, then 4 stop push, then 5 stop push:
> ...



Why would opening the blinds make it harder? ???

Opening the blinds would let a ton more light into the room, DIFFUSE light (not direct light since the sun is on the opposite side of my house from this room, so you wouldn't be dealing with hard shadows from direct light). That light is going to bounce around and illuminate everything, including the shadows (this is a well understood concept, we've even implemented complex artificial lighting algorithms for 3D rendering programs called "radiosity" to replicate it), more than I have them illuminated here, and actually make it easier for both cameras to capture all the tones in the scene. The brightness of the houses outside isn't going to increase by opening the blinds more, the blinds have no effect on how they are illuminated...they are as bright as they are going to get already, as they are directly lit by the sun. 

Opening the blinds is going to reduce the dynamic range of this scene. That makes it easier for a camera like the A7r to capture the scene in a single shot.


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## neuroanatomist (May 23, 2015)

You miss the point, but that's ok. 

https://fstoppers.com/strobe-light/hdr-vs-flash-interiors-and-real-estate-photography-3135

Ps. Someone should tell that Mike Kelley guy to get an a7R to use with his Canon TS lenses, I bet that would solve all his problems.


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> You miss the point, but that's ok.



Your point wast that you assert neither camera has enough dynamic range to capture that scene in a single shot. I disagree. I believe the A7r has enough dynamic range to capture it either way, but particularly if the blinds are open (the more pleasing shot, as you stated).

If one applies more advanced noise reduction techniques with proper attenuation (i.e. if they do not use Lightroom for NR, as LR is pretty archaic and limited these days for noise reduction), the A7r could easily be pushed six stops and still make professional quality photos. HDR might still be better, but only marginally at that point.


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## neuroanatomist (May 23, 2015)

jrista said:


> Your point wast that you assert neither camera has enough dynamic range to capture that scene in a single shot. I disagree. I believe the A7r has enough dynamic range to capture it either way, but particularly if the blinds are open (the more pleasing shot, as you stated).



You believe? Demonstrate, or demonstrate not. There is no 'I believe'.


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Your point wast that you assert neither camera has enough dynamic range to capture that scene in a single shot. I disagree. I believe the A7r has enough dynamic range to capture it either way, but particularly if the blinds are open (the more pleasing shot, as you stated).
> ...



Heh. Well, we both believe something. You believe one thing, I believe another. I've done some demonstration already...I'm not surprised it's not enough, however. Where are the demonstrations to back up your beliefs? Hmm... ???

I've got some six stop pushes (actually probably more than six stops, maybe seven or so). Once my current integration routine in PixInsight finishes (it's registering and integrating nearly 200 files, so it will probably be a couple of hours), I'll do some more advanced NR on both the 5D III and A7r files.


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## neuroanatomist (May 23, 2015)

I'm not sure how advanced NR is going to bring back the blown out windows, but have fun!


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> I'm not sure how advanced NR is going to bring back the blown out windows, but have fun!



The outdoor highlights were purposely clipped in this image, as I stated in my previous post, to ensure full utilization of both cameras dynamic range. It's easy enough to avoid doing that, however it is also beside the point. Highlights aren't going to have any noise. It's the shadows that have noise issues, and the reason we resort to HDR blending in the first place. 

I wanted to see what I could do with "normal people tools", since few people even know about PixInsight, and nor many regular photographers would want to spend the time learning it. Here is quick pass of both sets of data in Photoshop CC, from the area of deepest shadows, from 6-stop pushes. I used the best debanding script I know of to clean up the banding on the 5D III crop. I also did what I could with Topaz DeNoise and PS's Reduce Noise filters on both images. I tried to use a PixInsight masking technique, however I am not sure how much PS supports it...the results on the A7r data are pretty good, I couldn't tell if it helped at all with the 5D III data. The 5D III noise seem to have improced in characteristic a bit...it's nicer, cleaner...but there just isn't any real detail there to restore. I also tweaked the contrast a bit, similar to my previous post, to restore some punch to the images.

Original untouched exposures, exposures after +6 stop push, exposures after NR:







PI is still cranking away, so this is without any of it's advanced NR features. PI may be able to do some more with the 5D III's blotching, and will probably be able to preserve some more detail. I'm actually curious to see how much detail I can preserve, or even enhance, while still reducing noise. I am pretty sure I can clean up the blotchy color noise better with PI. I am not sure if I can do much better with PI for the A7r...

Anyway...not looking for a fight. Hope people find these samples interesting and/or useful.


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## neuroanatomist (May 23, 2015)

jrista said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not sure how advanced NR is going to bring back the blown out windows, but have fun!
> ...



Yes, I noticed that. Interesting that the parameters of your demonstration specifically preclude testing your belief that the a7R could capture the full scene DR, but I know that wasn't the point you set out to make.


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


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



The highlights aren't clipped all that much. It's maybe a quarter of a stop at most, it shouldn't even be that much. When I was taking the shots, I only upped exposure by a third of a stop to get the highlights to clip, and they had some headroom before I did that. A quarter of a stop isn't going to make a lot of difference to the shadow performance, for either camera. I plan to get the A7r II or maybe A9 (or whatever that higher end model ends up being called...it's supposed to be aimed more at pros, should have better weather sealing, be more rugged, etc.) in the future. I'll be happy to get some more 'realistic' exposures then. 

Before that even, I plan to get the A6000, and I could do more testing with that. 

BTW, the parameters of my testing were actually set by members of this forum, so many months ago when I actually rented the camera and did the test. There were several members that insisted that a DR test was invalid if the highlights weren't just slightly clipped, as there was a rather extensive argument at that time over the proper way to expose a step wedge for DR testing at the time, and that bled over into my simple testing. My personal parameters would have been to keep the highlights under the clipping point, as that's how I actually shoot.


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## 3kramd5 (May 23, 2015)

These threads are both tiresome and paradoxically amusing. Over and over again, people agreeing about facts and disagreeing about implications.

Can we just once and for all agree that canon's current sensor/signal chain is noisier than its main competitors, but that there are several other parameters about which canon bests its main competitors and move on?

Here are some facts:

1) canon is noisier and this doesn't capture as much usable DR;
2) for many people, the differences between canon architecture and sony/Samsung/toshiba/whatever DR is not a significant factor, but,
3) none of those people would complain (and indeed most would appreciate) if the next generation of canon architecture had less noise.

I have a few 5D3s, a 5D2, a D7000, and an A7R. I have a 5DS on order that I plan to replace the Sony with. The Sony I find preposterous. It feels like it goes out of its way to make using it difficult. I'd much rather have high res in a canon body than the Sony, regardless of the DR deficit. However if the supposed 5DC can do say 18MP stills at 16-stops, I'd gladly cancel my order, return, or re-sell, depending on timeline. 

A purchase is a balancing act.


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## Valvebounce (May 23, 2015)

Hi Jrista, Neuro. 
I find it incredible that two people, whom I would consider to have a far greater comprehension of the technical sides of each other's arguments than I, can continue to intentionally misunderstand each other's statements during these debates. 
I'm fairly sure that I understand the point each of you is trying to make, right up to the point when you start this nonsense and confuse me. What is so sad is that I kind of get the impression that you both would want the same thing in the end. 

Cheers, Graham.


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## K (May 23, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > The comparison, starting with a 3 stop push, then 4 stop push, then 5 stop push:
> ...




Fixed your above statement to include "at low ISO" ...because the shadow lifting isn't anything special at higher ISO.

Overall, I agree with your commentary, and has been a point I've also been making all along.


It's truly awesome the shadow and exposure lifting capabilities of the Exmor. No doubt about it. However, as JRista's photos show - the result is an ugly photo. While this sensor mops the floor with the Canon in avoiding gruesome noise, banding, blotches and other image degradation in the shadow areas, the resulting image is still sub-par and only less-awful than Canon. Less crappy, is still crappy.

Thus, my point again - while it's wonderful to be able to lift these shadows that much, there just isn't that much practical application. Not to the extent that it has become the war cry of the Nikonians across the internet. This single aspect gets entirely too much attention, and only because it is the only area Nikon has an edge in.


"Exmored" images all have that same ugly look to them. They lack that nice rich contrast. They lack detail they should have had at that ISO level. The colors downright suck. And overall, the image looks grungy and is far from presentable.Worst of all, they have this bizarre, unrealistic look to them due to ares that should be darker and contrasty being unnaturally brighter. At least in my opinion. It's like there's this undetectable glow in the room lighting things up in a low contrast way.


In order to achieve a great looking image in high DR scenes, one is forced to use good lighting technique or good HDR technique - Exmor or not. Practical and reasonable shadow and exposure lifts are minor corrections. Canon, while having an inferior sensor in this regard, is luckily for them, still within the tolerance of 1-2 stops push without mangling the image much. So for minor corrections, Canon is right up there in the game. They are no where near the Exmor on crazy stuff like 5 stops. But again, what use is that?

In another one of these crazy Exmor DR threads, someone posted a link to a blogger who is a total Exmor fanboy doing wedding photography. This photog showed off several Exmored images of actual weddings on their website. These images, perhaps to someone used to cell phone pics, are decent and perhaps even impressive. However, I think they are awful and a great opportunity to capture truly pro images was lost because this person thinks they can Exmor everything and get away with it.


Whatever, who am I to say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If people like that look, go for it. If there are people willing to pay for images that look that way, so be it. Their money, not mine.

The pros that I know in person, and the pros that I've followed online, not a single one of them - Nikon or Canon, does any kind of radical shadow lifting. They use lighting techniques as it should be. If it is natural light, they use their professional skills, artistic eye and creativity to setup the scene to optimize in the natural light.

Exmorites just want to snap shot away in any light with no care for the fundamentals, and then just crank on sliders in LR and think they are putting out Pro quality.

If Canon released a sensor with more DR than Sony, I will never come to this forum or elsewhere and brag about or claim the usefulness of being able to do a 6-7 stop lift on an image. Canon, Nikon, Sony ...matters not - that's not a technique. The result will be inferior to a properly executed photograph.


8)


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Jrista, Neuro.
> I find it incredible that two people, whom I would consider to have a far greater comprehension of the technical sides of each other's arguments than I, can continue to intentionally misunderstand each other's statements during these debates.
> I'm fairly sure that I understand the point each of you is trying to make, right up to the point when you start this nonsense and confuse me. What is so sad is that I kind of get the impression that you both would want the same thing in the end.
> 
> Cheers, Graham.



I have never _intentionally _misunderstood anything.


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## Eldar (May 23, 2015)

jrista said:


> Valvebounce said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Jrista, Neuro.
> ...


I believe you. If everyone substantiated their view like you, many threads would have been less boring.


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## Lee Jay (May 23, 2015)

jrista said:


> Lee Jay said:
> 
> 
> > You're very lost.
> ...



You're wrong either way. Once you choose to cram 18 stops into a 6-stop output, you have lost contrast. Nothing can ever be done about that. You can restore a bit of local and apparent contrast with sliders, but the original scene contrast is lost, forever. That's actually what you *want* to happen when you use shadow lifting and highlight pulling - you want to reduce contrast to fit it into the box of the output device you are using, be it a print or a screen.


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

Lee Jay said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Lee Jay said:
> ...



Now your just debating semantics. I've demonstrated what I meant, there is no longer any ambiguity. I was never talking about preserving "original scene contrast", I made that very clear. I also made the meaning of contrast that I was referring to quite clear, both through words and images. Contrast is contrast...it doesn't have to be "original scene contrast"...local and apparent contrast are still contrast. Your imposing a more limited definition of the word contrast upon what I was saying. Either you are just looking for a fight, or you did not read or understand everything I wrote.

Lee Jay, you, like many others here, seem to have an innate need to prove people wrong. I feel sorry that's how you have to spend your time on these forums, proving people wrong. I disagree with you, however I never set out to prove you wrong, I only set out to demonstrate my point from the angle I see it from...and I made it clear that the vast bulk of my post was simply educational and for the benefit of everyone reading, not a rebuttal, certainly not an attempt to prove you wrong.

This whole proving people wrong thing...it's really a travesty on these forums. Just as much a travesty as people like K, who seem to think they are the ultimate authority on what is or isn't photography, what makes good photography and what makes bad photography, or that everyone who uses an Exmor is just a slider junkie. 

We are all adults here. Is there no way we can all find a way to have reasonable discourse about these subjects? Why does everything have to boil down to insults and discredit and proving everyone around you wrong? That is truly a sad way to go about life, insulting and deriding and discrediting everyone so you can prove them wrong...

Lee Jay, you and I are not talking about the same thing. I made my point very clear, I made the meaning of the words I'm using in the context I am using them very clear. I even demonstrated what I meant by contrast with visual aids. I'm no longer interested in debating semantics.

Well, I have clearly disrupted this forum long enough. Yes, I'm a crazy insane exmorite. I like having more dynamic range. I love the technical engineering feat that many new modern sensors are, not just Exmor. I'm fascinated by image signals and the mathematics involved in describing them, as well as processing them. I love that stuff. I like to share my knowledge about such things. But damn...these forums are one of the more hateful places on the net, I tell ya. I really hate coming here. It's just a wonderfully distasteful experience every single time.


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## Valvebounce (May 23, 2015)

Hi Jrista. 
My apologies, intentionally misunderstand was a bit strong. I would also say that I find many of your posts most informative, including those here, it is just that the information starts getting lost in the noise! 

Cheers, Graham. 



jrista said:


> Valvebounce said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Jrista, Neuro.
> ...


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## Sporgon (May 23, 2015)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Jrista.
> My apologies, intentionally misunderstand was a bit strong.



Perhaps you meant obtuse


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## jrista (May 23, 2015)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi Jrista.
> My apologies, intentionally misunderstand was a bit strong. I would also say that I find many of your posts most informative, including those here, it is just that the information starts getting lost in the noise!
> 
> Cheers, Graham.
> ...



I agree, there is a lot of noise. I've restore a number of people to my ignore list. Hopefully that will cut down on it. I can't help what you guys may see, but it should be easier for me to ignore all the noise and not bother responding to it.


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