# Just for Jrista: 2014 Market Data



## Woody (Sep 20, 2014)

You asked for info regarding the latest interchangeable lens camera market. Thom Hogan has done the job for you:

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/interchangeable-lens-market.html

"So I went back to Canon and Nikon’s recent published numbers and the CIPA shipment numbers for 2014 so far and plugged them into a spreadsheet with Sony’s claims and an assumption about Sony’s DSLR sales (which they didn’t disclose). What I came up with was a range of values that went like this:

Canon — 38 to 40%
Nikon — 33 to 35%
Sony — 12 to 14%

...But, overall, it looks to me that we’re still locked into the same basic pattern for unit volume in interchangeable lens cameras that we’ve had since the early 90’s: Canon leading, Nikon following, and Sony (originally Minolta) trailing. At the moment, there’s nothing appearing from any of the three that seems to be going to alter that any time soon."


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## Click (Sep 20, 2014)

Thanks for sharing Woody.


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## jrista (Sep 20, 2014)

Thanks for the link, Woody. Interesting info. At least we aren't looking at a major decline in the ILC market. Once I started looking at sales numbers for the last fiscal year, I started to wonder about whether we were looking at the ILC market contracting like the P&S market did (which has been devastating, and with 20-40mp sensors in phones, and with hose sensors getting bigger, it looks like the P&S market is ultimately not just shrinking, but totally dead in the long run.)


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

Thanks, Woody. Some good info there, if not really surprising. 




jrista said:


> Once I started looking at sales numbers for the last fiscal year



After you started doing so, you made comments like this in a few threads:



jrista said:


> ...Canon has been losing ILC sales for the last couple of years, while *Nikon made massive gains last year and is still projecting significant gains for the next couple of years*.



That doesn't seem to jive with Hogan's analysis. Frankly, it also doesn't jive with what Nikon's financial data show, nor their projections. For example, from their 1Q15 report, their 1Q15 imaging products business shows all negatives in the Y/Y column, and their full FY2015 estimate states, "_Sales plan is revised as European markets are expected to be severer than assumed. The revision *pushes down* both *sales* and operating income *by 6%* and 12%, respectively, from the previous forecast._" Oh, and in case you were wondering what that 'previous forecast' stated, it was the following: "_Market *downturn continues for digital camera-interchangeable lens type* and compact DSC. 1st half still faces the unfavorable market condition, but the recovery is expected in the 2nd half. *Sales forecast is lowered 8%* but increase of operating income is forecasted._" In that same full FY2014 presentation, they show Imaging Company *loss of unit sales of dSLRs + lenses of 16%*. 

So, from the Nikon reports which I linked, they *lost 16% of unit sales in 2014 compared to 2013*, and they *predict losses in net sales for FY2015* that are 6% greater than the 8% loss they initially predicted. Can you provide some documentaion for the 'massive gains' you say Nikon made last year, and show where they project significant gains for the next couple of years? 

Of course, Canon is losing sales and revenues, too. The market simply isn't in very good shape overall. But you were claiming that Canon was losing sales while Nikon was experiencing 'massive gains'...but looking at the actual data, and Hogan's analysis of those data, I just don't see where you're getting that idea.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


> Sure. The report I was looking at was for the fiscal year 2013, although the report came out later in 2014. So the massive gains were not for the 2014 fiscal year (last fiscal year, which only ended recently), they were from two "years" ago (fiscal years). My mistake. I didn't realize that Nikon's fiscal years were so offset.



Nikon's and Canon's fiscal years are only offset by one quarter in time (Canon's is the calendar year, Nikon's is April 1 - March 31). But they do name them differently, so Nikon's FY2013 is Apr 2012 - Mar 2013, and Canon's FY2013 is all of 2013.

So...by comparing the FY2013 data from both companies, you basically compared Nikon's 2012 performance to Canon's 2013 performance and came to the conclusion that Nikon was pulling ahead of Canon (I'm still not sure where you got Nikon predicting gains for two years). 2012 was a year of industry-wide double-digit growth for ILCs, 2013 was a year double-digit shrinkage. Now, it turns out your financial analysis was like comparing apples to scallops. Those data from 2 years ago were the basis for your predictions that the 'tides are shifting', and you were suggesting that the shift was a result of Canon's failure to improve sensor technology in the face of Sony/Nikon innovation. 

Hopefully that particular prediction wasn't one of the bottom cards in your argument...


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## unfocused (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


> Crucify me. I've already been hanging on a cross for a while now, not like it's going to matter.


Oh please spare us the self-pity. You've been on the attack for months now. Every time you are proven wrong you change the goal posts or pull out the "poor me" card. It's time to move on.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 20, 2014)

unfocused said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Crucify me. I've already been hanging on a cross for a while now, not like it's going to matter.
> ...


+ several million

I don't cry when I get set upon 

"Just as you sow you shall reap": Stuart Adams.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


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



You would not be the first to be confused by Nikon's fiscal year cycle. 2015 starting in March 2014! While Canon 2014 FY starts in January 2014.

I do agree with Thoms general information, but then, its his specialty, he is a finance specialist and is able to reconcile some of the various reports.

Camera companies often give misleading data. We have 40% of the market in upper Bangendorf (which has 0.2% of the world wide market)


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> You would not be the first to be confused by Nikon's fiscal year cycle. 2015 starting in March 2014! While Canon 2014 FY starts in January 2014.



By convention, a fiscal year is always denoted by the year in which it ends. The US government's FY2015 starts 12 days from today. FY2015 for the Japanese government started Apr 1, 2014, as did Canada's.


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## takesome1 (Sep 20, 2014)

So if I am reading this article right, Canon is selling more low end crop bodies.
Nikon is selling more high end Pro and Prosumer bodies.


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## unfocused (Sep 20, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> So if I am reading this article right, Canon is selling more low end crop bodies.
> Nikon is selling more high end Pro and Prosumer bodies.


You are not reading it right. Nikon has more full frame bodies and Canon has more aps-c bodies. Absent information on sales of specific models it's impossible to know which company is selling more of any particular body or format. Having more of something isn't the same as selling more.


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## Woody (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


> In 2010, Canon had a 14.7% market share lead on Nikon. As of today, at worst, according to Hogan's data, Nikon has reduced that gap by 50% at worst, by 80% at best, and on average by 75%. Even if we take the worst case scenario, for any company to change a large market share differential by 50% is significant.



That is overly simplistic. Take a look at the worldwide DSLR market shares from 2006 to 2008:

http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/DSLR-Welt-im-Wandel

In 2007 and 2008, Nikon nearly caught up with Canon. But Canon pulled far ahead again in 2010 and 2011.

In short, Canon and Nikon numbers fluctuate from year to year. But the Canon ~ 40% and Nikon ~ 35% numbers have been fairly stable since 2012.


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## Aglet (Sep 20, 2014)

as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
Holy cow! much more pent up demand hoping for a large improvement over the old 7d than any craving for a new FF Nik body is my interpretation, especially when there's already 2 good options in the 800 and 600 series that many are likely already satisfied with. 
You could spin that as too many FF nik bodies available.. or, quite possibly, a lot of people wanting a better Canon crop body that they will finally get.


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## msm (Sep 20, 2014)

Aglet said:


> as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
> ...



Oh, so despite all your complaining about Canon sensors you still buy Canon cameras? I guess this is a good demonstration of why Canon does not need to care about the low ISO image quality of their sensors.


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 20, 2014)

Hey! Come on now. Isn't it easier to complain than it is to go out and actually make an incredible image? If you're a Pro, isn't it easier to complain to an art-director that your images are inferior due the equipment you used than it is to actually deliver the goods? In which case you'll not be a Pro for very long.

LOL!




msm said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
> ...


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

Aglet said:


> ...my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.



Clearly there are a whole lot of people out there who don't really understand just how poor Canon sensors are, that they're years behind everyone else and practically incapable of making a decent image. 

I mean, if Canon had modernized their sensor production instead of continuing to use archaic processes, they might be able to compete with Nikon and Sony, whereas clearly you're confirming Canon's failure and inability to make a viable camera.


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## docsmith (Sep 20, 2014)

Just to point it out, but Nikon has bee steadily releasing new bodies over the last 4 years whereas Canon released 1DX, 1DC, 5DIII, 6D, 60D, T4i, and EOS-M, all in 2012. 2013 was just the T5i, SL1, and 70D. The T5i is more of a continuation/model per year (until 2014), the SL1 seems to have become more of a minor niche, with the 70D being, my perception, the "major" announcement (unless you count the M2, which wasn't even released in the US). In 2014, only the T5 until the 7DII. So there was nothing new and exciting (unless you get excited by the T5) to spur sales in 2014 until the 7DII. We'll see what is released in the rest of 2014. But 2015/16 is when I am expecting updates to the other bodies. Until then, to an extent, I suspect you are discussing an ebb tide and not a true prolonged trend.

That said, the real reason I am writing this post, how the heck can I first hear a rumor about a new Canon mount from Thom Hogan and not a site called CANON RUMORS. Anyone know more about what Thom is referencing? _"Coincidentally, there are now rumors floating around that Canon might introduce a new mount with smaller sensor (ala the Nikon 1)."_ Did I miss something?


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## Sporgon (Sep 20, 2014)

Aglet said:


> as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
> Holy cow! much more pent up demand hoping for a large improvement over the old 7d than any craving for a new FF Nik body is my interpretation, especially when there's already 2 good options in the 800 and 600 series that many are likely already satisfied with.
> You could spin that as too many FF nik bodies available.. or, quite possibly, a lot of people wanting a better Canon crop body that they will finally get.



I'm not at all surprised about a 15-1 ratio between a good, new APS camera and the same FF. Look at the on cost with building a FF system compared with smaller format. OK, many people revel in this, some really need it, but at the end of the day there is going to be a lot more cost to produce images that are generally indistinguishable from one another, most of the time.

IMO Nikon are going to be heading down the wrong path again if they put their emphasis on FF cameras at the expense of cheaper, better value APS, especially as time is moving on and those who have used film are going to be less in number, and so the format size will generally have less impact on the buying decision for many.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

docsmith said:


> Just to point it out, but Nikon has bee steadily releasing new bodies over the last 4 years whereas Canon released 1DX, 5DIII, 6D, 60D, T4i, and EOS-M, all in 2012. 2013 was just the T5i, SL1, and 70D. the T5i is more of a continuation/model per year (until 2014), the SL1 seems to have become more of a minor niche, with the 70D being, my perception, the "major" announcement (unless you count the M2, which wasn't even released in the US). In 2014, only the T5 until the 7DII. So, I would not be surprised if estimates of Canon's 2014 numbers are off. There was nothing new and exciting (unless you get excited by the T5) until the 7DII. We'll see what is released in the rest of 2014. But 2015/16 is when I am expecting updates to the other bodies. Until then, to an extent, I suspect you are discussing an ebb tide and not a true prolonged trend.
> 
> That said, the real reason I am writing this post, how the heck can I first hear a rumor about a new Canon mount from Thom Hogan and not a site called CANON RUMORS. Anyone know more about what Thom is referencing? _"Coincidentally, there are now rumors floating around that Canon might introduce a new mount with smaller sensor (ala the Nikon 1)."_ Did I miss something?



I caught that as well, but I wonder if Canon prediction of improving sales isn't simply due to the forthcoming T6i/750D.


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## Busted Knuckles (Sep 20, 2014)

Oh, I just couldn't stop myself. 

There might be trend that the crop sensor is "good enough" for the vast middle of the market - from entry level enthusiast to the cheap ass pro I saw using a 30d for a paid gig last spring at the indy car races in St. Pete. (When the car owner asked him to a pic of the two of us w/ my 5d3 he about choked - he was getting paid enough to have a 7d or even a 1d around his neck - for a laugh another friend f1 car owner bought his photo dude the Leica s2 to complete his 1dx for the Montreal race - when only the very best will do...) Sorry for the distraction and derision.

In a similar fashion that cell phone cameras crushed the P&S market, truly capable crop bodies are recapturing market share from the pro & middle/upper enthusiast segment. The increased sales forecast from canon could be the bet on the 7d2??? 

IF IF If that is the case, then the Oly/Pano M4/3 offerings may start to play a spoiler if not "bleeding edge" role. No doubt Sony has been throwing body configurations at the wall and hoping something sticks or simply provide a solution to so many niches that it might add up to something. (Common you have to give up to the low light of the 7s - just I don't shoot in the dark that often but when you need something for the mood of the video....)

I certainly don't know the number of buyers - pondering though, the sidelines seems uncrowded for the pro market to fully support the 1dx, etc levels - it seems the enthusiasts that drive the ILC market and every time the crop sensor gets more capable it pulls from both ends of the spectrum. The world economy is recovering and with the few extra hundred dollars of disposable cash moving from a t1,2,3,4,5/30,40,50,60d or Gxxx? to a 7d2 would be a giant leap in functions compared to moving to a 60,70d without having to re-glass or to FF and re-glassing.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

dilbert said:


> Seems everyone missed this paragraph:



Scroll up a few posts to see how you are wrong yet again.


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## ritholtz (Sep 20, 2014)

Nikon looks like a significant player in DSLR. Some posts here gave me impression of Nikon being a small player with Canon leading the market with significant distance. Canon dumps lot of rebels with printer bundles. They literally gives very expensive printers for free. Does Nikon offers any bundle rebates? Canon might be saving lot of money by using their own sensors with already depreciated fab.


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## moreorless (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
> ...



The difference I'd say is that the 7D2 is very much targeting pent up demand, along time has past since the 7D was released and compared to most of the recent high end updates(5D3, D800, etc) its given pretty much exactly what most people seemed to be expecting. Ontop of that you could also argue that the 7D2 is also targeting former 1D users who didn't want to move up to FF, a market that won't have bought a camera for several years.

The D750 is I spose somewhat targeting the D700 market but both the D800/810 and the D600 had already targeted a similar market(the D810 arguably better in some respects) and likely drawn out a lot of potential upgraders. When you consider that the lower priced FF DSLR market has also been heavily targeted in recent years I'm not supprized demand isn't that strong out of the gate but I suspect it will prove to be a good seller long term.


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## Meh (Sep 20, 2014)

Oh you guys. So much sarcasm and passive-aggressiveness. Keep it up, it's great!


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## Etienne (Sep 20, 2014)

docsmith said:


> That said, the real reason I am writing this post, how the heck can I first hear a rumor about a new Canon mount from Thom Hogan and not a site called CANON RUMORS. Anyone know more about what Thom is referencing? _"Coincidentally, there are now rumors floating around that Canon might introduce a new mount with smaller sensor (ala the Nikon 1)."_ Did I miss something?



I wish they'd just come out with an EOS-M mk III, the EF-M mount on APS-C is a good idea already.


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## jeffa4444 (Sep 20, 2014)

Sony & Olympus have gained in certain markets according to GfK who monitor the global market by territory not region like CIPA. In Japan, China & Taiwan as well as the UK and Germany mirrorless cameras particularly high value ones have grown at a time DSLRs are in a decline although nothing like compact cameras which have caused the major headache for Nikon, Canon, Sony & Olympus et al. 
Kowa had some new 4/3rds wide angles what ironically is fueling it is Blackmagic with their pocket camera. Blackmagic have a huge stand at Photokina and have racked-up 20,000 pre-orders & sales for the URSA 4K camera, Red are also at Photokina for the first time.


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## takesome1 (Sep 20, 2014)

These threads pop up occasionally and often sales volume, market share and profits are quoted to try and prove one sensor or camera company is better than the other.

This information is good if you are considering buying Canon stock CAJ but absolutely worthless in determining who has the best camera or sensor.


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## Aglet (Sep 20, 2014)

msm said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > as I was pre-ordering my 7d2 today, (uh-hmmm... cough..) my LCS guy said pre-orders for the 7d2 vs the d750 were running about 15-to-1.
> ...



Of course! 
I really liked my 7d, except for the horridly stripey shadow noise which made it a body I could not use for certain high DR scenes where I'd need to push the files in post. That limited its versatility and meant i had to carry something else to cover that role.
I really enjoyed USING that camera. I cursed it to hell when I had to push its files in post and I still haven't gone back to rescue some shots I took with it where the shadows are distractingly ugly with FPN. 
Previous discussions on this topic have well covered that and, whenever I can make the time to go back and rework those images with some updated NR software, I'll hopefully be able to re-process and make some use of those files.

I've been waiting a LONG time for its replacement. I dismissed the 70D, despite it being the first Canon cropper since the 40D without nasty low ISO FPN, because I want what the higher performance level the 7D's successor would provide. However, value-wise, the 70D would likely be my better option over the 7d2 for the limited uses I have for this type of shooting.

I pre-ordered a 7d2 ONLY because I'll be getting a $900+ discount on a lens bundle deal, otherwise I would not bother. 
I've already partially filled this role with an Olympus OMD EM10 + 75-100mm lens. It's great for the little bit of birding I do, not so good for BiF or other high paced action. It's high ISO performance is impressive, it's low iso performance is also very good for such a small sensor. It's small, light, easy to carry and has lots of useful features.

The 7D2 will be a decision point of sorts for me. If it performs really well for ME, I'll likely keep it and some Canon gear in my kit. If not, it's likely I will sell off the rest of my Canon inventory (of value) to fund replacements for those functions from other mfrs. A Canon FF that is high MP and devoid of FPN might make me reconsider some shooting applications (tilt-shift) but i'm already quite satisfied with my current FF Nik gear and expanding in that direction.

As for what Canon thinks, I can't be sure. But I bet they will slowly, quietly continue to improve their products to reduce and eliminate FPN and they will not publicly state anything about that, or DR, in order to keep that shameful little fact from becoming a mainstream topic to the general camera buying consumer. Ignorance and non-disclosure is good for profits and marketshare. They'll just sweep that under the carpet and move on to the next era of products. Speaking of which, looks like they might be thinking a bit more seriously about mirrorless...

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/20140918_667456.html

use google translate and make your own best guess at how to interpret that vague japanese lingo


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 20, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> These threads pop up occasionally and often sales volume, market share and profits are quoted to try and prove one sensor or camera company is better than the other.
> 
> This information is good if you are considering buying Canon stock CAJ but absolutely worthless in determining *who has the best camera or sensor*.



Of course, proving which camera or sensor is the best isn't the point of bringing up sales data and market share. But if you want to deliberately misconstrue the reason in order to dismiss the information, that's your choice.


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## Don Haines (Sep 20, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > These threads pop up occasionally and often sales volume, market share and profits are quoted to try and prove one sensor or camera company is better than the other.
> ...



What I find funny is how people try to use these statistics to show how the 1DX is better than the D810 (and vici versa) and fixate on high end camera comparisons..... Yet the vast bulk of sales for both Canon and Nikon are the introductory crop cameras and the two biggest factors used by the average consumer are price and megapixels... Image quality, autofocus, DR, expensive lenses, and all the other goodies do not factor into the decision, and most of these cameras will live their lives in "green box" mode.....


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## takesome1 (Sep 20, 2014)

jrista said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > These threads pop up occasionally and often sales volume, market share and profits are quoted to try and prove one sensor or camera company is better than the other.
> ...



Ok so some of what you say may arguably be right, or not, but then you drop this statement in the middle of it.

In what business model would a leading company hold back technology that would crush their competition.
Were they feeling sorry for Nikon because they got hit harder than Canon did by the tsunami?

I think as a Canon shooter I hoped that they would release superior technology last year and even the year before. But to think they withheld technology is like believing conspiracy theories.


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## takesome1 (Sep 20, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > takesome1 said:
> ...



As most of us probably do, people I know ask for camera advice. Most want an easy to use DSLR and do not know much else. They understand the concept of megapixels but then you mention high ISO noise and dynamic range and a blank stare comes over their face, you just provided TMI. To them mp = IQ unfortunately. 

The last guy that asked me for advice wanted a small DSLR, of course I suggested SL1 with a kit lens for his budget and needs. He ended up buying a Nikon body, and why? He had a 20 year old Nikon lens he could use on it. Sensor wasn't even a thought for him.


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## Tugela (Sep 20, 2014)

Woody said:


> You asked for info regarding the latest interchangeable lens camera market. Thom Hogan has done the job for you:
> 
> http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/interchangeable-lens-market.html
> 
> ...



For now, because product loyalty takes time to overcome. Canonites will still swear true to the faith long after logic dictates otherwise, but eventually logic will prevail. If the three companies continue to address the future as they are now, Sony will be top dog with the other two a distant second.

If Canon and Nikon want to still be around in 10 years, they are going to need to radically revise their product design paradigm, because right now both of them are failing miserably.


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## takesome1 (Sep 20, 2014)

Tugela said:


> Woody said:
> 
> 
> > You asked for info regarding the latest interchangeable lens camera market. Thom Hogan has done the job for you:
> ...



Sony should focus on their TV, they once had the finest TV in the world and they have slipped in the last few years. 
They once made a fine computer, I bought one they make now about two months ago, lucky I was able to get my money back. Sony the top DSLR company in ten years?


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 21, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> He ended up buying a Nikon body, and why? He had a 20 year old Nikon lens he could use on it. Sensor wasn't even a thought for him.



That's really the point. A few people on these forums seem to think that the sensor, and in particular low ISO DR, is the only relevant aspect of the performance of a *camera system*. As I keep saying, I'm sure that's true for some people. They just can't seem to grasp that they're in the minority. 




Tugela said:


> If the three companies continue to address the future as they are now, Sony will be top dog with the other two a distant second.



More likely, Sony will jettison their camera business (not bare sensors) due to their financial woes. Sony canceled their dividend payment for the first time ever. Their shareholders aren't happy, analysts are predicting a further 20% loss on top of how far they've already slid. They're hemorrhaging yen and they're credit is at junk status. Not a good time to buy a Sony camera if you value continued support and system development.


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## Woody (Sep 21, 2014)

jrista said:


> I think it is just as simplistic to look at past market performance where market shares fluctuated, and assume there weren't very specific reasons for why those market shares fluctuated. What happened in 2006, 2007, 2008, that caused changes in Canon, Nikon, and Sony market share? ...
> 
> Today, instead of a 15% differential in market share between Canon and Nikon, according to Hogan's report, there is about a 5% differential...
> 
> My opinion is, Canon is severely lagging behind in the one piece of technology that the photographer themselves cannot control to improve IQ: The sensor.



Too many factors affect market shares: chain distribution, advertising, company confidence etc.

Sony switched from CCD to CMOS with much improvement in high ISO quality in 2007-2008. First products Nikon D3/D300, announced on 23-Aug-2007, available in 2008.

This means in 2007 when Nikon had 40% of DSLR market shares as compared to 42% for Canon, they were just selling camera models with Sony CCD sensors.

On the other hand, the Canon 1D Mark 3 fiasco peaked in 2007-2008 (camera announced on 22-Feb-2007, available many months later).

Later, Sony started deploying EXMOR technology. First product Nikon D7000, announced 15-Sep-2010, available some months later.

However, in 2012, Nikon released the D800 (left side misfocus) and D600 (sensor debris) with serious quality control issues which dampened consumer confidence in Nikon.

At the same time, interest in mirrorless cameras started to pick up in Asia. Canon was no longer the top choice for interchangeable cameras in many Asian countries.

The companies also had varying success in penetrating developing markets (e.g., China).

As you can tell, it's all very complex. Sensor quality is only one piece of the puzzle.


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## risc32 (Sep 21, 2014)

so a pro is still using a 30d? no kidding. My second shooter does as well. pros or part timers aren't in it to buy the latest camera gear. My second shooter and i usually get a kick out of how many people attending whatever event we are working have better gear than he does. me? well, i think i have some pretty sweet gear, but nothing like many of you guys.
pros moving to sony? not event shooters. i came from minolta, and at first i thought that since our cameras are now computers with lenses an electronics giant like sony might be very good. but i feared they would do what they usually do. jack up prices, and start using special sony designed mem cards and the like. then i thought they would start coming out with 12 models a year with completely different control layouts. i don't want that. canon stuck with what i/we know with the 7dmk2 and that is good. when using two cameras at a time, i dislike having one button different. 
anyway, that was some rambling.


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## V8Beast (Sep 21, 2014)

If I'm interpreting the data correctly, it reflects units sold/shipped, and not revenue? If so, who gives a hoot? Companies exist to make money, and if you have to sell more units to make the same, or even less, money than the competition, why is that a good thing? Percentage of market share is somewhat revealing, but it's not nearly as important as how much money a company earns through its DSLR manufacturing efforts. 

Everyone complained that the 5D3 was too expensive when it was released. Almost three years later, 5D3 prices have held steady, despite millions of posts claiming that Canon would drop prices significantly once the initial wave of stupid "first adopters" ceased. On the other hand, Nikon has released the D800, D810, and soon the D750 to fill essentially the same market segment as Canon does with the 5D3. 

IMHO, the Nikon's are loaded with some very impressive technology at a lower price point. For tech-obsessed Canon shooters, the envy is understandable. That said, it's reasonable to presume that Nikon is operating on slimmer profit margins per unit than Canon, compounded with the tremendous costs associated with releasing three bodies (D800/D810/D750) in a relatively short amount of time to fill the same slot in the market filled by the 5D3. Oh yeah, I bet all the quality control issues hurt Nikon's profit margin quite a bit, requiring them to sell even more units to make up for the lost revenue. 

If Yoda was a DSLR tech junkie he'd say: "Sales volume numbers tell whole story they do not ;D"


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## Woody (Sep 21, 2014)

Aglet said:


> But I bet they will slowly, quietly continue to improve their products to reduce and eliminate FPN and they will not publicly state anything about that, or DR, in order to keep that shameful little fact from becoming a mainstream topic to the general camera buying consumer. Ignorance and non-disclosure is good for profits and marketshare. They'll just sweep that under the carpet and move on to the next era of products. Speaking of which, looks like they might be thinking a bit more seriously about mirrorless...
> 
> http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/20140918_667456.html



Actually, the D7000 was also not released with a lot of fanfare wrt its sensor DR even though it was the first mainstream camera to achieve greater than 13 stops of DR at base ISO according to DXOMark measurements.

As for EOS-M, the writing is already on the wall: 
a) http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/interchangeable-lens-market.html

"It appears they’ve raised their 2015 interchangeable lens camera sales forecast (i.e. are not predicting another decline for next year, but rather significant unit volume growth). Given what I know of the market the only thing I could see driving the kind of growth they seem to now be predicting is another new interchangeable lens camera of significance."

b) http://www.cnet.com/news/canon-reveals-details-for-future-telephoto-lens-line/

"The newest range of Canon lenses is the EF-M series for the company's new "mirrorless" cameras, a line that's more compact than traditional SLRs. Canon only has a handful of EF-M lenses, but during a press conference here, the company committed to adding more."

c) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2Fnews%2Finterview%2F20140918_667456.html&edit-text=&act=url

"Yes. EF-M also EF also with respect to compactness, in the format of each, I will continue to efforts to the fullest."


----------



## V8Beast (Sep 21, 2014)

risc32 said:


> so a pro is still using a 30d? no kidding. My second shooter does as well. pros or part timers aren't in it to buy the latest camera gear. My second shooter and i usually get a kick out of how many people attending whatever event we are working have better gear than he does. me? well, i think i have some pretty sweet gear, but nothing like many of you guys.



It's sad, but many enthusiasts judge the skill of a photographer they know nothing about based on the caliber of their gear. It seems to really stroke their egos when they see a pro with lesser gear than they have. I don't list my gear in my sig because I like to keep people guessing ;D For me, it's much more gratifying to produce better images with lesser resources than my more well-equipped competition. 

It reminds me of when I first started posting here, revealed that I made a living shooting with a 5D classic, and was promptly ridiculed as a troll. The many demands to post sample images of this impossible feat were quite comical to say the least. 

Meanwhile, I know many very talented pros that are still shooting with 5DIIs, 1DIVs, and 1DsIIIs. One pro friend of mine just finally retired his 1DsII after eight years of field duty! The grip was worn smooth on that thing, but he still managed to produce outstanding images with it.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 21, 2014)

V8Beast said:


> risc32 said:
> 
> 
> > so a pro is still using a 30d? no kidding. My second shooter does as well. pros or part timers aren't in it to buy the latest camera gear. My second shooter and i usually get a kick out of how many people attending whatever event we are working have better gear than he does. me? well, i think i have some pretty sweet gear, but nothing like many of you guys.
> ...



Agreed..........

A 1DX with a 400mm f2.8 IS MkII and a trip to Manhattan beach doesn't make you a surf photographer.


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## Hillsilly (Sep 21, 2014)

dilbert said:


> *Coincidentally, there are now rumors floating around that Canon might introduce a new mount with smaller sensor (ala the Nikon 1).*
> [/i]
> 
> Why aren't there any stories on *THIS* website about that?
> ...



I alluded to this last week in the "How can we improve on 5D3 to 5D4?" thread. I assume that's where Thom got his information. Sorry - but it was just my imagination running wild. (...or was it?)


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 21, 2014)

... and this is part of the point, isn't it? Great images are great images, regardless of the equipment used. 

If we were honest with ourselves we'd realize that without EXIF data it's nearly impossible to tell which camera and which lens made which image.

Yes, I'm like everyone else who wants to make sure that what we own is sufficient to the task. I might spend too much time thinking and researching the topic. Yet, once that decision is made, great images come from the mind and heart of the artist, as expressed through the equipment they use. Equipment sitting there on the table, while brilliant by all human measures, can't produce a brilliant piece of work without serious human intervention.



V8Beast said:


> risc32 said:
> 
> 
> > so a pro is still using a 30d? no kidding. My second shooter does as well. pros or part timers aren't in it to buy the latest camera gear. My second shooter and i usually get a kick out of how many people attending whatever event we are working have better gear than he does. me? well, i think i have some pretty sweet gear, but nothing like many of you guys.
> ...


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## msm (Sep 21, 2014)

Here in Norway, camera sales went down 43% in the first half of 2014. Compacts went down 43%. In the ILC market DSLRs fell with 49% vs only 5% fall of mirror less. Mirror less reached 31% of the ILC market.

Of course Norway is a small market and is the only country in Europe with such a fall according to the article, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Source if anyone care:
http://www.tu.no/t2/2014/09/16/intet-land-i-europa-opplever-samme-fall-i-kameramarkedet-som-norge


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## DominoDude (Sep 21, 2014)

msm said:


> Here in Norway, camera sales went down 43% in the first half of 2014. Compacts went down 43%. In the ILC market DSLRs fell with 49% vs only 5% fall of mirror less. Mirror less reached 31% of the ILC market.
> 
> Of course Norway is a small market and is the only country in Europe with such a fall according to the article, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
> 
> ...



Good read. Thanks for the link, msm! That's really low numbers.


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## DominoDude (Sep 21, 2014)

My guestimate for the market as a whole would be that those customers that have cheaper P&S's, or a newbie model with few lenses, are more prone to do brand-jumping. Look at how people change or update their phones nowadays - the producers don't expect a certain model to last more than 18 months. And many customers change phone model more often than that.

It would be very hard to please these customers all the time, if you were a producer such as Nikon or Canon. I think they expect to lose some in the low-end segment, and aim at getting long-term customers in the higher segments. Right now there's a dip - new things happen on the market with cameras in cell phones becoming more competent - but I would expect an upswing when the economies around the world gets a little more stable again.
The companies that have done their best to predict the markets future will be best suited to survive. Some of them will have a new product-portfolio aimed at a different type of customer, others will perhaps purify what they already do to become better.

I hope some of this makes any sense. I don't intend to write a short novel, so I might have skipped too much to be properly understood.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 21, 2014)

It's also because being a "pro" doesn't mean anything. there's really no standardization, so anyone can be one.


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## Etienne (Sep 21, 2014)

bdunbar79 said:


> It's also because being a "pro" doesn't mean anything. there's really no standardization, so anyone can be one.



Being a pro generally means earning your living by practising your craft. 
Many amateurs are more skilled than most pros.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 21, 2014)

Etienne said:


> bdunbar79 said:
> 
> 
> > It's also because being a "pro" doesn't mean anything. there's really no standardization, so anyone can be one.
> ...



I'd take issue with that, many keen amateurs can take as good or better images than *many* pros, but as with most self employed professions, taking images is a very small, though important, part of the job.


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## sarangiman (Sep 22, 2014)

This entire thread is hilarious.

Conflating the needs of the masses as reflected in the sales figures with the needs of enthusiasts and pros - a completely disparate population.

Controlling for nothing, like brand name, education level, etc.

Therefore none of these numbers should be drawn into *any* conversations re: technologies that (1) enthusiasts/pros care about, (2) said technologies that don't have much impact on market share, (3) said technologies that *could* help even laypeople but since the use-cases are not communicated well enough to be ever used, end up being irrelevant to even those use-cases (a failure of many of you here, but mostly of the review/educational sites around the world).

But all that doesn't mean that those new technologies couldn't be used in groundbreaking ways, amongst many people, if iterated on and then taught appropriately. 

And honestly, being on here for years, that whole 'teaching part' is never going to happen here. B/c everyone else is far too holed up in their own ways to even consider that someone else coming along might, just might, _have a point._

So we're literally back to the same level of conversation I noticed when I participated in these forums 3 years ago. The entire reason I left. Great to see nothing's changed!

Well, except that you now accept all the claims that Risedal guy made - rather hurtfully to you pity souls - b/c ultimately he was right. But you just don't want to talk about it.

Did I get that about right? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image:







I don't know about you, but I just don't deliver that to clients. My D810 wouldn't have even had the smudge related with this noise, b/c it wouldn't have had any(thing but shot) noise to begin with with even a +5 EV push (that's verified; I'm not making it up).

And that's not even talking about some of the other differentiators that differentiate the low end Rebel from Nikon's Rebel competitor: for example, Nikon's Rebel competitor has 39 AF points that can accurate subject track, even detect a face (even when you're using the OVF), and focus on and track it. Will work for your kids playing sports or for your dog running around. 

Rebel - can only focus on whatever's the nearest subject it can find within its 9 AF points. Good luck tracking it with those 9 points, especially if something else enters the scene at a similar plane as your kid/pet.

If even that crowd buys Rebels predominantly, then what's the point of this entire conversation? Other than that: *brand names persist.* Because of word of mouth. From people like you.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 22, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Well, except that you now accept all the claims that Risedal guy made - rather hurtfully to you pity souls - b/c ultimately he was right. But you just don't want to talk about it.
> 
> Did I get that about right? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.



No, you got wrong. 




sarangiman said:


> Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image:
> 
> I don't know about you, but I just don't deliver that to clients. My D810 wouldn't have even had the smudge related with this noise, b/c it wouldn't have had any(thing but shot) noise to begin with with even a +5 EV push (that's verified; I'm not making it up).



Yeah, sad that all those so-called professional photographers using Canon deliver their clients such crap. It's just astounding that they manage to barely stay in business, I'm sure no one using Canon is successful as a photographer. 

You've proven that Canon sensors can't make a good image, much more effectively than Mikael. Great job teaching us poor yokels who are still using such incapable cameras.


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## Sporgon (Sep 22, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> This entire thread is hilarious.
> 
> Conflating the needs of the masses as reflected in the sales figures with the needs of enthusiasts and pros - a completely disparate population.
> 
> ...



Would you be prepared to share with us the whole uncropped image and the raw file ?


----------



## Don Haines (Sep 22, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Etienne said:
> 
> 
> > bdunbar79 said:
> ...


I tend to agree with you..... being a pro means being able to market yourself/services well enough to be able to make a living. Even if you are with god-like photographic skills, if you can't market yourself well enough, you will fail as a business.


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## Keith_Reeder (Sep 22, 2014)

docsmith said:


> Anyone know more about what Thom is referencing? _"Coincidentally, there are now rumors floating around that Canon might introduce a new mount with smaller sensor (ala the Nikon 1)."_ Did I miss something?



Yep. Just yesterday I read (on Nikon Rumors, no less - and from the great man himself) that these days Canon USA is talking to him a damn' sight more than Nikon USA is talking to him: I imagine that Canon is drip-feeding him info in order to keep him interested.

What a coup for Canon it would be if Hogan drifted into its camp; and reading between the lines, that's looking possible.


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## Keith_Reeder (Sep 22, 2014)

Tugela said:


> For now, because product loyalty takes time to overcome. Canonites will still swear true to the faith long after logic dictates otherwise,



Both untrue and patronising.

Canon shooters stay with Canon, not through some misguided sense of loyalty (which is an asinine notion that I see very little Real World evidence of) _but because Canon cameras do the jobs their owners want them to do, to the degree of quality the owners require_.

Glib, snarky comments about product loyalty (which is just another way of saying "fanboyism") are a cheap and easy way to diss, but the reality is that loyalty doesn't come into it. The word you're looking for is "satisfaction": Canon users are, for the most part, _satisfied_ with their cameras.

And that's enough.

*And, in turn, why Canon sells the most cameras*.


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## Keith_Reeder (Sep 22, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image



Maybe you should learn to convert and process your files properly.


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## Keith_Reeder (Sep 22, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Would you be prepared to share with us the... raw file ?


Oh yeah - _that_ would be fun!


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## Orangutan (Sep 22, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image:


Which "wonder junk" are you talking about, the noise or something else? I see several different areas, and each could have a different cause. 



> My D810 wouldn't have even had the smudge related with this noise


It's hard to know that for certain without side-by-side testing, though I wouldn't dismiss the possibility. It would be great to see the before/after, or better still this area of the photo at each stage of your PP so we know where the problem comes in.


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## Woody (Sep 22, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image
> ...



I always thought wedding photographers make use of reflectors to avoid such classic lighting problems? That was what my wedding photographer did to get a beautifully exposed shot with the sunburst and blue sky behind us. Oh, he was using the Canon 5D classic.

Oh, here is another example: http://www.mattgranger.com/light. Matt has mostly Nikon gear.


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## Sporgon (Sep 22, 2014)

Woody said:


> Keith_Reeder said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



You are absolutely right, except that generally those here suggesting the Exmor tech can do a better job don't want to be bothered with fill, they want to be able to use every ounce of the extensive latitude in the Nikon file. 

They will of course will be lifting data that has recorded virtually no light, so the photographer using 'old' tech such as a 5D or D200 and sound technique will produce a much higher quality image. 

So what happens if you use sound technique with both Canon and Nikon ? You get pretty much the same image. A well lit and correctly exposed image will always triumph over the same one which has been poorly lit and under exposed.


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## J.R. (Sep 22, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Woody said:
> 
> 
> > Keith_Reeder said:
> ...



Sensible post alert! You talk too much sense Sporgon and it's not likely to go down well with the ABC crowd. 

Photography is all about light and handling thereof. Light is "lightly" tossed aside by the people giving examples of the benefits of an exxmor sensor. 

I can understand someone complaining about DR for landscapes (not taking into account that DR in most landscapes will exceed even the what the exxmor provides). But why someone shooting in a controlled environment should complain about DR is beyond comprehension.


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## V8Beast (Sep 22, 2014)

Etienne said:


> Being a pro generally means earning your living by practising your craft.
> Many amateurs are more skilled than most pros.



That's a rather bold statement, don't you think? IMHO, some amateurs are more skilled some pros. If most pros were less skilled than many amateurs, then they would have gone out of business a long time ago. In fact, many of they already have, which means that all you'd have left are pros that produce exceptional work. 

I've noticed this in my tiny corner of the photography world, and I'm sure it's happening in other segments as well. There was a time when many so-called pros were merely hacks with the right equipment and the right contacts. After the digital revolution, clients quickly realized that they could hire amateurs that produced equally good or better images at a fraction of the cost, or even for free. 

With this new wave of cheap/free labor, the old-school "pros" that fell under the "hack" category are out of business, so the ratio of hacks to studs in the "pro" category continues to plummet as time elapses.


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## 3kramd5 (Sep 22, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> A 1DX with a 400mm f2.8 IS MkII and a trip to Manhattan beach doesn't make you a surf photographer.



Agreed. Surf photographers know to aim about 50 miles further down the 405.


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## msm (Sep 22, 2014)

Keith_Reeder said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image
> ...



He does raise a valid concern. While Canons DR usually may be sufficient in 95+% of the time assuming you expose optimally, when you correct for the heavy vignetting of big aperture primes the extra latitude you got goes straight down the drain in the corners.


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## zlatko (Sep 22, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image:



It sounds like you are blaming the camera for bad technique or possibly a combination of bad techniques. A 24/1.4 has 3EV vignetting in the corners only, and only when shot at f/1.4. Where you shooting at f/1.4 and were your subjects in the very corner of the frame? If so, why? If not, then why correct for 3EV of vignetting? At f/2.8, the vignetting is just over 1EV and that's only in the corners. I would not correct that at all. At f/4, vignetting is under 1EV in the corners.

Also, vignetting is part of the look of shooting an f/1.4 prime at f/1.4. It's not something you correct, or at least not fully correct. If you don't want heavy vignetting, you *don't* shoot at f/1.4. Instead, you stop down. If there is more than one person in the frame, you stop down at least a little anyway just to be sure they are all in focus. This is not even getting into the question of why one would even choose a wide angle 24mm lens if one wants shallow depth of field.

Saving the sky and clouds usually doesn't require underexposing by 1.5 stops. Are you using Highlight Tone Priority? That saves some of the sky/cloud highlights. Are you using any fill? Use just a little bit of fill flash (or a reflector) and you are reducing the need to brighten a photo in post. One stop of brightening is usually perfectly OK, while 4.5 stops of brightening is not OK. Requiring a photo to withstand 4.5 stops of brightening in post looks to be the result of a combination of mistakes.

Finally, I wonder about the processing technique here. Was any noise reduction applied?


----------



## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> It sounds like you are blaming the camera for bad technique or possibly a combination of bad techniques. A 24/1.4 has 3EV vignetting in the corners only, and only when shot at f/1.4. Where you shooting at f/1.4 and were your subjects in the very corner of the frame? If so, why? If not, then why correct for 3EV of vignetting? At f/2.8, the vignetting is just over 1EV and that's only in the corners. I would not correct that at all. At f/4, vignetting is under 1EV in the corners.
> 
> Also, vignetting is part of the look of shooting an f/1.4 prime at f/1.4. It's not something you correct, or at least not fully correct. If you don't want heavy vignetting, you *don't* shoot at f/1.4. Instead, you stop down. If there is more than one person in the frame, you stop down at least a little anyway just to be sure they are all in focus. This is not even getting into the question of why one would even choose a wide angle 24mm lens if one wants shallow depth of field.
> 
> ...



All of your points don't counter my concern that I find Canon's DR limiting. The point of technology is to 'get out of the way', not limit your creativity by placing constraints on your work. Sure, sometimes those constraints lead to valid solutions, but you just can't argue that having those constraints is better than not having them.

Reading your post, I'm not sure you fully appreciate the uses of fast primes. Are you suggesting I shoot f/1.4 primes at f/2.8, thereby throwing away what I consider the entire advantage of shallow DOF primes that isolate subjects to create that '3D' look? Why would I do that? If I didn't care about the f/1.4 look, I'd just shoot with the stellar 24-70 f/2.8...

Why choose a wide angle for shallow DOF? You're kidding... 24mm at f/1.4 can create a look, despite not having as shallow DOF as, say, 85/1.4, that you just can't get with slower lenses. To me, that's the entire point of f/1.4 primes. You use f/1.4 paired with your favorite focal lengths to get as much subject isolation as possible.

I will literally align people in the same plane and align myself normal to their plane so I can shoot 24mm or 35mm at f/1.4 without stopping down. I will keep shooting and re-aligning and re-shooting, checking focus across all subjects, just so I can get that 'look'. You'll note that my subject is in focus, even though that's the right extreme of the frame. Center subjects are also in focus. You can do that at f/1.4 if you know what you're doing, and still get the subject isolation of f/1.4. Because that's what I want, and so everything I said above is what I choose to do rather than stopping down. 

That's what I prioritize. I'm not going to stop down b/c of vignetting and give up that look. 

Furthermore, that example above is not even fully corrected vignetting - it's only set to '50' on the vignetting slider (100 is full correction). At full correction (100), it's even more hideous; but I brightened here 'to taste'. 

And generally - I like vignetting. I even like shadows and blacks. It's just that there are occasions where I don't want them. And there's freedom in not having to worry about read noise.

HTP? I shoot manual, and Raw. You may wish to refresh yourself on how HTP actually works - it would've done _absolutely nothing_ for me here. HTP applies a different tone curve; it's not like it's some sort of non-linear hardware amplification. I define my own tone curve in processing the Raw - HTP is irrelevant. 

No NR applied - but that's also my point. I wouldn't need any NR at all with my D810. And you do realize that NR comes at a detail cost, right?

I use reflectors, and off-camera flash and umbrellas and soft boxes and all - when I definitely want those looks. But there are times even outside of landscapes that I run into Canon's read noise, and I'm just saying that there are real alternatives that have existed for years that circumvent this entire issue.

Most of you have valid points; it's just that my point is also valid - that it's limiting. Arguing against that is just, well, perplexing.


----------



## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Saving the sky and clouds usually doesn't require underexposing by 1.5 stops. Are you using Highlight Tone Priority? That saves some of the sky/cloud highlights. Are you using any fill? Use just a little bit of fill flash (or a reflector) and you are reducing the need to brighten a photo in post. One stop of brightening is usually perfectly OK, while 4.5 stops of brightening is not OK. Requiring a photo to withstand 4.5 stops of brightening in post looks to be the result of a combination of mistakes.
> 
> Finally, I wonder about the processing technique here. Was any noise reduction applied?



Really? I typically run into skies where I have to underexpose by 3 stops or more.

And 4.5 stops is not OK? But it is on many cameras today; that's my point. Let me put it this way: do you ever shoot at ISO 2200? B/c that's ISO 100 underexposed by 4.5 stops. So if shooting around ISO 2000 is acceptable to you, then underexposing ISO 100 by 4.5 stops shouldn't be 'not OK'. You may as well as criticize everyone who shoots above ISO 1600.

Also, I underexposed by about 1.5 stops compared to what the meter would've chosen here, IIRC. The extra 3 stops came from vignetting - so I didn't even choose to underexpose by 4.5 stops here...


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## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Oh, and here's yet another wedding image I was processing from my 5D3 that I decided to throw out b/c by the time I corrected the 3EV vignetting of my 24/1.4 and then added 1.5 stops (b/c I underexposed by 1.5 EV to save the sky/clouds above my subjects), I had this wonder junk overlaid over my image:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So if the D810 was the right tool as a professional why were you not using it.
You were shooting the 24/1.4 lens wide open to get -3EV vignetting?
Stop it down a bit, you obviously had enough light you didn't need to shoot wide open.
Your problem solved.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> So if the D810 was the right tool as a professional why were you not using it.
> You were shooting the 24/1.4 lens wide open to get -3EV vignetting?
> Stop it down a bit, you obviously had enough light you didn't need to shoot wide open.
> Your problem solved.



Yes, let's take a prime lens and then completely kill what I consider to be its _prime_ advantage (pun intended)... read what I wrote above re: how I shoot primes.

As for your D810 remark: (1) it didn't exist when I took this particular shot; (2) that's my entire point - this is *one* of many reasons I finally made the switch. 3D focus tracking being the other main reason, and things like:


Programmable Auto ISO (with exposure compensation)
Face detection AF
Spot-metering linked to AF point
Face-biased metering
ISO 64 for base ISO shadows that are even cleaner than the D800
Almost twice as many pixels

... all being icing on the cake.


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## Etienne (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Saving the sky and clouds usually doesn't require underexposing by 1.5 stops. Are you using Highlight Tone Priority? That saves some of the sky/cloud highlights. Are you using any fill? Use just a little bit of fill flash (or a reflector) and you are reducing the need to brighten a photo in post. One stop of brightening is usually perfectly OK, while 4.5 stops of brightening is not OK. Requiring a photo to withstand 4.5 stops of brightening in post looks to be the result of a combination of mistakes.
> ...




Following this discussion, there are good points on both sides.
I'll take every bit of improvement a camera can offer, including 18 stops of DR if they can do it, so that's great that the D810 sensor gives a bit more leeway. But that doesn't define the entire system, both have their advantages. The Canon 5DIII is an amazing all-round performer that does better video, without moire or aliasing, better low light performance, excellent color rendition, excellent AF, a better selection of high end lenses (IMHO), better ergonomics (again IMHO), and that's before we talk about magic lantern or the fact that the 1Dx is deadly or that the 5DIV will be here long before the next Nikon. 
Either system can deliver great results, and in most cases indistinguishable. This sometimes sounds like a left-twix vs right-twix war.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

Etienne said:


> Following this discussion, there are good points on both sides.
> I'll take every bit of improvement a camera can offer, including 18 stops of DR if they can do it, so that's great that the D810 sensor gives a bit more leeway. But that doesn't define the entire system, both have their advantages. The Canon 5DIII is an amazing all-round performer that does better video, without moire or aliasing, better low light performance, excellent color rendition, excellent AF, a better selection of high end lenses (IMHO), better ergonomics (again IMHO), and that's before we talk about magic lantern or the fact that the 1Dx is deadly or that the 5DIV will be here long before the next Nikon.
> Either system can deliver great results, and in most cases indistinguishable. This sometimes sounds like a left-twix vs right-twix war.



Yes, finally, some reasonable talk. Thank you.

Although, I will caution you on two things: the D810 has just as good ISO performance as the 5D3, so the latter is not better in low light. And, for me, the D810 has much better AF (b/c of subject tracking using the metering sensor), though I understand that may not be of importance to everyone.

Preliminary videos of the D810 vs. 5D3 suggest the former is sharper, though you'd expect that from newer generation tech. The 5D3 did have a leg up on the D800 in low light video.

I don't know about 'a bit more leeway'. ISO 64 on the D810 gives you something on the order of the DR/latitude you'd expect from a Pentax 645z (Sony's new MF sensor) at ISO 100. It's rather incredible. I find it very difficult to ever see the noise floor in any of my shots on the D810.


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## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > So if the D810 was the right tool as a professional why were you not using it.
> ...



Went back and read your prime explanation. Stoping down the 24mm II in this situation you are not throwing away the prime advantage. One of its advantages over the 24-70 II would be the reduced vignetting. A few years ago the 24-70 II did not exist. A few years back the 24 1.4 II would have given you the best available IQ regardless of what F/stop short of going to a TSE. That is a prime advantage.

That said if you knew your equipment and this lens you would know that the 24mm f/1.4 II looses IQ quickly below 2.0. I would never shoot that lens at f/1.4 and expect great results. Even at 1.4 the bokeh you would get was almost none and you said you wanted sky.

Still you had the wrong tool if you wanted great bokeh at a wide angle. The 35mm F/1.4 would be the better choice.

While there may be a DR difference between the two bodies I find your sample picture and complaint lacking. It was skill, lack of understanding and knowledge of your equipment that created your problem.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Saving the sky and clouds usually doesn't require underexposing by 1.5 stops. Are you using Highlight Tone Priority? That saves some of the sky/cloud highlights. Are you using any fill? Use just a little bit of fill flash (or a reflector) and you are reducing the need to brighten a photo in post. One stop of brightening is usually perfectly OK, while 4.5 stops of brightening is not OK. Requiring a photo to withstand 4.5 stops of brightening in post looks to be the result of a combination of mistakes.
> ...



You underexpose your subject by 3 stops or more to save detail in the sky? OK, I never do that. 

Using a combination of the Highlight Tone Priority setting, a bit of fill flash or reflector, and Lightroom's highlight slider, the sky is pretty much taken care of. In any event, I am always prioritizing exposure for the subject, never for the sky. Even on the sunniest days, the subject is what's important. 

To be clear, was that crop you posted from the edge of the frame, shot at f/1.4 and pushed a total of 4.5 stops? If so, that's probably a combination of errors and unrealistic expectations:
- you shot a wide angle at f/1.4 and yet wanted *zero* vignetting in the final photo;
- you chose a wide angle lens and yet wanted the most subject isolation possible (f/1.4);
- you placed portrait subjects in the most vignetted (& most distorted) part of the 24mm frame;
- you shot without any fill, so your subjects were needlessly dark in relation to the sky;
- you shot at ISO 100 (?); if so, the Highlight Tone Priority feature was unavailable;
- even (presumably) knowing noise & vignetting characteristics of your camera & lens combination, you risked having to discard the entire portrait in order to "save" the out-of-focus clouds and sky.

Never in the history of photo technology was pushing a portrait exposure by 4.5 stops in post production considered good technique. Dynamic range was *always* a limitation in photography, and it was always the photographer's job to deal with it. Corner vignetting of fast lenses was considered part of their charm and a good compromise for low light; if one didn't want vignetting there was always the option to stop down and add more light or use a different lens. It's awesome that a few cameras let you make such heroic fixes now, but that's relying on technology to fix an accumulation of photographer errors. That doesn't actually illustrate a bad sensor design.

Shooting around ISO 2000 is more than acceptable to me with cameras like the 5D3 and 6D with basic processing in Lightroom. ISO 2000 looks sweet and definitely does't show the artifacts you're showing in that crop. But then I'm not underexposing by 1.5 stops and then fixing 3 stops of vignetting.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 23, 2014)

I just want to see the full image, with faces blanked out if need be. I have some interesting images I'd share sometime, but this one is intriguing me.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko:

It's not 'unreal expectations' when I can do it on my D810. Which is my entire point. I *can* shoot 24/1.4 and get zero vignetting in post-processing. 

Also I do shoot 35/1.4 (and 85/1.4) if you must know, but I, surprisingly, actually like to use different FOV for different shots. Imagine that!

You don't understand how HTP works - it does _nothing_ to the Raw file when you shoot manual.

And you still don't get it - 5 stop pushes are fine and not 'bad technique' if you're doing it to save highlights. And totally possible with good sensors. 

And ultimately, for sensors with little to no read noise, it's almost the same thing as shooting ISO 3200. So if you don't consider it unacceptable to shoot ISO 3200, then you can't say it's unreasonable to shoot ISO 100 & underexpose by 5 stops -- as long as you're doing it for a reason (say to protect highlights).

Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to be able to wrap your head around what I'm saying until you understand how these sensors/cameras work.

And if you must know - I shot multiple exposures & have one shot with 2 stops more exposure where the noise is acceptable in the subjects, but of course the sky is completely blown. My *point* is that I wouldn't have had to with a good sensor.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> Went back and read your prime explanation. Stoping down the 24mm II in this situation you are not throwing away the prime advantage.



You and I differ _*entirely*_ on what we consider to be the prime advantage of a prime.

A clean sensor means I don't _have_ to worry about about noise when fixing vignetting in those cases where I don't want it. Which means I can continue to reap the other benefits of shooting at f/1.4. That's called 'technology getting out of the way'.

And this doesn't even begin to get at the landscape benefits. But that's kind of my point of presenting this case - lower noise sensors open up opportunities for many types of shooting.


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## Etienne (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko:
> 
> It's not 'unreal expectations' when I can do it on my D810. Which is my entire point. I *can* shoot 24/1.4 and get zero vignetting in post-processing.
> 
> ...



I get it that the D810 sensor is nifty.
But, why didn't you use a fill flash on that? It would have solved all of your problems, and you should probably have a flash on your camera at all times for outdoor portraits, especially weddings.
Were you just trying to rescue a bad error?
This is a legitimate question. Fill flash for outdoor portraits, pretty standard.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko:
> 
> It's not 'unreal expectations' when I can do it on my D810. Which is my entire point. I *can* shoot 24/1.4 and get zero vignetting in post-processing.
> 
> ...



The same sunlight and the same contrast range has existed since the beginnings of photography. Fortunately, photographers developed various good techniques for handling the very same problems that you encountered. For 150+ years, underexposing by 5 stops was never one of them.

Now a sensor comes along that lets you underexpose your subjects and then completely fix that underexposure, which you also combine with full software correction of extreme corner vignetting of a wide angle lens shot at f/1.4. So you now define that sensor as a "good" sensor and all other sensors as, well, not good sensors. Sorry, but that self-serving re-definition doesn't work. Canon makes perfectly "good sensors" — good for photographers who don't rely on radical underexposure. For whatever reason, Canon has aligned their product with the priorities of other photographers.

I understand how these sensors/cameras work well enough *not* to make fundamentally bad decisions that lead to the problem you're showing in that crop. I certainly wouldn't switch systems over a self-created and easily avoidable problem.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

Etienne said:


> I get it that the D810 sensor is nifty.
> But, why didn't you use a fill flash on that? It would have solved all of your problems, and you should probably have a flash on your camera at all times for outdoor portraits, especially weddings.
> Were you just trying to rescue a bad error?
> This is a legitimate question. Fill flash for outdoor portraits, pretty standard.



Huh? Who set that standard (re: fill flash being 'standard')?

I had two 600EX-RT flashes on me and an emitter. I chose not to use it here (but used it later) b/c I didn't want unnatural lighting for this particular shot.

You do realize that fill & flashes create the sense of a separate light source that doesn't make that much sense when you have the sun behind your subjects, right?

That said, it can still create some cool & dramatic lighting, which I've used for environmental portraits.

I just didn't want it in this shot.

Why you're asking something so OT to my original point, is a better question.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> The same sunlight and the same contrast range has existed since the beginnings of photography. Fortunately, photographers developed various good techniques for handling the very same problems that you encountered. For 150+ years, underexposing by 5 stops was never one of them.


Right, exactly, and that's the wonder of _technological progress_. It opens up freedom and opportunities.

Or are you one of those that still thinks slide film had enough (input) DR?



zlatko said:


> Now a sensor comes along that lets you underexpose your subjects and then completely fix that underexposure, which you also combine with full software correction of extreme corner vignetting of a wide angle lens shot at f/1.4. So you now define that sensor as a "good" sensor and all other sensors as, well, not good sensors. Sorry, but that self-serving re-definition doesn't work. Canon makes perfectly "good sensors" — good for photographers who don't rely on radical underexposure. For whatever reason, Canon has aligned their product with the priorities of other photographers.


No, they haven't 'aligned' anything. They just have chosen not to update their sensor fab/design. 

When something introduces noise into your signal, it's not 'aligning' with those people who don't need cleaner signals. It's just not evolving.

You wouldn't say a noisier analog tape back in the day was 'aligning' with any particular crowd, now, would you?



zlatko said:


> I understand how these sensors/cameras work well enough *not* to make fundamentally bad decisions that lead to the problem you're showing in that crop. I certainly wouldn't switch systems over a self-created and easily avoidable problem.



You still just don't fundamentally understand the idea of better technology opening up creative potential. I wouldn't be surprised if you're one of those that looks at light field technology and is like 'who needs to refocus?' - ignoring all the revolutionary possibilities that tech brings.

Using reflectors/flash and changing your the nature of the light is one way to deal with this problem, sure. Overexposing and just letting the sky blow is another one (which is what I did, in this situation, in a separate shot). Switching systems for this and many other benefits is another.

All are valid solutions. You really can't argue that the last option above doesn't open up doors, though.

And all of you with your solutions and suggestions - have you never, ever had an underexposed image by mistake b/c of, say, strong backlight? And you were shooting so fast to capture the moment that you didn't have a chance to correct the exposure on the spot?

If you've never encountered this situation, you're either unreasonably good, or a liar.

Also - you do realize a flash/reflector would've done nothing for the noise and banding in the background, right?


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Etienne said:
> 
> 
> > I get it that the D810 sensor is nifty.
> ...



Fill flash is a very, very common technique. Set properly, it adds very little light and doesn't create an unnatural look. 

As I mentioned last year on this forum, Ansel Adams had a similar issue in his "Martha Porter, Pioneer Woman" portrait. Adams was a master of the technical aspects of photography, but for this portrait he didn't use a reflector or flash. Even so, he made a strong and memorable portrait by exposing for his subject (in shadow) and letting the highlights overexpose.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> My *point* is that I wouldn't have had to with a *good* sensor.





sarangiman said:


> Huh? Who set that standard?


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Now a sensor comes along that lets you underexpose your subjects and then completely fix that underexposure, which you also combine with full software correction of extreme corner vignetting of a wide angle lens shot at f/1.4. So you now define that sensor as a "good" sensor and all other sensors as, well, not good sensors. Sorry, but that self-serving re-definition doesn't work. Canon makes perfectly "good sensors" — good for photographers who don't rely on radical underexposure. For whatever reason, Canon has aligned their product with the priorities of other photographers.



Also - when one sensor outperforms another in every measurable aspect, it is, by definition, a 'better' sensor.

There's no self-serving redefining going on here...



zlatko said:


> Shooting around ISO 2000 is more than acceptable to me with cameras like the 5D3 and 6D with basic processing in Lightroom. ISO 2000 looks sweet and definitely does't show the artifacts you're showing in that crop. But then I'm not underexposing by 1.5 stops and then fixing 3 stops of vignetting.



With a Canon, you have to actually shoot at ISO 2000 to *not* get the sort of artifacts I'm showing. With an Exmor sensor, you can keep the shutter speed/aperture at whatever ISO 2000 would've required, but just dial the ISO down to, say, ISO 400, and give yourself 2.5 EV highlight headroom, with little to no noise cost. If you did that with Canon, you'd have more noise than if you'd shot ISO 2000 to begin with. 

In other words, ISO 400 + 2.5 EV in post is noisier than ISO 2000. With Exmor, it's generally not. Again, assuming shutter speed/aperture are the same (shooting Manual).

What this means is that you can have far more highlight headroom under situations requiring higher ISOs (faster shutter speeds, smaller apertures). B/c with Exmor, there's very little difference in underexposing by X stops and then pushing the exposure in post.

You do realize that ISO 2000 generally deprives the sensor of 4.5 stops of light compared to ISO 100, yes? So if you think that shooting ISO 2000 (full-frame) is fine, how can you think that shooting ISO 100 at -4.5 EV is unreasonable if the camera shows similar performance with ISO 100 + 4.5EV vs ISO 2000?


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Fill flash is a very, very common technique. Set properly, it adds very little light and doesn't create an unnatural look.
> 
> As I mentioned last year on this forum, Ansel Adams had a similar issue in his "Martha Porter, Pioneer Woman" portrait. Adams was a master of the technical aspects of photography, but for this portrait he didn't use a reflector or flash. Even so, he made a strong and memorable portrait by exposing for his subject (in shadow) and letting the highlights overexpose.



Right, which is what I did, as I explained earlier:



sarangiman said:


> And if you must know - I shot multiple exposures & have one shot with 2 stops more exposure where the noise is acceptable in the subjects, but of course the sky is completely blown. My *point* is that I wouldn't have had to with a good sensor.



Still doesn't detract from my original point: I wouldn't have even _had_ to 'bracket'. And I'm sure no one has ever, _ever_ accidentally underexposed an image b/c the meter overreacted to a backlight and the photographer didn't have time to check the image amidst the action he/she was trying to capture. No, I bet that _never_ happens.

And as for choosing between shallow DOF or vignetting - it's always been one or the other with primes, right, so that's how it should remain _forever_ of course!

But seeing that argument you just made makes me realize you're simply arguing against progress, so there's really no point in me continuing this line of conversation.

You're essentially saying that Ansel Adams worked around the limitation, so so should we. Even when technology is available that allows us to not have to work around it. And completely ignoring the fact that Ansel Adams developed many of his own techniques to get around input/output DR limitations. 

But I'm sure if back then a new film came out with higher DR and *no* other disadvantages, that he'd have said 'nah, I'll just use the old film and work around the limitations.'

Right...

Suggesting I stop my prime down to f/2.8 was particularly comical. You're saying I'm expecting too much of technology, yet the the D810 meets those expectations, and I'm just making that known, but you're still saying I'm expecting too much of technology.

Except... I'm not, b/c there's already tech out there that meets (at least those) needs.

At this point it's just like arguing with fundamentalist conservatives: I just can't understand the anti-progress sentiment, so I give up.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 23, 2014)

"You do realize that ISO 2000 generally deprives the sensor of 4.5 stops of light compared to ISO 100, yes?"

No. Only shutter speed and aperture determine how much light reaches the sensor. ISO is just reading.

1/100s, f/4, ISO 2000 or 1/100s, f/4, ISO 100: Same amount of light hit the sensor.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > The same sunlight and the same contrast range has existed since the beginnings of photography. Fortunately, photographers developed various good techniques for handling the very same problems that you encountered. For 150+ years, underexposing by 5 stops was never one of them.
> ...



First of all, that's such a patronizing post, making all sorts of presuppositions about my understanding. I don't have time to address the personal insults. Save them for somebody else.

Canon's sensors have most certainly gotten better with each new generation of camera, and those improvements are well-aligned with my needs and apparently with the needs of many other photographers. When you say they have "chosen not to update their sensor fab/design" — what you mean is that they haven't made a sensor that meets your needs for extreme exposure fixes.

Of course I've made exposure mistakes, but I didn't switch systems over them. The problem with that philosophy is that with each system one makes new or different mistakes and then runs out of systems to switch to. On the list of things that matter in a system, the ability to fix gross errors is somewhere low on the list. Dynamic range at low ISO is important and I'm not against progress in that area, but it's just one of a few hundred things that are important in a system.

Now you're last point is seriously questionable. Fill flash or a reflector would raise the exposure on your subject, bringing it closer to the exposure for the sky. Subject and sky are the two elements that were seemingly important in your exposure deliberations. So why are you software-boosting the exposure on a dark background? That's like banging your head against the wall and then complaining to the doctor that your head hurts.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> You do realize that ISO 2000 generally deprives the sensor of 4.5 stops of light compared to ISO 100, yes? So if you think that shooting ISO 2000 (full-frame) is fine, how can you think that shooting ISO 100 at -4.5 EV is unreasonable if the camera shows similar performance with ISO 100 + 4.5EV vs ISO 2000?



Because at ISO 2000 I don't get the noise you're showing in your ISO 100 example. I don't.


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## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Fill flash is a very, very common technique. Set properly, it adds very little light and doesn't create an unnatural look.
> ...



I think Ansel Adams would have waited for the magic moment where all the light reach the dynamic range where there was not 5 stops difference between the light and dark areas.
I would speculate that he would do the same whether he had the latest greatest new film or the same old film and not rely on the crutch that this new film is somehow better. 

More dynamic range is a good thing, but the examples and arguments you have laid out are not sound. Your examples flawed with poor technique and understanding of your gear. The sweet spot of the 24mm f/1.4 L II is at f/2 shooting at f/1.4 you deserved to have a bad picture.

Perhaps you should find a better example to make your point.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> But I'm sure if back then a new film came out with higher DR and **no* other disadvantages*, that he'd have said 'nah, I'll just use the old film and work around the limitations.'



Please do let me know when I can pop a roll of Exmor 'film' into my Canon camera, so I can have great AF with my handholdable 600mm f/4 lens, use my radio controlled flash system, etc.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > You do realize that ISO 2000 generally deprives the sensor of 4.5 stops of light compared to ISO 100, yes? So if you think that shooting ISO 2000 (full-frame) is fine, how can you think that shooting ISO 100 at -4.5 EV is unreasonable if the camera shows similar performance with ISO 100 + 4.5EV vs ISO 2000?
> ...



And I don't get the noise I showed in my example at ISO 100 w/ Exmor, but I get 4.5 EV of additional headroom compared to ISO 2000 (on either Canon or Nikon).

And that's the entire point. B/c with Canon's read noise, you're *required* to pre-amplify your data rather than amplify it in post-processing. And this costs you highlights.

I don't think I'm going to be able to explain this to you in forum posts. 



zlatko said:


> Dynamic range at low ISO is important and I'm not against progress in that area, but it's just one of a few hundred things that are important in a system.
> 
> Now you're last point is seriously questionable. Fill flash or a reflector would raise the exposure on your subject, bringing it closer to the exposure for the sky. Subject and sky are the two elements that were seemingly important in your exposure deliberations. So why are you software-boosting the exposure on a dark background? That's like banging your head against the wall and then complaining to the doctor that your head hurts.



But my example is all about DR at low ISO... how can you say you do care about low ISO DR and then say my example is completely invalid? The background trees/grass that have noise/FPN is a classic example of low DR. I'm honestly completely perplexed at your thinking.

Why am I boosting exposure on a dark background? B/c trees aren't black in real life. The background is dark b/c I *chose* to underexpose in that example to keep the sky from clipping.



takesome1 said:


> More dynamic range is a good thing, but the examples and arguments you have laid out are not sound. Your examples flawed with poor technique and understanding of your gear. The sweet spot of the 24mm f/1.4 L II is at f/2 shooting at f/1.4 you deserved to have a bad picture.
> 
> Perhaps you should find a better example to make your point.



What's not sound is telling someone who wants the shallowest DOF and most subject isolation he can get to shoot one stop stopped down - bringing you half of the way from that prime to an f/2.8 zoom. _*Negating literally half of the prime's advantage when it comes to DOF.*_

I completely understand my gear - perhaps a bit too well - which is why I also understand it doesn't meet my needs.

Sweet spot? Sweet spot for what? Resolution? Vignetting? I want the most subject isolation I can get and you're telling me to stop down my lens, effectively to that of a zoom (to whoever mentioned to go down to f/2.8 )? So then remind me why I'm carrying 3 primes on a belt & constantly swapping between them rather than just slapping on a 24-70 f/2.8L II? For a marginal increase in sharpness - an attribute I'm _not_ trying to optimize for?


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Fill flash is a very, very common technique. Set properly, it adds very little light and doesn't create an unnatural look.
> ...



Adams did not like the blown highlights or the fact that he didn't have any fill light that day. But he didn't trash the photo and blame Kodak. Instead, he made a good photo under the circumstances. No doubt he used a sensible processing technique.

I'm all in favor of progress in photographic technology, but very shallow depth of field with zero vignetting seems like your personal definition of progress. The ability to watch television and drive a car at the same time might be a version of progress too, but it's not exactly a priority for most drivers.

Stopping down to f/2.8 to avoid the vignetting that you so dislike is "comical"? I would describe it as sensible, obvious, reasonable, etc. ... maybe not comical. And this is "comical" because it's a prime lens and prime lenses should not be stopped down? OK ... again, I think you have some personal definitions of these things that don't match mine. It's great that the D810 serves your needs, however.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Adams did not like the blown highlights or the fact that he didn't have any fill light that day. But he didn't trash the photo and blame Kodak. Instead, he made a good photo under the circumstances. No doubt he used a sensible processing technique.


And so have I. I've worked around the limitations for years, having shot Canon for 2 decades. I even shot slide film and worked around that with multiple GNDs. What's your point? Exmor still makes my life much, much easier so I can focus on other aspects of my creative work.


zlatko said:


> I'm all in favor of progress in photographic technology, but very shallow depth of field with zero vignetting seems like your personal definition of progress.


You're taking my one example in isolation. I've quoted many advantages of low base ISO DR; this is just the one I've posted here. My definition of 'progress' is an advancement that only offers advantages and no disadvantages. That's what Exmor offers over a Canon sensor (notice I said 'sensor', not 'system').

My definition of 'progress' here is entirely sound.


zlatko said:


> Stopping down to f/2.8 to avoid the vignetting that you so dislike is "comical"? I would describe it as sensible, obvious, reasonable, etc. ... maybe not comical. And this is "comical" because it's a prime lens and prime lenses should not be stopped down? OK ... again, I think you have some personal definitions of these things that don't match mine. It's great that the D810 serves your needs, however.



B/c obliterating the *only* reason I bought the prime, and shoot with 3 primes rather than one zoom lens, is, yes, 'comical'. 

Perhaps you don't know of photographers who buy primes solely b/c of their shallow DOF capabilities (tied in with their light gathering abilities)?

And yes, people do have different needs - imagine that. I buy primes to shoot them primarily near wide open (within reason: I won't shoot people dancing on a dance floor in the dark at f/1.4, where I have no control over where they'll be in the next instant, for example).


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## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



Sweet spot in most aspects, yes. If you knew the lens you would know that.

If you are using Nikon's 24mm f/1.4 perhaps you are seeing the difference in lenses since it has 2 less stops of vignetting. The argument could be made that the lens is superior and it has nothing to do with the sensor. 
But the comparison you wanted to make was sensors wasn't it.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



My highlights are OK, thank you. Not the problem you make it out to be.

Yes, your example is all about DR at low ISO ... that's why I said I'm not against progress in this area. I just don't see it as this big system-switching issue when it's so easy to deal with in situations like the one you described in your crop. That's assuming one doesn't have extreme requirements like shooting a wide lens at f/1.4 with no vignetting, no blown highlights, nothing black in the background, not using any fill, etc.

You seem determined to deal with that situation with an Exmor sensor and no other way. It's good that you have found your solution.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

And I never said I hated vignetting. I very much like it, when appropriate. 

I just thought it'd be particularly poignant to point out that sometimes simply enabling the profile corrections for your lens' vignetting in ACR will lead to FPN/noise with Canon systems. In the photo above, simply enabling profile corrections will show visible FPN, even without the exposure push.

And btw, the photo could've used even more underexposure to actually save all of the sky: a large patch is still blown and unrecoverable by ACR.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> Sweet spot in most aspects, yes. If you knew the lens you would know that.
> 
> If you are using Nikon's 24mm f/1.4 perhaps you are seeing the difference in lenses since it has 2 less stops of vignetting. The argument could be made that the lens is superior and it has nothing to do with the sensor.
> But the comparison you wanted to make was sensors wasn't it.


But I bought the lens to use it for shallow DOF, not use it at it's sweet spot. Can you appreciate/understand that?

I know very well the Canon 24/1.4 needs a massive update. It's resolution & vignetting are sub-par next to other offerings, *especially* what I'm sure Sigma will offer in an Art series lens. The 35mm Sigma Art blows away the rather outdated Canon 35L, for example.

This is not about a lack of understanding, it's about *choices*.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> My highlights are OK, thank you. Not the problem you make it out to be.
> 
> Yes, your example is all about DR at low ISO ... that's why I said I'm not against progress in this area. I just don't see it as this big system-switching issue when it's so easy to deal with in situations like the one you described in your crop. That's assuming one doesn't have extreme requirements like shooting a wide lens at f/1.4 with no vignetting, no blown highlights, nothing black in the background, not using any fill, etc.
> 
> You seem determined to deal with that situation with an Exmor sensor and no other way. It's good that you have found your solution.



Yes, b/c it helps in this regard, as well as in other regards. Like for my landscapes. Like for significantly higher high ISO DR than what Canon offers when you shoot 'ISO-less' with Exmor.

And like I said earlier, the other major reason was the AF system, along with a number of other features which were icing on the cake. 

Making it sound like I switched systems just so I could not get vignetting at f/1.4 is _*obtuse and unreasonable*_, and you know that.


----------



## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > Sweet spot in most aspects, yes. If you knew the lens you would know that.
> ...



I can appreciate that, but that doesn't mean you are not compromising by using it at f/1.4. Knowing what those compromises is important.
Your example is poor, perhaps if you had started with a different lens in a different situation you could demonstrate your point.


----------



## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > My highlights are OK, thank you. Not the problem you make it out to be.
> ...



Well then I misunderstood. Given the strong emphasis you placed on that unusual requirement, I thought it was the major reason for your switch.


----------



## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

jrista said:


> @zlatko:
> 
> I understand your arguments, that other factors of the system as a whole are important, often more important. However, as everyone here so often states...Canon's system is already excellent. In many ways, it's second to none. Canon already has a stellar AF system, they now have a superb full-color meter that links into the AF system for full tilt tracking, their ergonomics and menu system are excellent.
> 
> ...



OK, but you left out the improvement in high ISO performance and that has something to do with sensor design. That for me has been very real and very valuable. I'm more interested in that than in low ISO dynamic range and fixing extreme underexposure. Of course I'm in favor of improved dynamic range too. But in the meantime, I'm very happy with what they are making.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> OK, but you left out the improvement in high ISO performance and that has something to do with sensor design. That for me has been very real and very valuable. I'm more interested in that than in low ISO dynamic range and fixing extreme underexposure. Of course I'm in favor of improved dynamic range too. But in the meantime, I'm very happy with what they are making.



That's totally fair if that's what's important to you. Personally, I think the marginal gains in ISO performance are almost nothing next to the drastic differences in base ISO DR and the types of shots they afford me. Arguing about 1/3 EV ISO performance differences when there are 3 stop DR differences is a little funny to me, but of course it all depends on your application. But seriously, if it's acceptable for people to be happy about 1/3 EV gains in ISO performance, you'd think it'd be OK for some of us to make a big fuss over 3 EV DR differences. *But that's just, like, my opinion, dude*. 

Just FYI - improving low ISO DR does not come at the cost of ISO performance. Canon increases in low ISO DR will likely come when they start using on-chip ADCs (on the imaging sensor itself). But that requires new fab. The idea is to digitize the signal as early on as possible, so as to minimize potential interference.

I'm sure it'll come - especially b/c Canon is interested in the motion picture industry... and there most DPs clamor for more DR. More DR than what the state-of-the-art already offers there (e.g. in the Arri Alexa), which is already much more than what Canon offers. Canon tried to increase their DR performance on the Cinema EOS somewhat by pixel-binning G channels, which seemed to me to be a rather convoluted way of overcoming their high read noise. But I'm guessing it's very cost-intensive for them to actually switch to on-chip ADCs. Or something.

Interestingly, once you drastically increase low ISO DR, you can also effectively increase high ISO DR _*if the photographer chooses to dial back the ISO setting manually and then selectively raise the exposure - while protecting highlights - in post-processing*_.

It's a bit too much to get into here, but I'm sure you'll hear more people talking about it soon, if not already, on more technical forums.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> I can appreciate that, but that doesn't mean you are not compromising by using it at f/1.4. Knowing what those compromises is important.
> Your example is poor, perhaps if you had started with a different lens in a different situation you could demonstrate your point.



I knew of that compromise. What is hard to predict ahead of time - you know me not being a computer and all - is exactly where I'd run into the noise floor.

And that's what's so nice about Exmor - you don't have to worry about that. You can worry about other things, like focus, or capturing the decisive moment.

My example is not poor, it's just irrelevant to you. I've posted examples of other use-cases, and gotten answers like 'well I don't shoot that high DR scene', or 'you could've just used a GND', or 'oh you already used a GND? well you could've HDR'd it then'...

My point here is that you can always have an answer as to how you could've done it differently.

Doesn't detract from the main point: this is one less thing I have to worry about now.

These same arguments are constantly recycled. The same sentiments were thrown around during the digital vs. film debate.

As for sharing the whole file - no point. I did years ago when I showed this same problem with fixing vignetting with the 24/1.4 on my then newly acquired 5D3. And it was the same thing. Some people got it and agreed it was unfortunate, others said I should've used a flash or just accepted the vignetting, etc. And all those comments still missed the main point - I wanted available light only for that shot, and I generally don't mind vignetting but for that particular shot I didn't care for it. But I didn't have *the choice* to take out the vignetting, b/c of the ugly banding that ensued.

There's really no point - I just saw jrista arguing thread after thread about how he'd like to simplify his workflow by not having to resort to HDR every single time. It's the same argument here - I'd like to not be so constrained by my system when there are better options out there.

I didn't consider Nikon to be a better option until enough factors swayed me. Like not designing the grip for elf hands, for example (that one's for you, jrista).


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## Sporgon (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > I can appreciate that, but that doesn't mean you are not compromising by using it at f/1.4. Knowing what those compromises is important.
> ...



You can certainly talk the talk, but after all this typing and in put from others I don't see this can continue until you post the full, original image as many of us have requested. Mask the faces if necessary as suggested by PBD. You've made all sorts of allegations against the 5DIII not coping with the situation: let's see the full picture.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

jrista said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



Ansel would certainly show us how to use more DR. While some of his work shows amazing efforts at capturing wide dynamic range, I think some of his work also shows creative use of limited dynamic range. I gather he was about making good photos, not necessarily copying the DR of real life. So his work includes black rocks, trees & skies that aren't black in real life. Even hopelessly blowing highlights didn't cause him to toss out an otherwise good portrait.

The A7s looks great. If I were buying one of the A7 series, that would be the one for me.


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Where do you get 1/3EV gains in high ISO performance? I don't know which cameras you're comparing or what time frame. In my experience, each generation of cameras has offered about one extra stop of high ISO usability. The current 1DX at ISO 102,400 looks about like the original 1D at ISO 3200. That's about 5 stops in 11 years. The 5D > 5D2 > 5D3 progressed about 3 stops in 6 years. That's not marginal to me.

On-chip ADCs sound great. In the meantime, I'm not missing them.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

I'm talking about normalized Raw performance, which has seen very, very small gains. Save for at the highest ISOs (e.g. 25.6k and above), where lowering sensor-level (upstream) read noise actually affects image quality, since you're amplifying the raw signal off the sensor so much (b/c the signal is so, so small).

Otherwise, ISO performance is largely dictated by sensor size these days.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> You can certainly talk the talk, but after all this typing and in put from others I don't see this can continue until you post the full, original image as many of us have requested. Mask the faces if necessary as suggested by PBD. You've made all sorts of allegations against the 5DIII not coping with the situation: let's see the full picture.



What, and risk having his claims invalidated? Why would he do that? :


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## Tugela (Sep 23, 2014)

Woody said:


> You asked for info regarding the latest interchangeable lens camera market. Thom Hogan has done the job for you:
> 
> http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/interchangeable-lens-market.html
> 
> ...



What they overlook is the fact that interchangeable lens cameras are part of a gear commitment, which means that once someone has a certain level of investment in gear for a particular body, they are less inclined to upgrade to a different manufacturer. 

If you want to know where the sales are heading, look at the figures for young buyers, or those who are buying their first camera. Those are the customers who are going to be locked into the manufacturer systems they bought into when they expand their gear set. My guess is that the profile of sales in that demographic is quite different to overall sales.

Bluntly put, the impact of innovation in cameras today are going to show their effect on sales in 10 or 15 years from now. Canon may sell more now, but that is a result of the cameras they produced a decade ago, not the result of what they are producing now.

Things which are important to youngers buyers today, such as a camera's ability to integrate with other electronic systems buyers have (cell phones for example) are going to be the features which will have the greatest long term impact, not stuff like DR or pixel count. Samsung potentially have a great opportunity here, since they can leverage their cameras off their cell phone expertise and goodwill.


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## Sporgon (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> I'm talking about normalized Raw performance, which has seen very, very small gains. Save for at the highest ISOs (e.g. 25.6k and above), where lowering sensor-level (upstream) read noise actually affects image quality, since you're amplifying the raw signal off the sensor so much (b/c the signal is so, so small).
> 
> Otherwise, ISO performance is largely dictated by sensor size these days.



If you are referring to low ISO I wouldn't agree. The 5DII had substantially more latitude that's the original 5D at the highlight end, even if the actually DR wasn't greatly different. Likewise the mkIII has substantially more latitude than the II, and the 6D a tad more again. Tonal graduation has also improved, as well as highlight headroom in terms of clipping to white, as well as at the other end in graduation to black. 

OK so this might only be noticeable to the discerning user.


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## AmselAdans (Sep 23, 2014)

aaaand another thread sucked into the black hole named "DR issues".

Oh boy...


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## takesome1 (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > I can appreciate that, but that doesn't mean you are not compromising by using it at f/1.4. Knowing what those compromises is important.
> ...



All equipment has limits, if you push it past those limits then it will fail. 
This is true of other bodies and sensors as well.
No matter which body or manufacture you are using you should always take the DR in to account, none have enough range.
The best claim you could make here is that you do not have to discard as many shots with the other camera due to your poor craftsmanship. 

But you give a bad example, it is bad because you pushed the lens and body beyond its limits. It was the combination of the body and lens not just the sensor. 

A good example is a comparison of two identical shots taken with the same exact lens in the exact same situation. 
Posts an example like this and we have something to discuss other than your skill level with a shot that you failed.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

Tugela said:


> What they overlook is the fact that interchangeable lens cameras are part of a gear commitment, which means that once someone has a certain level of investment in gear for a particular body, they are less inclined to upgrade to a different manufacturer.
> 
> If you want to know where the sales are heading, look at the figures for young buyers, or those who are buying their first camera. Those are the customers who are going to be locked into the manufacturer systems they bought into when they expand their gear set. My guess is that the profile of sales in that demographic is quite different to overall sales.
> 
> Bluntly put, the impact of innovation in cameras today are going to show their effect on sales in 10 or 15 years from now. Canon may sell more now, but that is a result of the cameras they produced a decade ago, not the result of what they are producing now.



What you overlook is that the majority of dSLR buyers buy the camera with 1-2 kit lenses, maybe a cheap 50/1.8, and they're done. The people who are 'locked in' and who 'expand their gear set' are a relatively small minority. That's evident from Canon's milestones of number of bodies vs. lenses produced. 

Bluntly put, most of those young buyers and those buying their first camera will not buy another camera, nor any more lenses, for several years if at all. If/when they do, there's a good chance it'll be the same brand, not because of 'lock in' due to lenses/flashes/etc., but due to familiarity.


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## AmselAdans (Sep 23, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Tugela said:
> 
> 
> > What they overlook is the fact that interchangeable lens cameras are part of a gear commitment, which means that once someone has a certain level of investment in gear for a particular body, they are less inclined to upgrade to a different manufacturer.
> ...



Reminds me of a colleague, who had a Rebel with its kit lens. He was horrified by the idea of putting another lens onto the camera because of all the things that might go wrong (dust on the sensor, dropping either the lens or the camera or both, deforming the lens mount, accidentally evoking the dark lord Cthulu, ...).
Indeed a very good marketing that achieved to sell interchangeable lens systems to users who never intend to actually change them. (they hired the guys who sold refrigerators to the eskimos, I suppose)


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## J.R. (Sep 23, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> All equipment has limits, if you push it past those limits then it will fail.
> This is true of other bodies and sensors as well.
> No matter which body or manufacture you are using you should always take the DR in to account, none have enough range.
> The best claim you could make here is that you do not have to discard as many shots with the other camera due to your poor craftsmanship.
> ...



This is all too true. 

On an aside, why would some continue to shoot with Canon gear if they hate it so much, if not hate it, find it too limiting. If they have switched to Nikon, you've obviously moved on, why complain about it on a Canon site?


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## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> I'm talking about normalized Raw performance, which has seen very, very small gains. Save for at the highest ISOs (e.g. 25.6k and above), where lowering sensor-level (upstream) read noise actually affects image quality, since you're amplifying the raw signal off the sensor so much (b/c the signal is so, so small).
> 
> Otherwise, ISO performance is largely dictated by sensor size these days.



OK, you have your own definition of improvement in high ISO performance, not one that matches practical experience with these cameras. And so you conclude there's only been a 1/3 stop improvement between some unspecified cameras over some unspecified number of years, which you mock as "marginal".

You've set up a personal rule that you know Canon will fail. Your rule is that in order to be a "good sensor", a sensor has to be able to withstand extreme pushing of underexposure without showing any noise even in the darkest parts of an image. And so you posted a crop of a shot that failed to meet that test, not a crop from the shot that you actually used.

In the same way, each photographer can set up their own personal rules to make a sensor or system fail. If I set up a personal rule that a "good sensor" has to produce color exactly like Canon's, then Nikon, Sony, etc. would fail every time. If I set up a personal rule that a "good system" has to match Canon's ergonomics, lenses and flashes, then Nikon, Sony, etc. would fail every time. Likewise, if I set up a personal rule that a "good system" has to be full-frame or medium format, then Olympus and Panasonic would fail every time.

On-chip ADCs sound great, but there are photographers everywhere and at every level who don't seem to find the absence of on-chip ADCs limiting. Salgado produced his magnificent Genesis landscape book partly using Canon cameras -- despite the lack of on-chip ADCs. Photographers are producing award-winning photojournalism, advertising and editorial work with Canon despite the lack of on-chip ADCs. Somehow they are managing not to produce crummy noisy photos at ISO 100 or any ISO. Knowing all about on-chip ADCs, sensor fab, read noise, amplification, etc., is important if you're an engineer, but I'm not sure it helps one to do photography.


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## jrista (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Where do you get 1/3EV gains in high ISO performance? I don't know which cameras you're comparing or what time frame. In my experience, each generation of cameras has offered about one extra stop of high ISO usability. The current 1DX at ISO 102,400 looks about like the original 1D at ISO 3200. That's about 5 stops in 11 years. The 5D > 5D2 > 5D3 progressed about 3 stops in 6 years. That's not marginal to me.
> 
> On-chip ADCs sound great. In the meantime, I'm not missing them.



From an actual noise performance standpoint, successive generations of cameras from most manufacturers have not actually realized a true 1-stop improvement. What we have seen is a one-stop increase in the highest *user selectable* ISO settings, but the performance of that top setting (or even lower settings) has not always improved, from a noise standpoint, by one stop every generation. 

Measurable noise from generation after generation of many DSLR cameras from many manufacturers have improved marginally for the most part. The 1D X was one of very few cameras that actually realized a true one-stop advantage over it's predecessor. The 1D IV got about 9.5 stops of DR at ISO 3200, and the 1D X gets about 9.7 stops at ISO 6400. Read noise levels did not change much, but saturation point did as the FWC increased. The 5D III realized no benefit in high ISO DR over the 1D IV or 5D III...less than 1/3rd of a stop at best, and no difference in read noise.

That has been the case for a while, and is generally expected barring some kind of significant technological improvement. High ISO is ultimately physics bound, and as Canon's sensor tech hasn't changed for a decade or so, one shouldn't expect a real difference in high ISO performance. The A7s is a rather intriguing camera in that it realized more significant gains at even higher ISO settings than the 1D X than the 1D X did itself. The 1D X brought native ISO 51200 to the table, at 6.6 stops of DR...the A7s improved that to 8.8 stops of DR. All while concurrently having quite a bit less low ISO read noise (~21e- vs. ~38e-) and more low ISO DR. I don't suspect another major improvement in high ISO performance will occur until another radical technological improvement is made...such as multi-bucket reads or layered photodiodes or some kind of deep charge photodiode capable of holding more electrons than a normal photodiode is introduced. WHEN such technology is introduced, I'd expect high ISO performance to take off again.

In general, though, for a given technology, all we have really seen over the years is an increase in the highest selectable ISO settings...not an actual concurrent reduction in noise that would make that higher stop of ISO perform as well as a lower stop of a prior generation. Only a couple cameras have actually achieved that lately...the 1D X and A7s, and maybe the D600/700/800 series (although they may have simply started out with around an extra stop relative to Canon sensors at ISO 3200/6400 thanks to using Exmor.)


----------



## zlatko (Sep 23, 2014)

jrista said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Where do you get 1/3EV gains in high ISO performance? I don't know which cameras you're comparing or what time frame. In my experience, each generation of cameras has offered about one extra stop of high ISO usability. The current 1DX at ISO 102,400 looks about like the original 1D at ISO 3200. That's about 5 stops in 11 years. The 5D > 5D2 > 5D3 progressed about 3 stops in 6 years. That's not marginal to me.
> ...



That doesn't match my experience with actual photos. It's not just what is "user-selectable" but what photos I can use with those settings. When talking about actual usable photos, I've seen approximately one stop gain with each generation of camera. The 5D2 gave me one stop over the 5D. The 5D3 gave me one stop over the 5D2. So that's two stops gain in going from the 5D to the 5D3. The 6D gives me just a little more than the 5D3. 

I should probably say "each generation of sensor" instead of "each generation of camera" as some cameras have come out with the same generation of sensor. So the 1D series has gone through 5 generations of sensor, although actually more than 5 cameras if you count every variation.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 23, 2014)

zlatko said:


> That doesn't match my experience with actual photos. It's not just what is "user-selectable" but what photos I can use with those settings. When talking about actual usable photos, I've seen approximately one stop gain with each generation of camera. The 5D2 gave me one stop over the 5D. The 5D3 gave me one stop over the 5D2. So that's two stops gain in going from the 5D to the 5D3. The 6D gives me just a little more than the 5D3.



Well that is where you are going wrong zlatko, we don't allow actual empirical results to affect our opinions here, we have sensor readings and maths to tell us better what we should be able to see. /sarcasm


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## Tugela (Sep 23, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Tugela said:
> 
> 
> > What they overlook is the fact that interchangeable lens cameras are part of a gear commitment, which means that once someone has a certain level of investment in gear for a particular body, they are less inclined to upgrade to a different manufacturer.
> ...



Incorrect, they will buy a body for the lenses and flash units they already have (even if it is only a few).

People who buy self-contained cameras have little brand loyalty since it is the abilities of the specific camera that are important, not stuff they already have, and that market is dominated by companies such as Sony - Canon is a Sad Sack in that market. That is what gives a more realistic indication of where the future is heading for photography in general. Right now Canon are living off past glories, but unless they get off their backsides all their glory will be in the past.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > That doesn't match my experience with actual photos. It's not just what is "user-selectable" but what photos I can use with those settings. When talking about actual usable photos, I've seen approximately one stop gain with each generation of camera. The 5D2 gave me one stop over the 5D. The 5D3 gave me one stop over the 5D2. So that's two stops gain in going from the 5D to the 5D3. The 6D gives me just a little more than the 5D3.
> ...



Shots with all of those cameras taken with the lens cap on then pushed 5 stops in post aren't significantly different, although the 6D might show a very marginal improvement. DxO Scores have not gone up much at all. Any perceived improvement in actual pictures is subjective and irrelevant. 

: : :


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 23, 2014)

Tugela said:


> Incorrect, they will buy a body for the lenses and flash units they already have (even if it is only a few).



I disagree. The Rebel kit lens adds $50 to the price, and notice how Canon "updates" the 18-55 lens quite frequently (even though those updates are often insignificant as far as lens performance, it _sounds_ new). The typical consumer doesn't buy an external flash (why? the camera has one!), and doesn't buy more lenses than came with the body. 

But in fact, neither of us have data on buying habits of young or first-time dSLR buyers vs. people already owning other system components or other brands. But you know who does have those data? Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc., who collect that info, along with demographic data, salaries, occupations, etc., every time someone registers a new purchase. History has shown Canon to be quite adept at catering to their market. 




Tugela said:


> Right now Canon are living off past glories, but unless they get off their backsides all their glory will be in the past.



YAPODFC :


----------



## V8Beast (Sep 23, 2014)

Tugela said:


> Right now Canon are living off past glories, but unless they get off their backsides all their glory will be in the past.



If this were true, then who cares? I've been shooting Canon for a very long time not out of brand loyalty, but because it offers the best system of bodies, lenses, accessories, and service for my needs. The day they can no longer do that is the day I'll give another company my business and not think twice about it. 

Camera equipment are merely tools that facilitate in capturing images. To invest so much emotional attachment into whether or not "your team" is or isn't on top of the heap technologically or financially is merely a distraction in the quest to produce great images. 

Now go shoot, already


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## Diko (Sep 23, 2014)

Actually I am also interested in those numbers ;-)

I haven't read the whole 10 pages (yet). However I strongly believe that *SONY* is to eat quite some market from both *NIKON* and *SONY* and more likely from *NIKON* since they are not so much keen of the *MILC*s.


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## sarangiman (Sep 23, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > You can certainly talk the talk, but after all this typing and in put from others I don't see this can continue until you post the full, original image as many of us have requested. Mask the faces if necessary as suggested by PBD. You've made all sorts of allegations against the 5DIII not coping with the situation: let's see the full picture.
> ...



I'd do that if it were even remotely possible that something constructive would come out of any of this. I've done it in the past and it's just like arguing with fundamentalists - you always have an answer for everything. I remember when I presented side-by-sides of the Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II vs. the Nikon 14-24 on the same body, clearly showing huge differences in edge sharpness, and it was argued that the entire test was invalid b/c the Canon lens had too much flare. (1) Ok, that's a characteristic of the lens then in that scenario; (2) despite flare, the difference in sharpness was so obvious you'd have to be blind not to see it. Yet people argued away... and now that the 16-35 f/4L is out, it's OK to say that's much better at the edges/corners than the f/2.8 II (as many people/sites have said/shown), but, no, it's not OK to say the *gasp* Nikon is better, now is it? Obviously there was something wrong with my test. Like Canon's design that led to more flare that still didn't change any of the conclusions...

Oh and about your constant making fun of lens cap shots - one would've thought that as a scientist you might understand controlled testing. It gives you the stdev for the lowest signal, which allows you to extrapolate certain things.

If you don't understand it, move along.

I made my point ages ago. Some get it, some don't. That's fine. Unsubscribing from this thread.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


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



Nice cop out, way to go.


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## Aglet (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> I'm talking about normalized Raw performance, which has seen very, very small gains. Save for at the highest ISOs (e.g. 25.6k and above), where lowering sensor-level (upstream) read noise actually affects image quality, since you're amplifying the raw signal off the sensor so much (b/c the signal is so, so small).
> 
> Otherwise, ISO performance is largely dictated by sensor size these days.



I'd like to throw an orange into this nice comparison of apples. A nice tasty tangerine of a sensor.

I was curious about comparing Canon's best-to-date crop sensor, the 70D (until we know what the 7d2 can do) so had a look at DxOmark's data on it and compared it to a sensor with 2-thirds the surface area. (OMD EM10)

I thought that the larger surface area and decent hi ISO performance of the 70D might actually have an edge in hi ISO performance.... BUT I WAS WRONG. 

The tiny MFT sensor of the Olympus EM10 completely smokes the 70d in SNR at every ISO and every signal level. 
So, despite the physics advantages of larger sensors, comparing the performance means you do have to consider the underlying technology used to collect the data from those sensors.

The ~220 sq mm of the MFT sensor outperforms the ~330 sq mm of the Canon 70D at all ISO.

(no wonder I'm enjoying the little snapper!  )

Now I am really hoping the 7d2 sensor can perform at least as good as my micro-four-thirds sensor. Then the 7d2's advanced AF system and other benefits will be better appreciated.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 24, 2014)

*EDIT: I "mislabeled" the "Nikon" file, it is a single shot from a 2007 1Ds MkIII processed very simply in LR. 

To reiterate, both images are from a single Canon file, the "good" one used a basic ETTR technique and very simple LR processing, the "bad" file was slightly underexposed and done as part of a bracketing sequence and also had simple LR processing.*

Ok, interesting situation here. I recently had a friend stay and he had a D800 and 24-70, he tagged along on a commercial shoot of mine and I had a chance to shoot comparative images, I'll post the RAW files in a few days when I get back to internet that runs more than a few kb!

Anyway, as some of you know I have been a fairly strong advocate of the _"well more DR would be nice but I really can get along fine with what I have at the moment"_ school of thought. I have never denied the Exmor advantage, I just felt it was portrayed as way more important than I felt it was, I also pointed out that I, personally, shoot very high DR scenes regularly and even the mighty Exmor wouldn't help in those situations.

So, time to eat crow. Here are two images (that unfortunately bare a strikingly similar scenario to long departed dear Mikael's comparison images) that I ETTR'd to get optimal exposure, that is I didn't blow the highlights completely on either image:
First two are unprocessed full image. 
Second two processed full image.
Third two 100% crop of unprocessed image.
Fourth two 100% crop of processed full image (with no NR applied).

Now we can argue the rights and wrongs of exposure, the amount of light (or lift) I want under the shades, that I could have bracketed, that "they don't look properly exposed to me" (I heavily bracketed and chose the best exposure for highlights) etc etc, but there can be no denying there is a stunning amount of detail under the shade, and that is real detail in the stucco, not some made up noise giving the impression of detail. Now of course I could apply a big gob of NR, but there isn't going to be any detail there however powerful the program.

What can I say...........


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## Sporgon (Sep 24, 2014)

As I've always said, if you want to lift data by this amount the Exmor is substantially better. ( Though if you were comparing your 1DsIII the latest Canons are better). 

However I never do so for myself it's not an issue.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> As I've always said, if you want to lift data by this amount the Exmor is substantially better. ( Though if you were comparing your 1DsIII the latest Canons are better).
> 
> However I never do so for myself it's not an issue.



Fair enough. Just realize that anyone who says 'I don't need to lift shadows' cannot _also_ say: 'I want more high ISO DR'. 

B/c underexposing by dialing down the ISO is *exactly* how to get higher DR at higher ISOs. Just not with Canon.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > I'd do that if it were even remotely possible that something constructive would come out of any of this.
> ...



Yes, that's it, I'm copping out. It couldn't _possibly_ be that I've chosen to stop responding to certain people who are quicker to retort than to re-evaluate their position. That will come up with any justification so as to not have to change their long held tenets.

Let's take a look at some examples of this illogical, unreasonable sentiment over the years... kind of like a 'Greatest Hits.' This is literally stuff from 2-3 years ago:



I present clear full-resolution side-by-sides images of a Nikon 14-24 vs. Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II showing just how much better the 14-24 is. Which, actually, has been well known for a while - nothing ground-breaking here. And yet it was claimed it was an invalid comparison b/c the shots were taken minutes apart & the lighting had changed. Yes, b/c the lighting would've _totally_ reversed these results:






The Canon gets better by *f/11*, but still can't keep up with the *Nikon at f/2.8*:






But that was just impossible to believe, so any excuse was made to invalidate the claim. Then I even backed it up with data from lenstip that I plotted, showing that _*they* found_ that the Canon lens' extreme performance can _*never, at any aperture, catch up*_ to the Nikon's extreme performance _*wide open*_:






Hmm... sounds strangely reminiscent of the real-world images I presented. But, hey, I'm still wrong, you know _*b/c the lighting was a little off*_. Or something.

Oh, and btw, now it's totally OK to say the new Canon 16-35 f/4L rocks compared to the old f/2.8L. B/c Canon can beat Canon, but Nikon can't. No way.



Oh, and remember this whole fiasco?




Apparently, that was all wrong, according to jrista, b/c the highlights weren't close enough to clipping in the G/B channels and ACR could've recovered more had I exposed more. That made it worthy of comments like 'DON'T BUY INTO THIS BULL PPL!!'. Yes, b/c giving it a half stop more exposure before the red channel completely blew would've *totally* changed the outcome of this test - which was designed to show that the Nikon still gives you *more highlight headroom for scenes with more DR than this one*. And believe it or not, the above isn't even a high DR scene. A higher DR scene is when clouds light up 20 minutes *after* sunset, glowing bright (and requiring shorter exposures) from the last light of the sun, while the foreground is dark b/c there's no direct light hitting it. You know, what landscape photographers always like to shoot. But I guess I should waited months, years, until I happened to sample _that_ sunrise/sunset, before I posted my results, right? Because *that* would've made the comparison valid. And this is entirely invalid, and *doesn't* demonstrate that the Nikon gives you significantly more room for brighter highlights and higher DR scenes. No, this doesn't demonstrate that _at all_. Again, any argument you can find so you can continue to engage in your confirmation bias.



I'm not even going to get into the vehement back and forth when I pointed out that a Nikon or 1D X with a separate color sensor can stay locked onto subjects in more robust scenarios than a 5D3. Apparently, I was mistaken b/c I didn't RTFM, not b/c an actual separate sensor that can 'see' color/subjects could _actually_ help track subjects better than a system simply working off of a depth map of the AF points.

Silver lining there was that some people did come out & say something to the effect of 'that's really cool, my 5D3 can't do that'. And I'll be glad if even one person learned what I learned there when I first discovered it - a new tool that seriously helped my work and creative spark. 


Do you see a pattern here? I don't have an agenda for one brand or the other here. I'm just pointing out the things I discovered about other systems (Nikon and Sony) as I explored them, having been a Canon shooter for decades. You can argue that Canon offers other benefits. I argue that myself, like the wireless flash, the cross-type AF points, lenses, etc. But that's not even what most of you argue. You argue that my entire demonstration or point is invalid, b/c then at least you can rest in comfort knowing that the system you love has not adequately been challenged by this _farce_ of "evidence". You say I should've stopped down my prime to zoom-level apertures, or underexposing images by 4 stops has never been sound practice in the history of photography*. All of which miss my point: better technology opens up creative doors and, yes, challenges the status quo of what's existed for years.

Me? I can accept when my equipment fails in certain respects. I accepted it for years with Canon, until I found both Nikon and Sony work better for me. And now I have to accept the shortcomings for these systems which, fortunately, are less serious than what I dealt with when it came to Canon. Do I not realize the shortcomings of my new systems? Nope. A7R shutter shock & lossy compressions are serious issues, nevermind its focus compared to pro-level DSLRs. Nikon's lack of cross-type points leads to serious hunting at times with off-center points. I suppose if I posted these comments on Sony & Nikon forums, I'd be told to RTFM. But I guess you guys here will just eat it up. B/c as long as it's 'point: Canon', it's A-OK.

You can't say anything against your god (Canon) when it comes to certain people in this crowd. There is no room for debate or conversation with you folks. So I choose to stop.

What's incredibly stupid on my part is expending as much effort as I already have. Perhaps it'll be of some benefit to bystanders reading the thread who are otherwise mislead by people's assertions that:


Underexposing by 3 stops or more has never been sound in the history of photography, and so never will _(Reality: It is now, especially if it's done by only changing the level of ISO amplification. Not only is it sound, it's the only sensible thing to do if you want stops and stops of highlight headroom)._
Did you process your file in DPP? B/c that magically gives you more DR! _(Reality: No it doesn't, it just applies more NR, which you could do to Nikon files as well - so the DR differences predicted by DxO really are real...)_
Canon still has the advantage when it comes to ISO performance _(Reality: Nope, that would be Sony and medium format now)_.
Yeah but the 1D X and 6D still have more high ISO DR than Exmor, so there! _(Reality: Nope, not if you know how to use your camera appropriately... Exmor can maintain its low ISO DR at higher ISOs)_
.

*Innocent bystanders*: don't buy these myths. Try stuff out for yourself. Push technology. Push horizons. Discover. Have fun. 

And now, Neuro, go ahead and keep bullying people asking for lens cap shots, even though those are the simplest, quickest way to get an idea of sensor-level read noise for a newly released camera without asking some unknown person to actually set up a controlled test. I know you can't imagine how that might be valuable, so you should continue making fun of people who actually know how to utilize that data to determine early on if a camera is worth pre-ordering. That's totally an acceptable form of behavior, _on the internet anyway_.

*And yet shooting at ISO 1600 - which deprives the sensor of 4 stops of light compared to ISO 100 in the traditional sense - is OK... hmm perhaps zlatko didn't understand that changing the ISO setting on your camera doesn't actually change the native sensitivity of the sensor. All it does is amplify the data. Well, me raising the exposure +4 stops is 'amplifying the data' - just at a different step of signal processing. Why is one valid and the other not? And that's the point - it *is* valid for Nikon/Exmor, just not for Canon, where you _have_ to amplify early on. So this requires a shift in thinking, and it doesn't change my point: being able to amplify later is advantageous b/c it gives you stops and stops of highlight headroom, essentially giving you the full DR of the sensor at higher ISOs (there are limitations at extremely high ISOs, but I won't go into that here).


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## zlatko (Sep 24, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Ok, interesting situation here. I recently had a friend stay and he had a D800 and 24-70, he tagged along on a commercial shoot of mine and I had a chance to shoot comparative images, I'll post the RAW files in a few days when I get back to internet that runs more than a few kb!
> 
> Anyway, as some of you know I have been a fairly strong advocate of the _"well more DR would be nice but I really can get along fine with what I have at the moment"_ school of thought. I have never denied the Exmor advantage, I just felt it was portrayed as way more important than I felt it was, I also pointed out that I, personally, shoot very high DR scenes regularly and even the mighty Exmor wouldn't help in those situations.
> 
> ...



That's not an entirely fair comparison. The entire Canon shot starts out darker before processing, and ends up brighter after processing. So you're obviously giving the Canon shot more of an exposure boost in processing. 

With such a heavy shadow boost, I seems you are trying to create an "HDR look" without actually using HDR (combining different exposures). That's valuable if you really want or need to substitute one technique for another, i.e. boosting shadows instead of combining exposures.

The Nikon/Sony sensor certainly has an advantage if you really need to do this: shoot a high contrast static scene with maximum shadow detail but without using any of the techniques that photographers have used for such scenes in the past, such as blending bracketed exposures, adding light, choosing a time of day with less contrast, etc. That sensor advantage matters to some photographers, but not to others. I understand it's important enough to some to make a switch. At the same time, it's not evidence of a flaw in Canon's sensors, which perform quite well for photographers who don't need to do what you've shown.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 24, 2014)

zlatko said:


> That's not an entirely fair comparison. The entire Canon shot starts out darker before processing, and ends up brighter after processing. So you're obviously giving the Canon shot more of an exposure boost in processing.
> 
> With such a heavy shadow boost, I seems you are trying to create an "HDR look" without actually using HDR (combining different exposures). That's valuable if you really want or need to substitute one technique for another, i.e. boosting shadows instead of combining exposures.
> 
> The Nikon/Sony sensor certainly has an advantage if you really need to do this: shoot a high contrast static scene with maximum shadow detail but without using any of the techniques that photographers have used for such scenes in the past, such as blending bracketed exposures, adding light, choosing a time of day with less contrast, etc. That sensor advantage matters to some photographers, but not to others. I understand it's important enough to some to make a switch. At the same time, it's not evidence of a flaw in Canon's sensors, which perform quite well for photographers who don't need to do what you've shown.



There is around 1/3 stop difference in exposure, this was from a series of bracketed shots and is the longest exposure that didn't blow the highlights. Yes I might have got a fractionally different result with a different image, but in fairness there is considerably more than 1/3 stop difference in the processed crop!


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## zlatko (Sep 24, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> As I've always said, if you want to lift data by this amount the Exmor is substantially better. ( Though if you were comparing your 1DsIII the latest Canons are better).
> 
> However I never do so for myself it's not an issue.



Exactly. It's not as if all photographers need to do this data lifting thing.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 24, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > As I've always said, if you want to lift data by this amount the Exmor is substantially better. ( Though if you were comparing your 1DsIII the latest Canons are better).
> ...



But this was a commercial job from which the images have already been sold and used. I did need to lift like that because that is the look the client wants, I couldn't do it at a different time of day because I needed no people, I could have blended but that is time and money. There is always a counterpoint, but there is no denying there is a big difference in the files.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

zlatko said:


> That's not an entirely fair comparison. The entire Canon shot starts out darker before processing, and ends up brighter after processing. So you're obviously giving the Canon shot more of an exposure boost in processing.
> 
> With such a heavy shadow boost, I seems you are trying to create an "HDR look" without actually using HDR (combining different exposures). That's valuable if you really want or need to substitute one technique for another, i.e. boosting shadows instead of combining exposures.
> 
> The Nikon/Sony sensor certainly has an advantage if you really need to do this: shoot a high contrast static scene with maximum shadow detail but without using any of the techniques that photographers have used for such scenes in the past, such as blending bracketed exposures, adding light, choosing a time of day with less contrast, etc. That sensor advantage matters to some photographers, but not to others. I understand it's important enough to some to make a switch. At the same time, it's not evidence of a flaw in Canon's sensors, which perform quite well for photographers who don't need to do what you've shown.



He's not trying to create a HDR look without doing HDR. He's trying to map the real world brightnesses of those objects into the compressed space of the L(ow) DR device that is your monitor. This is known as tone-mapping. And when your sensor is as clean as Exmor is, you don't need HDR. HDR was 'invented' to overcome the shortcomings of noisy sensors (and film, you could say). It's not some 'standard technique' everyone should use. It is and was a crutch for less-advanced technology. Once you have sensors with no noise, and with full-well capacities (FWC) so high that even shot noise is mitigated (b/c you're just sampling so many photons), there won't even be a need for HDR. Ever. The D800 got rid of most of the noise, and the D810 took us one step closer to this by extending the FWC. It's only a matter of time. Meanwhile, Canon's FWC and read noise are stuck where they were more than 6 years ago. And that's fine; they're prioritizing other things. Maybe they'll catch up, maybe they won't. But that doesn't change the creative opportunities that noise-free technology in almost every other brand affords, and there's no point in arguing against that. You might not need it, but many do, and many more don't even know they'd benefit from it.

What was that Steve Jobs quote again? 'People don't know what they want until you show it to them.' 

In the future, with HDR displays, you won't even need to do any of this tone-mapping. You'll see those Exmor shadows b/c the white point will be extended and the entire brightness scale will be shifted (towards brighter). The shadows will automatically become more visible b/c they're brighter on your monitor. You won't need to do as much tonemapping, and so the 'HDR-look' will be mitigated. 

And if you're looking at old Canon files on those sorts of devices (which already exist), you'll be looking at noise even before you raise the shadows.


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## zlatko (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > That's not an entirely fair comparison. The entire Canon shot starts out darker before processing, and ends up brighter after processing. So you're obviously giving the Canon shot more of an exposure boost in processing.
> ...



If he's not trying to create an HDR look, then why does the processed version have such an HDR look? That's not a real world look. That's one interpretation of a real world look.

It's great that you've found a sensor that meets your particular photographic needs. That's great! At the same time, meeting your particular needs is not the definition of a "good sensor" or of "creative opportunities".

Further, it's rather odd that having moved on to Nikon, you would spend so much effort on a Canon forum demonstrating how a Nikon sensor meets your particular needs. Photographers can easily pick out unique advantages in *each* system, and demonstrate how they meet some specific needs. 

For example, now that the 7D Mark II has been introduced, should I go over to Nikon forums with posts demonstrating how this camera has a unique anti-flicker feature that helps sports photographers who shoot action in fluorescent light? Should I post examples of clean 7DII shots vs. "less advanced technology" Nikon shots that show awful exposure and white balance shifts from shot to shot and even within a shot? Or should I go to Nikon forums to demonstrate other advantages of the Canon system (flash features, specific lenses, dual pixel AF for video, etc.), all the while mocking Nikon users for not "understanding" these Canon products and the "creative opportunities" they are missing? Short answer: no.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

zlatko said:


> If he's not trying to create an HDR look, then why does the processed version have such an HDR look? That's not a real world look. That's one interpretation of a real world look.



That's a tough sell. On the one hand, it *is* a real-world look b/c you would've seen all those shadows & highlights in the real world. OTOH, it's *not* b/c you've compressed that DR into the space of the tiny DR of your monitor, which shrinks brightness differences between objects compared to the real world. Which is why it looks flat. Add artifacts to that, and it starts looking "HDR-is". But realize that mostly a limitation of your monitor, at this point. That's a very subtle point, but an important one.



zlatko said:


> Further, it's rather odd that having moved on to Nikon, you would spend so much effort on a Canon forum demonstrating how a Nikon sensor meets your particular needs. Photographers can easily pick out unique advantages in *each* system, and demonstrate how they meet some specific needs.



Er, I didn't just come here suddenly. I've used these forums many times over many years. And been misled by some of these very people by gross generalizations like 'Canon's AF is much better than Nikon' or 'Canon's ISO performance is better than Exmor'. Having learned some of the things I've learned in trying out other systems, I feel somewhat compelled to battle misleading generalizations.

And if there are things that are dramatically better about the 7D II vs. what Nikon offers, yes, actually, I'd very much encourage you to show those differences. Especially if it's helped you with your work - sharing your experience is valuable... why do you think people write articles on 'why I chose this system' or 'why I switched'? People might actually learn something, since many people stuck to one system either don't know about or don't fully appreciate some of the things other systems and technologies offer. 

Not always, but often.


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## Sporgon (Sep 24, 2014)

pbr9 said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



Agreed it's not the 'look' I would go for, but I have to say the data from the lifted second image, the Exmor, is superb and I can't really see why anyone would want more than this. Makes me wonder how sensors are going to improve upon this in the future.


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## zlatko (Sep 24, 2014)

pbr9 said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



Apparently you missed the mocking comments directed toward me -- I certainly won't go back to quote them. Or the mocking comments about photographers who use common and well known techniques to deal with age-old issues of high contrast. Apparently the only solution he accepts is pushing shadow sliders in post-production, and that is his primary test of a "good sensor". Everyone else is using "less advanced technology" and missing out on "creative opportunities".

As for going to Nikon forums and demonstrating the unique advantages of the Canon system -- well, wow, what a waste of time that would be! Photographers who need solutions to certain photographic issues seek them out and find them. Information about virtually any topic is readily available or can easily be inquired about -- any detail about a camera, lens, technique, solution, etc. If someone needs Canon's unique anti-flicker tech to photograph action under flourescent lighting, they will find out about it; they don't need to hear me bashing Nikon for not having it. 

Photographers aren't benefitted by someone going on and on about how a sensor is out-of-date "less advanced technology" because it doesn't deal with one rather extreme situation that a photographer only encounters because he refuses to accept any solution (stopping down a lens, adding fill, etc.) other than the *one* method that makes a sensor fail (pushing very underexposed shots by 4.5 stops or more).

I don't see that posting Canon's shortcomings is anathema here. Everyone finds some shortcomings, everyone can find room for improvement -- that's completely normal. The problem here is someone having a very narrow solution (pushing sliders) to a problem that they themselves create (radical underexposure) and then describing that as a fault of the sensor, in addition to mocking people who don't encounter that problem because they use other techniques in the same situation.


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## zlatko (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > If he's not trying to create an HDR look, then why does the processed version have such an HDR look? That's not a real world look. That's one interpretation of a real world look.
> ...



Rembrandt (and other painters) also failed to capture all of the shadow detail in the real world. 

Canon has already described the advantages of their unique anti-flicker feature:
http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2014/eos7dmkii_antiflicker.shtml
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/standard_display/eos_7dmkii_feature_img
Reviews describe it too:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-7d-mark-ii/canon-7d-mark-iiA.HTM

Indoor sports photographers will likely post some examples when the camera comes out. With this info already out there, I don't see the point of going on a Nikon forum bashing Nikon for being out of date in not providing this feature, or mocking Nikon users for using other techniques to deal with this problem (heavy flash, converting to black & white, etc.). The fluorescent lighting problem is not an issue for my work, although I and other parents have frequently encountered it in photographing our kids' indoor sports — it looks bad and makes people initially wonder whether their camera is defective. The problem is not at all perceptible by the eye in the real world, but is easily seen in photos. It goes away if shooting at a slow shutter speed that captures the entire flicker cycle, but that's not an option for photographing action.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



Still a cop out. It would have been nice to see the full image as well as the crop you showed. Notice how PBD showed full images, then crops, and offered to make RAWs available. Of course, it's your right to not show the full image. 




sarangiman said:


> Let's take a look at some examples of this illogical, unreasonable sentiment over the years... kind of like a 'Greatest Hits.' This is literally stuff from 2-3 years ago:
> 
> I present clear full-resolution side-by-sides images of a Nikon 14-24 vs. Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II showing just how much better the 14-24 is.





sarangiman said:


> I remember when I presented side-by-sides of the Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II vs. the Nikon 14-24 on the same body, clearly showing huge differences in edge sharpness, and it was argued that the entire test was invalid b/c the Canon lens had too much flare. (1) Ok, that's a characteristic of the lens then in that scenario; (2) despite flare, the difference in sharpness was so obvious you'd have to be blind not to see it. Yet *people* argued away...



Well, *one person* argued...and several people agreed that the Nikon 14-24/2.8 delivers better IQ than the Canon 16-35/2.8 II, particularly in the corners of the frame. Oh, and you're the only one who brought up flare. 

Do you see a general pattern here? Where one system has a particular technical advantage over another, _most_ people acknowledge that advantage. They may question the relevance of that advantage to themselves or to most people, or they may question the relative importance of that particular technical advantage compared to other aspects of system performance. The are then treated to repeated examples demonstrating that particular technical advantage, which they've already acknowledged. 




sarangiman said:


> Unsubscribing from this thread.



Evidently not. 

Regardless, it doesn't change the fundamental points. Exmor sensors deliver more dynamic range and can tolerate more shadow lifting than Canon sensors. A shot with the lens cap on that's pushed 5 stops in post will look better from an Exmor sensor than a Canon sensor. (Almost) no one argues those points, certainly I don't argue them... What I argue is the _relevance_ of those issues to general photograpy by typical shooters, even advanced shooters. What I vehemently disagree with is the claim that those differences between Canon and SoNikon sensors mean Canon sensors are 'poor', produce images generally unsuitable for delivery to clients, etc. 

In the context of this thread, if more DR was so critically and broadly important to a majority of photographers, then Canon would almost certainly no longer be the market leader. But they remain the market leader. Conclusion: while DR and hard pushing of shadows is important to some people some of the time, and perhaps to a very few people most of the time, it's not the most important thing to most people buying dSLRs. Period.


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## raptor3x (Sep 24, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> *And yet shooting at ISO 1600 - which deprives the sensor of 4 stops of light compared to ISO 100 in the traditional sense - is OK... hmm perhaps zlatko didn't understand that changing the ISO setting on your camera doesn't actually change the native sensitivity of the sensor. All it does is amplify the data. Well, me raising the exposure +4 stops is 'amplifying the data' - just at a different step of signal processing. Why is one valid and the other not? And that's the point - it *is* valid for Nikon/Exmor, just not for Canon, where you _have_ to amplify early on. So this requires a shift in thinking, and it doesn't change my point: being able to amplify later is advantageous b/c it gives you stops and stops of highlight headroom, essentially giving you the full DR of the sensor at higher ISOs (there are limitations at extremely high ISOs, but I won't go into that here).



I thought this was what you were getting at. This was literally one of the first things I tried when I first bought an A7R and unfortunately, this is not very useful at all. Because middle grey will be buried so deep within the shadows, color noise, posterization, and horizontal banding (yes, Exmor has banding noise as well if you dig deep enough) all become major issues. Even when emulating ISO 1600.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Apparently you missed the mocking comments directed toward me -- I certainly won't go back to quote them. Or the mocking comments about photographers who use common and well known techniques to deal with age-old issues of high contrast. Apparently the only solution he accepts is pushing shadow sliders in post-production, and that is his primary test of a "good sensor". Everyone else is using "less advanced technology" and missing out on "creative opportunities".
> 
> As for going to Nikon forums and demonstrating the unique advantages of the Canon system -- well, wow, what a waste of time that would be! Photographers who need solutions to certain photographic issues seek them out and find them. Information about virtually any topic is readily available or can easily be inquired about -- any detail about a camera, lens, technique, solution, etc. If someone needs Canon's unique anti-flicker tech to photograph action under flourescent lighting, they will find out about it; they don't need to hear me bashing Nikon for not having it.
> 
> ...



There weren't any mocking comments of photographers using 'age-old techniques'. There was the simple pointing out of the fact that there are different, arguably better, ways of doing it now, and that _you_ were clearly not understanding the entire basis of my argument. It's now mocking for me to point out that there might be better ways to do things than what you consider the standard? For pointing out _technological progress_, which I believe were my exact words that you considered mocking? I then asked if you were one of those that considered the DR of slide film enough. Honest question. 

What's actually insulting and mocking is being told I've made bad decisions and am myself to blame for the poor understanding of my own equipment, stop down my lens to the f-stop of a zoom rather than just use better equipment, yada yada, when my entire point all along is that _a better alternative exists_.

And you're still not getting it - which is why I feel the need to keep re-iterating myself. It's no longer unsound to underexpose your image if you want to save highlights b/c of how far technology has come. It's no more unsound than shooting at ISO 1600, when it comes to almost any sensor save for Canon & Aptina (e.g. what's in the Nikon 1-series), and to a lesser extent, the new Sony A7S.

Don't believe me? Read my next post.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> I thought this was what you were getting at. This was literally one of the first things I tried when I first bought an A7R and unfortunately, this is not very useful at all. Because middle grey will be buried so deep within the shadows, color noise, posterization, and horizontal banding (yes, Exmor has banding noise as well if you dig deep enough) all become major issues. Even when emulating ISO 1600.



Demonstrably untrue. Demonstration below (right-click image to get link to full-size image):

*A7R: ISO 1600 | 1/30s | f/8*






*A7R: ISO 100 + 4EV | 1/30s | f/8*





And now, for closer crops:

*A7R: ISO 1600 | 1/30s | f/8*





*A7R: ISO 100 + 4EV | 1/30s | f/8*





And here's the original ISO 100 JPG:





I'm sorry; not seeing any color noise, posterization, and banding. Not really seeing much of a noise cost at all to shooting ISO 100. Meanwhile, the ISO 100 image has 4 EV highlight headroom compared to the ISO 1600 shot, affording detail in the sky through the window that is hopelessly blown in the ISO 1600 file. Actually, some channels are blown even in the ISO 100 file.

Btw, the black patch in that color chart at ISO 100 is L=0.9, or RGB = 5,5,5. The areas in the lower right carpet (view the full images) are RGB = 2,1,1, or *Raw values of between 15-20* in the green channel, and even less in the other channels.

And some people wonder why I try to make it a point to dispel these fallacies?

P.S. Yes I know the ISO 100 shot could've been processed better, but I only spent 30s processing just to try & waste as little time as possible with this. Window lighting is pretty challenging and requires proper use of masks in PS if you want to do it right. Doesn't change my point.


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## sarangiman (Sep 24, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Do you see a general pattern here? Where one system has a particular technical advantage over another, _most_ people acknowledge that advantage. They may question the relevance of that advantage to themselves or to most people, or they may question the relative importance of that particular technical advantage compared to other aspects of system performance. The are then treated to repeated examples demonstrating that particular technical advantage, which they've already acknowledged.



OK, sometimes that's true, but I usually only step in to make a point or post examples when someone makes a false claim or misleading generalization. I've already pointed out that this is my motivation.

It's why I brought up the 14-24 vs. 16-35 comparison in that ultra wide-angle thread, the D800 vs 5D3 examples 2 years ago in the thread about DxO's D800 sensor scores, the focus tracking stuff when someone outright claimed the 5D3 AF system is better than the D800, etc. etc.

If what you're saying is generally true, then that's great. But some people here tend to perpetuate myths and fallacies, and then when someone points out some fallacy is unsound, he/she gets hounded - and generally by people who haven't extensively used both systems in question.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 24, 2014)

_"I'm sorry; not seeing any color noise, posterization, and banding. Not really seeing much of a noise cost at all to shooting ISO 100."_

I think we should all be able to agree that there is also no color noise, posterization, or banding in my "real world" 100% crop as well, though that does only have an approximately three+ stop lift.


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## zlatko (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > Apparently you missed the mocking comments directed toward me -- I certainly won't go back to quote them. Or the mocking comments about photographers who use common and well known techniques to deal with age-old issues of high contrast. Apparently the only solution he accepts is pushing shadow sliders in post-production, and that is his primary test of a "good sensor". Everyone else is using "less advanced technology" and missing out on "creative opportunities".
> ...



Mocking, ridicule, etc. Plenty of it! Saying it was "comical" to stop down a prime lens. Repeatedly questioning my understanding — that one you like to repeat. Saying I have an anti-progress sentiment. Saying this is "just like arguing with fundamentalist conservatives." I don't have time to quote more.

I did *not* blame your for "poor understanding of your own equipment" — that seems to be _your_ favorite tactic: ridiculing people for not understanding, for not "getting" the technology or your arguments, as if people who disagree with you just lack understanding. I did blame you for intentionally underexposing that photo, as I presumed you knew the equipment well enough to know that would give poor results.

I also pointed out that: 
[list type=decimal]
[*]Your goals for that crop of a photo were unusual in that massive underexposure is usually a mistake, not a technique. 
[*]There are various and very common ways of dealing with the same situation, *not just your way*; and
[*]Considering points 1. and 2., meeting your specific goal (fixing massive underexposure) is not the test of what is or isn't a good sensor. [/list]

Now you're not only defending your unusual approach of fixing massive underexposure, but you're also claiming it's a "better way", a "better alternative", etc. You're claiming this as proof you have "BETTER EQUIPMENT". That's a huge stretch considering that it's built on a series of unusual personal rules or theories, such as (paraphrasing): the essential point of a prime lens is to shoot at its widest aperture, so stopping down to avoid vignetting is "comical"; photos shot at a lens's widest aperture should still show zero vignetting and thus must have all vignetting removed in software; portraits should not have any black shadows in the background because black doesn't exist in the real world; detail in clouds and skies must be saved at the expense of portrait subjects, even when not using any flash or a reflector; etc.

It was never Canon's job to provide a solution for mistaken — or intentional — massive underexposure. If they do provide that someday, great, I will applaud. In the meantime, it's great that you've found equipment that lets you practice this as a technique right now.

Now I'm going to sign out here and get really busy on a Nikon forum telling them about how they don't understand some unique Canon features, technologies and products and how they're being held back by Nikon's lack of progress in all of those areas.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> And some people wonder why I try to make it a point to dispel these fallacies?
> 
> P.S. Yes I know the ISO 100 shot could've been processed better, but I only spent 30s processing just to try & waste as little time as possible with this. Window lighting is pretty challenging and requires proper use of masks in PS if you want to do it right. Doesn't change my point.



Not all of the issues will show up the moment you try to do this for ISO 1600, although even in your own example I can already see shadow areas that have a significant magenta cast compared to the ISO 1600 version. Additionally, I can almost guarantee that if you post the histogram for the ISO 100 image you'll already see the signature of posterization in the shadows. Once you get up to ~6400 though you end up with very nice highlights and garbage midtones and shadows. This was an idea I was quite excited about when the A7R first came out, but in practice it's just not that useful.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

zlatko said:


> Mocking, ridicule, etc. Plenty of it! Saying it was "comical" to stop down a prime lens. Repeatedly questioning my understanding — that one you like to repeat. Saying I have an anti-progress sentiment. Saying this is "just like arguing with fundamentalist conservatives." I don't have time to quote more.
> 
> I did *not* blame your for "poor understanding of your own equipment" — that seems to be _your_ favorite tactic: ridiculing people for not understanding, for not "getting" the technology or your arguments, as if people who disagree with you just lack understanding. I did blame you for intentionally underexposing that photo, as I presumed you knew the equipment well enough to know that would give poor results.



I didn't say _people_ who disagree with me lack understanding, I just said that _you_ (still, by the way) don't understand that it's no longer the case that - for certain sensors - that underexposing an image and recovering it isn't valid. +4 EV at ISO 100 is no less valid than actually shooting at ISO 1600 for certain sensors, above certain extremely, extremely low tones (that may still suffer from quantization error and remnant downstream read noise).



zlatko said:


> Now you're not only defending your unusual approach of fixing massive underexposure, but you're also claiming it's a "better way", a "better alternative", etc. You're claiming this as proof you have "BETTER EQUIPMENT". That's a huge stretch considering that it's built on a series of unusual personal rules or theories, such as (paraphrasing): the essential point of a prime lens is to shoot at its widest aperture, so stopping down to avoid vignetting is "comical"; photos shot at a lens's widest aperture should still show zero vignetting and thus must have all vignetting removed in software; portraits should not have any black shadows in the background because black doesn't exist in the real world; detail in clouds and skies must be saved at the expense of portrait subjects, even when not using any flash or a reflector; etc.



I'm not saying it's ridiculous to ever stop down a prime. I'm saying I choose not to for artistic effect, and in those instances where I don't want vignetting, many other sensors offer me a much better alternative to the _*limiting*_ solutions you and a couple others suggested.

Seriously, please don't make my argument comical. 



zlatko said:


> It was never Canon's job to provide a solution for mistaken — or intentional — massive underexposure. If they do provide that someday, great, I will applaud. In the meantime, it's great that you've found equipment that lets you practice this as a technique right now.



No, you're right, it wasn't. But many others have provided this benefit anyway.



zlatko said:


> Now I'm going to sign out here and get really busy on a Nikon forum telling them about how they don't understand some unique Canon features, technologies and products and how they're being held back by Nikon's lack of progress in all of those areas.



Sure, go ahead. Do make sure you have some evidence though before you go off about Nikon's supposed inaccurate exposure (which even if it were true, their sensors would withstand much better) and white balance errors (which, again, even if true, doesn't matter for RAW). I've never experienced either of things. There are, however, many other valid complaints you could make about Nikon. Many of which I've scattered throughout my posts.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> _"I'm sorry; not seeing any color noise, posterization, and banding. Not really seeing much of a noise cost at all to shooting ISO 100."_
> 
> I think we should all be able to agree that there is also no color noise, posterization, or banding in my "real world" 100% crop as well, though that does only have an approximately three+ stop lift.



To see the banding you have to lift shadows ridiculous amounts, 6+ stops. The posterization though can be seen in histograms relatively early on though but only really becomes a problem when, again, making silly shadow lifts. The color noise surprises me though, as this is something I see when lifting ~4 stops or so. Maybe an A7 vs A7R thing.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > And some people wonder why I try to make it a point to dispel these fallacies?
> ...



Wait, you want to see the histogram to prove posterization when you can't see posterization in the 100% view of the image itself? And I thought _I_ was quantitative...

So you're saying you want more than 4 EV pushes? B/c I just showed a +4 EV push from ISO 100, showing acceptable image data from data right near the floor of the sensor. I'm not sure how you can keep arguing that there's going to be garbage down there. If you insist, please provide actual images rather than word-of-mouth.

The magenta cast in shadows could be an ACR thing - luckily, it's easy to remove. I mean you don't see it in my images, b/c I removed it by adjusting the ACR calibration shadows slider.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > _"I'm sorry; not seeing any color noise, posterization, and banding. Not really seeing much of a noise cost at all to shooting ISO 100."_
> ...



Ok, keep in mind that at 6+ stops you need to expect noise levels of ISO 6400 and above. C'mon. Let's be reasonable.

And yes, more than 5 stops of pushing and you _might_ see some effects of downstream read noise or quantization error, compared to the ISO 6400 or higher (not pushed) shot.

And, yes, different sensors will perform slightly differently here. I believe the A7 is a slightly older sensor, but it shouldn't be accounting for the drastic differences in your experience vs. what I just showed above.


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## Kahuna (Sep 25, 2014)

zlatko said:


> It was never Canon's job to provide a solution for mistaken — or intentional — massive underexposure. If they do provide that someday, great, I will applaud.



Intelligence in a sea of garbage....amazing.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> raptor3x said:
> 
> 
> > privatebydesign said:
> ...



A 6+ stop push is where I'm most interested because most of my shooting is above ISO 3200. Once you get to this point the midtones look noticeably worse for an ISO 100 shot pushed up than a native high ISO shot; this is the issue I have with the claim that you keep all the dynamic range. You can keep the highlights but the shadows and midtones turn to garbage. The reason I mentioned the histogram is because while you can't really see the posterization at ISO 1600 in the image, you can see it in the histogram already and it becomes visible in the pictures once you start trying this same technique at even higher ISO values.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > raptor3x said:
> ...



(1) Amazing that no one's complaining about raptor3x trying to a 6+ stop push, isn't it? Oh, perhaps it's b/c he's complaining about Sony, not Canon, so it's totally OK.

(2) I didn't say 'all' the dynamic range. I said 'nearly'. Consistently. You can't obliviously push 7, 8, 9 stops, b/c of finite downstream read noise and quantization error. That said, you'll often see very little benefit to shooting above what's known as 'unity gain ISO' (typically ~ISO 400ish for FF sensors, although this'll vary based on a number of factors), b/c quantization error won't be a factor.

So what you _can_ do is shoot ISO 400 instead of ISO 6400 or 12.8k and push 4-5 stops, and get 4-5 EV highlight headroom. That's still like 12.5 stops, with an effective ISO 6400 image, which is still significantly more than even the base ISO DR of any Canon DSLR.

And even if you _do_ push 7, 8, or 9 stops, it's still not going to result in the ugly read noise or banding you'll see with gentle pushes of Canon DSLR files. So I still have no idea about the banding, color noise, posterization, and whatnot raptor3x was talking about from a 4 EV push. Which he's now, apparently, changed to a 6+ stop push - but even then, I don't see anything near ugly posterization, banding, or even significant noise. A tiny bit more noise than native ISO when you're pixel-peeping, yes, but hardly worth raising a fuss about.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> I think the simple point is, when you need to push 6 stops...you can. And you can work the data to recover lost color fidelity. With a Canon camera, you can't. Well, you can push 6 stops, but as PBD's (and many other's examples, and hopefully soon my own, as I just rented an A7r and Metabones EF adapter) images demonstrate, the shadows are so riddled with noise that is so bad, no matter how much you work it, it isn't going to get any better.
> 
> With Sarangiman's window example, you could HDR that...but your almost guaranteed to get integration artifacts, and removing ghosts isn't always the solution...sometimes you have to manually work it, sometimes you have to excessively bracket (one of the original videos demonstrating ACR's 32-bit 20-stop TIFF HDR toning used 15 shots in bracket to handle an HDR of the interior of a darkened plane with a very bright window...the 15 shots weren't for DR, they were to avoid artifacting around and in that window.)
> 
> It isn't generally a common situation to need to push 6+ stops. There are cases where it could be very useful, and for certain kinds of photography, it could be more useful than in other kinds of photography. PBD's example images are far from extreme. Before the shadow lift, the shadows under the awning were not pitch black and buried deep. They were light shadows, you could see into them...and even lifting that, in a realistic edit, produced very clean, usable results on the Exmor camera, and some heavy banding and not much detail (recoverable or otherwise) on the Canon camera. Canon's banding and read noise reaches up to the lower midtones. The 7D II may prove to have solved the banding issue, if so, WONDERFUL! That's a good sign. There is still the random read noise, though, and that's still going to eat away at detail...possibly right up into the lower midtones. NOT having that problem would just be...wonderful.



The whole point was that even Exmor RAW files can't be pushed 6 stops without trouble. Sarangiman's original claim was that you could shoot at high ISO and retain almost all of the dynamic range by shooting at ISO 100 and underexposing, which implied you're better off shooting underexposed at ISO 100 and then pushing however many stops to get to your desired emulated ISO. This works quite well up to ISO 1600 where you start seeing some minor color splotches and a slight magenta cast, but nothing major. As you try to push further though it starts falling apart pretty quickly. What did surprise me though is that a 4 stop push from ISO 400 looks much better than the six stop push from ISO 100. I was under the assumption than an ISO 100 file underexposed by 2 stops was essentially identical to an ISO 400 file, but that's clearly not the case as shown below.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> And even if you _do_ push 7, 8, or 9 stops, it's still not going to result in the ugly read noise or banding you'll see with gentle pushes of Canon DSLR files. So I still have no idea about the banding, color noise, posterization, and whatnot raptor3x was talking about from a 4 EV push. Which he's now, apparently, changed to a 6+ stop push - but even then, I don't see anything near ugly posterization, banding, or even significant noise. A tiny bit more noise than native ISO when you're pixel-peeping, yes, but hardly worth raising a fuss about.



This is what I mean when I'm talking about posterization and banding. It's obviously an extreme case but it is there if you dig deep enough. Edit: I'm surprised you wouldn't think posterization would be an issue with underexposing using ISO 100, that's not even a property of the sensor.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> The whole point was that even Exmor RAW files can't be pushed 6 stops without trouble. Sarangiman's original claim was that you could shoot at high ISO and retain almost all of the dynamic range by shooting at ISO 100 and underexposing, which implied you're better off shooting underexposed at ISO 100 and then pushing however many stops to get to your desired emulated ISO. This works quite well up to ISO 1600 where you start seeing some minor color splotches and a slight magenta cast, but nothing major. As you try to push further though it starts falling apart pretty quickly. What did surprise me though is that a 4 stop push from ISO 400 looks much better than the six stop push from ISO 100. I was under the assumption than an ISO 100 file underexposed by 2 stops was essentially identical to an ISO 400 file, but that's clearly not the case as shown below.



Key word here: *implied*. You *assumed*, despite me explicitly saying 'almost' and also pointing out that there are limitations due to quantization error. Which is exactly why I said some posts ago that ISO 400 is the 'magic' ISO above which there's not much benefit to hardware ISO amplification for full-frame cameras, b/c this is where one electron is counted by one digital increment in your RAW file ('unity gain ISO').

That's why I explicitly said you can choose ISO 400 rather than 6400 or 12.8k some posts above, remember? 

No, ISO 100 pushed is not always going to be the same as ISO 400, for tones below a certain threshold where quantization error is an issue (or where downstream read noise is somewhat more significant b/c you're only counting every 3-4 photoelectrons per digital increment).

I alluded to all of these from the very beginning, but I can't always write a novel every time I'm talking about a concept. 

Also, careful about resampled views in Lightroom. I actually do see a tiny bit of banding in your image - perhaps the A7 sensor is more outdated compared to the A7R? The magenta blotching can be reduced typically with the Shadows Tint slider under Camera Calibration. Also, magenta noise does seem to be more of an issue with the A7 than A7R, if I remember correctly.

The D810 surpasses even the A7R. 

Also, that's a +5 EV push. Your initial claim that ISO 100 + 4EV falls apart to posterization and banding and noise compared to ISO 1600 is just not true - at least not with an A7R or D810. But, yes, quantization error and the effects of non-zero downstream read noise *will* have some effect at some extreme point. *But even when it does, it's very easy to remove. It's usually as subtle as the noise that comes with higher ISOs. Not the magenta blotchiness and banding your example shows.* Only time I see magenta blotchiness is in the JPEG preview, b/c of the limited quality/bit-depth of some of the preview JPEGs LR uses. *There can be some significantly smaller faint magenta blotchiness for signals down in the RGB = 1,1,1 area, and those can easily be removed with color NR which thankfully rarely kills much actual image detail.*

Also, realize LR's histogram is not the best judge b/c of the way it actually works. I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to when you're talking about 'posterization', but as long as your sampling is such that shot/statistical noise is sampled by at least one digital increment in your Raw file, the dithering effect of the noise will take care of posterization. If we do a little math and use some approximations, a signal of 16 photoelectrons varies by +/- 4 b/c of shot noise, and that signal is represented by, say, roughly 4 at ISO 100. The noise is represented by 1 digital increment, so you're fine. Yes, below this, you're not sampling the noise properly, so you may run into issues. That's where you'll benefit from using ISO 400. But if you're seriously trying to use image data from 16 photons and below... well, now, *there's* an extreme case.

And like I said, above ISO 400, most of these issues are obviated, as you yourself have seen. From that point onward, you can do huge pushes and literally see no noise cost compared to shooting at the higher ISO.

Actually, you can perform quantitative tests to figure out exactly where this 'magical ISO' is.

Overall, I'm not sure what your point is though. You can generally use the technique I mentioned, save for ridiculously low signals of I'm guessing like 30 photoelectrons or less. I thought I was OK leaving that edge case out, at the risk of writing the novel I just wrote above.

And all that said, it does seem your A7 is not performing up to the level of the A7R or D800/810. Which is not too surprising - again, it's an older sensor.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

jrista said:


> It actually works well (usually without trouble) up to 5 1/3 to 5 2/3 stops. You may start seeing some issues starting at around 5 stops...depends on the exposure and how deep your really going (you can still ETTR with an Exmor camera). Push an Exmor raw that far, and with a good exposure you still won't see color noise, and those sensors are entirely devoid of any kind of banding unless your utterly cracked (there are guys on DPR who have used the brush to boost exposures from the D800 up to 10 stops, where they eventually finally to notice extremely minor banding amongst all the random color noise.) The Exmor advantage is a little over five stops, so that's generally what you can get with a strait exposure-slider and highlight/shadow-slider push in LR. Doing so does not result in anything remotely resembling the kind of noise you get when you push a Canon image a mere couple of stops, let alone three or four or more on top of some explicit shadow pushing with the shadow slider.



I've never been quite comfortable with the results from the A7 I have now pushed any more than 4 stops. Then again, I never push my 5D3 shadows more than a stop without using MagicLantern.



jrista said:


> You can work the data more...you can tweak it more carefully and preserve and enhance color. It's more work...and it may or may not be important to the ultimate goals. Simple fact of the matter is...you have the option with a camera built around an Exmor sensor. You don't have the option with a Canon sensor.



Just to clarify, this was never a Canon vs Sony issue. Just a difference in my experience with Exmor vs what was being claimed.



jrista said:


> I see banding and color noise, but no posterization. Posterization is basically "cartoonization", which results in the effect you see in this image:



The spikey behavior in the histogram represents posterization. This isn't even really a function of the sensor at all, just that we don't have enough information to provide continuous color contours. It's not going to appear as clearly as your exampe though due to the random noise. In any case, Sarangiman clarified that he meant that higher ISOs were emulated with higher base ISO rather than always sticking with ISO 100 which, surprisingly to me, actually makes a huge difference.



jrista said:


> The pinkish-red and blue blotchiness of the shadows in the image you have shared is a form of color noise. That could very likely be due to the lossy compression Sony employs in their raw files...which is one of the things I truly DO NOT like about their cameras. I cannot fathom why Sony would gimp their own cameras by using a non-raw "raw" image format...it aint RAW if your throwing away data. Bleh. :-\



The severity of it is actually exaggerated slightly by LR's downsampling method but the blotchiness shown is very real. This is also the same kind of behavior I was mentioning in the other thread where I was complaining about the A7 not responding well to noise reduction at high ISO.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Key word here: *implied*. You *assumed*, despite me explicitly saying 'almost' and also pointing out that there are limitations due to quantization error. Which is exactly why I said some posts ago that ISO 400 is the 'magic' ISO above which there's not much benefit to hardware ISO amplification for full-frame cameras, b/c this is where one electron is counted by one digital increment in your RAW file ('unity gain ISO').
> 
> That's why I explicitly said you can choose ISO 400 rather than 6400 or 12.8k some posts above, remember?



The way you phrased it implied that you could almost keep the entire (ISO 100) dynamic range at high ISO when the reality is that you can almost keep then entire ISO 100 DR up until ISO 1600 at which point you lose ~1 stop DR per stop increase in apparent ISO (not quite sure how this will actually scale). But fair enough, it was your comment that prompted me to test using ISO 400 instead of ISO 100 so yes, I do remember.



sarangiman said:


> No, ISO 100 pushed is not always going to be the same as ISO 400, for tones below a certain threshold where quantization error is an issue (or where downstream read noise is somewhat more significant b/c you're only counting every 3-4 photoelectrons per digital increment).
> 
> I alluded to all of these from the very beginning, but I can't always write a novel every time I'm talking about a concept.



The magnitude of this difference surprised me a bit, I didn't expect such a large difference. Pleasant surprise.



sarangiman said:


> Also, careful about resampled views in Lightroom. I actually do see a tiny bit of banding in your image - perhaps the A7 sensor is more outdated compared to the A7R? The magenta blotching can be reduced typically with the Shadows Tint slider under Camera Calibration. Also, magenta noise does seem to be more of an issue with the A7 than A7R, if I remember correctly.



You're correct about the resampling, it exaggerates the effect slightly but it's definitely there. This is actually similar to the pattern of purple blotches I see in the A7 files at high ISO that don't respond well to noise reduction that I complained about in the other thread.



sarangiman said:


> The D810 surpasses even the A7R.



I've been very tempted to rent one of these to try out both the new AF system and the supposedly improved grip.



sarangiman said:


> Also, that's a +5 EV push. Your initial claim that ISO 100 + 4EV falls apart to posterization and banding and noise compared to ISO 1600 is just not true - at least not with an A7R or D810. But, yes, quantization error and the effects of non-zero downstream read noise *will* have some effect at some extreme point. *But even when it does, it's very easy to remove. It's usually as subtle as the noise that comes with higher ISOs. Not the magenta blotchiness and banding your example shows.* Only time I see magenta blotchiness is in the JPEG preview, b/c of the limited quality/bit-depth of some of the preview JPEGs LR uses. *There can be some significantly smaller faint magenta blotchiness for signals down in the RGB = 1,1,1 area, and those can easily be removed with color NR which thankfully rarely kills much actual image detail.*



The initial claim was poorly phrased; +4 stops is where I start seeing blotchiness and extra color noise and is generally the limit of how far I push Exmor files. I generally have to push 6 stops to see the banding and posterization issues.



sarangiman said:


> Also, realize LR's histogram is not the best judge b/c of the way it actually works. I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to when you're talking about 'posterization', but as long as your sampling is such that shot/statistical noise is sampled by at least one digital increment in your Raw file, the dithering effect of the noise will take care of posterization. If we do a little math and use some approximations, a signal of 16 photoelectrons varies by +/- 4 b/c of shot noise, and that signal is represented by, say, roughly 4 at ISO 100. The noise is represented by 1 digital increment, so you're fine. Yes, below this, you're not sampling the noise properly, so you may run into issues. That's where you'll benefit from using ISO 400. But if you're seriously trying to use image data from 16 photons and below... well, now, *there's* an extreme case.



This is exactly why I had issue with your initial claim that you could maintain high ISO dynamic range by just underexposing ISO 100 files. I suppose we have different definitions of high and extremely high ISO.



sarangiman said:


> And like I said, above ISO 400, most of these issues are obviated, as you yourself have seen. From that point onward, you can do huge pushes and literally see no noise cost compared to shooting at the higher ISO.
> 
> Actually, you can perform quantitative tests to figure out exactly where this 'magical ISO' is.
> 
> ...



Yes, switching to ISO 400 seems to give much nicer pushes up to ISO 6400.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> I've never been quite comfortable with the results from the A7 I have now pushed any more than 4 stops. Then again, I never push my 5D3 shadows more than a stop without using MagicLantern.



Interesting. Actually, thanks for this data point. I was mildly considering getting rid of my A7R and getting the A7 instead, b/c of shutter shock on the A7R which makes the 70-200 FE of limited utility, and b/c phase detection on the A7 actually helps nail focus faster, and even track to a certain degree. AF-C shouldn't even be offered on the A7R, in my opinion, but that goes without saying for most CDAF-only systems.

But now your concern added with the slightly worse ISO performance according to both DPR studio scene and DxO makes me think I'll ditch the A7 system altogether until Sony introduces a model with electronic first curtain in the 36MP sensor (and hopefully stops compressing their RAWs). 



raptor3x said:


> The spikey behavior in the histogram represents posterization. This isn't even really a function of the sensor at all, just that we don't have enough information to provide continuous color contours. It's not going to appear as clearly as your exampe though due to the random noise. In any case, Sarangiman clarified that he meant that higher ISOs were emulated with higher base ISO rather than always sticking with ISO 100 which, surprisingly to me, actually makes a huge difference.



Yeah, but then you could call the A7S 'posterized' at ISO 409k, where it's trying to make an image with ~50 photons or less per pixel (50 photons = white), according to sensorgen's back-calculations. At least it's dithered. But yes what you're talking/worried about is a form of quantization error, since at ISO 100 you're not counting every electron. This'd be largely fixed with a 16-bit ADC, though. So hopefully we'll see those soon in Sony/Nikon cameras.

And I think by ISO 400 you're counting every electron, which is why you see a difference. You're also amplifying even the lowest signal 4x, so that may be just enough to make it less affected by the 2-3 electrons (my guesstimate) of downstream read noise that even Exmor sensors have. 



raptor3x said:


> The whole point was that even Exmor RAW files can't be pushed 6 stops without trouble.



Er, I'm going to have to beg to differ. Here's the D810 at ISO 6400 and at ISO 100 pushed 6 EV:






Can you tell which is which?

Btw, in the ISO 100 file, that road has a signal of *average 7* for the green channel, where the *SNR is 3.5*. Red channels is like *4*. These are all on a 16-bit scale. So pixels with signals of literally 4-7 in the Raw file (1 being minimum, ~16,000 being maximum).

So I'm not even talking about pushing a midtone or even a shadow +6 EV. I'm talking about pushing some of the deepest of the deep shadows 6 EV. With brighter tones - you can't tell *any* difference between ISO 6400 and ISO 100 pushed 6 stops. But here even with tones all the way down at the floor of the sensor/Raw file, it's hard to see the difference. _*If that doesn't wow you...*_

Point being: yes you can push 6 stops for certain Exmor sensors. Though it does get tricky with ACR, since it's not really built to do that. I had to use the 'Blacks' slider which ends up reducing contrast, and I adjusted until I got the same brightness in the road as the ISO 6400 file.


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## raptor3x (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Er, I'm going to have to beg to differ. Here's the D810 at ISO 6400 and at ISO 100 pushed 6 EV:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's extremely impressive. I'd guess the one on the left was pushed with some shadow tint correction since it looks a bit green on this monitor but that's very good. The A7 is much noisier under similar conditions.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

You both are correct. Well done!

And I'm glad you agree it's impressive. The D800 did the same, and the A7R is close. There are others as well. The D810 is particularly impressive b/c it'll eat up approx. 2/3 EV more exposure than ISO 100 before clipping, giving you even cleaner shadows (well, cleaner everything really, but it's of course most noticeable in shadows). Assuming you can throw the extra exposure at it (e.g. you're shooting on a tripod).

See we all learned something here.


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## Khalai (Sep 25, 2014)

This is getting quite surreal and ridiculous at the same time. Pushing exposure 4 to 6 stops. That's pure madness  (meant in a good way).

But I think it's somehow lost the good old "getting it right in the camera/on the spot" and that feels sad. How many situations are out there to justify pushing the shadows so much on regular basis. I'm not against progress at all and would love to have the latitude of Exmor as well, but this seems to make people lazy and sloppy, not caring about correct exposure IMHO.


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## sarangiman (Sep 25, 2014)

Khalai said:


> This is getting quite surreal and ridiculous at the same time. Pushing exposure 4 to 6 stops. That's pure madness  (meant in a good way).
> 
> But I think it's somehow lost the good old "getting it right in the camera/on the spot" and that feels sad. How many situations are out there to justify pushing the shadows so much on regular basis. I'm not against progress at all and would love to have the latitude of Exmor as well, but this seems to make people lazy and sloppy, not caring about correct exposure IMHO.



Understanding exactly how your camera works, and how you can push it to expand your work is not 'lazy and sloppy'. You can still use a reflector, for example, for fill if you want. But you have the option of not, and of not having to stop down, and the option to worry about nailing focus instead, or capturing the moment before your subjects get bored or before the rain starts pouring on them and you have to call it quits (actually what happened in the wedding shot I posted a crop of earlier).

Also, I don't think it's lazy to do SNR analyses to figure out exactly how much pushing you can do, what ISOs are better than others for pushes, and how you can use that information to gain highlight headroom without noise costs when you need it. 

If anyone here honestly feels that photographers in fast-paced shooting scenarios don't already have enough to worry about with focus, picking the focus point, selecting the right lens for the composition, optimizing the composition, choosing shutter speed, aperture, ISO, placement of subjects, capturing the action, etc., then, yes, we're on totally separate planets. Removing the need to constantly worry about any one of those attributes is a noble goal. 

You still have to know enough about exposure to get ETTR right, else you run the risk of unnecessarily paying a noise cost similar to what you'd pay with shooting at a higher ISO (something most photographers would want to avoid). And you still have to create interesting lighting on the spot; you can't magically add Rembrandt lighting b/c of Exmor. Basically, you end up spending more time and effort worrying about other things. Not become lazy and sloppy. 

One day we'll have cameras that actively record what our eyes see, from which we extract whatever we want. Will that be the height of laziness, or will it force photographers to find creative ways to add unique value?

Anyway, this sort of stuff could be debated to no end.


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## Sporgon (Sep 25, 2014)

Khalai said:


> This is getting quite surreal and ridiculous at the same time. Pushing exposure 4 to 6 stops. That's pure madness  (meant in a good way).



Your not alone in thinking that. Once those missionaries that preach Exmor start talking about pushing six stops I think we can all relax in our heathen ways.

When I can snap straight into the sun and produce this image from one exposure with the Canon, who gives a damn ? I know I don't. The push/pull in this was about 2 stops.


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## AmselAdans (Sep 25, 2014)

The future of photography... only ISO 100 setting, shutter speed always 1/1000, narrow aperture, fix focus length, object distance set to hyperfocal distance and then you shift the exposure in post just as you like.

"But I wanted only this small bird to be in the fram.."CROP IT WITH PHOTOSHOP
"But I wanted to have motion blu.."PHOTOSHOP!
"But..but...I want a longtime expo.."PHOTOSHOP!
"But..where is the Boke.."PHOTOSHOP!

and then we realize that the these new glory cameras will somehow ressemble the good old "Canomatic" cameras. Just with better MP and DR. Which is basically all we need.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 25, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Er, I'm going to have to beg to differ. Here's the D810 at ISO 6400 and at ISO 100 pushed 6 EV:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well other than them both being unusably bad, I'd say the 100 iso plus lift was the left, because it is noticeably badder than the one on the right.

So it seems we are really talking about the differences between realistic 3 stop lifts and unusable 6 stop lifts from any sensor.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Er, I'm going to have to beg to differ. Here's the D810 at ISO 6400 and at ISO 100 pushed 6 EV:
> ...



'Noticeably badder' vs. 4 people so far saying 'that's really impressive'. 

Interesting. 

If only there were a way to actually quantitatively, objectively measure the difference. Oh, right, there is. SNR measurements indicate very little difference between the two, actually.

And of course they're both bad - you generally try to avoid ISO 6400 levels of light, if possible. That's entirely irrelevant to the discussion, which is about high ISOs vs. pushed lower ISOs (the latter will _never_ have _better_ quality than the corresponding high ISO shot).

Sporgon - nice shot, but I can't actually tell noise levels in a 0.37 MP image. Also, I prefer not to have horizons that blown, but that's just me.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



It would be impressive if I was still doing surveillance work for divorce cases, but I don't; it is impressive from a technical level if you are interested in technology, but I'm not really; it would be impressive if I could use either, but I couldn't. They are both unusably bad so it doesn't impress me. "Really impressive" doesn't equal usable, if I can't use it it won't impress me.

As for the SNR measurements indicating there is little difference, well what difference does that make when there clearly is? The one on the right has much more tonal gradation, it is like chalk and cheese, if you can't see the differences then I can understand why you are thinking it is impressive.

But that's just me.


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## Kahuna (Sep 26, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Er, I'm going to have to beg to differ. Here's the D810 at ISO 6400 and at ISO 100 pushed 6 EV:
> ...



Impressive? If you CR members can make money off photo's like this congratulations and I admit I'm an idiot and should take up another hobby (maybe lawn bowling/or maybe BINGO) else they are crap.


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## Aglet (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Sporgon - nice shot, but I can't actually tell noise levels in a 0.37 MP image. Also, I prefer not to have horizons that blown, but that's just me.



+1
could've retained more color near the horizon by reducing exposure and bring up the rest a bit more IF you had shot that with an Exmor. Not that you HAVE to, it would just provide you with that option, should you choose to use it.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> What's impressive is that is a SIX STOP push. That's the noise levels SIX STOPS deep in the exposure. Imagine what that means for shadows only two or three stops deep. It means they are PHENOMENAL.
> 
> I challenge anyone here who thinks a Canon can come even remotely close to that level of quality in the same situation with a 3-stop push to try. It isn't impressive from an artistic standpoint, or a money making standpoint (although having that kind of capability can only mean your a more capable photographer with fewer limitations, so that could affect the bottom line for a pro).
> 
> It is impressive from the standpoint of what it means for much more mild and realistic pushes when you need them, which DOES affect the end artistic result.



Do you honestly believe you can't push Canon files three stops?


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## weixing (Sep 26, 2014)

Hi,
Look like every thread in CR will "evolve" to a DR thread somehow and sometime in the future... 

Example of Evolution of DR thread: from "Market Data" thread to DR thread... ;D

Have a nice day.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> It depends on the exposure...and if your exposure isn't utilizing all the DR of a Canon sensor, then sure, you can push three stops, even more if you have ETTRed. The point here is, the limits with an Exmor are clearly WAAY deeper into the utter depths of the shadows than what is possible with a Canon sensor. I never expect to lift an image by six stops...however knowing that there is such little noise in shadows that deep tells me that I could lift mildly, and the shadows would still be pristine.



I don't follow, either you can lift three stops or you can't, where the highlights are is not in question, ETTR is not in question; were the lifted portions of the image, specifically shadows, lifted three stops and maintained any kind of image quality, that is the question.

Do you believe a Canon sensor, from the current generation, can be lifted three stops and still maintain good quality shadow detail, lack of noise and banding?


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> It would be impressive if I was still doing surveillance work for divorce cases, but I don't; it is impressive from a technical level if you are interested in technology, but I'm not really; it would be impressive if I could use either, but I couldn't. They are both unusably bad so it doesn't impress me. "Really impressive" doesn't equal usable, if I can't use it it won't impress me.



OK, but this is also kind of dissing the use of ISO 6400. 

I wouldn't use it either, as I try to keep my ISOs pretty low, or otherwise use off-camera lighting. But I don't go around dissing the idea of high ISOs. You may as well just diss everyone that bought an A7s for its advantages over most other FF cameras over ISO 12,800 (but not much advantage below).

The only way to drastically improve ISO performance at this point is to increase sensor size. You could increase quality of shadows in the pushed ISO 100 file also by increasing FWC - which is essentially what Nikon has done in the D810.



privatebydesign said:


> As for the SNR measurements indicating there is little difference, well what difference does that make when there clearly is? The one on the right has much more tonal gradation, it is like chalk and cheese, if you can't see the differences then I can understand why you are thinking it is impressive.



I can see the difference, it's just irrelevant. And tiny, and nothing to fuss over. Nothing like Canon's read noise.

The tonal gradation is lacking b/c ACR only does a 5 EV push. The extra 1 EV push was done using the Shadows/Blacks slider, which is nonlinear and ends up raising blacks while not maintaining tonal relationships - leading to flatter contrast. So you'd just have to spend a little time processing it better, which I didn't care to do for the purposes of this demonstration.

For these types of cameras, software needs to catch up to the hardware improvements.

Also, it's arguably easier to - at ISO 100 - expose for the highlights, then take say 6 shots, then average them to clean up the shadows, then work off of that file. Rather than take 2-3 shots and blend them in HDR software that runs the risk of artifacts, too much HDR look, etc... as jrista was explaining earlier or somewhere else.

Also, both shots I showed could clean up easily.

Really, I don't know what we're arguing or debating any more... :-\


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

Kahuna said:


> Impressive? If you CR members can make money off photo's like this congratulations and I admit I'm an idiot and should take up another hobby (maybe lawn bowling/or maybe BINGO) else they are crap.



Hey, you said it buddy, if you think I took that photo for _any_ reason other than a test to prove a point.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Do you honestly believe you can't push Canon files three stops?



Not without a noise cost. Unless you're talking about ISOs 3200 and above, where now even the lowest signal is amplified to be at or above the noise floor of Canon electronics.

And my initial post about noise after just correcting vignetting - that was a 3 stop push (Canon 5D3 | 24/1.4). So, I believe that answers your question. How much was your push in your example?



privatebydesign said:


> I don't follow, either you can lift three stops or you can't, where the highlights are is not in question, ETTR is not in question; were the lifted portions of the image, specifically shadows, lifted three stops and maintained any kind of image quality, that is the question.
> 
> Do you believe a Canon sensor, from the current generation, can be lifted three stops and still maintain good quality shadow detail, lack of noise and banding?



No, it's not that simple. It depends on the tone you're pushing. Actually, it depends on the exact signal you're pushing, and where it is in relation to the noise floor. Which is high for Canon.



jrista said:


> What's impressive is that is a SIX STOP push. That's the noise levels SIX STOPS deep in the exposure. Imagine what that means for shadows only two or three stops deep. It means they are PHENOMENAL.



What it means, which you can quantitatively show, is that there's (almost) no noise cost in doing that push vs just shooting the correspondingly higher ISO.

And that's an incredibly cool concept. It opens doors.



jrista said:


> In another context, it's no wonder people call black-point hacked D800's "CCD-like" in the astro world. The quality of noise in Sarangiman's deep push examples are very much CCD-like in quality...very clean, very random. Run an FFT on a dark frame from that camera, and I bet the resulting image would exhibit nearly perfect Gaussian traits. Personally, I think that's amazing. I've run FFT's on Canon darks...they are nothing close to resembling a perfect Gaussian noise FFT image.



I wonder if that's at least partly b/c Nikon finally decided to add a black offset. A great (albeit not new) idea in my book.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > I don't follow, either you can lift three stops or you can't, where the highlights are is not in question, ETTR is not in question; were the lifted portions of the image, specifically shadows, lifted three stops and maintained any kind of image quality, that is the question.
> ...



We are talking about shadows, so sub 10% RGB values in Lightroom, your belief is that you cannot triple those numbers in a Canon file without seeing excessive noise and banding with current generation Canon sensors?


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> We are talking about shadows, so sub 10% RGB values in Lightroom, your belief is that you cannot triple those numbers in a Canon file without seeing excessive noise and banding with current generation Canon sensors?



3-stop push is not 'tripling'. It's multiplying by 8. And a 6-stop push is multiplying by 64.

And, yes, since vignetting correction for 24/1.4 is 3 EV, and since I'm - on a number of occasions - noted visible noise/banding from just vignetting correction, yes, I do believe you can't push 3 EV without a noise cost for many lower tones.



jrista said:


> My standards are high, though. It's all about the quality of the falloff into the shadows for me. I've seen far too many of my images that show banding right up into the midtones without any exposure pushing at all, let alone a three stop push. To me, I find that 100% completely unacceptable. I've even had that problem with some of my bird photography when shooting at ISO 400 or lower (not all that common, but sometimes the light is ridiculously good.) At the very least, even though it's usually correctable, correcting it affects detail. Reducing the random noise affects detail more. Reducing the color and gaussian components of read noise affects detail even more. It's just one layer on top of another with Canon files. Every layer nuking a little bit of detail. If you really try to clean up the shadows, they just end up mush, and no amount of fiddling seems to bring in that incredible soft tonal falloff that you get with a D800 or D810.



Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of this. I'd forgotten that I've even seen banding in blue skies in some shots, possibly b/c the other channels were underexposed? Then when I averaged shots to get rid of some of the noise and get a cleaner image, the banding became even more apparent.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > We are talking about shadows, so sub 10% RGB values in Lightroom, your belief is that you cannot triple those numbers in a Canon file without seeing excessive noise and banding with current generation Canon sensors?
> ...



Not in Lightrooms percentage scale it isn't. If I take an RGB value of 32 30 27 and lift it three stops I get 86 85 81, if I take an RGB value of 66 70 79 and lift it three stops I get 98 98 99 (no 99.9's ether), if I take 26 20 14 I get 81 72 60, all for an average of less than triple the value and that doesn't include the obviously nearly blown set.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Not in Lightrooms percentage scale it isn't. If I take an RGB value of 32 30 27 and lift it three stops I get 86 85 81, if I take an RGB value of 66 70 79 and lift it three stops I get 98 98 99 (no 99.9's ether), if I take 26 20 14 I get 81 72 60, all for an average of less than triple the value and that doesn't include the obviously nearly blown set.



I'm just saying that a stop is a doubling of light. 2^3 = 8. 

So when you literally said 'triple those numbers'... that's incorrect. The percentages, I assume, are percentages of the 8-bit 'Melissa RGB' values. Don't quote me on that though.


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## Aglet (Sep 26, 2014)

MIDTONE banding with gray fog and blue skies are where i first noticed problems with Canon images when I had my 5d2, ages ago.
Shadow pushing landscapes with every Digic 4 body showed me the FPN issues in shadows.
Quick testing of my 5d2 showed me that FPN was readily visible in smooth shades only 2 or 3 EV below metered middle if pushed only +1 stop._
I still maintain it was the most disappointing body I ever had, and possibly a lemon but... there were more of them out there like that._

I'm feeling somewhat vindicated by so many more of you, some who've previously argued against these very observations, corroborating this problem.
My only question is, WTH took so long for some users of same equipment to notice this?!? ???

EDIT: To answer PBD, you probably could push the 70D files by 3 stops and not be bothered by FPN but you'd still have plenty of shot nose to get rid of and that will eat some of the detail in NR software. the 7d2 might perform similarly. the 6D would get away with it in some shots, as will the 60D as I've done it for some shots with acceptable results. Other digic 4 bodies, not likely as capable. older digic 2 and 3 bodies would behave a bit like the 70D and allow a good push in many cases but would have even greater overall noise levels to deal with.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Not in Lightrooms percentage scale it isn't. If I take an RGB value of 32 30 27 and lift it three stops I get 86 85 81, if I take an RGB value of 66 70 79 and lift it three stops I get 98 98 99 (no 99.9's ether), if I take 26 20 14 I get 81 72 60, all for an average of less than triple the value and that doesn't include the obviously nearly blown set.
> ...



So explain the RGB values I get.

If I had an eleven stop wedge 0% would be black and 100% would be white, 10%, wouldn't quite be black, 20% would be twice as bright as 10% and 30% would be twice as bright as 20% and be four times as bright as 10%.

Where am I going wrong?

P.S. Your _"end of story"_ was quickly edited out


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

Aglet said:


> MIDTONE banding with gray fog and blue skies are where i first noticed problems with Canon images when I had my 5d2, ages ago.
> Shadow pushing landscapes with every Digic 4 body showed me the FPN issues in shadows.
> Quick testing of my 5d2 showed me that FPN was readily visible in smooth shades only 2 or 3 EV below metered middle if pushed only +1 stop._
> I still maintain it was the most disappointing body I ever had, and possibly a lemon but... there were more of them out there like that._
> ...



Why, where is the corroboration?


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Not in Lightrooms percentage scale it isn't. If I take an RGB value of 32 30 27 and lift it three stops I get 86 85 81, if I take an RGB value of 66 70 79 and lift it three stops I get 98 98 99 (no 99.9's ether), if I take 26 20 14 I get 81 72 60, all for an average of less than triple the value and that doesn't include the obviously nearly blown set.
> ...



Melissa isn't an 8 bit colour space. The LR "editing space" is a minimum of 16 bit and can work automatically in 32 bit too.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > privatebydesign said:
> ...



Right but I believe the histogram is based off of a mapping to sRGB output from the internal ProPhoto RGB (16-bit IIRC) space. So I'm not sure the percentages work out entirely predictably every time.

My point was that you're not literally 'tripling' the raw signals when you do +3 EV. You're multiplying them by 8.

This isn't very productive. If you do find out exactly what the percentages mean, though, please let us know.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

Aglet said:


> EDIT: To answer PBD, you probably could push the 70D files by 3 stops and not be bothered by FPN but you'd still have plenty of *shot nose* to get rid of and that will eat some of the detail in NR software. the 7d2 might perform similarly. the 6D would get away with it in some shots, as will the 60D as I've done it for some shots with acceptable results. Other digic 4 bodies, not likely as capable. older digic 2 and 3 bodies would behave a bit like the 70D and allow a good push in many cases but would have even greater overall noise levels to deal with.



Did you mean 'read noise' instead of 'shot noise'? Even an ideal camera will be shot-noise limited


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > MIDTONE banding with gray fog and blue skies are where i first noticed problems with Canon images when I had my 5d2, ages ago.
> ...



Well, I'm sure many have noticed it, and just worked around it.

I myself noticed it years and years back, actually when the 5D Mark II was first released. But I usually got eaten alive when I mentioned it (not just here, in fact). Even by people like jrista some 2+ years ago, sadly! Ironically, jrista, one of your counter-arguments back then was something about more highlight headroom with Canon files. Which just isn't the case - most of these sensors map the data off the sensor in a linear fashion, so there should be no difference between brands, cameras, etc. Save for maybe the D810 at ISO 64, where DxO full SNR curves suggest non-linearity - which'd essentially mean that highlights that 'look' clipped in fact aren't b/c they've been rolled off. Honestly, I'm suspicious about that... actual non-linearity at the sensor level is kind of a holy grail, so I'd expect Sony or Nikon or DxO or _someone_ to be ranting mad about that if they'd actually achieved it.

But anyway your comment years ago about highlight headroom and my D800/5D3 comparison being bull is particularly ironic now in light of you mentioning the highlights burn easily  Which, btw, I'm not so sure is entirely, quantitatively, accurate... again, since these systems map the data linearly. Unless there's some difference in (non-)linearity of charge build-up in the photodiodes, but unless you've really done some thorough side-by-sides, I wouldn't go around claiming one system has more highlight headroom than another.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> I used to think that cameras handled highlights differently. I actually still think that to a small degree, they do, and in some ways I think Canon cameras do handle highlights better. I definitely no longer think that there is nearly as much headroom in the highlights as reported by the camera itself as I used to think, though.
> 
> When I say the 5D III burns highlights, I mean that highlights go from "good", with nicely separated tones, to "poor", where things are all just blended together mush, and often a near-blown-white creamy color...VERY FAST. There isn't any room up there...you go from good clean highlights that are eminently recoverable, to not fully blown, but not really usable either, in a heartbeat. There are only a few levels at the upper end of the linear range where your highlights aren't blown, but where they seem to bleed into each other across color channels. When I first got my 5D III, I ETTRed with it the same way I did with the 7D, and it simply did not handle that the same way.
> 
> ...



I base the 'properness' by taking a lot of shots at different exposures and then choosing the one just short of clipping in important channels such that even recovery won't help. But for actual DR tests, I also bracket and choose the file that's is just short of clipping (a certain threshold number of) green channels. Then work backward to where SNR hits a threshold.

Anyway, what it *seems* you're saying from all this is that back then you had a whole bunch of delusions, limited experience with the other system (D800), and so therefore took all of this to somehow mean you could call my entire _controlled_ comparison, using matched shutter speed and aperture, between the 5D3 and the D800, and I quote: 'ABSOLUTE BULL PPL!'.

Yes, that particular scene didn't have enough DR to demonstrate the difference _artistically_, but it didn't take anything away from the point (well, besides a little beauty). And anyone who is capable of understanding the interplay of read and shot noise in determining SNR of tones really shouldn't have gone off on that rant. So honestly at that point I was just confused.

Which is why I left, especially after more guys joined (or used) your bandwagon - guys I thought we'd come to have an understanding with. Lot of the same forum behaviors still exist, years later. Seems you're more reasonable now, in most regards?


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> Seems you're more reasonable now, in most regards?



Isn't it amazing how people are reasonable when they agree with you? :


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> I used to think that cameras handled highlights differently. I actually still think that to a small degree, they do, and in some ways I think Canon cameras do handle highlights better.........
> 
> 
> .......The 7D seems to have a lot of highlight headroom. I've overexposed shots with the 7D by a couple of stops, and was able to recover quite nicely in the end, without any actually blown highlights. I could ETTR quite far with my 7D, and sometimes I'd clip highlights, but it wasn't that often that they became an unusable creamy-white blur before that point.
> ...




I have said a similar thing for years, well the overriding impression that Canon files have more highlight latitude than Nikon files do, and have been mercilessly lambasted for it. Sensor capture data might be linear, but no rendered version is unless it is gamma 1.0 and it looks like crap and, as you point out, our only point of reference is the jpeg derived histogram which does have a gamma curve applied. There is a disconnect from histogram to processing capability, I don't know what causes it but it is there.

Funny how when we actually start looking at images we see the stuff that people who only look at images have been seeing and saying for years.



neuroanatomist said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Seems you're more reasonable now, in most regards?
> ...



It is, again I am sure there are many psychological studies as to why. 

Kind of like my "D800 image" which most agreed couldn't be done with a Canon sensor.........



jrista said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > _"I'm sorry; not seeing any color noise, posterization, and banding. Not really seeing much of a noise cost at all to shooting ISO 100."_
> ...



..........turned out I "mislabeled" it,* it is a single Canon image from a 1Ds MkIII, a seven year old Canon sensor processed very simply in LR*, no plugins, no PS, nothing fancy at all. Again, like I said a few days ago, psychology, Neuro pointed out that there have been many studies that prove we see (experience) what we expect to see. Maybe we will start to see blotchiness, noise, banding etc in the crop now, or we will say it isn't that extreme a lift, or any other number of pseudo arguments that truthfully can't hold water.

People who do what they are doing can get vastly better results from the same equipment as those that don't. That is not a personal insult, if my life depended on it i could not shoot astro like Jrista, it is a truthful observation and probably accounts for the some of the wildly different opinions shown here. I thought the 7D was a noise machine after a few hours with it, seems people now generally put the 7D in the "great camera but a noise machine" category.

To be sure, I would not say no to more DR, but I don't find my current abilities overly restricted by the DR my 2007 camera has, and I have pretty blatantly proven several very vocal DR advocates opinions and observations to be _not very robust*_.

_* Cut me some slack here, that was very diplomatic, I have not set out to hurt, embarrass, insult or ridicule anybody. I did want to know if people can actually recognize stuff they claim is not possible at the 100% level, and I did do that._


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> Fair game. However, all you've done is proven that a camera that is not DR limited won't have shadow problems. Of course it won't. No one denies that. Your other image demonstrates the problem with having less DR perfectly, though. What if you had to expose that way to preserve highlights somewhere else in the image? You wouldn't have had the option to preserve shadows with ETTR, and you would have been stuck with that heavily banded shadow noise.
> 
> I still challenge you...take that same photo with a D810, with the same exposure as your first example where heavy banding noise showed up in the shadows. Compare the D810 without ETTR to your 2007 camera with ETTR. Do the same with a 5D III. You can play tricks all day long, but all you've proven is that the scene you photographed wasn't DR limited, so exposing for the shadows was an option. That doesn't change any of the facts. Canon DR hasn't changed since 2007. You used a 1Ds III. I use a 5D III. The large difference in generations there, which is about five years...sadly..._hasn't really changed a thing_ as far as dynamic range goes. Even the 6D, which has more DR thanks to a larger full well capacity, still has the same general shadow noise.
> 
> ...



No, what I proved is Canon shadows can be lifted +100 in LR with no ill effects, the DR limited argument is misdirection, nobody has ever argued that if the scene contains more DR than the sensor can capture then it can magically capture it, and when I get more DR I will use it, but having what I have isn't limiting me the way some of you say it should be.

The point was, you and others said what I did couldn't be done, despite the fact that many people have said it can, I just illustrated that it could. Am I proud of myself? No, that isn't who I am, but the cacophony of the DR advocates has become unbearable, your point was made (long ago), the people that don't see it as as big a deal all actually agree with you, more DR will be nice, we just disagree on the importance and the impact of the current tech on our output and the editing latitude we currently have.

On another level, we see what we want and expect to see, you say you are starting to see disappointing limitations with the 5D MkIII six months in, send me a couple of RAW files and I'll process them differently to you and the results could well be different. 

How is a weekend with a Sony and a Metabones going to stack up? Well you already expect to hate the hassle but love the output, what is the betting that after your short time with it you hate the hassle but love the output! Do you think your opinion would be exactly the same six months in?

My weak efforts of trying to get unbiased opinions on the lifted 100% crop were not meant to deceive, they were meant to illustrate that test numbers theories and equations can only be taken so far, this is an observational endeavor and we need to take much more care with our observations because if we make claims that can be so easily disproved, then it becomes too easy to ignore any real truth in those opinions.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> People assumed when you asked that question that the scene was DR limited.



Why would anybody do that? That is like saying "I like cats" and somebody else saying "but I thought you were 5' 10"".



jrista said:


> It would be a pointless question otherwise.



No it wouldn't, a +100 shadow lift is a +100 shadow lift, it doesn't matter where the highlights are, or even if there are any. The entire image is as irrelevant as it was in sarangiman's crop which all the DR'ers thought was "amazing", see what you are doing here? Trying to make what you want/expect to see fit into what you actually do see.

Nobody that I have seen has ever denied the Exmor DR advantage and of course there are situations where it can be used to good effect, though I would say that window-desk image isn't one of them, what they have done is say it is of limited value to them (just like 6 vs 10 fps for instance), and they have also disputed some of the techniques used, both in capture and post, when example images have been posted.

P.S. As an aside, the original file has clipped pixels at both the high and low ends, it is DR limited, though that is absolutely not the point.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



Are you missing the important points on purpose?


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## Sporgon (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> Fair game. However, all you've done is proven that a camera that is not DR limited won't have shadow problems. Of course it won't. .



So just to be clear, you are saying that the example posted by PBD ( which was shot into a clear sunlit sky and attempting to hold good data in the deepest recess of the mandatory DR testing awning ) was not a great enough EV range to cause the Canon sensor to have DR issues ?


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

Wow, just wow.

Talk about trying to move the goal posts.

I am talking about single figure RGB % values, by definition they are in the bottom 10% of the image, on average the top part of the shade under the awning is averaging RGB values of 5, that is the bottom 5% of the scale, the most under exposed 2/3 stop or so!

We are not talking about different things, we are both talking about the bottom 5% of the exposure range that I successfully lifted +100, around three stops, that several of you said could not be done, now I have done it the rebuttals sound like weak excuses.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Fair game. However, all you've done is proven that a camera that is not DR limited won't have shadow problems. Of course it won't. .
> ...


Hmm, another unanswered point ;D



jrista said:


> Well, as luck would have it, the A7r just arrived. I'll produce a couple test shots, and everyone can decide for themselves what's what.



You truthfully are missing the point.

Everybody already knows what is what, they just don't care about it like you do.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 26, 2014)

@ PBD – interesting test, with an entirely predictable outcome (not referring to the images, but their reception before and after the 'reveal'). "Wonderful shadow detail" becomes "pointless" because...well, actually the reasons are changed as needed and therefore don't really matter anyway, do they? :


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> Alright. First photos with the A7r. Quick point and shoots.  I like the IQ...hmm, going to have to see about the body. It's already demonstrated some weaknesses...well. I'll share my thoughts once I've had more time with it.
> 
> Sorry about the delay in getting these up. As soon as I exported the sample JPEGs, imgur decided to quit on me. Using PhotoBucket now.
> 
> ...



You have fallen into the first trap of comparative capabilities testing, the same exposure settings, you need to bracket 1/3 stop for a full stop either way to get the optimal exposure for highlight retention from each system.

You yourself said your 7D had better highlight capabilities than your 5D MkIII you need to explore that in the 5D MkIII and A7r if you want to conduct a thorough comparison.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > You have fallen into the first trap of comparative capabilities testing, the same exposure settings, you need to bracket 1/3 stop for a full stop either way to get the optimal exposure for highlight retention from each system.
> ...



Dude, don't over react, I made a simple suggestion that makes sense, I haven't changed anything, I have been entirely consistent for years on this subject, you can't expose different cameras the same EV value to get optimal results, it used to drive Mikael mad and I don't know or understand why, but it is true.

I appreciate it is an informal quick "test" example, I was adding to the conversation to help it be more authoritative, you don't see me being all paranoid do you? Relax, if you want the conversation I'll have it, if you don't then I won't.

My honest reaction when I imported your jpegs into LR was that they are both unusably bad, I wasn't surprised at that being the case for the 5D mkIII, I did expect the A7r to be "better" than it appears via jpeg at first glance though, yes it is much better than the 5D mkIII, but it is still unusable.

If you do want to continue the conversation I am interested to see RAW's and "optimal" exposures, something none of the test sites ever do.


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## takesome1 (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> Alright. First photos with the A7r. Quick point and shoots.  I like the IQ...hmm, going to have to see about the body. It's already demonstrated some weaknesses...well. I'll share my thoughts once I've had more time with it.
> 
> Sorry about the delay in getting these up. As soon as I exported the sample JPEGs, imgur decided to quit on me. Using PhotoBucket now.
> 
> ...



I see noise in the landscape picture in the upper left hand corner in the A7R pushed picture. 
This landscape picture must have been shot with a Canon camera and the A7R is picking up on the detail of the noise.


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## takesome1 (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:



> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > I see noise in the landscape picture in the upper left hand corner in the A7R pushed picture.
> ...



Well on the serious side. 

Lets put this test in perspective to the non technical guys that just want to take good shoots.

You have an A7R and the 5D III in hand.
In the digital age memory is cheap, you just underexposed a shot by 4 or 5 stops. You look at your screen and your review shows black. You screwed up. If it is a picture of bigfoot and he just ran off well you try and push the picture and maybe it matters. But landscapes, buildings and front room chairs do not run away. You take another shot and get it right. So no benefit to DR here. So I look at your pictures and say they are meaningless as far as seeing how I would improve. I know how to delete bad pictures, you just click on the trash button.

However as I said before you have an A7R and a 5D III in hand. 

So you go to the park mid day with the sun high, you find the edge where there are a few trees and a lake off to the side. Your buddy goes and stands under a tree, you try and capture the clouds and the lake and you look at your viewfinder and either one or the other blows out. Shade or sky take your pick. Use both bodies, like I said both are in hand. When you get home this shot matters but you want to improve it. You put both shots in LR and you work away. At the end of your PP one will be better than the other. That is the winner for you. It may not be the winner in someone else's hand but it will be in yours.

Real life situations, real pictures those are the ones that matter. That is the test. It is not hard to set the test up real life, we all know why we want more DR.

Underexposing, pushing it up and down, putting the lens cap on in the end are meaningless. End result wins.

Don't believe the results? You say here are the Raw files, decide for yourself.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> No it wouldn't, a +100 shadow lift is a +100 shadow lift, it doesn't matter where the highlights are, or even if there are any. The entire image is as irrelevant as it was in sarangiman's crop which all the DR'ers thought was "amazing", see what you are doing here? Trying to make what you want/expect to see fit into what you actually do see.



This is completely misleading. A +100 shadow lift is not just a +100 shadow lift as you're implying. Whether or not you see banding/noise depends on where the tones you're pushing initially resided in the 16-bit Raw file.

It's pointless to have any other discussions until you at least appreciate that.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > Seems you're more reasonable now, in most regards?
> ...



Yes, that's it. I'm happy he's agreeing with me. Not happy that he's:

[list type=decimal]
[*]No longer making claims about a camera he hadn't owned or even touched (5D3)
[*]Making claims about highlight headroom without doing a controlled comparison between Nikon and Canon cameras
[*]Irrelevantly claiming that my D800/5D3 results were wrong b/c I didn't give both cameras ~0.5EV more exposure to totally get near clipped highlights in the sky. Yes, b/c that would've changed the end result.
[/list]

It couldn't be that I'm actually happy b/c he's no longer making those illogical statements, right?

Must be some psychological comfort in finding someone who's agreed with me. Yes, that _must_ be it.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > No it wouldn't, a +100 shadow lift is a +100 shadow lift, it doesn't matter where the highlights are, or even if there are any. The entire image is as irrelevant as it was in sarangiman's crop which all the DR'ers thought was "amazing", see what you are doing here? Trying to make what you want/expect to see fit into what you actually do see.
> ...



Unless you can explain better why that is misleading, after all the RGB values increase exactly the same numbers as an exposure slider lift does, then I agree, you and I have nothing to discuss. 

What, specifically, is misleading?


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> sarangiman said:
> 
> 
> > privatebydesign said:
> ...



It's not _*just*_ about the amount of the push. It's (the signal of) _*what*_ you're pushing.

And, no, I'm sorry, I don't have time to write a novel on this right now. Honestly, I'm not being snarky. Perhaps someone else can explain.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > sarangiman said:
> ...



I don't need a novel, I need a cohesive thought that can be backed up with supporting information. You think you know but you don't, you think you can explain but you can't, very convincing........

What don't you understand about RGB values in the low single digit percentages being shadow detail?


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2014)

jrista said:


> 0.2/0.2/0.1% -> 15.1%/14.%/9.6%
> 
> Very significant shift in "pixel levels as percentages."
> 
> ...



It isn't unimpressive, but it still has no practical value for me, the window blooming and complete lack of tonal detail in three quarters of the A7r shot makes the image unusable even though you can remove the noise. Obviously the 5D MkIII shot is also unusable.

In this particular scenario, whilst I understand is an off the hip trial, the A7r certainly doesn't convince me to get one for my real estate work as I would still need to bracket and blend, or light the room, or any number of other techniques I currently use.

I look forward to the fuller tests.


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## sarangiman (Sep 26, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> I don't need a novel, I need a cohesive thought that can be backed up with supporting information. You think you know but you don't, you think you can explain but you can't, very convincing........
> 
> What don't you understand about RGB values in the low single digit percentages being shadow detail?



Why are you still talking about percentages on a histogram that represents the Raw values converted to ProPhoto RGB internal space and then converted to sRGB output and then converted to a percentage?

I analyze *actual* Raw numbers using RawDigger. Quit convoluting this analysis. I don't even know what your point is anymore.

My point is that you can't just do +3 or +4 EV pushes for these sorts of comparisons on _brighter tones_ to demonstrate the differences. If you don't see a difference, you're not pushing deep enough shadows. If you don't have deep enough shadows while you're exposing for highlights, then your scene doesn't have enough DR for it to matter whether or not you're shooting Exmor or Canon.

I never said it's _just_ about how many stops you can push. It's about _what_ tones you're pushing. You seem to be stuck on this 'but XYZ percentage *is* a shadow'... what? First of all, what's a shadow depends on your exposure, and second, my signal of 7 out of 16,000 on a linear scale would be *0.04%*. So, no, single digit percentages don't impress me.

I _think_ I know? Not even going to respond to such a patronizing comment considering I do full SNR analyses of sensors...


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## raptor3x (Sep 27, 2014)

So it seems the reason I've been seeing posterization issues and Sarangiman hasn't when doing the emulated high ISO trick is due to Sony's compression algorithm. Good to know I'm not the only person seeing this.


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## sarangiman (Sep 27, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> So it seems the reason I've been seeing posterization issues and Sarangiman hasn't when doing the emulated high ISO trick is due to Sony's compression algorithm. Good to know I'm not the only person seeing this.



To be fair, I rarely see it with my A7R, so I think some of it may be due to your use of the A7 (IIRC)?

But, yes, Sony's compression is very, very annoying under certain circumstances. And that's a great reference/study you linked to, by the way.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> I fully plan to create some "optimal" exposures, that was actually the entire point of renting the A7r in the first place. It also so happens that this weekend is the last weekend for fall colors in the mountains. It might be raining, not sure yet, but I'm going to try to get some landscape photos, every scene with both cameras, bracketed, etc. I don't have a lot of time to go hunting for awesome landscape scenes, so don't expect any kind of impressive artwork, but I always planned to do a more rigorous comparison between the two.



I've seen lengthy geometric proofs for the fact that a square is the largest rectangle that can be inscribed in a circle, and even lengthier algebraic proofs that 1 + 1 = 2. At the end of your testing, I'd be quite surprised if don't conclude that the a7R has more DR than the 5DIII and you can push the shadows harder. 

Still, there's value in demonstrating to ourselves that which we expect to be true. Enjoy!


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## takesome1 (Sep 27, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > I fully plan to create some "optimal" exposures, that was actually the entire point of renting the A7r in the first place. It also so happens that this weekend is the last weekend for fall colors in the mountains. It might be raining, not sure yet, but I'm going to try to get some landscape photos, every scene with both cameras, bracketed, etc. I don't have a lot of time to go hunting for awesome landscape scenes, so don't expect any kind of impressive artwork, but I always planned to do a more rigorous comparison between the two.
> ...



I think he will have that conclusion as we'll, that is the easy part.
The hard part of the question is there enough difference to matter.

I for one would be interested in seeing comparisons of pics taken in real situations that photographers face.
The shooter draws a conclusion, provides the RAW files and anyone can see if they draw the same conclusion.

This would be much better than the pointless technical banter that never proves anything or goes anywhere.

Also, the circle square exercise sounds like military funded peg research.


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## sarangiman (Sep 27, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> I for one would be interested in seeing comparisons of pics taken in real situations that photographers face.
> The shooter draws a conclusion, provides the RAW files and anyone can see if they draw the same conclusion.
> 
> This would be much better than the pointless technical banter that never proves anything or goes anywhere.



This is a very fair, valid request. A little difficult to do, but very worthwhile. What makes it hard is that it's actually very difficult to find sunsets/sunrises that do bottom out a, say D810. So it's hard to show the real difference, i.e. 'what's possible'. And if you do find the right high dynamic range scene, you're probably a landscape photographer who woke up at 2:30 am to shoot a sunrise at a beautiful location, not do a head-to-head test which is fairly challenging to do with the quickly changing light of a good sunrise/sunset. You also have to bracket both cameras all over the place so that you can go back home and then find the one where the highlights are just short of clipping, or where ACR can recover detail/color to taste. 

I'm not saying it's impossible, it's usually just hard to do well. Hopefully someone will do it (well). I'll try at some point, maybe, before I sell off my 5D3.



jrista said:


> ...so here I am. Trying to be a man of my word.



I respect that. Good luck!


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## msm (Sep 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> Oh, I agree about the blooming. That's pretty nasty. There are other problems with the A7r as well, if you pull down the RAWs. It has some pretty wicked aliasing and moire in the EVF. When I pointed at the blinds, it was pretty bad.
> 
> The focus is also NOT fast. There is only one out of several AF modes available for use with EF lenses, AF-S, which seems to be contrast detect. In better light, there seems to be a quick initial shift, then a slow contrast drive. It's difficult to see what's in focus in the EVF...but, I haven't messed with all the EVF features. Focusing is not intuitive, though.
> ...



Once you used it a while you won't even notice the aliasing and moire in the viewfinder . Also I don't know if you already have done this but it is hard to see things in the deep shadows through the VF unless you enable DRO.

I never even use AF through the metabones adapter, it just doesn't seem reliable enough. Anyways in landscapes I often want everything in focus and that is often impossible when viewing 36mp files at 100%, often the best compromise can be to step down far into diffraction land. Manual focus with the loupe seems to me to be the best way to find best balance between focus between foreground and background, on Canon that involves live view and suddenly the battery life on the Canon is just as bad as on A7R . With the evf I can also actually see what I am doing even in bright light.

I think that autofocus with native lenses is surprisingly fast for a contrast detect system however.

I won't get involved in these pointless discussions but I find the discussion about optimal exposure quite symptomatic. With exmor sensors you don't even have to bother thinking about getting the optimal exposure, you can focus on the other stuff and just shoot.


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## msm (Sep 27, 2014)

jrista said:


> Yeah, I enabled DRO. Still messing with all the settings. I do find the EVF to be pretty useless once you get down to around 1/30th second frame rate. I'm not sure why, but the EVF doesn't seem to use simulated exposures like the LCD screen on the back. The LCD screen maintains a high frame rate, but when I use the EVF, it only refreshes at the rate of your shutter speed...so a 1/4s shutter results in truly hideous EVF performance.



That doesn't happen with me, it gets slow in low light when I do multiple second exposures though but then it is both the evf and screen lagging.


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## msm (Sep 27, 2014)

msm said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, I enabled DRO. Still messing with all the settings. I do find the EVF to be pretty useless once you get down to around 1/30th second frame rate. I'm not sure why, but the EVF doesn't seem to use simulated exposures like the LCD screen on the back. The LCD screen maintains a high frame rate, but when I use the EVF, it only refreshes at the rate of your shutter speed...so a 1/4s shutter results in truly hideous EVF performance.
> ...



Oh is it related to half pressing shutter button and having the "Live View Display" menuitem in second menu submenu 2 set to "Setting Effect Off"? It seems to work much better with that set to on.


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## sarangiman (Sep 27, 2014)

msm said:


> With exmor sensors you don't even have to bother thinking about getting the optimal exposure, you can focus on the other stuff and just shoot.





jrista said:


> Yeah, I totally agree. I always have to get just the right amount of ETTR with the 5D III, so I'll usually (with landscapes, I work it a bit different with birds and wildlife) take a couple test shots to make sure I have the exposure right. With the A7r, it just isn't an issue...get the exposure generally right, take the shot. If your off by a third of a stop, either over or under exposed, it doesn't matter. You can usually recover it either way.



Now this is just _crazy_ talk. Stop making excuses for being _lazy_ and _sloppy_. You should learn to focus on everything _all at once_. You should even manually focus, like the pros did decades ago. And make sure you don't leave any more than 0.5 EV highlight headroom and then try to show there's noise in the shadows - you'll be lambasted.

Ok, on a more serious note: isn't that what I've been trying to say all along? That equipment getting out of the way opens up creative potential?

Anyway, make sure you don't take 'don't have to bother thinking about getting the optimal exposure' too far... actually depriving the sensor of light (via faster shutter speed or smaller aperture) _does_ cost you image quality, no matter what sensor.

But, yes, it's a very 'free-ing' thing to not have to worry about excessive read noise - generally the only cost you'll pay by underexposing with Exmor is image detail that just looks like it was shot at a higher ISO. And that's usually not exactly devastating, given the ISOs people willingly accept shooting at these days.


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## Aglet (Sep 27, 2014)

from a few pages back:

@PBD likes to make points demonstrating with his 1DS 3 but he is, in a way, CHEATING.
Not because of misdirection with his example, but because the 1ds3 is likely the best FF camera, IQ-wise, that Canon's ever made.

It has the best color response I know of, other than the 1000D
It has marginally better dynamic range than most other Canon's.
But, IMO, most importantly, it was PRE-Digic 4!
the FPN issues became a serious problem AFTER digic 3

PBD, you can't make those same examples as effectively with a 5d2, 5d3 or 1dx.
FPN read noise issues are worse with Digic 4 and Digic 5 than they were with the old Digic 3.

You don't see me making bad stripey noise examples with my 40D by pushing shadows.. because it doesn't have the same level of read noise banding problems bodies like the 7D have.
And that's why my 40D is still in my stable, it works, it's cleaner than subsequent models from Canon up until the 70D, and hopefully the 7d2.

*Shamefully unfair comparisons. new cameras do not perform as well as those older ones.*


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## takesome1 (Sep 27, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> takesome1 said:
> 
> 
> > I for one would be interested in seeing comparisons of pics taken in real situations that photographers face.
> ...



I think it would be very easy. You are making the assumption that it would only be good in that type of situation. You are also still proving the technical function of the camera and not the in situation usable function of the camera. DR can improve pictures in many situations, your example is only one.

DR goes both ways, up and down. All day long you can take pictures and find situations where you loose detail and shadows and blow highlights. Whether it is a man in a shaded area or an picture that blows out the clouds all could use the help. Will an extra stop of DR help me? Will the extra stop be usable or will it have to much noise? I go through my pictures and pull down the highlights to get the sky, draw up the shadows to see a bit more detail. To my eye I would want to know which does it best.

It doesn't need to be a controlled scientific test. You gather a random sampling of pictures through the day identical in both bodies. At the end you PP and you have injected your style and your skill level in to the test. The results are yours and you have an answer. I am sure you will find along the way that both body has advantages and disadvantages. You will find one lens is probably better than the other. 

But in the end the final result wins for you. Although on a given day the photographer at 2:30 on the mountain may have a different winner.

Side note is that when the D800 was first released I investigated this for myself to see what the benefit might be. That was over 2 years ago and the debates were few at first. It is interesting that it has blown up in to such a huge topic.


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## sarangiman (Oct 8, 2014)

takesome1 said:


> It doesn't need to be a controlled scientific test. You gather a random sampling of pictures through the day identical in both bodies. At the end you PP and you have injected your style and your skill level in to the test. The results are yours and you have an answer. I am sure you will find along the way that both body has advantages and disadvantages.



Oh, well if that's all you or I wanted, then I already have my 'data' and answer. I shot with the 5Dc, 5D2, and 5D3 for years and have tens of thousands of images from them. And amongst them, I've run into read noise and banding many-a-time.

Since owning the A7R and D810, I've never seen any offensive noise upon post-processing. Ever.



takesome1 said:


> Side note is that when the D800 was first released I investigated this for myself to see what the benefit might be. That was over 2 years ago and the debates were few at first. It is interesting that it has blown up in to such a huge topic.



Yeah, and at this point Nikon/Sony are even building off of that incredible sensor. The D810 offers a half to 2/3 EV more DR than the D800 even. None of the shadows in any of the numerous sunsets and sunrises I've shot so far with the D810 have any offensive noise. I now leave my 4x6 graduated ND filters at home. I'll typically take at least 3-4 shots though so that on the off-chance I want less shot noise in my shadows, I can just layer them in PS and average them. Which, btw, is easier than HDR.


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## dgatwood (Oct 8, 2014)

sarangiman said:


> This is a very fair, valid request. A little difficult to do, but very worthwhile. What makes it hard is that it's actually very difficult to find sunsets/sunrises that do bottom out a, say D810. So it's hard to show the real difference, i.e. 'what's possible'. And if you do find the right high dynamic range scene, you're probably a landscape photographer who woke up at 2:30 am to shoot a sunrise at a beautiful location, not do a head-to-head test which is fairly challenging to do with the quickly changing light of a good sunrise/sunset. You also have to bracket both cameras all over the place so that you can go back home and then find the one where the highlights are just short of clipping, or where ACR can recover detail/color to taste.



You want a good test case for high-contrast scenes? Check your local high school's website and see when they're doing their school play. Bring your cameras with wide-angle lenses. During the curtain call, shoot a wide shot of the entire stage.


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## sarangiman (Oct 8, 2014)

dgatwood said:


> You want a good test case for high-contrast scenes? Check your local high school's website and see when they're doing their school play. Bring your cameras with wide-angle lenses. During the curtain call, shoot a wide shot of the entire stage.



If that's a joke, I don't get it.


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## Woody (Dec 3, 2014)

Thought it may be the right time to resurrect this old thread.

When I look at the latest DSLR best seller list on Amazon USA recently, I am shocked that Canon is taking a very severe beating in sales. This has been going on for several weeks now (from about Nov 2014 till early Dec 2014).

Never expected this.

The unending gripes on the internet forum are showing their influences now...


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## JohanCruyff (Dec 3, 2014)

Woody said:


> Thought it may be the right time to resurrect this old thread.
> 
> When I look at the latest DSLR best seller list on Amazon USA recently, I am shocked that Canon is taking a very severe beating in sales. This has been going on for several weeks now (from about Nov 2014 till early Dec 2014).
> 
> ...


 
For what it's worth, Amazon.it:
1. Nikon D3300 + 18-55 VR
2. Canon 1200D + 18-55 IS
3. Canon 700D (T5i) + 18-55 IS STM
4. Nikon D3200 + 18-105 VR
5. Canon 100D (SL1) + 18-55 IS STM
6. Nikon D3300 + 18-105 VR
7. Nikon D800  
8. Canon 70D
9. Canon 600D (T3i) + 18-55 IS
10. Canon 1200D + 18-55 DC


I'm sure that these figures reflect the Black Friday effects (it included D800 and D3200, if I remember well) and by the Winter Cashback.

In January we will be able to see unbiased sales.


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## neuroanatomist (Dec 3, 2014)

JohanCruyff said:


> I'm sure that these figures reflect the Black Friday effects (it included D800 and D3200, if I remember well)...



Retailers will often offer deep 'Black Friday/Cyber Monday' discounts on items of which they have excess stock...one reason for that excess stock is items not selling as well as expected earlier in the year.


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## lw (Dec 3, 2014)

JohanCruyff said:


> For what it's worth, Amazon.it:
> 1. Nikon D3300 + 18-55 VR
> 2. Canon 1200D + 18-55 IS
> 3. Canon 700D (T5i) + 18-55 IS STM
> ...



Similar in UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/electronics/14335821/ref=sr_bs_1
12 of the top 20 are Canon


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## Maximilian (Dec 3, 2014)

Woody said:


> When I look at the latest DSLR best seller list on Amazon USA recently...


I wouldn't give too much on such retailers rankings.

They measure just short time periods and are updated several times a day, maybe each hour. 
And of course the actual discount strategy of the certain retailer is having a high influence on the rankings.
If they would give a ranking over a time period of at least a month, this would be more informative.
But again, it's just one retailer. 

But if it really is as you suppose, I hope that Canon is drawing their conclusions from that.
But I also hope they're doing it anyhow.


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## jeffa4444 (Dec 4, 2014)

I have some GfK data published in September at Photokina.

High End camera market share was broken down. On a golabalized basis for 2014 crop DSLRs represented 18% of the market, Full frame DSLRs were around 3% of the market, CSC 8% of the market (both cropped & full frame). Bridge cameras with 10X optical zooms are at 35% of the market, and bridge cameras with 10 - 20X zooms 12% and Bridge cameras with fixed lenses 8%. The rest was made-up of Fixed lens large sensor, Fixed lens travel zoom, & Fixed lens other what ever that means. 

If you look at the 25 year picture SLRs / DSLRs averaged around 8.5M units annually so the market whilst contracting significantly from the peak of nearly 17M is still above the historical norm and even adjusting for population growth and economic changes higher than the norm.

GfK gathers information globally from a large group of outlets and their reports are bought by the industry. 

Vitec Group which owns Manfrotto & Gitzo have reported slowing sales in the stills market and they predominately sell to keen amateurs, semi-pros & pros. Maybe its market saturation or maybe its lack of real disruptive change, maybe its the hang-over from resession. Either way consumers have slowed down their replacement cycle.


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## ritholtz (Dec 4, 2014)

Canon is flipping boat load of 70D's by tagging them refurbished.


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## Diko (Jan 29, 2015)

More than 45 days after the last topic post I am revisiting especially for our beloved *Jrista* in order to update it with some *Canon Financial Results 2014* and two additional summaries. *First one* & *Second one*

In short:

*Results *

Within the Imaging System Business Unit, although sales volume of interchangeable-lens digital cameras declined owing to the shrinking market—in Japan as a result of the reaction following the rush in demand prior to the consumption tax increase, and in Europe and other markets due to worsening economic conditions—the advanced-amateur-model EOS 7D Mark II achieved healthy growth, enabling Canon to maintain the market’s top share.

*Outlook *

As for the digital camera market, although projections indicate continued market contraction mainly for low-priced compact models, demand for interchangeable-lens digital cameras is expected to recover gradually.

And the most interesting part

As for the industrial equipment market, with manufacturers expected to continue making capital outlays for semiconductor lithography equipment in response to increasing demand for memory devices and image sensors, demand is expected to remain at the same level as the previous year. And as for FPD lithography equipment, demand is projected to increase as device manufacturers boost capital investment amid growing panel demand projected for 4K televisions and mobile devices. 

_Would that mean update of the old 0.5 tech? As well as using the SONY systems or CANON own 5 layer CMOS? ;-) _

2015 - good times!

*Imaging System *
2015 - 1,399,000
2014 - 1,343,194
2013 - 1,448,938 

*Business share of Imaging systems:*
2015 - 64 %
2014 - 64 %
2013 - 67 %

*R&D EXPENDITURE (based on constant 8.2% of sales) in Millions of yen*

2015 - N/A _out of 320,000!!!_ 
2014 - 84,377 out of 308,979
2013 - 87,510 out of 306,324


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