# Shot the 80D at high ISO and this is what I think



## SalAlexander (Jun 14, 2016)

Here is the video with sample images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUav9R_sWVw

A few nights ago I got a call to shoot a corporate event in Central London. Unfortunately my Canon 5D Mark III had been sent to Canon for servicing a few days earlier and my backup camera was in a different city.

A friend of mine from Canon was kind enough to lend me a new Canon 80D, which I was more than happy to test. I had watched some reviews on YouTube and read some comments on forums, and everyone seemed to come to the same conclusion that the new technology Canon is using to build sensors is proving to be very effective.

As a long time full-frame shooter (my last crop-sensor camera was a Canon 600D) I was a bit nervous about how the 80D was going to perform at high iso. The event took place indoors and wasn't very well lit. I mounted a Canon Speedlight 430EX II and bounced light off ceilings and walls, and shot the whole event at ISO 2000 and 3200.

First off, I'd like to talk about the handling. The camera is a good size and the grip is big enough not to be uncomfortable for someone with big hands like mine. The buttons are well positioned, except for the depth-of-field preview button which is almost impossible to press without looking for it. I normally set that to switch from One Shot to AI Servo in the Custom Controls menu.

Build quality overall is good, but the grip doesn't feel as solid as I'd expect from a £1000 camera. Also, anytime I picked up the camera it would produce a few creaking sounds. But I would still trust the 80D not to fall apart. However, the 1D, 5D and 7D series are in a totally different league.

Focusing was very accurate and the focusing points are well spread out in the frame. I didn't really get to play around with the Dual Pixel AF in live view very much, but from what I could see it performed extremely well. The camera was grabbing focus in low light even better than the 5D Mark III, although it wasn't as fast.

Image quality overall is very good for a camera of this type. At ISO 2000 and especially 3200 there is quite a lot of noise in the image, but the grain is very fine and is easily removed in post. Dynamic range at those ISOs is virtually non existent, you must get your exposure right in camera as there is hardly any detail you can recover from the shadows. Highlights, however, recover very nicely. The metering system in the camera is also impressive. I find with the 5D Mark 3 I often have to apply some exposure compensation not to get under exposed images. The 80D if anything tends to over expose just a bit.

So, is the Canon 80D a good camera? Absolutely. But is it worth £1000? Maybe not.

With that kind of money you can almost buy a Canon 6D, which although is much older and isn't built all that much better, it does have a full frame sensor, and image quality is significantly better at high iso. You could also find a second hand Canon 5D Mark II, if you want that rugged build quality and weather sealing.

If you're a videographer, though, there is no doubt that the Canon 80D is a fantastic videocamera, as well as a very good stills shooter. I still think, however, that you'd be better off waiting for the price to go down a bit, or if you can't wait then look for a Canon 70D. But if you have the money and want the latest Dual Pixel AF system, as well as better dynamic range, high iso capabilities and that 1080p at 60fps, the Canon 80D is for you.


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## ajfotofilmagem (Jun 14, 2016)

Thanks for sharing.


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## GMCPhotographics (Jun 14, 2016)

Thanks for sharing, but please don't tell me that in your professional context, your 5DIII is your only camera? 
I use a pair of 5DIII's and an old 5DII and 7D as backup.


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## SalAlexander (Jun 14, 2016)

GMCPhotographics said:


> Thanks for sharing, but please don't tell me that in your professional context, your 5DIII is your only camera?
> I use a pair of 5DIII's and an old 5DII and 7D as backup.


No it's not  but I was already in London when I got the call on the day, and I went there specifically to take my camera into Canon. I have a 6D and 1Ds as backup, but since I had access to an 80D I thought I'd give that a try rather than catch a train back home to pick up the 6D.


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## Sharlin (Jun 14, 2016)

Interesting, the bit about the grip build quality. My old 60D definitely has some give in the grip and creaks a bit, but the 80D grip feels more solid. There's actually some aluminum reinforcements visible in the battery compartment that aren't there in the predecessor. Still, I think the grip is mostly polycarbonate without much internal support structure.


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## SalAlexander (Jun 15, 2016)

Sharlin said:


> Interesting, the bit about the grip build quality. My old 60D definitely has some give in the grip and creaks a bit, but the 80D grip feels more solid. There's actually some aluminum reinforcements visible in the battery compartment that aren't there in the predecessor. Still, I think the grip is mostly polycarbonate without much internal support structure.


It did feel solid enough. It's worth noting that the 80D I was using belonged to Canon, and had been used quite a lot. Maybe the grip sounds were due to extensive use?


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## jebrady03 (Jun 15, 2016)

The big difference in Dynamic Range for the 80D will be at ISO 100-400. After that, it's really not that different than a 70D.


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## hoodlum (Jun 15, 2016)

DXOMark just posted their test of the 80D.

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-80D-sensor-review-Dynamic-performer


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## Sharlin (Jun 15, 2016)

The 80D has a base ("native?") ISO of 64? I wonder how they're measuring that.


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## SalAlexander (Jun 15, 2016)

hoodlum said:


> DXOMark just posted their test of the 80D.
> 
> http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-80D-sensor-review-Dynamic-performer


Not that bad of a review from DxO, but how did they shoot at iso 64??
One thing I really appreciated in the 80D is that yes, at high iso there is noise, but the grain is very fine and uniform, and very easy to clean up without loosing much detail.


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## jebrady03 (Jun 16, 2016)

SalAlexander said:


> hoodlum said:
> 
> 
> > DXOMark just posted their test of the 80D.
> ...



They didn't shoot at ISO 64, they shot at ISO 100. But the resulting measurements were that ISO 100 is actually performing like ISO 64. Canon just kind of fudged the numbers a bit to keep things standardized. It's kind of like how you'll see a patent for a lens design and let's say the patent indicates that the focal length on the tele end is 270mm but the patent will indicate that the tele end is 300mm.


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## SalAlexander (Jun 16, 2016)

jebrady03 said:


> SalAlexander said:
> 
> 
> > hoodlum said:
> ...


Does that mean that by setting up the 80D and 70D with exactly the same settings and at iso 100 the 80D will be 2/3 of a stop under exposed?
Cause if not I don't see why they would say it performs as if it was at iso 64. Unless all they mean is that there is a 2/3 of a stop improvement in noise and dynamic range performance at iso 100.
One of the advantages of having iso 64, in my opinion, is that extra 2/3 of a stop in exposure, which can be very useful when shooting at slow shutter speeds.
When shooting motorsports on a sunny day I often find myself shooting at 1/60 for panning, but then my base iso of 100 forces me to shoot at f22 or higher, which degrades image quality


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## K-amps (Jun 16, 2016)

SalAlexander said:


> jebrady03 said:
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> > SalAlexander said:
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In the Camera stores guys review, they said they felt that the 80D underexposed in general. They thought this was to protect highlights and increase DR since shadows could be lifted better. This is probably how they did it, buy lowering the actual iso from 100 to 64?


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## Sharlin (Jun 16, 2016)

Interesting, I've felt that the 80D gives pretty consistently almost perfect exposures. With my old 60D I almost always had +2/3 stops EC dialed and still ended up pushing exposure in post.


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## 3kramd5 (Jun 16, 2016)

K-amps said:


> In the Camera stores guys review, they said they felt that the 80D underexposed in general. They thought this was to protect highlights and increase DR since shadows could be lifted better. This is probably how they did it, buy lowering the actual iso from 100 to 64?



To me it seems a stretch that Canon would rejigger the exposure index in order to have the camera underexpose as a matter of course because there is a slight SNR advantage in the shadow region that can be capitalized on in post, but generally won't be because not that many users engage in post processing beyond crop and sampling.


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## lclevy (Jun 20, 2016)

Hi,

Could someone send me mraw and sraw samples from 80D (using dropbox, google drive...) please ?
It is to document the CR2 format at
http://lclevy.free.fr/cr2
https://github.com/lclevy/libcraw2

Thank you a lot for your help!

Laurent


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## martti (Jun 21, 2016)

I've seen 80D sell at 860 dollars grey market already.
That's more like it.


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## Bennie_CanonShooter (Jun 21, 2016)

to what I could recall when I got my 5D2 at Adorama when It got announced - people started discussing about ISO (at least that when I got aware about it ) - and it was concluded that the ISO 100 of the camera was near ISO 80.

So people started testing/experimenting with this idea of ISO and its performance in regards to SNR.

That's when the concept of shooting at 80 / 160 / 320 / 640 .... etc - got started.

for which, I myself still used to this day with the 80D, 1DX and even my sony's.


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