blake, you've got significantly different light going on between, say, pics #1 and #4, making any comparison b/w the cameras on the highlight issue less meaningful imho.
Mike Tuomey wrote:
blake, you've got significantly different light going on between, say, pics #1 and #4, making any comparison b/w the cameras on the highlight issue less meaningful imho.
I can assure you that the contrast on the fuselage of the last 1Dx photo would show equally bold on all three of the 5Ds shots if taken with a 1Dx. The lighting of the three 5Ds photos were specifically added because that lighting shows the sheet metal contrasts the best. It's not there, no matter how the shots are exposed.
Well, then, we are then left to wonder how it is that I and others can handle such near-white tones and highlights without this problem on our 5DsR and 5Ds bodies.
Either there is a serious problem with the camera model itself and the rest of us aren't perceptive enough to see it, or...
As an experiment to better understand how white and highlight sliders operate, which might prove useful, photograph a test card with multiple gray levels patches or start with a digital equivalent file. Then, one at a time, push each of those sliders right and left and watch how the histogram peaks behave. This helps illustrate one of many techniques for using/expanding the near-white tones.
Be careful about trusting the camera's — any camera's — ability to handle highlights as indicated by the presence or absence of highlight indications on the view screen or even in the camera histogram display.
Good luck.
Dan
Vancouver47 wrote:
1 I am aware of the problem and deliberately ensure I do not overexpose whites., Camera highlight warning is never blinking yet highlights are flat with the 5ds.
2 Doesn't help. It just makes when whites flatter.
Even with "blinking highlights" the 1Dx displays far better micro contrasts in the whites.
The first three photos were taken with the 5Ds and are typical, the last two with a 1Dx.
Vancouver47 wrote:
I can assure you that the contrast on the fuselage of the last 1Dx photo would show equally bold on all three of the 5Ds shots if taken with a 1Dx. The lighting of the three 5Ds photos were specifically added because that lighting shows the sheet metal contrasts the best. It's not there, no matter how the shots are exposed.
I have never had trouble capturing sheet metal contrasts with the 5D, 5D2, and 5DS like your 1DX shots.
In my case it is sheet metal on the sides of ships. I have to be careful about lighting because the 5D2 and 5DS are so good at capturing it. I do think it is a question of careful exposure.
Perhaps I am too blunt with my use of the white and highlight sliders. I'I'll try a few adjustment with some photos taken in alight that typically provides excellent sheet metal micro contrasts.
But it is odd that the same my PP is fine on the 1Dx and not the 5Ds.
Are you referring to the sliders in the tool brush or general adjustments?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Well, then, we are then left to wonder how it is that I and others can handle such near-white tones and highlights without this problem on our 5DsR and 5Ds bodies.
Either there is a serious problem with the camera model itself and the rest of us aren't perceptive enough to see it, or...
As an experiment to better understand how white and highlight sliders operate, which might prove useful, photograph a test card with multiple gray levels patches or start with a digital equivalent file. Then, one at a time, push each of those sliders right and left and watch how the histogram peaks behave. This helps illustrate one of many techniques for using/expanding the near-white tones.
Be careful about trusting the camera's — any camera's — ability to handle highlights as indicated by the presence or absence of highlight indications on the view screen or even in the camera histogram display.
I have played with highlights/shadow/white/black/contrast/exposure on graduate grey and white cards and come to the conclusion that I cannot produce anything close to the same micro contrast details I routinely see from the default settings for the 1Dx.
True the photos I posted were all different but under each of their lighting conditions the 1Dx would produce great aircraft skin detail.
The 5Ds will produce wonderful micro-contrast detail in "golden" light but for the most part anything approaching normal 9am to 3pm lighting loses white micro-contrast detail.
I was referring to the general adjustments, which I typically apply in ACR. However, you can do the same with a brush, and there are additional ways to afford even more control over highlights with masked curves.
Dan
Vancouver47 wrote:
Thanks for the comments Dan
Perhaps I am too blunt with my use of the white and highlight sliders. I'I'll try a few adjustment with some photos taken in alight that typically provides excellent sheet metal micro contrasts.
But it is odd that the same my PP is fine on the 1Dx and not the 5Ds.
Are you referring to the sliders in the tool brush or general adjustments?
I've been shooting all my commercial jobs with the 5DSR's since I got them and have never seen any inkling of a problem with highlight detail flattening out, but I'm also using Capture One to process the raw files, and they are simple superb. The files I've processed using Adobe's raw processing are by default so contrasty as to have you believe there's something wrong with your camera, and while you can tweak to get a decent file, it's very possible if not likely that people who don't know how to get the most out of ACR/Lr might come to the conclusion that the new cameras are somehow lacking. They're not.
Paul Gardner wrote:
"Hard to sneak in a C300 into a NBA game"
This says tons about your morality, I bet you believe being a paparatsie is OK also.
Actually this says more about your ASSumptions than anything else.
In reality, I print off a copy of the stadium's photography policy and bring it with me every time I go. Secondly, I have to go through security just like everyone else, and third - I do not ever sell or attempt to sell any sports shots taken - these are for personal use only and mostly for my son (age 9) to look at later.
But...feel free to make a judgement call about my morality; you're obtuse to video being shot on DSLR's. It's been happening since 2008 my tunnel-visioned friend.
I have gone through several hundred aircraft photos take with the 1dx, 5Ds and 7DII looking at the exif data. The metering mode select seems to be the culprit. While the vast majority of the 1Dx photos have been shot with Spot metering mode, most of the 5Ds and 7DII were shot with Centre Weighted Average metering mode.
Where I occasionally have used spot metering with the 5Ds and 7DII the white micro contrasts are virtually the same as the 1Dx.
Centre Weighted Average, Partial and Multi Segmented metering with the 1Dx seems to produce well contrasted whites, but my 1Dx tends to underexpose ⅓ stop which may account for that. Then again maybe 1Dx metering is slightly better.
Conclusions:
5Ds and 7DII Centre Weighted Average is the wrong metering mode for the aircraft shots which overexposes whites enough to reduce contrasts.
Spot metering produces very similar results with all three cameras when shooting aircraft whites.
Peter Figen wrote:
I've been shooting all my commercial jobs with the 5DSR's since I got them and have never seen any inkling of a problem with highlight detail flattening out, but I'm also using Capture One to process the raw files, and they are simple superb. The files I've processed using Adobe's raw processing are by default so contrasty as to have you believe there's something wrong with your camera, and while you can tweak to get a decent file, it's very possible if not likely that people who don't know how to get the most out of ACR/Lr might come to the conclusion that the new cameras are somehow lacking. They're not. ...Show more →
I have used Adobe products (almost exclusively ACR) for raw file conversion for a long time. Since I have personal preferences for conversion based on how I like to do the rest of my post-processing workflow, I always set up my own default preferences for a camera.
My personal approach with this camera might strike some as odd, but it works well for me. Basically I start with increased contrast but usually increase the shadow value. This, plus a few things I typically add manually in ACR, opens the midrange and shadows a bit and lets me selectively use highlights to control the amount of near-white detail as necessary.
The real lesson isn't "do it my way," but figure out your most common starting point and capture that as a default, then work from there.
Also, while I know many of you already understand this, others may not, so...
It isn't always the case that you are striving for a "beautiful" looking file in ACR. Instead, you may well be trying to create a file that is amenable to the sorts of post-processing that you do further down the road in Photoshop or elsewhere. Some prefer a very low-contrast file from their raw conversion for this reason — blacks not too black and highlights not to white and generally low contrast — so that they can start there and carefully control how this file is pushed and pulled in post.
Thats good to hear about the 24-105 look forward to trying it at the weekend. I've heard good reports about the 24-70 f2.8 - one maybe for the future. The camera is due for delivery on Friday.
Daan B wrote:
Even though the 5Ds/r are designed to be 'slow' tripod based cameras for landscape and studio work, ISO 1600-3200 doesn't disappoint me. Using these camera's for reportage work is surely possible IMO. When viewing at the same output as 5D2/3 files, I see nothing different in noise for real world usage. I do see better shadow recovery on the 50MP sensor (no more cross type banding).
I do have 3 negatives: battery life, no wifi (even tough it would probably slow) and big RAW's
Great camera overall...
It is good to see this, particularly regarding ISO 1600-3200, and reportage. I am thinking of adding a 5Ds R to my "team" of 7D Mark II cameras, but it is nice to know the 5Ds R can be liberated from the tripod for at least some shooting.
RexGig0 wrote:
It is good to see this, particularly regarding ISO 1600-3200, and reportage. I am thinking of adding a 5Ds R to my "team" of 7D Mark II cameras, but it is nice to know the 5Ds R can be liberated from the tripod for at least some shooting.
I use mine for wildlife photography, often handheld, frequently in low light and at higher ISO.
Mike Tuomey wrote:
blake, you've got significantly different light going on between, say, pics #1 and #4, making any comparison b/w the cameras on the highlight issue less meaningful imho.
Vancouver47 wrote:
I can assure you that the contrast on the fuselage of the last 1Dx photo would show equally bold on all three of the 5Ds shots if taken with a 1Dx. The lighting of the three 5Ds photos were specifically added because that lighting shows the sheet metal contrasts the best. It's not there, no matter how the shots are exposed.
I agree with Mike. In #1 there is no hard light at all, it's virtually useless to prove your assertion. The next two 5Ds examples are shot with the sun angle quite perpendicular to the fuselage of the plane, while the last two ('acceptable') 1Dx images were shot with the sun angle nearly straight down (almost parallel with) the fuselage. If you had shot those last two with the 5Ds, they'd surely look nearly identical to the 1Dx examples.
