# Dpreview of the 80D



## xps (Apr 27, 2016)

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-80d-review

Do you agree?
I´ve played some days with it (I suggest of buying it as an second crop body). Is it really behind its peers?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-80d-review/8 I had not so many unsharp pictures. And it was surprisingly well working with the 10-400II & 1.4III combo


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## GMCPhotographics (Apr 27, 2016)

xps said:


> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-80d-review
> 
> Do you agree?
> I´ve played some days with it (I suggest of buying it as an second crop body). Is it really behind its peers?
> ...



It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess. To be honest...I steer clear of DPR....the forum isn't a nice place to hang out, there's a lot of weird and frankly ruthless attitudes there and their reviews are just glorified eye candy. There's nothing in those reviews which do much for me..except maybe comparing iso noise between similar cameras. The original owner was very biased towards Canon and very open about his opinion. I think you'll find there's very few 1D series reviews, certainly no 1DX but you'll find every Nikon Dx series reviewed...all with glowing reviews...like the D4, which they failed to mention the numerous lockups and AF issues which plagued every pro photographer that I met using one. Which is why so many pros got frustrated with Noik and traded in for Canon and the (working) 1DX.


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## ritholtz (Apr 27, 2016)

I am not sure about confusion about selecting starting point during Servo AF. one can choose single point or zone or all points with starting point by cycling throw af selctor button. According to the review, a6300 is one stop better than 80d in high iso performance. That is too much a gap between same generation sensors.


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## Deleted member 91053 (Apr 27, 2016)

ritholtz said:


> According to the review, a6300 is one stop better than 80d in high iso performance. That is too much a gap between same generation sensors.



Sony's are good to very good for high ISO but what about AF and range of lenses? They are just not in the running if your subject moves and/or you need longer focal lengths.
I would much prefer an in focus grainy image rather than a camera with better ISO with no lens at all - either because it doesn't exist or won't fit!
Sony have a long way to go before they make suitable cameras for the likes of people like me but at least they are keeping the other manufacturers on their toes which can't be a bad thing!


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## Refurb7 (Apr 28, 2016)

I personally don't care about any of the "cons" that DPReview finds. My 70D is a fantastic camera, and this 80D looks to be even better.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 28, 2016)

I think the review was accurate, but they did not try to optimize the AF for the moving target. I did not notice which lens they used, but it should not have made a huge difference.

I think that with the combo deals, the 7D MK II is a more advanced camera for only a little more.


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## 9VIII (Apr 28, 2016)

GMCPhotographics said:


> xps said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-80d-review
> ...



Wow, DPR actually doesn't have a 1DX review.
EDIT: Shucks I guess I spoke too soon, they have a "D4S" Review in the works but nothing on the D4 (released around the same time as the 1DX), so their pattern is at least somewhat consistent. We'll see if they bite on the 1DX MkII.


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## ritholtz (Apr 28, 2016)

johnf3f said:


> ritholtz said:
> 
> 
> > According to the review, a6300 is one stop better than 80d in high iso performance. That is too much a gap between same generation sensors.
> ...


In their review tests, A6300 focussed better than 80d. Not sure how they tested but 80d did very poor in their through view finder tracking test.


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## KKCFamilyman (Apr 28, 2016)

I used both and personally the iso seemed close. The video was sharper on the sony but the touch to focus was invaluable to me for video's of the kids. There are so many more lenses than the sony. Also something abouth the feel of a medium lens like the 18-135 and 430 ex flash is well balanced vs the extremely cheap sony flash and 16-70 lens. It just felt like these large items are clipped on an iphone. Also I found the sony to be difficult in manually selecting a focus point. I never understood why people focus on high iso. The pics still have that lifeless sony look to them. I love the Canon processing. People look better and thats a large portion of my photography.


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## Woody (Apr 28, 2016)

thetechhimself said:


> Side note, the A6300 is an impressive tool, but still a work in progress, no touchscreen, ho hum low light AF, cropped 4k, bad UI and unimpressive color rendition coupled with Sony's also in progress lens lineup that is quite pricey I might add.



Do not forget the awful QC (lots of decentered lenses) and built quality of their lenses which are extremely pricey. Turn-around time for Sony servicing is awful as well...


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## Woody (Apr 28, 2016)

In the review, they claimed this:

"When tracking subject at a distance, using the telephoto lens, the 80D's Face+Tracking mode is much more easily confused than when tracking near subjects. This is especially true when the subject is moving quickly, as was the case in our biking demonstration. The above example was shot using a 70-200mm F2.8 lens at 125mm."

Do they seriously expect face tracking to work at telephoto distances when the subject's face is but a tiny blob on the image (see their photo)?

I am shocked by how far DPReview quality has fallen since the departure of Phil Askey (who has his own prejudices too... but certainly not at this level of silliness).


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## Refurb7 (Apr 28, 2016)

GMCPhotographics said:


> xps said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-80d-review
> ...



It's likely poor technique, just not knowing how the camera works.

Some time back, there was a video on Youtube purportedly showing how the A6000 could AF track a skier better than some more expensive Canon. But the reviewer totally failed to grasp that the Canon was designed to acquire AF on the center point FIRST. This way the photographer could decide what to track rather than having the camera decide what to track. So, not knowing this, of course he started the AF sequence without locking on the intended skier who was not on the center point. And thus, voila, he "proved" that the Canon could not AF track as well as the Sony.


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## Refurb7 (Apr 28, 2016)

Woody said:


> In the review, they claimed this:
> 
> "When tracking subject at a distance, using the telephoto lens, the 80D's Face+Tracking mode is much more easily confused than when tracking near subjects. This is especially true when the subject is moving quickly, as was the case in our biking demonstration. The above example was shot using a 70-200mm F2.8 lens at 125mm."
> 
> ...



The 80D instruction manual p. 278 explains: "Face detection will not work if the face is very small ..."


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## Aglet (Apr 28, 2016)

johnf3f said:


> Sony's are good to very good for high ISO but what about AF and range of lenses? They are just not in the running if your subject moves and/or you need longer focal lengths.
> I would much prefer an in focus grainy image rather than a camera with better ISO with no lens at all - either because it doesn't exist or won't fit!
> Sony have a long way to go before they make suitable cameras for the likes of people like me but at least they are keeping the other manufacturers on their toes which can't be a bad thing!



It's far from comprehensive but the video link I posted in this topic

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=29683.0

may give you a better impression of what happens when the subject moves.
better yet, try an a6300 with a new G-series lens on it for yourself 

I won't buy one... but I won't buy an 80D either; too pricey for the performance level right now.
I guess I'll keep a 60D & 40D around as a lens-cap for a few bits of remaining Canon glass in my collection.


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## Woody (Apr 28, 2016)

Aglet said:


> It's far from comprehensive but the video link I posted in this topic
> 
> http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=29683.0
> 
> ...



In another thread, I also pointed to the same YouTube clip:

"From the 13:03 mark, a comparison between 80D live-view AF and 6300 AF was made. According to the reviewer, both cameras were EQUALLY impressive in terms of functionality, but given the ease of use of the 80D touchscreen, the advantage goes to the 80D. Of course, if single eye AF is desired, then only the A6300 has that capability."

People should just compare apple to apple: live view on A6300 (well, there's no optical view to speak of anyway) against live view on 80D. I have tried AF tracking on both the A6300 and 80D (live view, of course), and I agree with MichaelTheMentor (from the youtube clip above), BOTH are EQUALLY impressive.

To me, the availability of touchscreen on the 80D makes a WHOLE NEW WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. I don't care about single eye AF.


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## Woody (Apr 28, 2016)

Another note, many reviewers (esp. DPReview) love to compare the 45 or 61 AF points in optical viewfinder of DSLRs to the 425 AF points in A6300. Then, they wax lyrical about the number of A6300 AF points.

Errr... doesn't the 80D have 80% * 24 MP, that is, 19.2 million AF points in live view?


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## rishi_sanyal (Apr 30, 2016)

Woody said:


> Another note, many reviewers (esp. DPReview) love to compare the 45 or 61 AF points in optical viewfinder of DSLRs to the 425 AF points in A6300. Then, they wax lyrical about the number of A6300 AF points.
> 
> Errr... doesn't the 80D have 80% * 24 MP, that is, 19.2 million AF points in live view?



No, each single pixel is not an AF point - you need strips of pixels to form an AF point.

In other words, Sony's a6300 has many more than 425 masked pixels, but they only report the effective number of focus points. 

Don't get me wrong - dual pixel AF is one of the best innovations to date, but it certainly doesn't have anywhere near 19.2 million AF points.

Rishi
Technical Editor, dpreview.com


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## rishi_sanyal (Apr 30, 2016)

Woody said:


> In the review, they claimed this:
> 
> "When tracking subject at a distance, using the telephoto lens, the 80D's Face+Tracking mode is much more easily confused than when tracking near subjects. This is especially true when the subject is moving quickly, as was the case in our biking demonstration. The above example was shot using a 70-200mm F2.8 lens at 125mm."
> 
> ...



We didn't use face detection for those AF tests. We used (subject) tracking, where you tap your subject to tell the camera to follow it. 

Canon calls it 'Face+Tracking', and yes it conflates face detection and subject tracking, but we certainly didn't use face tracking to focus on our biker at telephoto distances. 

That would be silly, so to speak.

Rishi
Technical Editor, dpreview.com


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## Larsskv (Apr 30, 2016)

Insulting post removed by Admin.

Insulting members can result in a Ban


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## Orangutan (Apr 30, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Woody said:
> 
> 
> > Another note, many reviewers (esp. DPReview) love to compare the 45 or 61 AF points in optical viewfinder of DSLRs to the 425 AF points in A6300. Then, they wax lyrical about the number of A6300 AF points.
> ...


Why strips? Is that for DPAF or generic contrast-detection?


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## [email protected] (Apr 30, 2016)

Rishi, I know some may think it's inadvisable to "feed the trolls" and answer questions on a forum like this, but I really appreciate your participation. And please excuse our trolls. There are, though, lots of people on here who will think better of DPR as you answer questions and engage in discussions. 

It says a lot - and good things - that you are engaging on the forum. I think DPR will benefit in the comprehensiveness of its coverage and process improvement of its reviewing to keep tabs on Canon Rumors. Even if part of what people here think is B.S., they'll benefit from your responses, and you'll benefit from the non-B.S. bits. 

One plug, if I may. I think you and Barney have a great presence of your videos. You do a really good job of coming off as friendly and watchable. But overall, one gets the impression (which might be incorrect) that the people doing the reviews are using Canon equipment temporarily, just for the purpose of the review. There is a different feel that one gets from reviewers that are of the relevant ecosystem. I think that the next time DPR hires an additional reviewer, you might wish to bring on a Canon shooter - not to do all the Canon reviews - but to add this perspective, and in particular, a very strong basis for real world comparison versus previous Canon products. That last review feature - answering the question about whether one should upgrade - is done poorly if it is done by the spec sheet. 

Anyway, very happy to have you as a fellow member. -tig


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## rishi_sanyal (Apr 30, 2016)

Orangutan said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Woody said:
> ...



You need contiguous pixels (not necessarily exactly next to one another - you can skip some pixels) to make a phase measurement. One strip/row might be 'left looking' and another 'right looking', and you correlate features between the two to determine the phase difference between them, which then gives you directional and magnitude information.

For example, see this schematic of the E-M1 scheme of on-sensor PDAF: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/olympus-e-m1/ZTECH_PDAF_PIXELS.gif. 

Cheers,
Rishi


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## Orangutan (Apr 30, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Orangutan said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...



OK, so you were talking about DPAF. So then the "AF point" is the center of that collection of (almost) contiguous pixels?


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## rishi_sanyal (Apr 30, 2016)

thetechhimself said:


> Rishi,
> 
> First of all, welcome to CR, I hope you enjoy the visit.
> 
> Second, I appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback on DPR for us.



Thanks, that's very kind of you.



thetechhimself said:


> I appreciate you guys being hard on Canon actually, they are at the top, and they are the one to take pot shots at, and, if they produce a better product because of your reporting, that's a win in my book.



I certainly hope we're not taking 'pot shots' - we've just been modernizing our testing to cover things like Raw image quality and autofocus, things we didn't always look at in a controlled manner or as thoroughly before. If a camera does poorly in any of these tests, we point that out, but we don't find random negative things to say. We have set things we look at, hopefully things that matter to photographers.

I also wouldn't say we're being any harder on Canon than we are Sony, or Nikon for that matter. I myself have written far more negative phrases concerning Sony's ergonomic frustrations than I have pointed out cons on Canons. Have you maybe overlooked our Sony reviews/editorial content? I've used more hyperbolic words to address ergonomic frustrations on Sony cameras than any adjective I've used to describe Canon: 'arthritis-inducing', 'inexplicable', 'inane', 'disorienting', and 'incomprehensible', to cite a few I remember off the top of my head. 

Our recent article on the Nikon D5's dynamic range didn't beat around the bush either.



thetechhimself said:


> However comma, I would concur that perhaps an AF test environment, similar to a studio scene, or what your see at high end Best Buy's with their center island in the middle of their Camera section which provides subjects in which to shoot would be a wise addition to your reporting. Say, you guys have a train table or similar moving object. High and low contrast objects, and variable lighting to demonstrate how each products AF performs under various lighting with a standard reproducible procedure for testing.



Yes, we've had many, many thoughts, conversations, brainstorms with industry leaders about how we could design meaningful AF tests. What we have now in reviews is just a stop-gap; we are tirelessly working on how to actually build a repeatable set of AF tests that covers a wide variety of shooting situations. Needless to say, it's ridiculously difficult, which may partially be why no one - to my knowledge - has succeeded just yet.



thetechhimself said:


> I would however start getting hard on Sony too, why? They seem to take your reviews seriously, perhaps they'll make a better product and give Canon competition? Sony needs some prodding, much harder prodding on their weak lens lineup, UI system and lack of touchscreen; they've had how many chances to fix this and still haven't? You guys need to speak up for us little people and start doling some criticism at your sacred cow (or that is how I perceive DPR's relationship with Sony, if I do, ask yourself why do we think that if there isn't some truth?)



But we do do just that: we continuously address exactly the points you bring up. We go on and on about lack of touchscreen, lack of direct AF point selection, lack of a 'My Menu' or menu organization, mushy buttons/dials, etc. Have a read of the 'Handling' section of my a7R II review, or read my specific frustrations with the RX10 III we recently published: http://bit.ly/1O4rpHP. I literally suggested Sony hire a design firm & redesign their entire UI from the ground up, but, hopefully more helpfully, we try to point out our exact points of contention. Especially because you, the reader, need to know if our particular complaints are relevant to you.

As you allude to, it may very well be our constant prodding on poor Auto ISO implementation, lossy Raw, lack of direct magnification of the focus point, etc., that, at least in part, led to the now class-leading Auto ISO implementation (with direct, one-button, access to minimum shutter speed threshold), uncompressed Raw, and instant 100% magnification of the focus point used in Image Review. I've talked directly to engineers about the pitfalls of stop-down focusing, or how buttons with little haptic feedback can cost you a shot in the field. 

You are right that we have a responsibility to point out such flaws to help end users of these products - a responsibility we take very seriously. I can personally say that my end goal is not just to inform our customers to help them choose more wisely, but also to raise awareness of issues - many of which we even learn from our audience members and people like yourself - so that we get better products. After all, I'm a photographer as well and constantly desire better tools for the job.

Thanks again for your feedback and thoughts,
Rishi


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> Rishi, I know some may think it's inadvisable to "feed the trolls" and answer questions on a forum like this, but I really appreciate your participation. And please excuse our trolls. There are, though, lots of people on here who will think better of DPR as you answer questions and engage in discussions.
> 
> It says a lot - and good things - that you are engaging on the forum. I think DPR will benefit in the comprehensiveness of its coverage and process improvement of its reviewing to keep tabs on Canon Rumors. Even if part of what people here think is B.S., they'll benefit from your responses, and you'll benefit from the non-B.S. bits.



Thanks, very kind of you. Particularly because, yes, it can get tricky here.



[email protected] said:


> One plug, if I may. I think you and Barney have a great presence of your videos. You do a really good job of coming off as friendly and watchable. But overall, one gets the impression (which might be incorrect) that the people doing the reviews are using Canon equipment temporarily, just for the purpose of the review. There is a different feel that one gets from reviewers that are of the relevant ecosystem. I think that the next time DPR hires an additional reviewer, you might wish to bring on a Canon shooter - not to do all the Canon reviews - but to add this perspective, and in particular, a very strong basis for real world comparison versus previous Canon products. That last review feature - answering the question about whether one should upgrade - is done poorly if it is done by the spec sheet.
> 
> Anyway, very happy to have you as a fellow member. -tig



We have a couple Canon shooters on staff, and I myself have shot Canon for most of my life, from the film days all the way through to every 5D-series camera. I do my part to make sure that any particular issue called out in a review is not just a familiarity or 'teething' issue. 

If anything, our staff actually lacks Sony shooters (to be expected, given they're newer to the game), which might _partially_ explain our constant collective gripes about Sony ergonomics. I say _partially_ because some things, like mushy buttons with little haptic feedback, are absolutely, _objectively_ true. It's important for us to distinguish the _objective_ from the _subjective_ and, yes, I fully concede that's not always possible!

Actually, we encourage all our reviewers to constantly shoot with all systems, so that any time they write a review, they have a rounded perspective. This affords us a unique perspective (I hope): we know which system is best at what (or try to anyway!), which allows us to place any particular facet of a camera in perspective. A shooter of one system only may have a self-selecting bias: if a camera is bad at X, then you may never use X, and may even come to think that X is itself useless (probably now because you've learned to work around it). We want to avoid that as much as possible. 

This does, however, mean that sometimes we point out 'issues' that users of a particular system may never have perceived as an issue - simply because of unfamiliarity with a better performing system. This is why comparisons, rather than tests in isolation, are so useful.

That said, you are correct that perspectives on systems from system shooters is definitely valuable. To that end, we are trying more and more to work with pros of every system to understand their needs and how they use their cameras. So I certainly appreciate your point. We're particularly considering input from pros as we're trying to review more pro-level cameras: like the 1D-X II and D5. These are purpose-built machines that perform like no other when it comes to certain types of photography, and we need to make sure we understand the appropriate requirements. So I can tell you right now that for these two particular cameras, we're engaging with pro users of the respective systems.

May I ask where in particular you felt that our reviewer(s) might have had a lack of perspective when it came to Canon?

Thanks,
Rishi


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> May I ask where in particular you felt that our reviewer(s) might have had a lack of perspective when it came to Canon?
> 
> Thanks,
> Rishi



My biggest issue is the misinformation, half truths, and blatant lies.

Things like:

In the 1DX MkII "examined-in-depth" piece (http://www.dpreview.com/articles/0676551873/canon-eos-1d-x-mark-ii-first-impressions-review?slide=16) at least three times you say things like "not as versatile as Nikon's class-leading 3D tracking" and "given the pinpoint precision Nikon 3D tracking is capable of ", yet in your Nikon D5 examined piece (http://www.dpreview.com/articles/9189851572/hands-on-with-nikon-d5?slide=11) you say nothing about Canon, not even where specs of already available Canon cameras vastly out strip it.

Or things like the 5DSR _"impossible-to-control background scene of high contrast, and exposing to retain the sky meant that shadow brightening to make the foreground anything but a sea of black resulted in noise and banding"_ which you personally couldn't avoid, but can be avoided easily!
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5ds-sr/12
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=29255.msg582690#msg582690

Example images like that, with accompanying 'explanations', show you to be the biased and corrupted source you have become.

Don't get me wrong, I don't give a darn about fairness, life isn't fair and nobody should expect it to be. But I hate with a passion people who lie while trying to pass themselves off as fair minded sources of unbiased information.


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## Jack Douglas (May 1, 2016)

There is a difference between lying and inadvertently misrepresenting the truth or making an incorrect statement out of ignorance, etc. I think we should be considerate in how we describe other folk relative to motives.  Especially those who are saddled with somewhat thankless jobs. 

OTOH, Nothing wrong with strongly pointing out shortcomings assuming they are true. IMHO

Jack


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2016)

Jack Douglas said:


> There is a difference between lying and inadvertently misrepresenting the truth or making an incorrect statement out of ignorance, etc. I think we should be considerate in how we describe other folk relative to motives.  Especially those who are saddled with somewhat thankless jobs.
> 
> OTOH, Nothing wrong with strongly pointing out shortcomings assuming they are true. IMHO
> 
> Jack



Jack, I agree, that is why I chose my words and gave specific instances and links (as Rishi requested). I simply don't believe many of the comments in DPReview are borne from ignorance, nor inadvertent misrepresentation.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > May I ask where in particular you felt that our reviewer(s) might have had a lack of perspective when it came to Canon?
> ...



It's fairly futile for me to try and respond to someone who goes back and copy & pastes a comment he made in February of this year, which didn't even stand up to scrutiny. If you remember: you weren't even able to defend your statement when I asked you 'what specs outstrip the D5 that I didn't mention?' You weren't able to name a _single_ spec where existing Canons 'vastly' outperformed the D5, save for the one I _did_ mention: Live View / Movie AF.

By the way, we still fully stand behind those phrases on subject tracking, and they're not lies - they're the results of our very careful experiments. We don't just repeat spec, by the way, else we'd talk about how the 360k-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor of the 1DX II blows away the mere 180k-pixel RGB metering sensor of the D5. On the contrary - we know from actual extensive testing that Nikons are far more effective at using their metering sensors for subject tracking. Unsurprisingly, many who've switched from Canon to Nikon know this as well.

As a scientist, I have to always admit we may be wrong, so: we may be wrong. But I highly doubt it, from our repeated and vetted tests. In fact, our results are apparent to anyone we ask to actually do a side-by-side. What's odd is that when I then ask: 'have you tried the two side-by-side' to people such as yourself who claim that we're lying, the answer is invariably 'no'. That's pretty telling.

This gets back to the point I made earlier: you may not even know you're missing something if you never had it at all.



privatebydesign said:


> Or things like the 5DSR _"impossible-to-control background scene of high contrast, and exposing to retain the sky meant that shadow brightening to make the foreground anything but a sea of black resulted in noise and banding"_ which you personally couldn't avoid, but can be avoided easily!
> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5ds-sr/12
> http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=29255.msg582690#msg582690
> 
> Example images like that, with accompanying 'explanations', show you to be the biased and corrupted source you have become.



I'm not even going to address the argument that somehow more dynamic range isn't better because DR limitations can be 'avoided easily' because you can just 'expose properly!' - this argument has been addressed, and refuted, countless times and, frankly, I'm pretty sure you know better anyway. More dynamic range is more dynamic range, whether or not you know how, or need, to use it. Period.

I will say this though: saying things like: "This shot has more DR than the DPR image, how do we know that? The sun is still above the horizon." doesn't actually prove anything. In fact, ironically, views toward the sun _after_ the sun has sunk below the horizon are higher DR than ones pointed at the sun while it's still above the horizon (unless you're trying to keep the actual sun from blowing, which is a fool's errand), because the sky above the sunset is still bright, while the foreground barely has any light. That's why most of our 'real world' dynamic range tests are done a half hour _after_ sunset, or a half hour _before_ sunrise. 

Like this real-world, properly ETTR'd real-world test vs. the D810, where we demonstrate the _literally stops_ of dynamic range advantage of the D810 over the 5DS R: http://bit.ly/1NL0aXY. I'm not sure what your isolated example demonstrates when our controlled comparison actually demonstrates the _difference_ between these cameras - which is representative of what you may be leaving on the table when choosing a camera with lower dynamic range. Unless you are so presumptuous as to believe your scene and processing is representative of the limit of what any photographer in the world might ever want to do with their camera... your isolated example is, well, just an isolated example. We, OTOH, are just showing you the difference, and showing you a real-world examples where the limited DR _did_ affect our image. Are we forcing you to care? Not by any means. But we're showing you what the implications, and differences compared to competitors, is. If that makes us liars: so be it.

And this is all before we address the obvious noise reduction (whether you purposefully applied any or not) in your image, or the fact that you haven't even worked up the image - actual contrast editing and grading exacerbates noise. The whole reason that pros find larger sensor cameras to provide more flexible images, by the way.

Again, we're back to the 'you may not know the advantage of something you haven't had'. If you don't understand, or need, the advantages, of increased dynamic range, that's fine. But to suggest we're intentionally deceiving is highly disingenuous. The sunrise or sunset scene you present in your thread, as I alluded to above, doesn't even represent a high dynamic range scene a professional landscape photographer may be wont to produce. Nor is it a controlled representation of the actual noise cost an ISO-variant (lower base ISO DR) camera will display vs. an ISO-invariant (higher base ISO DR) camera. These are often noise differences on the order of magnitude of stops, yet it's OK to argue over 1/3 stop noise improvements in high ISO? Interesting...

Increased noise from lower DR can even be apparent in more modest pushes, yet some of you like to act like there's some 'threshold' - like the extra noise isn't noticeable enough until > 3 stop pushes. That's just not true - the noise is there, and it may or may not affect your photography, but it's there on a lower dynamic range camera and we're showing it. It may even become far more evident than our studio test scene for Raw DR even shows when you actually add some contrast back in. 

Also, why are we talking about dynamic range in relation to Canon only? Perhaps you missed our recent article on the Nikon D5's dynamic range: http://www.dpreview.com/news/9402203921/nikon-d5-shows-drop-in-dynamic-range

That's a harsher title than we've ever used on a Canon dynamic range article, which is odd considering your hypothesis that we somehow intentionally lie to favor Nikon and diss Canon.

Interestingly, you conveniently ignore when we praise Canon, claiming the 80D 'broke new ground' for Canon low ISO dynamic range: http://bit.ly/1YZe0GR. Could it be we're more interested in actual technology that helps photographers, and less interested in the brand?



privatebydesign said:


> Don't get me wrong, I don't give a darn about fairness, life isn't fair and nobody should expect it to be. But I hate with a passion people who lie while trying to pass themselves off as fair minded sources of unbiased information.



You are free to 'hate with a passion' all you want. But next time you call us a liar, it may strengthen your case to have at least one controlled test that disproves even one point we've made.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Jack Douglas said:
> 
> 
> > There is a difference between lying and inadvertently misrepresenting the truth or making an incorrect statement out of ignorance, etc. I think we should be considerate in how we describe other folk relative to motives.  Especially those who are saddled with somewhat thankless jobs.
> ...



That's the one thing you've written that is 100% true.
-Rishi


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## Sporgon (May 1, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> This gets back to the point I made earlier: you may not even know you're missing something if you never had it at all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## scyrene (May 1, 2016)

thetechhimself said:


> I look at Ken Rockwell for a rounded opinion



LOL


----------



## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

So if a review praises the camera dozens of times and criticizes it a few times then it is biased against it? I don't think so......

I have found that DPR does the best reviews of any of the review sites. Could they be better? Of course they could..... there is always room for improvement as perfection is something to be strived for, yet never obtained.... 

I thought it was a very well done review. My only complaint with it is the fascination that the camera industry has with ISO 100 and would have liked to see more tests done at high ISO like 3200 or 6400 so the readers get an idea of the relative merits of cameras when you start to push things a bit.....

But overall, it was well done, well organized, and easy to read.


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



The info for shooting at ISO100 is great for landscape photographers and those shooting with relatively short lenses in good light, but as the quantity of light drops, lenses get longer, and subjects start to move quickly you find that you need high ISO.

Let's say you are shooting at 600mm on a crop camera.... you generally need twice the focal length for the shutter speed so you are shooting at 1/1200th of a second, or double that if it is moving quickly, like a bird in flight, sports, or the bride after 12 cups of capuchino.... Since you are shooting with an 80D, it is a fair bet that you did not get the $18,000 Canon F4 lens and instead are shooting with a Sigma or a Tamron 150-600 so your minimum aperture is 6.3..... but more likely 8 to get a bit more sharpness out of the lens.

At ISO 100, 1/2400th of a second, and F8, you will need 18EV of light..... and since shooting in a snow covered background in full sun will only get you as far as EV16, your choices are to bring along a flash powerful to light up that bird 200 meters away, hope for the sun to turn supernova, or crank up your ISO.

shooting in overcast conditions or early and late in the day gives you EV12... and OMG! all of a sudden you have to crank your ISO up to 3200 to keep your aperture and shutter speed....

most arenas are lit to EV9, sometime 10 for pro stadiums.... crank the ISO up further.

One of the big reasons people go for more capable cameras is to be able to handle more difficult conditions. It would be nice to see how they perform. This is not a "fascination that only canonrumors has", it is basic information that any photographer should have, be they shoot Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, or even (gasp) iPhone......


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > This gets back to the point I made earlier: you may not even know you're missing something if you never had it at all.
> ...


No, our real-world comparisons are perfectly ETTR'd - there is not even 1/3 EV headroom. We bracket hundreds of shots and take the one that is just short of clipping tones we wish to preserve in the Raw file, as explained repeatedly every time we present our results.

"If you had done the same thing with a D810 you would not have had the noise but you'd still have poor tonality" -- not any poorer tonality than a slightly higher ISO shot (a 4 EV push on the D810 gives you ~ISO 1000 quality shadows). Are you saying no self-respecting photographer shoots at ISO 800 or so on a D810?

As for your shot - I'm not sure you're aware, but completely defocusing the background decreases contrast severely = decreased DR. Even then, your image shows considerable noise (somewhat suppressed by noise reduction in DPP it looks like) that a D810 wouldn't have.

Old news, new news - I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. When we're reviewing a new camera, we're trying to show magnitude of different aspects of image quality. APS-C cameras have more high ISO noise than full-frame - old news, should we retire our studio scene?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 1, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Yes, we've had many, many thoughts, conversations, brainstorms with industry leaders about how we could design meaningful AF tests. What we have now in reviews is just a stop-gap; we are tirelessly working on how to actually build a repeatable set of AF tests that covers a wide variety of shooting situations. Needless to say, it's ridiculously difficult, which may partially be why no one - to my knowledge - has succeeded just yet.
> 
> Rishi



Good luck on finding a meaningful AF test Rishi. I ran a aerospace laboratory before retiring, and as a engineer, I know that even seemingly simple tests can stir up controversy. I know just enough about autofocus to realize that there are just two many parameters involved, and one system may be more sensitive to one or more of the parameters than others. Who's to say which is more important? The last thing I'd want to see is a poor specification for autofocus measurement where innovation was limited by the need to score high on that particular test. I suspect that manufacturers feel that way as well. I spent many hours and days attending SAE meetings where representatives of manufacturers had big lists of reasons to stop the user community from implementing a specification that their product line did not meet. Then, everyone would band together to prevent ISO from implementing specifications designed to give other nations a advantage. Everyone ganged up against China. (They would all deny this, of course)

Some of the parameters involved in autofocus are color, distance, available light, ambient temperature, lens aperture, a lens itself, the list is probably much longer.

It would be nice to actually have meaningful measurements, but, for now, I am relying on reading the thoughts of multiple experienced shooters who handle multiple brands. Then, I pick a system that seems to excel at what I do.

I personally think that on-sensor autofocus is going to be the standard going forward, but its not quite there yet.

Although some CR members are hard core Canon shooters, I've owned Canon, Nikon, and Minolta DSLR's and even more brands of P&S bodies.

I welcome the thoughtful comments by shooters of all brands. Insights into operation, strong and weak points are something we should all be interested in.


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, we've had many, many thoughts, conversations, brainstorms with industry leaders about how we could design meaningful AF tests. What we have now in reviews is just a stop-gap; we are tirelessly working on how to actually build a repeatable set of AF tests that covers a wide variety of shooting situations. Needless to say, it's ridiculously difficult, which may partially be why no one - to my knowledge - has succeeded just yet.
> ...



I doubt that there will ever be a "fair" comparison of AF between brands..... AF is a system function and can not be isolated to a camera body or a camera lens....and it is impractical to test all possible combinations. Just sticking with current Canon EOS, you have 15 bodies and 78 lenses, that's 1,170 tests.... and that's before teleconverters and third party lenses......

Let's say you decide on a particular focal length as the standard..... odds are that the brand with the newest lens wins top marks, but change focal lengths and now another brand wins.....

You could decide to use a common lens, lets say a Sigma XXmm lens..... the tests would show how well the various cameras worked with that lens, but the data would not be indicative of how it works with lenses native to the system.

In the end, you would have a complex system where people fixate on perceived faults because "that's not the way I do things", and human nature being what it is, will never manage to move past that....

Don't make the mistake of DXO and try to dumb things down to a single number. Any attempt to represent a complex system used by diverse operators for diverse goals under diverse conditions is ******* to failure. You might already be as good as things get and further attempts at quantifying may be counter-productive


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > I recon you were about two to three stops under where you could have been and still hold highlights in the evening sky.
> ...



That woooshing sound you hear is Sporgon's point flying over your head.


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## Orangutan (May 1, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, we've had many, many thoughts, conversations, brainstorms with industry leaders about how we could design meaningful AF tests. What we have now in reviews is just a stop-gap; we are tirelessly working on how to actually build a repeatable set of AF tests that covers a wide variety of shooting situations. Needless to say, it's ridiculously difficult, which may partially be why no one - to my knowledge - has succeeded just yet.
> ...



I have a lot of respect for your opinion, and I mostly agree with what you've said above. The two points I would make are these: imperfect criteria should not stop testers from trying to develop more objective tests; and human experience is far more subject to error than imperfect tests. Confirmation bias is unavoidable in anything that involves this much human experience. 

With a sufficiently large budget it would be possible to create an objective and reasonable test rig; I just don't know that any review site has the cash for it.


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



We don't blame you for your lack of comprehension, as we all know there's always ample light and subjects never move...in dilbertland.


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


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


unfortunately, some us have had to shoot musicians with a F1.4 lens and crank the ISO up to 12800 to get the shutter speed down to 1/100 of a second because flash was not allowed...... Many of us do not buy cameras for their low ISO performance as we seldom use it. If you live your life at ISO 100, then good for you..... but be nice to those who need something more.

I'll bet that very few of the pictures from Neuro's 1DX were at ISO 100.... Myself, out of 34,726 pictures shot with my 7D2, 160 were at ISO100....


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > Let's say you are shooting at 600mm on a crop camera....
> ...



Your comments just get ever more asinine. I'm sure nobody owns any of the multiple 3rd party 150-600mm zooms in the $800-2000 range. Never see those at popular birding spots in dilbertland. : :


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



I guess you either understand saturation-based controlled tests, or you don't.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 1, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography and Don Haines- all excellent points, and duly noted. Thank you for your perspectives; they're ones we are definitely considering as we try and figure what is and isn't worth even attempting.

Rishi


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Who owns a 600mm lens? Not your average punter that will read reviews on DPR.


Yet somehow, Sigma and Tamron are selling 150-600 lenses like popcorn and Nikon is having a hard time supplying 200-500 lenses because of the huge demand......



dilbert said:


> This is why you have IS and why the "stops rating" of IS is beneficial. A "3 stops IS" system brings 1/1200 down to 1/150.


True, but it does not slow down the wings so you still need a high shutter speed.



dilbert said:


> A bird that is 200m away is going to be small even with a 600mm lens.


OK, bad example, replace bird with Bambi. Here's a shot of Bambi taken at 600mm on a heavily overcast day (light snowfall) and cropped to get in closer.....



dilbert said:


> To be honest, most everything looks crap on overcast days when there is no sunlight because colors are muted. Or maybe those that shoot ISO 3200 and above don't like color very much? Would explain a lot.


You could be right..... look at my second shot of the squirrel... 600mm, overcast day, and there does not seem to be much colour......

Look, everyone understands that colour and DR are better at low ISO, but sometimes you need higher ISO and we live with the limitations it causes. We would all like more, but we have to live in the present.



dilbert said:


> If low ISO represents the majority of photographs or at least the majority of photographs that people like (and thus end up on flickr's front page), it would seem to me to be a sensible move to talk more about camera performance at ISO 100 than at ISO 6400.
> 
> How often is it mentioned here that 80% or 90% (I forget which) of Canon DSLRs never see a lens on them aside from the one bought when the camera is mentioned. That's 80%-90% of Canon DSLRs that will never see a 600mm lens on them. Yet you want DPR to put more focus on a camera setting that will serve maybe 10% (probably) less of Canon DSLR owners.


of course it's the minority. Anyone who buys a higher end camera, like the 80D, is in the minority. People who shoot RAW are in the minority. People not using the green box mode are in the minority. People who use lightroom or more than the basic functionality of DPR are in the minority. CR members are in the minority. People who read DPR are in the minority. DPR does not target the vast bulk of camera owners, they target the minority who are their target audience..... and that is a good thing. This minority is the group of people most likely to push their gear and to them, performance away from base levels is of greater concern to them than it is to the general public.


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## scyrene (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Who owns a 600mm lens? Not your average punter that will read reviews on DPR.



Most people don't, but there are plenty of enthusiast-affordable lenses that go to the mid hundreds of mm now, like the X-600mm f/6.3 mentioned. Your *average* punter won't even read through a twenty page review.



dilbert said:


> "you generally need twice the focal length for the shutter speed so you are shooting at 1/1200th of a second"
> 
> This is why you have IS and why the "stops rating" of IS is beneficial. A "3 stops IS" system brings 1/1200 down to 1/150.



You've got a point, but have missed another. You can't generally shoot birds at 1/150sec. They move. Even perched birds move enough that this is generally too slow. 1/250-320 is in my experience the lower limit. IS is very useful but has its limitations - shooting wildlife isn't as reliant on short exposures as sports/action but it is fairly reliant on them.



dilbert said:


> .
> A bird that is 200m away is going to be small even with a 600mm lens.



Again, I can only assume you have little experience with bird photography. Yes it'll be small, but 200m is by no means excessive in this genre. Also depends a lot on the size of the bird!



dilbert said:


> Most people don't take photos with 600mm lenses on overcast days of birds flying.



<Citation needed>. It's not the best, but it is done. You may not choose to do it, but since when are you the arbiter of what is allowed?



dilbert said:


> To be honest, most everything looks crap on overcast days when there is no sunlight because colors are muted. Or maybe those that shoot ISO 3200 and above don't like color very much? Would explain a lot.



Now you've way overreached. Actually lots of things look good on overcast days - sometimes they look *better* because of the reduced contrast and more neutral colours. You're being excessively narrow-minded as to what constitutes normal/reasonable/acceptable photographic conditions. I'd add that you wouldn't do much shooting at all in a lot of the world if you took this attitude...



dilbert said:


> Last time I checked the photos on the front page of flickr, there were vastly more photos ISO 100-800 than there were 1600 and above.



There could be a lot of reasons for that. According to Flickr's own blog http://blog.flickr.net/en/2015/12/18/top-cameras-and-brands-on-flickr-in-2015/, the top 6 camera models for 2015 were iPhones - which don't even have ISO settings of 3200-6400. So there's a sampling bias. To state you can deduce what most DSLR customers want or need from this is... absurd, to say the least.



dilbert said:


> So yes, canonrumors has an obsession with high ISO that is generally not representative of the wider population.



Absolutely - but you are even less representative than us, judging by what you say. And your pronouncements on the average camera buyer are at least as biased by your own experience and judgment as everyone else here.


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## Sporgon (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



Indeed. I thought I'd been pretty clear in my analysis. Ah well.


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...


seems like a mis-understanding.... perhaps you could explain your reasoning in greater detail so our guest will understand what you meant.....


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

Don Haines said:


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



Did you read the post to which Sporgon provided a link, with examples from PBD? What was unclear?


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


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


I got it.... and I agree with it.... I was wondering about our guest.....

We often run out of DR and have to choose how best to expose our image (what to keep, what to throw away). Following a hard rule like ETR means always throwing away from the same side, where artistically, you are often better off throwing away from the other end of the range, or a bit from each....

The problem with a review site is that they have to do it the same way for everyone, so from the point of view of a standard, ETR makes perfect sense..... it is repeatable and easily measured. I think there is nothing with saying/showing what happens when things get raised 4 or 5 stops. It is good valid information. It tells us not to do it. It tells us that if we expose for 2 or 3 more stops and then only raise it two in post production, that we will have better results.


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## unfocused (May 1, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> So if a review praises the camera dozens of times and criticizes it a few times then it is biased against it? I don't think so......
> 
> I have found that DPR does the best reviews of any of the review sites. Could they be better? Of course they could..... there is always room for improvement as perfection is something to be strived for, yet never obtained....
> 
> ...



A voice of reason in a largely unreasonable thread. 

I really don't get the obsession that otherwise rational people on this forum have developed with DPR. These are reviews. Very thorough reviews actually. And, it's the reviewers right (no it's their) obligation to give their opinion. Just because you disagree with their opinion, that doesn't mean they are wrong and you are right. 

I completely get the complaints about DXO, which uses pseudo-science to extrapolate broad interpretations from tiny data points and then oversprays their ratings with one-size-fits-all generalizations. 

But, that's not the case with DPR or the Digital Picture. How many of us have tested multiple copies of Canon and Nikon cameras side by side and attempted to write fair, but honest, reviews highlighting the good and criticizing the bad? 

And, as I've said before, I *want* to know what these reviewers don't like about Canon cameras. That's what makes a review useful.

Don, I completely agree with your point about the fascination with low ISO. Dynamic range at base ISO is mildly interesting, but largely irrelevant for many (probably most) photographers. 

On the other hand, I am intrigued by this new concept promoted by DPR of ISO independent sensors. It does seem very useful to me to be able to set your exposure based on the necessary shutter speed and f-stop and then raise that underexposed image in post. What I would like to know more about, however, is the relative benefits/drawbacks. Is it now better, for example, to shoot a subject at ISO 400 and underexpose by four stops, than to shot at ISO 6400 and expose properly.

Those are the comparisons I hope to begin seeing on sites like DPR.


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## 3kramd5 (May 1, 2016)

unfocused said:


> What I would like to know more about, however, is the relative benefits/drawbacks. Is it now better, for example, to shoot a subject at ISO 400 and underexpose by four stops, than to shot at ISO 6400 and expose properly.



The whole concept of "invariance" (a term they use to describe sensors which have a relatively constant read noise) is that it makes no difference; it's neither better nor worse. Underexposing in camera and lifting in post may facilitate better highlight detail (since you can lift selectively in lost versus only globally in camera) at potentially the expense of shadow detail.


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

unfocused said:


> I completely get the complaints about DXO, which uses pseudo-science to extrapolate broad interpretations from tiny data points and then oversprays their ratings with one-size-fits-all generalizations.
> 
> But, that's not the case with DPR or the Digital Picture.



Sony a7R II, DPR Overall Score 90%
Nikon D7200, DPR Overall Score 84%
Canon 5DIII, DPR Overall Score 82%

'Cuz, you know, accurate and unbiased DPR doesn't use a one-size-fits-all generalization. :

TDP, on the other hand, doesn't rate or score, and doesn't review Nikon (for which they provide only standardized ISO12233 and Imatest data for their lenses).


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## zim (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I completely get the complaints about DXO, which uses pseudo-science to extrapolate broad interpretations from tiny data points and then oversprays their ratings with one-size-fits-all generalizations.
> ...



and to make matters worse these overall scores are points in time

Canon 7D, DPR Overall Score 84%

It's exactly the same trap DxO have fallen into but I have hope for DPR unlike DxO


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## unfocused (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Seriously, your comment above sounds like sulking to me.



A much as it pains me to say this, Dilbert is right.

What is it about "review" that people don't understand. It's like boys arguing over who is hotter, Lois Lane or Lana Lang. It doesn't matter.


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## 3kramd5 (May 1, 2016)

Is there such a thing as "general photographer?" If so, "he/she who relies primarily on smartphones" is the leading candidate. Anyway, the myriad use cases for cameras makes ranking them a fool's errand.


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

dilbert said:


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


I think you missed the part where I said that we CR readers and DPR readers are in the minority.... If you want to representative of the general photographer, go pick up a phone and snap away. If you want to be representative of the general DSLR user, shoot with your one and only kit lens, in green box mode, save in jpg, and other than crop the image, never process it.

For them (or us) to target the average user would be to forget those interested in your product in order to cater to those who will never read it....


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2016)

unfocused said:


> What is it about "review" that people don't understand. It's like boys arguing over who is hotter, Lois Lane or Lana Lang. It doesn't matter.



What it is, is that most boys don't describe themselves as unbiased reviewers of superhero girlfriends, whereas DPR claims to be an unbiased camera review site, and their own website fails to support that contention. 

Besides, Lana Lang is clearly hotter...


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## Don Haines (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > What is it about "review" that people don't understand. It's like boys arguing over who is hotter, Lois Lane or Lana Lang. It doesn't matter.
> ...


It doesn't matter, neither of them shoot with a Canon.......


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## Woody (May 1, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> What it is, is that most boys don't describe themselves as unbiased reviewers of superhero girlfriends, whereas DPR claims to be an unbiased camera review site, and their own website fails to support that contention.



Well said.


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## Monchoon (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



Do you not comprehend what Don Wrote?


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> ...doesn't get it...



Describes you perfectly.


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## Orangutan (May 2, 2016)

Caveat: I have not read the review, so I don't have an opinion on this specific item; I'm just addressing some points about your post.




> And, it's the reviewers right (no it's their) obligation to give their opinion.


Opinions can exist only in the absence of factual information. One can't have an opinion about gravity, one simply measures it. It can be measured using good methods or not. To the extent that a web site claims to be doing objective testing, there is no room for opinion. That said, they can have an opinion as to whether the aggregate of qualities meet a subjectively-defined need.



> And, as I've said before, I *want* to know what these reviewers don't like about Canon cameras. That's what makes a review useful.


I think everyone does; the question is whether those conclusions are arrived at legitimately. Again, I have no opinion on this article, I'm just dismayed at the people saying reviews are subjective. Nope.


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## Don Haines (May 2, 2016)

Monchoon said:


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


probably not....
Most car drivers do not read "Road and Track"
Most people with bicycles do not read "Cyclist"
Most people who listen to radios do not read "IEEE Spectrum"
Most people who walk somewhere do not read "Walk!"
Most people with a cat do not read "Cat Fancy"
Most people with a camera do not read DPR, Canon Rumors, and think DR is someone with a medical degree....
There is a pattern here....


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## Orangutan (May 2, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> No, our real-world comparisons are perfectly ETTR'd - there is not even 1/3 EV headroom. We bracket hundreds of shots and *take the one that is just short of clipping tones we wish to preserve in the Raw file*, as explained repeatedly every time we present our results.



I wonder if this is the problem. Perhaps in future reviews you could publish several of your bracketed shots so readers could decide for themselves which tones they would choose to preserve in the raw file.


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## Don Haines (May 2, 2016)

when people leave in disgust, it does not mean that you won the debate or that your point of view is valid.

Goodbye.

If sanity returns, so shall I..... but I expect to be silent on this thread.


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## 3kramd5 (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Low ISO is where the camera is meant to perform best.



Can you point to any evidence that camera designers intend their products to perform better at one setting than another?

You could state perhaps that by some measures (e.g. dynamic range) cameras *do* perform better at low ISO (and by other measures, e.g. amplification, they perform better at high ISO). But to state they are supposed to perform better at low ISO is a huge stretch.


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## Monchoon (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Monchoon said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...


Why? It has no bearing on what Don wrote.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Low ISO is where the camera is meant to perform best.
> ...



Evidence is anathema to dilbert. 

As for evidence of where camera designers intend best performance, perhaps dilbert should consider the D5's performance at ISO 100 compared to its predecessors.


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## unfocused (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > Don, I completely agree with your point about the fascination with low ISO. Dynamic range at base ISO is mildly interesting, but largely irrelevant for many (probably most) photographers.
> ...



I live in the Midwest. We have snow and ice and even a few curves. So, no, I really could not care less about how a car performs on dry, straight track. I want to know how it performs in my world.

Same with my cameras. I live in a high ISO world. My clients expect me to bring back publishable pictures and they don't know or care about the lighting conditions. It's not academic for me. It's bread and butter. I want to know how a camera performs at high ISO.


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## unfocused (May 2, 2016)

Spock said:


> You people should all be ashamed of yourselves.
> 
> You are arguing with a troll. Nothing good can come out of this. No logical argument can ever be presented and discussed. This can never be resolved because the troll is doing this on purpose and you are all feeding it's disruptive behavior.
> 
> The only way to end this is to ban the troll from the site.



Dilbert is pretty much the official troll of the Canon Rumors site. We know his traits very well. Sometimes you have to keep one troll around and feed him occasionally. It's the price we pay to keep other trolls from moving in and overrunning the village.


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## RustyTheGeek (May 2, 2016)

Oh the DRAMA! :


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## ritholtz (May 2, 2016)

It did so bad in their AF test through the viewfinder test. Not sure where did reviewer start focusing at the beginning. Even 1st pic itself is not properly focused by camera. Out of 16, only 13th frame is in proper focus.


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## Woody (May 2, 2016)

ritholtz said:


> It did so bad in their AF test through the viewfinder test. Not sure where did reviewer start focusing at the beginning. *Even 1st pic itself is not properly focused by camera*. Out of 16, only 13th frame is in proper focus.



 ;D


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## bdunbar79 (May 2, 2016)

ritholtz said:


> It did so bad in their AF test through the viewfinder test. Not sure where did reviewer start focusing at the beginning. Even 1st pic itself is not properly focused by camera. Out of 16, only 13th frame is in proper focus.



It's called the Idiot Method.


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## Alex_M (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> ... Why is DPR more exposed? As an example, if you look on the Amazon web page for the 80D, you will find mention of dpreview's review. At the very least, everyone that goes to Amazon to purchase a Canon 80D will be presented with a link to the DPR review of the 80D.



because of this:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/1690663587/amazonacquiresdpreview


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## scyrene (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



It may not interest *you*, but I thought you were talking about what 'most photographers' think. If you're now admitting you're just speaking for yourself then there's no problem. (There's no way *most people* would take shots like this, but just dismissing it because *you* don't see the value in it is not enough to demonstrate the opposing view is irrelevant or worthless).




> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > To be honest, most everything looks crap on overcast days when there is no sunlight because colors are muted. Or maybe those that shoot ISO 3200 and above don't like color very much? Would explain a lot.
> ...



Portraits of birds, photographs of flowers, some portraits and architecture...Flat/soft light can be very useful*. Are you just talking about landscapes and birds in flight? You're extraordinarily closed-minded. That's fine, you have that right, but again please don't pretend your personal view is universal, or even mainstream (it may be the latter, but nothing you've said so far demonstrates that).

*Ironically, all these people who say they want better shadow lifting capabilities are aiming for images with less contrast. One easy way to achieve that is to shoot when the light is softer.



dilbert said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > You're being excessively narrow-minded as to what constitutes normal/reasonable/acceptable photographic conditions. I'd add that you wouldn't do much shooting at all in a lot of the world if you took this attitude...
> ...



Northern Europe, the Pacific Northwest, anywhere under dense tree cover... Anywhere on the map in this article that is white (showing average cloudiness) http://www.livescience.com/50824-cloudiest-places-on-earth-nasa-image.html



dilbert said:


> Or maybe in not being representative of the average CR shooter I'm more representative of the average Joe.



Maybe you are, maybe you're not. To demonstrate your views are representative, perhaps you could, I dunno, provide evidence that the average/mainstream view lines up with your own. Just spouting your own opinions and *saying* they are clearly sensible or obvious isn't enough. I provide my own countervailing view - so we have 50:50 out of a sample size of two. Hardly compelling. (The difference is, I admit my own views are not usually mainstream - I have no pretensions of being 'representative'. I'd rather be openminded, rational and evidence-based but each to their own).


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## scyrene (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


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



I think this is at the heart of the disagreement here. Some people (naming no names) think that their world is the *only* world that matters, and people with different needs are just wrong. Some of us use high ISO more than low. Apparently we're stupid for even bothering...


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## Mikehit (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


> "ISO 100" is meant to be where there is "no" amplification of the signal from the sensor.


I thought it was 'base ISO' not 'ISO 100'?


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

scyrene said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > To be honest, most everything looks crap on overcast days when there is no sunlight because colors are muted. Or maybe those that shoot ISO 3200 and above don't like color very much? Would explain a lot.
> ...




+1

Sure, pictures _of_ an overcast sky are usually not satisfying, but it's often much better to take pictures of some subjects _lit by_ an overcast sky. There's a reason I carry a pop-open diffuser when I'm out shooting flowers. 

But I suppose people lacking in creativity might have trouble seeing the benefits of soft lighting.


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## Sporgon (May 2, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Here in lies the irony of the latest tech: a superior, more advanced product can encourage an inferior result. Instead of using sound techniques the photographer can simply satisfy himself by suppressing highlights, lifting shadows, but the output from this lasted tech will be inferior to muggins with his old out of date 5D using grads or backet and blend or reflectors or, or, or,,,,,,,so it goes on. 

I began to fall into this trap myself, not from shadow lifting ability because I normally am_ increasing_ shadows, but from the high iso performance of the 6D compared with the 5DII. In building where I had to work quickly for my panoramic interiors I began to use the 6D at high iso and hand hold with IS. Its much easier to do a fast sweeping panoramic hand held when I don't want people moving in the frame. Now although the modern tech has meant that these results are competent they do not match the technical results I get from 100 iso on a solid tripod. 

Now I'm not for one minute suggesting that in some minor niche areas a camera such as the D810 isn't better and more advanced than a 5DIII, or 5Ds, but everything has to be given a context, otherwise it becomes meaningless, and this is where a review site such as DPR is going off track IMO in order to try and find differences in the cameras to report on. The 5Ds shot that they did of the girl with fill flash taken half an hour after sunset into the western sky which then had shadows lifted in post was not given any context - apart from the exposure information that actually told the story. Anyone who was not better informed would read that and think that you get awful noise if you lift 5Ds shadows a stop or so.

Incidentally somewhere in this thread Rishi states in his defence that he wrote in DPR something like "the 80D has much improved DR over previous Canon cameras". Yet in the summary of pros and cons of the camera in the cons they say something like "less DR than rivals". Yes you can lift shadows four stops on the 80D but six stops on the Sonikon whatever. Context has gone out of the window. 6 stops. Jeez, many scenes haven't even got a 6 stop EV range. 

Be a brave lad rishi and send me that raw file: [email protected]


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## Orangutan (May 2, 2016)

Maybe we could change this thread from a list of complaints to a list of suggestions. What sincere, legitimate changes would you have DPR make to its procedures to improve the objectivity of their review? I'll start:

(quoting self)


Orangutan said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > No, our real-world comparisons are perfectly ETTR'd - there is not even 1/3 EV headroom. We bracket hundreds of shots and take the one that is just short of clipping tones we wish to preserve in the Raw file, as explained repeatedly every time we present our results.
> ...


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## Mikehit (May 2, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> Yes you can lift shadows four stops on the 80D but six stops on the Sonikon whatever.



That is something that is bemusing me at the moment. More and more reviews/comments talk about thing slike 'ah, but with the XXX camera you can lift shadows 6 stops with no noise but with YYY it is only 3 stops'.
My questions are:

- why would you ever want to (other than rectifying a complete cock-up at the time of the picture)
- if it is not a case of 'wanting to' then what does that comparison tell you about photography in the real world ?
- If it does tell you something, how often is it a real-world advantage ?

Or is it another case of desperately trying to find a difference so they have something to report on?


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## 3kramd5 (May 2, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



Congratulations for almost explaining why (by some measures) cameras happen to perform better at low ISO, but I asked for you to point to evidence that they are "meant to."

Given all the effort expended to expand ISO ranges up, but not down, it seems very likely they are meant to perform well, if not best, at high ISO, even if physics preclude them from for example having their widest DR (which is again only one measure of performance) when set that way.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sure, pictures _of_ an overcast sky are usually not satisfying



Then again, just because the sky is gray when you take the shot, doesn't mean you have to leave it that way...


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## jebrady03 (May 2, 2016)

I gotta admit... I'm a little disappointed in myself. I read every reply until about halfway through the thread, and then started scrolling and just scanning for posts by Rishi. I'm not sure why it took me so long but I'll do my best to recall and correct my mistake going forward when I know he's posting.

For the rest of you, here's what I propose... Since you all seem to have the money to buy high end gear, you should all, also, have sufficient money to buy a one way ticket to a central location, plus 10%. Bring your gear with you. Upon arrival, introduce yourselves to one another. Then... you should all get drunk snort a BUNCH of coke. No... wait... meth! Yeah. Do that. Then, when you're all RAGING on meth (actually, scratch that... go with bath salts!), begin to bludgeon each other with your gear and eat each other's faces. Lenses AND bodies are allowed. Bonus points to whoever brings a camera sling and uses it like a makeshift ball and chain! Whoever the sole survivor is, you get the cumulative "10%" I mentioned earlier to purchase a ticket and fly to an exotic locale of your choosing.  Upon arrival and entry into the country, you'll be stripped of your passport and any form of money or communication, and driven out into the wilderness to fend for yourself. Should you manage to make it back to civilization alive, at that point, I have to assume, you'll realize that arguing with all of your fellow CR members was a complete waste of time and energy and that you'll never do it again. You'll then be welcomed back to CR.

Back to Rishi. Glad to see you around man. I really enjoy your posts. I also enjoy your balance of assertiveness and humility. You seem like a really good dude and although you're walking into the lion's den (covered in blood and shouting "look at me") just by using your real name and association to DPR, I really admire your desire to come here and educate AS WELL AS learn from the VERY vocal minority. It's incredibly ballsy and humble as well. The crew here isn't exactly unbiased. And in many, there's a battle raging within between being ignorant and outspoken; on any given day, one trait can win over the other in those individuals.

I sincerely hope you'll stick around and should you choose to do so, I look forward to your future posts!


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## ritholtz (May 2, 2016)

There is no excuse for 80D to perform worst in focusing test through view finder which is a core DSLR strength.
I would like to see another source (Michael) to do the test and confirm this. If it is really the case with 80d, then no excuse of Canon. It is worst DSLR camera Canon made ( 1 frame in focus out of 16 frames). I remember DPR review on d7100 and 70d, Where they went with similar tangent like d7100 being class leading in AF test and 70d is not up to the task (not those blurry pics issue with center point). Then Michael did a epic comparison and showed us 70d actually did better than d7100 in AF test ;D ;D.

Checking out the summary of review on main page, feels like it is an advertisement for a6300. Don't get me wrong, I am also liking what I see from a6300. As and when Sony updates their kit lens (16-50 is actually very wide for kit lens) and throw in some cheap glass (looking at sigma to do those 17-50/70 lens), I am going switch to Sony. But that summary page is written by Sony marketing department.

Come on, it is not completely inferior to the a6300 on paper except for 4k video. 80d live view performance is good. 80d can focus better in low light in live view compared to a6300 ;D ;D. Regarding D7200 and 80D are both starting to look a bit old fashioned compared to to the current crop of 4K-capable mirrorless APS-C cameras (like the Sony a6300), who else is doing 4k other than Sony a6300??  

d7200 is almost same as a6300 and d500 in terms of very high Iso performance. 80d is definitely not up to a6300 at very high iso performance. 80d is actually worst in high iso performance during video. In terms of video, Canon did worst with 80d.


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## Bernd FMC (May 2, 2016)

I´ve got the 80D since a few Weeks - and the Focusing via ViewFinder is working very Well.

So you should not waste much Time with "Test´s" .

Get out and use your Gear !

Bernd


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## unfocused (May 2, 2016)

Mikehit said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > Yes you can lift shadows four stops on the 80D but six stops on the Sonikon whatever.
> ...



I used to think like that, until I started looking into it.

Here is my understanding.

Let's say you are shooting a basketball game. You know you need to shoot at 1/800 of a second to stop any action. Your lens has a maximum aperture of f2.8. The traditional approach is to ratchet up the ISO to get to your minimum required shutter speed and aperture. But, when you do so, you know you are introducing noise into the image and eventually the noise will make the image unusable. 

With these sensors, the idea is that you can set your shutter speed and aperture but instead of changing the ISO, you leave it where it is and just underexpose. Then, in post, you can raise the exposure with less noise than if you'd increased the ISO.

Now, that does sound brilliant and very valuable. 

It is also why I'd like to see some comparisons between the two methods to see if the promised advantages really exist or not and if they are sufficient to make a difference in the real world. If it does work, it really would change the way we shoot and process our images.


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## Sporgon (May 2, 2016)

Mikehit said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > Yes you can lift shadows four stops on the 80D but six stops on the Sonikon whatever.
> ...



- to get a better quality image on a camera that has no meter or exposure controls of any kind
- some review sites have gravitated down into a cesspit of minutiae 
- refer to first answer ! 

Yes, a review site will want to be able to differentiate, and as all the cameras are capable of producing superb results in challenging conditions, it's going to come down to lifting shadows six stops. Six stops ! Many normal scenes don't even have an EV range of six stops ! Transparency film, favoured by multitudes from 1950s to 2000 had a range of about eight stops maximum. 

I've had my fair share of cars in my time, and have driven most of the racing circuits in GB. One thing that I came to realise was that the normal road cars that reviewers enjoyed testing the most were not the best ones for me to use on the roads day in day out. It's inevitable really, who wants to review a boring, soft car that gets the job done with ease and reliability day in day out ? Ring any parallel bells ?


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## Sporgon (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


> Mikehit said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



Are you suggesting that a post process lift gives less noise than on a decent high ISO performing camera ? Altering ISO on a Canon is so fast ......


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## unfocused (May 2, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I used to think like that, until I started looking into it.
> ...



I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just repeating my understanding of what the reviewers are saying. I'd like to see examples. But, if true, I can see huge benefits. 

I'm about the least technical person on this forum, but I'm guessing it comes down to two choices: 1) have the camera amplify the signal to match a target ISO (traditional method); or 2) bake more data into the raw file and then extract that data in post without introducing any noise caused by the camera's amplification of the signal.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


> I used to think like that, until I started looking into it.
> 
> Here is my understanding.
> 
> ...



I suggest you L ook harder. 

The idea is with an 'ISO invariant' sensor, if you shoot at base ISO and push in post, there's no difference compared to having set a higher ISO for the shot. With a sensor that's not 'ISO invariant', you're better off exposing properly when capturing the image. In other words, there's no penalty for a proper exposure with any sensor, but there is a penalty for drastically underexposure with some cameras (most cameras, actually – all Canon, many Nikon including the new flagship D5, etc.).

So what you're calling 'brilliant and very valuable' is actually a conscious choice to make more work for yourself in post (pushing every shot) instead of just using the appropriate ISO for the conditions. It's a cool trick, but I bet that those who try it soon go back to changing their ISO in-camera.


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## unfocused (May 2, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I used to think like that, until I started looking into it.
> ...



Nevermind then. 

I suppose it could still be useful in some situations, but not nearly as interesting as I had hoped.


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## Refurb7 (May 2, 2016)

Dpreview famously "proved" that the Sony A7R2 could focus in very low light as fast as a Nikon D750 or a Canon 5Ds. They did so by using the Sony with its native FE 35/1.4 lens, and using the Nikon and Canon with a Sigma 50/1.4 Art lens. 

Wait ... read that again. Yes, they actually used the Sony with Sony's own lens and it's a wide angle. And they used the Nikon and the Canon with the harder-to-focus 50mm focal length from a 3rd party.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6884391759/sony-alpha-7r-ii-can-match-or-beat-dslr-low-light-af-performance


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## RustyTheGeek (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


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



I shoot high ISO pretty often. For years I have simply tried to raise the ISO as much as I could stand without terrible noise (1600 - 3200, occasionally more if it's super dark) and get a slightly under exposed image that I could push in post. I can tweak a lot of things but if I don't get the shot in focus, that can't be fixed.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 2, 2016)

Refurb7 said:


> Dpreview famously "proved" that the Sony A7R2 could focus in very low light as fast as a Nikon D750 or a Canon 5Ds. They did so by using the Sony with its native FE 35/1.4 lens, and using the Nikon and Canon with a Sigma 50/1.4 Art lens.
> 
> Wait ... read that again. Yes, they actually used the Sony with Sony's own lens and it's a wide angle. And they used the Nikon and the Canon with the harder-to-focus 50mm focal length from a 3rd party.
> 
> http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6884391759/sony-alpha-7r-ii-can-match-or-beat-dslr-low-light-af-performance



As we mentioned in many follow-up comments on that article - we followed up that test with on-brand 35mm primes on the Canon and Nikon bodies, and also using adapted Canon primes, as well as the very Sigma 50/1.4 we used in that test - on the Sony a7R II. We got the same result - but we didn't publish a whole separate article just for this. Perhaps we should have, to avoid these sorts of complaints.

Also, note that we didn't make claims of 'fast' or 'speed' -- the finding of that video/article was that the a7R II could PDAF down near -2EV to -3EV light levels with a fast lens, which was a surprising discovery (for us) and challenged widely held beliefs that on-sensor phase-detection gave up in low light. But only with fast lenses - with slower lenses, the a7R II falls well behind DSLRs, a point we clearly made and emphasized in that article.

Overall average speed of AF at lower light levels would of course be interesting to test, and it's something we're currently prototyping. Taking many many averages of AF attempts at lower and lower light levels. Like what Michael The Mentor does.

By the way, Michael The Mentor eventually came to the same conclusion about low light AF with the a7R II. 

This also reminds me: that same article/video showed a Nikon D810 massively failing - interesting given the consistent complaints that DPReview is owned by Nikon here.


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## 3kramd5 (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


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



Perhaps the biggest potential advantage is that if you underexpose in camera and lift in post, that push can be local (versus an ISO setting which is global). It may facilitate finer gradations within the highlights. 

That being said, although I own an "iso-invariant" camera, I don't shoot that way.


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## Refurb7 (May 2, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Refurb7 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ok, I see one has to read the comments to gather that you didn't make claims of "fast" or "speed", or that you redid the test to correct the basic flaw of using different focal lengths. (There are over 900 comments!)

Based on the title of the article ("Sony Alpha 7R II can match or beat DSLR low light AF performance") and statements like "The a7R II, when paired with a bright lens, can match or exceed the performance of the best DSLRs with respect to low-light AF ability" — _it sure sounded like you were making claims about speed_. I would guess that many photographers understood that to be a claim about speed (I did), as speed is a key aspect of AF performance.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> Perhaps the biggest potential advantage is that if you underexpose in camera and lift in post, that push can be local (versus an ISO setting which is global). It may facilitate finer gradations within the highlights.



Would drastically underexposing then locally pushing in post be advantageous over properly exposing (by which I mean not blowing highlights you want), then locally pulling in post?


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## rishi_sanyal (May 2, 2016)

unfocused said:


> Mikehit said:
> 
> 
> > Sporgon said:
> ...



Almost. It's a common misconception that it's the ISO amplification that adds noise, but the reverse is true: ISO amplification actually helps _reduce_ the noise that might result if you push in post. It's the decreased light levels available to the sensor when you deprive it of light (in low light, using high shutter speeds, e.g.) that lead to the higher noise levels, because of shot noise (http://bit.ly/shotnoise).

The advantage of ISO-invariant cameras is exactly as you describe: you can keep your focal plane exposure, determined by shutter speed and aperture, as required, but instead of using the high ISO required for a 'proper' exposure, dial the ISO right back down instead.

The advantage of doing this isn't that brightening in-post leads to lower noise levels than brightening in-camera, it's that brighter tones aren't amplified by the camera and clipped right out of the Raw file. In other words, decreasing your ISO setting by -X EV affords you X EV more highlight range. For an ISO-invariant camera, that comes at no _additional_ noise cost in the shadows/midtones that you have to selectively brighten later (compared to if the camera had brightened it via ISO amplification).

So, in the end, it's about saving highlights under high ISO conditions. And the ability to do so all comes down ISO-invariance, which is a direct result of low read noise, which is correlated with high base ISO dynamic range. Note - we're not ever encouraging one to underexpose indiscriminately. You only need to underexpose enough to keep highlights from clipping. But under high contrast scenes, and with the limited dynamic range high ISOs demonstrate (because of the shrinking effective full-well capacity from the amplification), those extra +X EV of highlights can mean the difference between blown and preserved highlights.

The information you're looking for - the noise cost to doing this amplification in-post vs. in-camera, is exactly what the ISO-invariance test I implemented shortly after joining DPReview is designed to test. We've been doign it for over a year now, so you should have a number of cameras you can compare. Here's a link to the widget: http://bit.ly/1QOqxHg

What's funny is that in the time since I developed that test, we got dual-gain (Aptina) architecture built-in to Sony cameras like the a7R, a7S II, a7S, a6300, etc. These cameras have a particular ISO where they switch the amplification at the pixel-level, which helps to decrease noise even if the camera itself doesn't have much downstream read noise (our typical metric for an ISO-invariant camera: less downstream read noise means less benefit to in-camera ISO amplification vs. brightening in-post). This is why the a7R II doesn't appear ISO-invariant in our test (that link I provided above), but that doesn't mean it has poor base ISO dynamic range. It just means that the in-pixel amplification switch at ISO 640 helps eke out that last bit of extra signal by elevating it very early on in the signal processing (to make it more immune to noise). It's like ISO amplification just earlier on up in the imaging chain. 

Apologies if that was a poor explanation - it's a little hard to wrap your head around at first! But it's the reason cameras like the a6300 are leading in terms of high ISO performance, and why the 42MP a7R II shows almost similar high ISO performance to even the Nikon D5 at high ISOs when normalized to equivalent size. The lack of dual-gain architecture is part of the reason the 80D falls well behind the a6300 at high ISO, though there must be another component, since it even falls behind the D7200 (the D7200 achieves a6300-esque high ISO performance without the dual-gain architecture, which is probably due to lower _upstream_ read noise). We'll have 1DX II results up soon - we're curious to see how it performs. But understand that at this point, we're talking 1/3EV or less increases in performance at best. And after a certain point, there won't be any more to gain from decreasing noise, because we already have such low levels of noise to begin with (input-referred read noise is down to like 1 electron or less for some of these sensors - effectively nil). The only way we'll see ISO performance increase in the future is via increases in actual efficiency (or sensor size, of course), because at this point we're limited by how much light you're capturing.

That's why the D5 and D500 barely showed any gains in high ISO performance. 

Here's a little more info on the a7R II's ISO-invariance; in the footnotes, I also explain this idea of dual-gain architecture: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7450523388/sony-alpha-7r-ii-real-world-iso-invariance-study.

Have a read of our read noise treatise here to get a better idea of what 'downstream read noise' is: http://bit.ly/readnoise.

Also, thanks jebrady03 - that's appreciated.


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## 3kramd5 (May 2, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> 3kramd5 said:
> 
> 
> > Perhaps the biggest potential advantage is that if you underexpose in camera and lift in post, that push can be local (versus an ISO setting which is global). It may facilitate finer gradations within the highlights.
> ...



I would not think there to be a difference between ETTR+pull and ETTL+push, provided you don't blow the highlights (which is substantially less likely with ETTL). 

Either way is too much work for me. I meter to the scene.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


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



Pragmatism – how refreshing!


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## rishi_sanyal (May 2, 2016)

ritholtz said:


> There is no excuse for 80D to perform worst in focusing test through view finder which is a core DSLR strength.
> I would like to see another source (Michael) to do the test and confirm this. If it is really the case with 80d, then no excuse of Canon. It is worst DSLR camera Canon made ( 1 frame in focus out of 16 frames). I remember DPR review on d7100 and 70d, Where they went with similar tangent like d7100 being class leading in AF test and 70d is not up to the task (not those blurry pics issue with center point). Then Michael did a epic comparison and showed us 70d actually did better than d7100 in AF test ;D ;D.
> 
> Checking out the summary of review on main page, feels like it is an advertisement for a6300. Don't get me wrong, I am also liking what I see from a6300. As and when Sony updates their kit lens (16-50 is actually very wide for kit lens) and throw in some cheap glass (looking at sigma to do those 17-50/70 lens), I am going switch to Sony. But that summary page is written by Sony marketing department.
> ...



Our AF tests are always done in triplicate, to rule out a one-off error. We used the same 70-200 F2.8L IS II that we use in all our Canon body tests, a lens that has performed just fine with the 5DS R, for example.

Also, I think you're looking at the rollover that conflates both subject tracking and depth-tracking. The single-point AF-C results showed approximately 50% of the frames in focus. Which is still a low hit-rate for a Canon DSLR in terms of AI Servo single-point.

So we're just as concerned as you are. We've just gotten a 2nd 80D in the office and will be repeating the tests to see if it's a copy thing, which'd be odd. We usually only test one body but given the odd result, we'll be following up.

Cheers,
Rishi


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Also, I think you're looking at the rollover that conflates both subject tracking and depth-tracking. The *single-point AF-C results* showed approximately 50% of the frames in focus. Which is still a low hit-rate for a Canon DSLR in terms of AI Servo single-point.



Thus, the earlier comment that DPR reads like the reviewers don't actually use Canon gear routinely, but rather use Canon gear solely for the purpose of reviewing it, is completely borne out. DPR natively speaks Nikon, I wonder what else is 'lost in translation'?


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Also, I think you're looking at the rollover that conflates both subject tracking and depth-tracking. The *single-point AF-C results* showed approximately 50% of the frames in focus. Which is still a low hit-rate for a Canon DSLR in terms of AI Servo single-point.
> ...



Except that AF-C, or some variant thereof, is the terminology used by Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Panasonic, and Olympus. Just not Canon. 

Because we write reviews for everyone, not just Canon users, we tend to use the term 'continuous AF' or 'AF-C'. This is actually something we've internally discussed.

I even did a 50/50, using both *'AF-C' and 'AI Servo'* in my post. Contrary to your assertion, I don't see anything 'borne out' other than an attempt to be as unbiased as possible.


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


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



Rishi - has your experimentation been sufficient to answer the question?

Is there a difference between shooting -X ISO and pushing it back up X, and metering to the tones you want to preserve and pulling back down (other than direction and magnitude in post)?


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



It seems that most of the gains (no pun intended) at high ISO are coming from NR and tech like aptina's DR-PIX, not merely lowering RN.

In any case, you are avoiding the question, which was if you can support the assertion that cameras are meant to work better at base ISO, rather than merely explain why they do as a consequence of the single measure of performance you're considering.


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## neuroanatomist (May 3, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...



When discussing the performance of a Canon dSLR, using the term AF-C to refer to a particular focus mode is simply incorrect. So you're '50/50' is half correct, and half wrong. I could also point out that you are posting on a Canon forum, where I suspect many people do not have a clue what AF-C means. 

Many of my friends and colleagues speak German, so in an effort to appear linguistically unbiased, I shall refer to DPR as voreingenommen.


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



"Work" better should have been "perform" better per the first quoted post, but I'll use them interchangeably: facilitate a desired result. 

So, say my desired result is a properly exposed image out of camera in low light and a stop motion shutter speed for a fast subject; clearly high ISO will perform better than low ISO. If on the other hand my desired result is to capture the greatest possible dynamic range out of camera, low ISO will perform better than high ISO.

By it's not my yardstick which is at question, it's the engineering team's yardstick, since they are the ones with the design intent ("meant to"). I bet a lot of them would say high ISO is their performance priority.


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## brad-man (May 3, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Whoever is without bias among you, let him be the first to cast a stone...


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


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



Eureka! That's why I phrased my initial question how I did.


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## bdunbar79 (May 3, 2016)

brad-man said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...



Problem with that is neuro's not running a big website claiming absolute scientific testing. I've stayed silent so far but I can't take anymore. I've worked as a physicist and as a chemist and this garbage is far from scientific and it is clearly biased. That's the only scientific aspect of the testing. Some of it was even done incorrectly or seemingly in a way to obtain predetermined desired results. Even if that weren't the intent, if a third party feels that way or gets that impression, then there is something wrong. Personally I ignore the BS and let the camera performance in real life do the talking. That's why I have 2 1Dx's and my AF never misses.


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## neuroanatomist (May 3, 2016)

brad-man said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...



Whosoever claimeth to be without bias, yet have proved that claim false, yea even before utterance, shall be condemned as a biaser and painted with a yellow N, that all may know and shunneth him. Verily.


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## brad-man (May 3, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> brad-man said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



OK. I just about shot my wad on verses. I'm afraid the "yellow N" reference went right over my head. Verily. Nice retort though.


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## neuroanatomist (May 3, 2016)

brad-man said:


> OK. I just about shot my wad on verses. I'm afraid the "yellow N" reference went right over my head. Verily. Nice retort though.



A play on Nathaniel Hawthorne. In retrospect, painted with a scarlet-orange alpha may have been a more obvious reference, albeit less fitting.


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 3, 2016)

_It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess. To be honest...I steer clear of DPR....the forum isn't a nice place to hang out, there's a lot of weird and frankly ruthless attitudes there and their reviews are just glorified eye candy. There's nothing in those reviews which do much for me..except maybe comparing iso noise between similar cameras. The original owner was very biased towards Canon and very open about his opinion. I think you'll find there's very few 1D series reviews, certainly no 1DX but you'll find every Nikon Dx series reviewed...all with glowing reviews...like the D4, which they failed to mention the numerous lockups and AF issues which plagued every pro photographer that I met using one. Which is why so many pros got frustrated with Noik and traded in for Canon and the (working) 1DX.
[/quote]_

I now refer to DP Review as DR Review since that is all they concentrate on. I'm surprised they haven't banned me yet because they don't like me saying that. I'm with you. I'm about done with DR Review. It's a nasty place in the comments section and getting worse. I do admit to throwing my two cents in but I try to be positive and not nasty. No matter. Negativity is king there as is Canon hate. Sony shooters seem to have a chip on their shoulder and Canon shooters a bulls eye on their back. I use a 60D, 70D and EOS M and I'm happy with them as are my customers with my results and that is what matters.

As for the 80D, it looks to be a fine camera. As for Sony I have nothing against them. Glad they are putting pressure on the other companies to improve. Competition is good. Being overly biased is not.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

Mr. Low Notes said:


> _It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess.
> _


_

Leaving aside the fact that that's simply insulting to our reviewer (not me), we repeat every test at least 3x. We always initiate focus on the biker while he's static, then ask him to start coming towards the camera. If it didn't get an 'initial lock' on 3 tries on a static biker, you might say there's a problem. And that was with single-point 'One Shot'. 

I'm an uncertain of how that is an 'Idiot Method'. Also, claiming intended bias here would require every single one of our reviewers happens to be biased, or is forced to have a brand-specific bias by management. Readers of this site (and ours) should ask themselves how likely that would be.



Mr. Low Notes said:



To be honest...I steer clear of DPR....the forum isn't a nice place to hang out, there's a lot of weird and frankly ruthless attitudes there and their reviews are just glorified eye candy.

Click to expand...


If tireless testing and re-testing and thoughts of 'did I miss anything in our tests?' that keep us up at night is 'glorified eye candy', then, yes, our controlled side-by-sides and meticulously controlled tests are really just 'glorified eye candy'.

Again, this is very insulting considering that in reality, we're constantly refining our methodologies - we now carefully control all lighting and exposure down to < 1/3 EV error to make sure our high ISO comparisons correlate with real-world performance, for example. Why would we do that if we were just in this for the 'eye candy'? I'm not actually even sure what that means - long wordy reviews aren't really eye-candy to me.



Mr. Low Notes said:



There's nothing in those reviews which do much for me..except maybe comparing iso noise between similar cameras. The original owner was very biased towards Canon and very open about his opinion. I think you'll find there's very few 1D series reviews, certainly no 1DX but you'll find every Nikon Dx series reviewed...all with glowing reviews...like the D4, which they failed to mention the numerous lockups and AF issues which plagued every pro photographer that I met using one. Which is why so many pros got frustrated with Noik and traded in for Canon and the (working) 1DX.

Click to expand...


Like the D4S, which we didn't review?



Mr. Low Notes said:



I now refer to DP Review as DR Review since that is all they concentrate on.

Click to expand...


1 page of 16 page reviews is 'all they concentrate on'? 1/16 = *6.25%*.

You could say the same about our focus on high ISO performance and analysis via our studio scene, JPEG noise reduction and detail retention, color (where we typically state that Canon is our 'benchmark'), and, pun intended, our focus on focus, which typically takes up multiple pages. 

In fact, our body and menus and ergonomics pages take up more pages than our DR pages. Dynamic range is a but a small percentage of our final weighted score.

'All they concentrate on'?



Mr. Low Notes said:



I'm surprised they haven't banned me yet because they don't like me saying that. I'm with you. I'm about done with DR Review. It's a nasty place in the comments section and getting worse. I do admit to throwing my two cents in but I try to be positive and not nasty. No matter. Negativity is king there as is Canon hate.

Click to expand...


There's just as much Nikon hate. Every time we publish a Nikon interview, I feel sorry for Nikon Japan if they're reading our site. Which they are.

You're right about one thing though - the negativity. Which is evidently not limited to DPR.



Mr. Low Notes said:



Sony shooters seem to have a chip on their shoulder and Canon shooters a bulls eye on their back. I use a 60D, 70D and EOS M and I'm happy with them as are my customers with my results and that is what matters.

Click to expand...


That is *not* only what matters when you're running a review site that tries to cover all technologies and all cameras relative to one another. I'm happy that in isolation you're happy with your gear - that doesn't mean there isn't other gear that performs better along certain axes, and it's our job to find those things and talk about them.

-Rishi_


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## ritholtz (May 3, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> ritholtz said:
> 
> 
> > There is no excuse for 80D to perform worst in focusing test through view finder which is a core DSLR strength.
> ...


Thanks Rishi. I will wait for your retest and see how it does. If results are same, you should reduce final score a lot. 84% for a camera which can't even do simple servo focus tracking (no eye/face/color tracking) is very high.
So, AF-C is same as AI-Servo single point tracking in Canon. When you refer to subject tracking, it is iTR tracking and depth tracking is simple AI servo tracking right? Looks like there is no improvement for 80d in terms of iTR which is kinda strange.

Thanks


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

bdunbar79 said:


> Some of it was even done incorrectly or seemingly in a way to obtain predetermined desired results.



That's a bold claim - do you have actual evidence for it?

Speaking of evidence-based methods, we explain all our testing methodologies, then present you with the data, typically in the form of rollovers for AF tests, and images, including Raw files, when it comes to image quality. So you don't just have to take our word for it. If you ask us for our testing methodology, we explain it, and are working on even more thorough documentation so you know exactly our testing conditions.

How does this jive with 'done in a way to obtain predetermined desired results'? The only 'desired results' or bias are the biases of the tests themselves - which you are perfectly in your right to claim as 'biased'. Our studio tests _are _'biased' towards better image quality, and our AF tests are 'biased' towards better AF performance.

If that's a bad thing, please feel free to choose a site that is more brand-specific as opposed to test-specific.



bdunbar79 said:


> Even if that weren't the intent, if a third party feels that way or gets that impression, then there is something wrong.



There _is_ something wrong: a 3rd party who hasn't verified or repeated the tests themselves somehow claiming that, absolutely, we're the ones who are wrong. Despite never testing what the competition offers himself side-by-side in an unbiased manner.

Any third party who hasn't tested all systems in question side-by-side labeling us as wrong or biased based on his/her own limited experience is suspect. You can't only test camera X in situation A, and be confident that our claim that camera Y in situation A or B is invalid because you're just sure that camera X is great in situation A. 



bdunbar79 said:


> Personally I ignore the BS and let the camera performance in real life do the talking. That's why I have 2 1Dx's and my AF never misses.



If you have two 1DX's that 'never' miss AF, then your ability to provide unbiased reviews should probably be in question. No offense intended.

Also, could you please explain how our 80D results have anything to do with your 1DX results? Keep in mind that our 5DS single-point continuous AF results were exactly as expected: nearly perfect. I suppose _*those positive*_ results were acceptable, though, right?

Also, if you 'let the camera performance in real life do the talking', please show us your _comparative_ results vs. other systems, or your results from your 1DX in every photographic scenario ever imaginable. 

Else, your frame of reference is limited by your small sample size. You're taking your limited experience, and claiming we're false despite our testing a far larger sample set than you've tested. You're claiming our 80D results are flawed because of your 1DX results, the latter which we (1) didn't show results for or talk about in this review, and which (2) when we have talked about, have generally talked about its phenomenal hit-rate in continuous drive.

That's not just bad science, that's illogical.


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## unfocused (May 3, 2016)

*Truncated to save space*



rishi_sanyal said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > ...With these sensors, the idea is that you can set your shutter speed and aperture ...
> ...



First of all, I appreciate your patience and willingness to engage on this site. Especially because there seem to be a number of people who have already come to their own opinions and don't want to be confused by facts.

I guess that on a tech-geek oriented site it's understandable that discussions will devolve into pointless but rabid debates over insignificant differences. Like academia, the arguments are so bitter here because the stakes are so small. 

I've made my opinion known. I want review sites to tell me what they don't like about a product. I can make a judgment for myself if that criteria is relevant for me personally, but if no one writes about the downsides, then it's impossible to make intelligent choices. Instead of focusing on a couple of small points, I prefer to look at the overall review and I would say that DPR tends to have very thorough reviews. If people feel there is some bias in the review (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather just a fact of life) then it's a simple matter to take that into account when reading the reviews (or if people are offended by the reviews, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to read the reviews).

For those who want to read only positive things about Canon, there is a site they can go to: www.canonusa.com


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

Orangutan said:


> Maybe we could change this thread from a list of complaints to a list of suggestions. What sincere, legitimate changes would you have DPR make to its procedures to improve the objectivity of their review? I'll start:
> 
> (quoting self)
> 
> ...



That's just the thing - there's no 'problem' at all. We're not trying to prove whether or not X EV dynamic range is enough to cover _all_ shooting scenarios in the world. We're not trying to answer: 'what scenes does this camera have enough DR for?' - that's actually a very interesting question, yes, but that's not what we're trying answer in side-by-side camera comparisons. In fact, that's a difficult question to answer, and would require shooting many different scenes at many different exposures for many different cameras. That'd be lovely - but it's important to understand what it is we're trying to test, what question we're trying answer, before declaring us useless or biased or whatever other adjective has been used here.

We're trying to show what the _difference_ is between camera X and Y when exposed optimally for the scene being tested.

That requires us to have a common exposure method that is fair across all cameras, and that's why we use a saturation-based method for these tests. Just like DXO; like them or hate them, their actual testing methodology is _sound_.

We choose the following common basis: we choose the exposure where 1/3 EV higher exposure will clip tones we wish to preserve in the image, which provides a fair playing ground for comparisons across cameras. Sure a higher exposure that blows tones may be acceptable to you - but so what? Whatever advantage the D810 retains here over the 5DS R and the a7R II will be retained in the scenes that demand it, or in underexposures, be it due to a high contrast scene or imperfect metering: http://bit.ly/26Nrf38.

But don't even take our word for it - take the word of perhaps the greatest cinematographer of our time: read the whole interview linked above.

The saturation-based method is actually the same basis used by readers here who have claimed they expose to preserve highlights they care about. That's precisely what we're doing. And, no, there's no appreciable difference between 'highlight preservation' in Raw from camera to camera - and if there were, we'd account for it because we're exposing just short of clipping in the Raw. Any differences in highlight preservation would be up to the Raw converter - and they're not going to show huge differences from brand to brand or camera to camera.

Does this make sense? If not, please elaborate on your point of confusion or contention: I really want to make sure we're clear about our reasoning.

If we provided you bracketed shots, what would that tell you? A longer exposure that clipped tones in the sky will have less noise in the shadows, sure, but the D810 would retain whatever advantage it retains in our example. Particularly because it can eat up almost a stop more light before clipping the same tones because of its ISO 64 - hence our need to use saturation as our 'common basis' for these tests.

If it's performance under limited light you're interested in, though, we have our studio scene and high ISO comparisons available.

And that's the thing - we provide all the tests for you to examine whatever it is that's important to you. When dynamic range is one part of many points we cover in a review or conclusion, claiming we are all about that and nothing else just mocks your own position.

It's an indefensible position when you then consider that we've also published articles demonstrating the D5's limited dynamic range, using a title harsher than anything we've used on any Canon article of late. Or tests showing severe problems with Nikon's VR mechanism. I see that these things are conveniently ignored by those claiming Nikon bias. 

Or was it Sony bias?


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

ritholtz said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > ritholtz said:
> ...



You've got it, yes.

AF-C is Canon's term for 'AI Servo'. AF _area_ mode is totally separate, and is orthogonal (for the most part) to AF-S vs AF-C (or 'One Shot' vs 'AI Servo').

Subject tracking is the ability of the camera to understand your subject and automatically pick AF points to stay on it in continuous focus mode.

iTR is Canon's name for Nikon's '3D tracking' or Sony's 'Lock-on AF'. The 80D, and cameras like the 5D Mark III, don't have a name for subject tracking, and also don't have iTR per se. On the 5D Mark III presumably because there is no RGB metering sensor to understand your subject and track it (it really only uses distance information to figure out which AF point to use for your subject, which is very much prone to error... see the theory behind this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F58xGAaxhrA). On the 80D, Canon doesn't call it iTR presumably because the 7,560-pixel metering sensor doesn't have enough resolution to reliably subject track. Oddly, Nikon's 2016-pixel metering sensor - e.g. on the D7200 - is still able to subject track _relatively_ well compared to Canons, and we think this may be because Nikon is more willing to use pattern matching to subject track than Canon, which appears to us to rely mostly on distance information still, despite 150,000-pixel metering sensors in cameras like the 7D II.

Why do we think this? Because Canons still show a very distance-dependent ability to subject track. Objects with good phase difference isolation - e.g. far objects using telephoto lenses - are tracked very well by Canons, while objects with poor phase difference isolation (the eye of a face close up at 35mm) aren't. Nikons don't show this dependence.

We didn't really expect the 80D to be much better at subject tracking, but what's strange is that even depth-tracking (single point AI Servo) faltered.

That's what we'd like to re-test.

But this discussion brings up a good point. Some people here claim 'well my results are great so I don't see what problem you're talking about' - while never testing what the other brand/camera offers. That's fine, as long as you keep in mind that there are users who are finding the limits of their systems, and it's our job to find those and also let them know when alternatives offer advantages. For example, some Canon users found that when going from the 5D3 to the 7D2, they could trust their camera much more to subject track: automatically select AF points to stay on their subject in AI Servo. This is largely true - because of the 150k-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor. But an even larger benefit is to be had _in this regard_ by going to Nikon's 3D tracking - which many who've switched from Canon to Nikon have realized. 

And yet there are those who claim the 5D Mark III subject tracked just fine for them. Which gets back to a point I've made repeatedly: you don't even know what you're missing until you know the entire playing field. Whether or not that matters to you is a different matter entirely: but it _has_ to matter to us because it's our job to inform photographers of these things.

It's up to the photographer to decide whether or not it matters. Not to tell us that we're biased because we care to test these things.

-Rishi


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

unfocused said:


> I've made my opinion known. I want review sites to tell me what they don't like about a product. I can make a judgment for myself if that criteria is relevant for me personally, but if no one writes about the downsides, then it's impossible to make intelligent choices. Instead of focusing on a couple of small points, I prefer to look at the overall review and I would say that DPR tends to have very thorough reviews. If people feel there is some bias in the review (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather just a fact of life) then it's a simple matter to take that into account when reading the reviews (or if people are offended by the reviews, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to read the reviews).



One of the most sensible passages I've ever read on the internet.
-Rishi


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## Orangutan (May 3, 2016)

Let me repeat that I'm not claiming bias. I've only glanced at your review of the 80D, and probably should read it carefully before I to go into any detailed comments.



rishi_sanyal said:


> We're trying to show what the _difference_ is between camera X and Y when *exposed optimally *for the scene being tested.
> <snip>
> We choose the following common basis: we choose the exposure where 1/3 EV higher exposure will *clip tones we wish to preserve *in the image, which provides a fair playing ground for comparisons across cameras.



Here's why I'm puzzled: as far as I can tell, "the scene being tested" is inherently subjective. If I'm taking macro photos of the reflections in a raindrop and don't care about the surrounds, then maybe I'll reduce exposure. If I'm interested in a forest scene with light glinting off droplets, then I'll increase exposure and accept that the droplets will be blown. For a more concrete example, if I'm shooting an evening shot just before or after sunset, I can choose how much of the sky I'm willing to overexpose for the sake of the shadows.

Don't get me wrong: I have a 70D and have been frustrated when I try to balance forest scenes with dappled light and deep shadow. It would not surprise me at all that the successor is only marginally better. It would also not surprise me if a Sony sensor has better DR at low ISO, since this has been demonstrated for several years. However, I'm at a loss to understand how an objective comparison of DR can be done outside a controlled environment. For "real world" tests I'd like to see each camera show its best; the problem is that "best" is relative, depending on what part of the scene is important to you. The only solution I can think of is to present a range of exposures, each with optimal post-processing, and let the viewer decide.

Does that make any sense to you?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 3, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I've made my opinion known. I want review sites to tell me what they don't like about a product. I can make a judgment for myself if that criteria is relevant for me personally, but if no one writes about the downsides, then it's impossible to make intelligent choices. Instead of focusing on a couple of small points, I prefer to look at the overall review and I would say that DPR tends to have very thorough reviews. If people feel there is some bias in the review (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather just a fact of life) then it's a simple matter to take that into account when reading the reviews (or if people are offended by the reviews, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to read the reviews).
> ...



I've found that reviews tend to hit the things that cover most users. I tether my Canon cameras (Starting with the 40D) to my computer and found out the hard way that Nikon DSLRs are or were weak in that area to the point of being very frustrating to use. I wish this area was covered in more depth.

I have not seen a hands-on review of the tethering capabilities and software for the A7RII. Is there such a thing where I can remotely control the camera similar to Canon? Is it fast and reliable giving near real time feedback that is good enough for stills? I know that there is some minimal software bundled with the camera, but how well does it work?

Now, with the D1X II having built-in high speed Wi-Fi, that's of interest to me, can it be linked up by a Wi-Fi network and controlled quickly and reliably by a computer, tablet, or phone.

If the 5D MK IV has similar Wi-Fi capability, I'd be interested there as well.

Right now, I use a iusbport camera2 to tether my 5D MK III by Wi-Fi. It works, but its somewhat frustrating. The delay in closing the shutter is just long enough that a bird may leave the FOV before the shutter closes. I like to zoom in, I could use a wider angle, but I want close ups.


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## whothafunk (May 3, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Now, with the D1X II having built-in high speed Wi-Fi, that's of interest to me, can it be linked up by a Wi-Fi network and controlled quickly and reliably by a computer, tablet, or phone.
> 
> If the 5D MK IV has similar Wi-Fi capability, I'd be interested there as well.
> 
> Right now, I use a iusbport camera2 to tether my 5D MK III by Wi-Fi.


It's a 1DX (one-d-x), not D1X (d-one-x). Weird you're not reversing it with other Canon camera models, D53 or rather D5MKIII..

On the other note, 80D review on DPreview is just horrible. However did this review didn't do his homework properly and should be banned from doing dslr reviews.


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## Mikehit (May 3, 2016)

whothafunk said:


> On the other note, 80D review on DPreview is just horrible. However did this review didn't do his homework properly and should be banned from doing dslr reviews.



As one considering buying an 80D, in what way was it 'horrible' and what 'homework' didn't they do?


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## rishi_sanyal (May 3, 2016)

Orangutan said:


> Let me repeat that I'm not claiming bias. I've only glanced at your review of the 80D, and probably should read it carefully before I to go into any detailed comments.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, it does make sense - and thank you for being constructive.

The thing though is that we _have _a controlled environment - our studio scene - where we do various degrees of pushing to show differences. The real world DR shootouts, OTOH, are only useful for comparisons _between _the cameras being compared for that particular shootout, that day, that sunset.

However, the comparative results between the two will at least hold true for any other scene with that much dynamic range, or more.

This all started particularly because DXO numbers were thrown around as gospel, and while they may be correct (most of the time, from an 'engineering' dynamic range standpoint anyway), those numbers don't mean much to the photographer. Hence, we wanted to visualize differences, particularly because SNR thresholds of 1 may not even be relevant to the photographer. Our real-world DR shootouts give some idea of those those 1, 2, or 3 EV stated differences in DR _look_ like.

So it's about comparisons, not necessarily 'this is what the camera will do in every sunset'. First of all, all sunsets differ. Second, you may be OK with blowing more tones than I. But setting the threshold of clipping Raw channels in the Raw file forms a common basis for _comparisons _between cameras, which is ultimately the point of those real-world shootouts.

I hope that helps, and apologies if it doesn't. Keep in mind further that we make the Raw files available to you - so you can process it yourself. As for the exposure itself, the skies already show clipping on the back of the camera for the exposures we choose, because when channels are clipping in Raw, they're almost definitely clipping in JPEG. So the preview of these shots tend to have the skies looking white, and so aren't at all _unreasonable _exposures that a photographer _wouldn't _have chosen on the scene. At least, the photographer is unlikely to have chosen _more _exposure. So however you look at it, setting aside that the choice of exposure doesn't particularly matter much for our test as long as it's on an equivalent basis for both cameras, we've still chosen a reasonable exposure. The next 1/3 EV higher exposure lost detail in recovered orange clouds above the horizon in our 5DS R vs D810 comparison, and that's probably not acceptable to a landscape photographer. That's our common basis.

Sure there are many situations less demanding, there are many more demanding, and there are others where you won't choose to post-process as we do. But we had at least hoped that these visual comparisons would be welcome compared to the DXO numbers being thrown around. And for the most part, they have been - we've received numerous messages from many members indicating how helpful it has been to visualize these differences using controlled comparisons. 

My hope is that you will also see the utility in this, and if there's something we can do better to help a majority of you, then we will consider it.

Best, Rishi


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 3, 2016)

*I want to clear up what I quoted from another commenter, GMCPhotographics, and what were my comments in regard to his. Please see a follow up at the end of the quotes. Thanks, MLN*



rishi_sanyal said:


> Mr. Low Notes said:
> 
> 
> > _It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess.
> ...


_

*Rishi, I'm new to posting at CR and the top part was a quote from another person, GMCPhotographics. I messed up reposting the quote and I'm sorry about that. Mine were the second and third paragraphs below.*

"I now refer to DP Review as DR Review since that is all they concentrate on. I'm surprised they haven't banned me yet because they don't like me saying that. I'm with you. I'm about done with DR Review. It's a nasty place in the comments section and getting worse. I do admit to throwing my two cents in but I try to be positive and not nasty. No matter. Negativity is king there as is Canon hate. Sony shooters seem to have a chip on their shoulder and Canon shooters a bulls eye on their back. I use a 60D, 70D and EOS M and I'm happy with them as are my customers with my results and that is what matters.

As for the 80D, it looks to be a fine camera. As for Sony I have nothing against them. Glad they are putting pressure on the other companies to improve. Competition is good. Being overly biased is not."

Rishi, I'm glad you look at CR and took the time comment on the post the way that you did. I certainly have more respect for you than I did before. There are a lot of things I like about DPR but the negativity is starting to outweigh the good. However I'm not backing down on DR being discuss as a top priority at DP Review regardless of the number of pages devoted to it. *Mainly by the commentators*. Some of which are obsessed with it. A little moderation wouldn't hurt but I guess, sadly, the mud slinging keeps the traffic high. As for me I do not disagree that more DR is better but it's not the only thing that makes for good image quality. That starts with the photographer. Buying a high end Fender Stratocaster won't make you suddenly play like Eric Clapton anymore than buying a high end camera, regardless of brand, will suddenly make you a better photographer. I came from film in the mid 80s. Read a lot of photography books that I still have. Learned my camera (Chinon CP7-m, no auto focus either) and made every shot count. Had to. Film. ;-) 

BTW, I'm not in isolation with my Canon gear. I have used other brands. My brother has two Nikon Dfs and several lenses. I also have friends that have Nikon, Canon and Sony gear that I have borrowed and used. And I have a Sony, Yeah, Sony, AS200 action cam. Love it! I think GoPro needs to be more worried about Sony than Canon.

Patrick - AKA MLN_


----------



## brad-man (May 3, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> brad-man said:
> 
> 
> > OK. I just about shot my wad on verses. I'm afraid the "yellow N" reference went right over my head. Verily. Nice retort though.
> ...



Actually, I got the Hawthorne reference. It was the meaning of "yellow N" that eluded me. Still does.


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## GMCPhotographics (May 3, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Mr. Low Notes said:
> 
> 
> > _It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess.
> ...


_

Rishi
I don't know your history with DP review, who you are or what role you perform for them. It's a free internet and a public forum: and all views are welcome here. It seems that you don't like my criticism of DPR. My views of that forum have history, my first post was in 2004 (Gazzajagman) and I used to post heavily to Ben Egbert's show and tell landscape threads. I stopped posting around 2011 because I was tired of the hostility in the forums and I found the reviews to be concentrating on areas that I didn't feel were in any way relevant to my work. Please feel free to defend that site as much as you want to...but to me it smacks of a lack of humility and underlines the prevalent attitude of chasing down or calling out anyone who holds a different opinion to you. There are a number of "test" or "review" web sites that regularly come into question regardless of how thorougher they claim their tests. DXO labs, Photozone and DPR are regularly showing graphs and charts which highlight non issues as "biggies" or fail to demonstrate what some one in the real world experiences. Many here laugh at some of their historical reviews and have formed their opinion about those sites over time and experience.
I have been a photographer since the Canon A1 / AE1 days and have seen a progression through auto exposure, auto focus and then into digital. I have been amateur, semi pro and fully professional in a number of photograph genres...but I don't have to use my credential to justify my opinion. I don't write for you or for money, I write for me. 
So feel free to come onto this forum, which has little to do with DR review, where many talented and experienced photographers have left those forums to seek safer shores. Many here have little care for them due to sour experience. Please feel free to come here and self justify your existence and your opinion, but don't think I am in any way intimidated or scared of your writings....you are just underlining the reasons why I distance myself from DPR. Humility would have asked how to DPR could change or fix...but no...you just want to argue, fight and self justify._


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I have not seen a hands-on review of the tethering capabilities and software for the A7RII. Is there such a thing where I can remotely control the camera similar to Canon? Is it fast and reliable giving near real time feedback that is good enough for stills? I know that there is some minimal software bundled with the camera, but how well does it work?



It exists, but in my experience isn't particularly good. I was hoping to use it to blast a series of photos for astro work, but couldn't find a way to set the desired number of exposures and was left mashing the mouse button down. However, the transfer speeds are so slow that the whole thing got bogged down and I wasn't able to reliably control it. 

This was when the R2 was new; perhaps the software has improved (and note I haven't tried it for less demanding tasks).


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

GMCPhotographics said:


> Humility would have asked how to DPR could change or fix...but no...you just want to argue, fight and self justify.



Reading back over the past few changes, he has asked for constructive criticism (i.e. how DPR could change), and he's not self-justifying, so to speak, but explaining and defending, which is perfectly acceptable.

The team there has clearly put a lot of effort into creating a fair (yes), repeatable, generic methodology for testing camera performance. If a given test is biased in favor of one brand or another, I personally suspect that to be unintentional. In other words, I don't think they're designing tests with the intent of clobbering canon; if canon gets clobbered, it's a consequence of the results they value. Further, it doesn't impeach any of the good qualities canon offers, nor any consumer's choice to purchase a canon product.


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## Mikehit (May 3, 2016)

I agree with 3kramd5 - I have found Rishi's comments far from 'self justifying', instead trying to explain in the face of some quite blunt non-specific criticism (more like lambasting) why they do what they do. 



> Humility would have asked how to DPR could change or fix...but no...you just want to argue, fight and self justify.


If you had bothered to actually read Rishi's comments he has said in several places about how they are wanting to 
broaden their testing regime and even thanked posters for their suggestions. But I guess in your one-eyed way of reading you somehow missed that.

Review sites come in all shapes and sizes, some are people who use a different model (even different brand) and compare it to their usual camera and give coherent explanations on their findings even when highly subjective (the 'I don't shoot test charts, I am a real-world shooter' brigade). For those guys I need to know pretty accurately if their needs/style matches mine and over time if their comments are constructive or overly simplistic.
Others are more structured organisations trying to give subjective assessments and in so doing have to try create standardised tests that may or may not replicate what any particular shooter is trying to achieve. I have found Rishi's comments informative as to why they have taken the choices they have and I can use that information when deciding 'is that relevant to me'. 


But to use the comments by trolls on the DPR forum as a way to criticise the DPR methodology is, to my mind, ridiculous. And having shot Canon all your life is hardly a platform from which to lambast Rishi and DPR for even attempting to do what they do.


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## RustyTheGeek (May 3, 2016)

OK, I recently pulled the trigger on the 80D super badass eBay combo discount package a couple weeks ago. When they decide to finally ship it to me (_next_ week perhaps?) I'll clear all this up with my very own detailed review! I'll dutifully slap a fresh battery in and aim it out the front door, at the cat and maybe at a lamp or two and fire off several shots. I'll share my in-depth review of those results here for everyone to absorb and debate.

No thanks required! I'm happy to do my part to clear up this debacle! ;D


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## jebrady03 (May 3, 2016)

A quick note about my writing style. When I capitalize a word or series of words, I'm not "yelling", I'm emphasizing. It's like using voice inflection. I'm from the south, and where I was raised, and who I was raised around, emphasis on your words was EASILY as important as the words themselves.



Mr. Low Notes said:


> A little moderation wouldn't hurt but I guess, sadly, the mud slinging keeps the traffic high.


Indeed.



Mr. Low Notes said:


> As for me I do not disagree that more DR is better but it's not the only thing that makes for _good image quality_.


Agree wholeheartedly!



Mr. Low Notes said:


> That _starts with the photographer_.


PUMP THE BRAKES! We've entered into a COMPLETELY irrelevant arena when it comes to a website dedicated to REVIEWING AND COMPARING CAMERAS! If the website were dedicated to reviewing and comparing photographers, or techniques, THEN you would have a great point. But seeing as how a photographer will be choosing which CAMERA (and lens) to take a specific picture with, the photographer is the "constant" and the camera/lens is the "variable" which needs reviewing/comparing. If that doesn't make sense to someone, they should probably excuse themselves from commenting on or about ANY camera or lens review.



Mr. Low Notes said:


> Buying a high end Fender Stratocaster won't make you suddenly play like Eric Clapton anymore than buying a high end camera, regardless of brand, will suddenly make you a better photographer.


There's so much floating around in my head right now in response to this, but I'll do my best to keep it short. I make no guarantees about "sweet" 
If Eric Clapton were deciding between 3 guitars, do you think it would be helpful to have Stevie Ray Vaughn, BB King, and Jimi Hendrix review the same guitar and tell him all about it? I mean, besides the fact that it would be AWESOME to have all 3 of those guys back and playing again, how meaningful would their analysis be to Mr Clapton if they all reviewed only one guitar, and it happened to be the same guitar? For sure, we could say that the guitarist makes a difference in how the guitar is played and thus, what comes out of it. But so what? SRV, BBK, and JH aren't looking to buy the guitar, Mr Clapton is. And the skills those 3 "reviewers" posses aren't the exact same skills Mr Clapton possesses and thus, Mr Clapton will necessarily obtain different results. So how are their reviews relevant? Answer: They're not. Not without context. And if all 3 legendary guitarists reviewed all 3 options that Mr Clapton is considering and COMPARED THEM TO ONE ANOTHER USING A CONTROLLED, REPEATABLE METHODOLOGY then THAT would be useful to Mr Clapton. Would it not?
Regarding the whole "better equipment doesn't make you a better photographer" cliche. That might be among the dumbest, most trite statements bandied about by those who are SO completely closed minded that they can't even BEGIN to realize how asinine they sound. Why is it a dumb statement? Because it's SO incredibly true. But at the same time, ignores the fact that better cameras can do 2 things (for the sake of this discussion)... 1) they can take better QUALITY pictures which WILL improve the output of said photographer, making their WORK better (but again, not THEM) and 2) they can enable the same photographer to utilize their skillset more completely which can improve their work and can enable them to take pictures they were unable to take previously due to the limitations of their gear. So ,no... Gear will not make the photographer BETTER. But gear ABSOLUTELY can make the photographers RESULTS (quality, diversity) better. If this weren't the case, everyone would still be using the very first camera and lens ever made because it wouldn't make sense to make anything else.
Ok... so that wasn't even remotely short... my apologies...



Mr. Low Notes said:


> I came from film in the mid 80s. Read a lot of photography books that I still have. Learned my camera (Chinon CP7-m, no auto focus either) and made every shot count. Had to. Film. ;-)


Congratulations.


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## arcer (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Mr. Low Notes said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



Nice to know more about the origins of one of the major contributors here on CR. Maybe now I can understand your viewpoints much better.


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## arcer (May 3, 2016)

RustyTheGeek said:


> OK, I recently pulled the trigger on the 80D super badass eBay combo discount package a couple weeks ago. When they decide to finally ship it to me (_next_ week perhaps?) I'll clear all this up with my very own detailed review! I'll dutifully slap a fresh battery in and aim it out the front door, at the cat and maybe at a lamp or two and fire off several shots. I'll share my in-depth review of those results here for everyone to absorb and debate.
> 
> No thanks required! I'm happy to do my part to clear up this debacle! ;D



Sweet, I look forward to your review Rusty 
But make a new tread, this one has too much clutter.


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

jebrady03 said:


> So ,no... Gear will not make the photographer BETTER. But gear ABSOLUTELY can make the photographers RESULTS (quality, diversity) better.



+1


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## unfocused (May 3, 2016)

First, let me say that I generally agree with you, jebbrady, and this is not meant to challenge or argue against your viewpoint. It is just that this section has me a bit confused:



jebrady03 said:


> If Eric Clapton were deciding between 3 guitars, do you think it would be helpful to have Stevie Ray Vaughn, BB King, and Jimi Hendrix review the same guitar and tell him all about it? I mean, besides the fact that it would be AWESOME to have all 3 of those guys back and playing again, how meaningful would their analysis be to Mr Clapton if they all reviewed only one guitar, and it happened to be the same guitar? For sure, we could say that the guitarist makes a difference in how the guitar is played and thus, what comes out of it. But so what? SRV, BBK, and JH aren't looking to buy the guitar, Mr Clapton is. And the skills those 3 "reviewers" posses aren't the exact same skills Mr Clapton possesses and thus, Mr Clapton will necessarily obtain different results. So how are their reviews relevant? Answer: They're not. Not without context. And if all 3 legendary guitarists reviewed all 3 options that Mr Clapton is considering and COMPARED THEM TO ONE ANOTHER USING A CONTROLLED, REPEATABLE METHODOLOGY then THAT would be useful to Mr Clapton. Would it not?



My first reaction would be to say that if it were Robert Johnson reviewing the guitar it might be most helpful for Clapton. 

But, seriously, I'm not sure what the point is here. To follow your analogy a little further, I would say that having Jimi, Stevie Ray and BB King review three different guitars and offer their opinions in a totally personal, unscientific and biased (as in colored by their own preferences and experiences) might be more useful. 

Now, to move that to cameras: No one uses (or at least should use) a camera in a completely controlled, repeatable, laboratory setting. If a reviewer tests the autofocus of three cameras by shooting a basketball game and comes back and says that in their opinion camera "B" had the most reliable autofocus, I know that it is impossible to draw a precise and repeatable comparison between the three cameras, but rather I'm relying on the reviewer's own experience. I can reject that experience or take it into consideration, my choice.

It seems like some people on this forum want to seize on these kinds of reviews and argue because they don't feel the results are uniformly "scientific." I don't care, I'd rather know the person's opinion. And, if that person happens to have a bias for or against a specific brand? So what? Just take that into consideration. Reviewers are human beings and we should treat their reviews as written by humans offering their opinion.

Thus, if I had any talent for music I'd rather get the "impressions" of three guitars from Hendrix, SRV and BB King than expect them to conduct scientific experiments on the guitars.


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## jebrady03 (May 3, 2016)

I do agree with you. The reason I wrote controlled, repeatable, etc., is because that's more up DPR's alley. I was trying to make the analogy as similar to DPR as possible. But yeah... again... agreed


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## bdunbar79 (May 3, 2016)

unfocused said:


> First, let me say that I generally agree with you, jebbrady, and this is not meant to challenge or argue against your viewpoint. It is just that this section has me a bit confused:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The reviewer is the one claiming to be scientific. The REVIEWER. Why can't people understand this? It has nothing to do with anything but that. I don't care if it's scientific or not (it's not) but if you are at least going to make that claim, then at least demonstrate that it is so.


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## Mikehit (May 3, 2016)

bdunbar79 said:


> The reviewer is the one claiming to be scientific. The REVIEWER. Why can't people understand this? It has nothing to do with anything but that. I don't care if it's scientific or not (it's not) but if you are at least going to make that claim, then at least demonstrate that it is so.



A scientist can both subjective and objective - the important thing is that they are clear when they are being subjective. 
DxO as far as I can tell offer 'scientific' assessments (whose methodology is pretty well laid out) and offer little subjective assessment - they seem to me to be quite clear that it is up to the reader to make their own minds up as to what is important. Problem is that joe public reads 'model XX is 92 points, model YY is 89 points" and conclude that XX must be better. I blame the fool reading the article, not DxO.
And despite believing that DxO have in the last few years been stretching interpretations, including inventing dodgy definitions of dynamic range, it is still one set of information I use to assess new models.

In my experience, DPR do the test, they even make the raw files available and people can process them in their preferred workflow. And they try to present any conclusions in a context of comparison, and refer to the tests that support any subjective opinion. And that is where I sympathise with Rishi's comments about being criticised by people who have only ever used one marque (or changed marques so long ago it is almost irrelevant). If people are going to criticise them for their subjective opinions, should those people work to he same principle and openly admit 'I have never used brand XX so my experience is only really from one side of the fence and my own bias knowing what I have works for me'.


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## unfocused (May 3, 2016)

bdunbar79 said:


> The reviewer is the one claiming to be scientific. The REVIEWER. Why can't people understand this? It has nothing to do with anything but that. I don't care if it's scientific or not (it's not) but if you are at least going to make that claim, then at least demonstrate that it is so.



You are confusing understanding and caring. I understand, I just don't care to get my panties all in a twist over it.


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## Sharlin (May 3, 2016)

As an aside:



jebrady03 said:


> A quick note about my writing style. When I capitalize a word or series of words, I'm not "yelling", I'm emphasizing. It's like using voice inflection. I'm from the south, and where I was raised, and who I was raised around, emphasis on your words was EASILY as important as the words themselves.



Well, we're on the internet now, and you should respect established norms of communication. ALL CAPS is almost universally considered rude, and one should not expect others to remember or adapt to one's idiosyncracies - instead, it's one's own responsibility to make oneself understood by others. This forum, like most others, supports _italics_ for emphasis, and for those situations where only plain text is available, *asterisks* or _underlines_ are well-established ways to represent accentuation.


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## jebrady03 (May 3, 2016)

I'm not asking anyone to remember anything. That's why I prefaced my post with the information



dilbert said:


> Sharlin said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



See, this guy gets it!


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## 3kramd5 (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Sharlin said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...




And, it allows all the nuance of other markups. 

Get OFF my lawn
Get off MY lawn
Get off my LAWN

Three different meanings.

I mostly post from a smartphone, which makes using the [] type markups more tedious. I'll keep capitalizing; if someone mistakes it as rudeness, oh well.


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 3, 2016)

jebrady03 said:


> A quick note about my writing style. When I capitalize a word or series of words, I'm not "yelling", I'm emphasizing. It's like using voice inflection. I'm from the south, and where I was raised, and who I was raised around, emphasis on your words was EASILY as important as the words themselves.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ya know I was kinda with you until you gave me that nasty dig. BTW, How old were you in 1986? 6?


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## unfocused (May 3, 2016)

Hey you! Get off of my lawn!

Isn't that an updated version of the Rolling Stones song to reflect the changing attitudes of us baby boomers?


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 3, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> jebrady03 said:
> 
> 
> > So ,no... Gear will not make the photographer BETTER. But gear ABSOLUTELY can make the photographers RESULTS (quality, diversity) better.
> ...



I totally agree too!


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Mr. Low Notes said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



I'm with ya.


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## rrcphoto (May 3, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Mr. Low Notes said:
> 
> 
> > _It looks like in the review the shooter doesn't get an initial lock...so the camera and lens are then struggling to re-adjust. This shouts of a poor technique from the reviewer...he's only a press hack I guess.
> ...


_

so you test AI servo by being in one shot mode? or are you in single point AI Servo?

or you acquire your initial AI servo lock on a stationary object and then have that object move? for AI servo which is predictive distance and speed tracking, that's a test that is assured to fail, or the camera (or lens) to struggle with, especially depending on your AF case selection._


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## Jopa (May 3, 2016)

According to dpreview any camera without a sony sensor is an outdated piece of garbage. The DR is the only thing that matters in a modern camera LOL! Wondering who's taking those clowns seriously except of the brick wall shooters who underexpose their brick wall shots by 5 stops.


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## scyrene (May 3, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Using italics correctly means not using them for emphasis.



What on _earth_ are you talking about?


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## Monchoon (May 3, 2016)

scyrene said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Using italics correctly means not using them for emphasis.
> ...



It's Dilbert, what more can one say. Maybe he might be able to understand this.

Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed text, or when quoting a speaker a way to show which words they stressed.


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## Sporgon (May 3, 2016)

scyrene said:


> dilbert said:
> 
> 
> > Using italics correctly means not using them for emphasis.
> ...



_dilbertland_ of course !


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## neuroanatomist (May 3, 2016)

Monchoon said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Use of italicized type is appropriate when providing a Linnaean taxonomic classification, for example: most denizens of this forum are _Homo sapiens_, however, at least one member is known to be a _Trollus stultus_.


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## rishi_sanyal (May 4, 2016)

rrcphoto said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > Mr. Low Notes said:
> ...


_

Oops, it was late. I meant AI Servo single point.

For subject tracking tests we use the full AF array with 'Manual' initial point selection- where you pre-specify your subject by initiating focus on it.

Why would the scenario you described fail? Surely if an object is stationary and then starts moving the camera's subject tracking system might be expected to follow it?_


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## Mikehit (May 4, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Why would the scenario you described fail? Surely if an object is stationary and then starts moving the camera's subject tracking system might be expected to follow it?



The optimum way for many is to focus on the stationary subject then release the shutter, follow it as it starts moving _without refocussing_ then reacquire focus, follow and fire. It also depends on if you have your camera set to focus priority or fire priority.


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## scyrene (May 4, 2016)

dilbert said:


> Monchoon said:
> 
> 
> > scyrene said:
> ...



Maybe. I think of it more as a literary form, I see it much more in books than on the internet - but then, italics still aren't possible on many communication platforms (texts, tweets, some instant messaging programs). I personally go for asterisks (what on *earth* are you talking about?) because it's quicker to type. But they all work for this purpose - including capitals. Although I'd still interpret the latter as more emphatic and shouty. But norms are still a developing.

I rather like it when camera talk gets derailed like this


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## bdunbar79 (May 4, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> rrcphoto said:
> 
> 
> > rishi_sanyal said:
> ...


_

Here's an example of one of many fundamental problems with you guys. Good luck, I'm not reading this garbage anymore. My blood pressure just goes way up everytime I do so I suppose I'm the real idiot for even reading this crap._


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## Don Haines (May 4, 2016)

bdunbar79 said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > rrcphoto said:
> ...


_
+1

I bought a 7D2......
less than 10 percent of pictures in focus..... crappiest AF system EVER!
Then I read the AF system booklet.....
I practiced and played with it.....
AF hit rate is now greater than 90% and I still don't know it as well as I should....

The problem with complex AF systems is that if you do not take the time to learn them well, you are better off with the camera left in auto mode......_


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## neuroanatomist (May 4, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> bdunbar79 said:
> 
> 
> > Here's an example of one of many fundamental problems with you guys. Good luck, I'm not reading this garbage anymore. My blood pressure just goes way up everytime I do so I suppose I'm the real idiot for even reading this crap.
> ...



Well, that's what happens when you try to set your Canon dSLR to AF-C mode.....


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## FramerMCB (May 4, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > bdunbar79 said:
> ...



Neuro and Don H. you guys are a breath of fresh air!
For the sunshine-only shooter posting earlier in this thread about gray skies being poor shooting conditions...he better stick to a smaller paintbrush in his statements. Here's why:


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## neuroanatomist (May 4, 2016)

FramerMCB said:


> For the sunshine-only shooter posting earlier in this thread about gray skies being poor shooting conditions...he better stick to a smaller paintbrush in his statements. Here's why:



Oh, that was just dilbert. He gave reality a sidelong glance a few years back, didn't like what he saw, and has just ignored it ever since.

Nice shots!


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## Don Haines (May 5, 2016)

FramerMCB said:


> For the sunshine-only shooter posting earlier in this thread about gray skies being poor shooting conditions...he better stick to a smaller paintbrush in his statements. Here's why:


It's true!

One of the things that I have learned from the collective wisdumb is that you can only shoot under sunny skies and with a camera that has more than 14 stops of DR.....


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## FramerMCB (May 5, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> FramerMCB said:
> 
> 
> > For the sunshine-only shooter posting earlier in this thread about gray skies being poor shooting conditions...he better stick to a smaller paintbrush in his statements. Here's why:
> ...



Thanks!


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## FramerMCB (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> FramerMCB said:
> 
> 
> > For the sunshine-only shooter posting earlier in this thread about gray skies being poor shooting conditions...he better stick to a smaller paintbrush in his statements. Here's why:
> ...



Love these! Especially #1 and #3. Mine were shot using the venerable Canon 40D with a 70-200mmL f2.8 IS (first gen.). In June of 2014, Silverstar Mountain in SW Washington, not too far from Battleground.


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## Don Haines (May 5, 2016)

FramerMCB said:


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


#1 was shot out back, 60D and the 17-55 lens, 8 shots stitched together in a panorama.... just before I got soaked.
#2 was also shot with the 60D and the Sigma 10-20mm wide angle zoom.... just before I got soaked.
#3 was shot with a 5D2 and 24-105..... and I didn't get soaked  

I like number 2 of yours a lot...... there is a certain quality to the light when it is raining and things are wet.


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## Don Haines (May 5, 2016)

So in an attempt to get back to reviews.....

Much earlier I mentioned that I would like to see reviews not fixate so much on ISO 100 and to include testing and usage at more extreme settings. I thought the reason was clear, but let me state it again: The vast majority of camera owners shoot jpg images in automatic mode. The vast majority of camera owners shoot with entry level DSLRs, point/shoot cameras, and phones. The vast majority of these people are perfectly happy with their images, and will never go online to read review sites or visit places like Canon Rumours.

The target market for these review sites (and CR) are enthusiasts. Some of us are pros, some of us amateurs, but we are all enthusiasts. As enthusiasts, we like to "compare the numbers" and debate things. We have grown beyond the point where we leave our camera in AUTO and let it do all the work all the time. Most of us are using (or learning to use) our camera systems under more challenging conditions. As such, we go out and shoot in the cold and rain (snow?), we shoot under sub-optimal lighting like overcast skies, after sunset, poorly lit performances, fast moving creatures, and night shooting. We are going to be pushing the ISO high, we are going to go past where IS helps us, We are going to go where 5 stops of DR is all we need and we are going to go where 15 stops is not enough. We are going to go where AF systems can't keep up....

To do a camera review and not step out into more challenging conditions is to do a great dis-service to your target audience. If all we wanted was a camera that took great pictures under perfect conditions, we would all be shooting with phones or kit cameras. We are looking at cameras like the 1DX 2, the 5D4, the 7D2, and yes, the 80D, because those cameras are more capable when we start pushing things.

Quite frankly, under perfect conditions, it really does not matter which camera you get.... they all work great and few can tell the difference. Go push things until they break! Report on it! That's where the story lies....


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## rishi_sanyal (May 5, 2016)

bdunbar79 said:


> rishi_sanyal said:
> 
> 
> > rrcphoto said:
> ...


_

I don't follow - what's the fundamental problem? That it was midnight and I accidentally typed 'One Shot' instead of 'AI Servo'? Or that we expect a Canon DSLR to be able to follow a subject that goes from stationary to moving, something most advanced cameras today can do quite successfully, including Canon's own 5DS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1eBgQt9sOU)?_


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## rishi_sanyal (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> To do a camera review and not step out into more challenging conditions is to do a great dis-service to your target audience. If all we wanted was a camera that took great pictures under perfect conditions, we would all be shooting with phones or kit cameras. We are looking at cameras like the 1DX 2, the 5D4, the 7D2, and yes, the 80D, because those cameras are more capable when we start pushing things.



? But that's exactly why we have our studio and dynamic range tests that test both low and high ISO. And our bike and closer distance human face/mannequin AF tests that people love to mock: they actually do differentiate the various cameras and show when certain AF abilities break. We're continuing to work to develop more challenging, rigorous AF tests that are repeatable, that particularly stress things like initial AF acquisition, or subject tracking acquisition - things that are particularly important to sports/action photographers. But whatever we do, it needs to be a repeatable, controlled test, else you'll never be able to compare camera A released today to camera B from 3 years ago.

Every now and then we supplement with a real-world reality check - which is why we have our 'real-world dynamic range' shootouts from time to time. Or real-world sports shootout (coming for the 1DX II vs D5). But those real-world tests can only A/B test; they can never provide repeatable tests you can refer back to compare any camera to any other camera. For that you need _controlled_ comparisons. 

That's just a fundamental reality of testing.

I think we're exactly on the same page for what photographers need, perhaps just not seeing eye-to-eye on _how to get there_.


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## Don Haines (May 5, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


> Don Haines said:
> 
> 
> > To do a camera review and not step out into more challenging conditions is to do a great dis-service to your target audience. If all we wanted was a camera that took great pictures under perfect conditions, we would all be shooting with phones or kit cameras. We are looking at cameras like the 1DX 2, the 5D4, the 7D2, and yes, the 80D, because those cameras are more capable when we start pushing things.
> ...


And if you go way back in this thread to an earlier comment, I think that of the review sites, you are doing the best job.....

Because camera systems are so complex, there is no fair way to do a quantative comparison between brands, and sometimes even within brands. Feel and impression become very important. Things like your standard test scene and ISO comparisons provide great standardized comparisons......but moving beyond that is a nightmare if you wish consistency.....but is consistency really needed when you move beyond? After the standardized tests, could you have something extra that is specific to just that camera where you push things and play with it?

Just thinking out loud....


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## rishi_sanyal (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


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



Thanks Don, and I totally hear you. It is a nightmare beyond a certain point, but perhaps still doable to a certain extent. Without it, quality is just so dependent on the reviewer and aggregate knowledge. I suppose what we're trying to do is quantify what we can quantify, then leave the rest to the reviewer and maybe even user opinions. I kind of wonder if we could have a portion of the reviews dedicated to user tests - where readers are encouraged to submit their tests, especially if there's some collective wisdom that can serve as guidance for how to do certain tests (I'm mostly thinking AF here - since that's the really tough one to tackle).

But at least things like AF acquisition times for different lenses with a master body, and different bodies with a master lens, under different controlled light - stuff like that we should standardize just like we do our studio scene.

Just thinking out loud here as well...


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## FramerMCB (May 5, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


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



++1
Rishyi...you are a brave soul. These waters are shark infested to say the least. But kudos to you sir! And to Mr. Don H. and a few others for being sane, rational, and logical. Oh, and civil!!! I'm old school, and too many putzes on social media think that they can be as rude and uncivil as they want. 

I think you guys are both on to something with your prognostications concerning testing "outside-the-box" so to speak. The bottom line is, reviews and review sites, are a mixed bag. So I typically rely on a few different ones I trust. For lenses I rely on Brian Carnathan over at, thedigitalpicture.com and Dustin Abbott at, dustinabbott.com. And Lensrentals, I like it when they take lenses apart. I also like DPreview because I can read a broad spectrum of different kinds of camera equipment and brands.

Anyhoo...my two cents.


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## Woody (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> To do a camera review and not step out into more challenging conditions is to do a great dis-service to your target audience. If all we wanted was a camera that took great pictures under perfect conditions, we would all be shooting with phones or kit cameras. We are looking at cameras like the 1DX 2, the 5D4, the 7D2, and yes, the 80D, because those cameras are more capable when we start pushing things.



Well, DPReview showed high ISO studio comparison shots for 1DX2 http://www.dpreview.com/news/8090146652/canon-eos-1d-x-mark-ii-studio-tests/1.

Their observation:
"Although the 1D-X II shows significant increase in dynamic range at low ISOs in our dynamic range tests, high ISO Raw performance remains fairly similar to its predecessor, falling behind the Nikon D5, and even slightly behind the 42MP Sony a7R II, at very high ISOs."

My observations based on the above test shots are consistent with what this poster said:
"Having looked at every square inch of the test scene at ISO 25600 (RAW) if anyone can show me a measurable difference between the 1DXII and D5 I'm a monkey's uncle. The detail resolved and noise levels are so close it's not funny. The Nikon jpg engine is better for sure, but in RAW it evens out. Also how they can say the A7RII shows less noise at high ISO is beyond a joke. If you downsample to 20MP it'll be close of course, but at 42MP the luma and chroma noise is much higher."
- http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1428206/1#13543956

That's 'unbiased' DPReview for you.


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## Mr. Low Notes (May 5, 2016)

rishi_sanyal said:


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



AF performance means more to me than DR and I'm glad to see AF being discussed. I'm Not saying it isn't or hasn't been, But I would like to see it given a little more priority. An OOF photo is no good no matter how good the camera's DR but that's a no brainer of course.

Rishi I want you to know that my being critical of DPR isn't and has never been solely directed at you or anyone in particular at DPR. I feel that the DR obsession in general takes away from other important things. And the trolls feed the flames.... 

You talking about AF performance put a smile on my face.  When I go to buy a new camera that is something that will be more important to me that DR. And I will be going to DPR along with a few other sites to read reviews of cameras that I might be interested in buying. I think we are on the same page in general. I know we agreed in the past that all cameras have a target audience and their strengths and weaknesses. A camera is just a tool. But to some I think it's a status symbol. 

Patrick aka- MLN


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## K-amps (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> It's true!
> 
> One of the things that I have learned from the collective wisdumb is that you can only shoot under sunny skies and with a camera that has more than 14 stops of DR.....



Lovely shots Don


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## Mikehit (May 5, 2016)

dilbert said:


> How do you do a meaningfully comparison between two sets of results if there is no consistency?



I do agree with dilbert on this one . 

But people are treating this as though DPR is the only review they should read. 
I like to read DPR because it gives me an idea of the camera's technical capability and I read other sites for the user experience and both complement each other. So for example, their noise tests show what the camera can do in studio conditions, but I have only ever bought a camera after the field tests have taken place, and I have a group of photographer sites whose opinions I trust. I can then see their comments on whether that difference in the studio makes a difference to me in the real world. 

As an example from direct experience, one review of the 7D2 showed how the camera had only a 1-stop difference in noise over the original 7D (not too impressive) but a field review explained that for him the way the noise rendered on screen made it more visually acceptable and was effectively almost a 2-stop improvement when it came to usable photos. And that is what I found when I bought the 7D2. 

I find that after reading 'benchmark' sites like DPR, subjective comments from very experienced photographers along the lines of 'I did not compare side by side but felt the AF hit rate was higher' or 'the raw files were nicer to work with' make much more sense.


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## Don Haines (May 5, 2016)

Mikehit said:


> But people are treating this as though DPR is the only review they should read.
> I like to read DPR because it gives me an idea of the camera's technical capability and I read other sites for the user experience and both complement each other. So for example, their noise tests show what the camera can do in studio conditions, but I have only ever bought a camera after the field tests have taken place, and I have a group of photographer sites whose opinions I trust. I can then see their comments on whether that difference in the studio makes a difference to me in the real world.
> 
> As an example from direct experience, one review of the 7D2 showed how the camera had only a 1-stop difference in noise over the original 7D (not too impressive) but a field review explained that for him the way the noise rendered on screen made it more visually acceptable and was effectively almost a 2-stop improvement when it came to usable photos. And that is what I found when I bought the 7D2.
> ...


I also read DPR because I like their technical testing, but think that a few additions could make it even better... like taking it out into the field and gathering impressions, and pushing the limits.

Yes, by all means consistency between devices is a very important part of testing, many people, myself included, would say that it is the most important part of testing. But what happens when you get to features and abilities that are unique to the camera or so far from normal testing that that there is no way to look at them, yet stay consistent between devices?

Many people buy high end cameras for specific purposes. For example, I bought a 7D2 for it's toughness. I shoot in the winter, in rain, high humidity, on the ocean where the air is laced with salt..... for me that toughness factor beat out all others, yet short of destructive testing in an immersion tank, how would a review site test it and more importantly, why would a review site test it? This is an example of something that a user with very particular requirements would find essential, yet really does not matter for the great masses. One would not do the same thing to test a 6D so all hope of consistency is gone, yet because Canon sells the 7D2 with a claim of toughness, to leave it out would be a dis-service to potential buyers....

Similarly, Add a test to the 80D for video under challenging conditions.... and that test would be different than testing the 1DX2 video under challenging conditions because different cameras face different challenges... The info gained would be good for the reader. By no means would it be directly comparable, but it would give good info to the reader.

so Rishi..... additional testing sections....
(17) Field impressions
(18) Pushing the limits

Just a thought.....


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## Mikehit (May 5, 2016)

Don Haines said:


> yet because Canon sells the 7D2 with a claim of toughness, to leave it out would be a dis-service to potential buyers....



But I don't see that as DPR's remit, I don't go there for a one-stop all-encompassing review. 
As dilbert (and others) have said, how do you define 'toughness'? Waterproof, bounceability off a rock face? Does the durability needs of a wildlife photographer match the needs of a paparazzo? I would prefer to hear those comments from eople relevant to what I do (in my case, the likes of Andy Rouse) than some lab-coated person working to a protocol that I have no idea is relevant to me. 



> Similarly, Add a test to the 80D for video under challenging conditions.... and that test would be different than testing the 1DX2 video under challenging conditions because different cameras face different challenges


So if the challenges are different, and if the expectations are different then the testing has to be different and if you do that, what conclusions could you draw to say whether body A is better than body B? 
And what if the test exceeds the capability of the camera and DPR are left with a trashed body? :-X


That, I think comes to the core of it. I see DPR as a (hopefully) objective way of comparing cameras. You are talking about a review of 'will this body do what I want it to do' which is a different question. And having done quality testing in different arenas I am a great believer in sticking to what your remit is, which is where I think DxO is starting to go wrong because it is trying to extend its conclusions beyond what the testing regimes enable it to.
Rishi has said they want to extend their testing but they are doing it very cautiously to make sure that their conclusions are robust.


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