rscheffler wrote:
Stan, thanks for doing the comparison.

A bit OT from ISOs but I hope you don't mind. I'm curious about the 1DX's buffer, especially compared to the 1DIV. Shooting RAW, how many frames at a moderate ISO and full fps can you get with your fastest card before hitting the buffer wall? Once it hits the wall and you continue shooting, at what fps does it continue? Lastly, how long does it take for the buffer to clear if you hit the buffer wall and stop shooting at that point?

I'll record a movie of this for you tonight. It's pretty deep but not deep enough - it never is

Thanks Stan! You're right... one can never have enough... buffer. Definitely one of the few gripes I've had since the original 1D. At least the 1DIV was finally a real improvement in buffer recover time with the fastest UDMA6 cards. I guess the X will be better still. Just a question of how much.

ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


http://www.bgateb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/comparo.jpg

Found this online, for the ones wanting to see the difference from 5D to 5DIII. I find the noise to be amazing in the 5DIII at 3200. if 1600 is your limit...you have a very good standard.

Its all down to personal limits, if your making fine art large prints then thats going to be a different perspective to small newspaper prints.

It still looks to me like canon have replaced the 1dmk4 with a ff version and have little consideration for 1ds users who look like they will be grabbing 5d3's.

RobDickinson wrote:
It still looks to me like canon have replaced the 1dmk4 with a ff version and have little consideration for 1ds users who look like they will be grabbing 5d3's.

... or D800Es.... yes I agree with you.

Pixel Perfect wrote:
ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

I think he mostly shoots max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range.

skibum5 wrote:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

I think he mostly shoots max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range.

But what would be the point in buying the 1DX if you are shooting ("max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range") even if it had a bit more MP/resolution ? There are othe cameras that are better at that. And you don't need to buy the fastest camera with most fp/s if shooting landscape.

Lars Johnsson wrote:
skibum5 wrote:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

I think he mostly shoots max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range.

But what would be the point in buying the 1DX if you are shooting ("max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range") even if it had a bit more MP/resolution ? There are othe cameras that are better at that. And you don't need to buy the fastest camera with most fp/s if shooting landscape.

now it makes sense about the noise, maybe the D800 would excel at this

Lars Johnsson wrote:
skibum5 wrote:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

I think he mostly shoots max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range.

But what would be the point in buying the 1DX if you are shooting ("max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range") even if it had a bit more MP/resolution ? There are othe cameras that are better at that. And you don't need to buy the fastest camera with most fp/s if shooting landscape.

Well there wouldn't be as it is, if it had had say 2-3 stops better DR and you could live with the bulk and the expense for fps you won't use then maybe it would though (or if it had some impossible 4 stops better SNR or something and you were free to handhold all sorts of shots). Of course unless you used the 24 T&S, the D800 would seem a cheaper lighter better way to get there for pure landscape than tossing a few extra thousands at a 1DX even if it had better DR than it does.

stanj wrote:
R. Eisenberg wrote:
Thanks once again Stan. You observe above that the metering on the 1Dx is better. Would you care to elaborate?

Well, I was shooting extremely high and some low contrast scenes all day, and not one single image was what I would consider poorly exposed. No other camera that I have used before had such a track record. It underexposed a picture of a white plate with a small piece of steak on it, but only by a little bit. More importantly it didn't overexpose a single "fun in the pool" picture.

how would you rate the 5D3 metering compared to the 1Ds3?

Equal.

Lars Johnsson wrote:
skibum5 wrote:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
ben egbert wrote:
To me, the 1DX at 1600 is the top iso limit based on these samples. The rest are too noisy. The 5D3 at 1600 would be ok with more NR. All of them would be fine for historically valuable shots but not for artistic shots.

As you may conclude, I don't like noise so your tolerance for it may be different.


I think you are stuck in 2005 Ben. Even on my 5D I rarely ever used NR at ISO 1600. The 1D X smokes it.

I think he mostly shoots max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range.

But what would be the point in buying the 1DX if you are shooting ("max corner to corner landscape shots where you want every last bit of detail and rich color and dynamic range") even if it had a bit more MP/resolution ? There are othe cameras that are better at that. And you don't need to buy the fastest camera with most fp/s if shooting landscape.

Not in the market for a 1DX, I do read all these high ISO posts and am amazed at what people call acceptable noise. I am all for better noise and sometimes use my 1DS-mk3 at ISO1600 after a heavy does of NR. But they are not images I would be able to print. Usually they are images taken at High School grads or something which have personal importance worth the shot. I also have shots of eagles at ISO1600 that will never get printed because of noise.

The samples of 1DX ISO1600 as shown above are probably good enough to print. Remember bird images tend to get heavy crops. But I doubt anything above that would.

No matter, I sold my bird lens and will go for landscapes and star scapes. I do all my work from a tripod and landscapes at ISO100. But star scapes are where I could use high ISO. My 1DS-mk3 at ISO3200 does not cut it. But I an not going to buy a new camera for star scapes,

If at some point I could afford to upgrade to 1Dx from 1Ds3, the key point would be usable ISO1600 and ISO3200, and perhaps running out of life of 1Ds3 (at which point it is pretty much inevitable choice, and hoping a used 1Dx price is in arms length).

Shadow recovery (suggested in a different thread here in FM) is particularly attractive (even at lower ISO). Five stars if it indeed is true.

ben egbert wrote:
Not in the market for a 1DX, I do read all these high ISO posts and am amazed at what people call acceptable noise. I am all for better noise and sometimes use my 1DS-mk3 at ISO1600 after a heavy does of NR. But they are not images I would be able to print. Usually they are images taken at High School grads or something which have personal importance worth the shot. I also have shots of eagles at ISO1600 that will never get printed because of noise.

The samples of 1DX ISO1600 as shown above are probably good enough to print. Remember bird images tend to get heavy crops. But I doubt anything above that would.


Usable ISO depends heavily on the subject matter, in particular how much of the frame the subject matter fills. A subject occupying half the frame, like a human face, can be usable for 2-4 stops above a subject filling only a tiny fraction of the frame.

poor me.. I consider 12800 is acceptable on 5d3 for the events.

Hmm so in this test it doesn't seem to beat the 5D3 by nearly as much as in the sunflower guy's test. And after normalization maybe it's almost only the same? And all the talk about stunning 1DX high iso, by myself and others, was overblown?

Not sure what to think at all now.



Someone else did test the 1DX to 1 stop better DR at high iso though.

to me the difference I see between the two cameras is negligible. Less than a stop for sure.

In general, when people claim these days, my camera kills your camera in low light, and then I go to DXO site and I see that one camera (for example) has LOW ISO 2200 and the other has 2800, it is laughable. The real difference is so negligible. We are talking about measurbation here.

The truth is we see the same thing over and over with each new camera...all sorts of wild claims regarding high ISO performance and then in real life use we find the differences from one to another rather small....my 5D3 is marginally better than my 5D2 was in terms of high ISO and is also marginally better than my 1D4...my guess is the 1DX is probably marginally better than both of them as well....