p.1 #1 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
IR has just posted some RAW samples.
After a very quick analysis, it seems that fortunately our hopes have finally become true. It seems that ISO 100 achieves about 12.4 stops (13.2 in "DXO notation"), ISO 200 about 11.9 (12.7 in "DXO notation").
I'm not sure about the data because both histograms clip almost at the max value (16383 DN) and seem to start in 512 DN (usually Canon used 2048) . The read noise is 2.87 DN at ISO 100 and 3.995 at ISO 200: indeed a new milestone for Canon.
It seems that Sony will still keep a leadership, but the gap is a lot smaller. The new sensor starts walking into the ISO-less land, and will justify a upgrade for many users. And since Canon improves and refines their sensors on each release, we should only expect even better results in the future.
Now I'll heat my dinner (again!) and will try to do a more complete test later!
p.1 #3 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
Good...mine is preordered....hoping to get it right after Easter. Although DR wasn't anything I cared about but hopefully nicer shadow lifting will be nice.
p.1 #4 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
LR CC and ACR have been updated to process the 80D and 1DX2 RAW files.
I downloaded the 1600-6400 RAWs of the same scene from IR from the 80D and 7D2 to compare them. Noise levels are pretty much equal. A bit more detail from the 80D with the 24MP sensor. Pushing the shadows all the way up in LR the 80D doesn't have any weird colours in the shadow areas where the 7D2 has purples and greens in the shadows. (note this was with the chroma NR default of 25 in LR set to get rid of that colour noise).
p.1 #5 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
I have completed a more detailed study of the RAW images. Definitely, the sensor dynamic range versus ISO graph now resembles the profile of the Canon competitors. To make this graph I have used the 7D2 results generated with exactly the same technique on september 2014 (see https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1319060/0):
However, at high ISO, the 80D is slightly under the 7D2 level. I don't know if this is related to cheaper electronics or if the new tech has some influence. Note also that both cameras true ISO level could differ.
Here are the numbers, using also the ones from my 7D2 analysis (same technique) to compare:
The new sensor uses a black level of DN (data number) 512 for ISO 100 and 200, but continues using 2048 for the remaining ISO levels. The saturation level seems to be the DN 16383 at all ISO levels, which is unusual. For example, the analyzed ISO 100 picture has 871 blue pixels with DN 16383, 1039 red pixels with DN 16382, and 1660 plus 1632 green pixels (two green channels) with DN 16383; the image is overall underexposed and from DN 10000 to 16381/2, each DN only counts 0-2 pixels.
There are two masked areas in the 25.5MP image (6288x4056): one 264 pixels wide at the left and the other 34 pixels height at the top. So, the effective image area is 6024x4022 (one-two pixels in the frontier of both areas, showing visible artifacts, are not truly usable). The masked area does not receives light and its standard deviation can be measured to determine the read noise, and to infer from that the DR. The area used has been the left one, but the top measures almost the same noise levels (unlike with other sensors, where the top masked area has some oddities).
p.1 #6 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
arbitrage wrote:
LR CC and ACR have been updated to process the 80D and 1DX2 RAW files.
I downloaded the 1600-6400 RAWs of the same scene from IR from the 80D and 7D2 to compare them. Noise levels are pretty much equal. A bit more detail from the 80D with the 24MP sensor. Pushing the shadows all the way up in LR the 80D doesn't have any weird colours in the shadow areas where the 7D2 has purples and greens in the shadows. (note this was with the chroma NR default of 25 in LR set to get rid of that colour noise)....Show more →
This is great news! That was more of a concern of mine than the noise levels themselves. Though its always nice to have less noise. But being able to push the shadows and retain more clean information is something I've grown accustomed to with my Sony A7. I've been hoping Canon would start coming around with their sensor technology DR so that I could once again put my Canon lenses on a Canon body.
p.1 #7 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
Does the DR correlate exactly with the high ISO luminance and color noise? Is the high ISO noise of the 80D as crappy or even worse than the usual Canon croppers? How does it compare to the 5DsR pixel for pixel
I'd never use a cropper at low ISO, so maybe it's time to cancel.
p.1 #8 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
EB-1 wrote:
Does the DR correlate exactly with the high ISO luminance and color noise? Is the high ISO noise of the 80D as crappy or even worse than the usual Canon croppers? How does it compare to the 5DsR pixel for pixel
I'd never use a cropper at low ISO, so maybe it's time to cancel.
EBH
I'm not sure anyone has run those exact comparisons. However, it seems a little odd that you might expect the Canon 80D to ever compare pixel for pixel with the 5DsR which is over 3x the cost and a FF. Also, why not use a cropper at low ISO? I would prefer using one a low ISO than higher ISO where a FF may produce cleaner, less noisy images.
p.1 #9 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
If you use the comparometer, I'm a little concerned with how it compares at higher ISOs with other recent competitors like the Fuji X-Pro2. I realize those are out of camera JPEG files. But still, the Fuji seems to do better. I wonder how the new Sony A6300 compares?
p.1 #11 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
dereksurfs wrote:
I'm not sure anyone has run those exact comparisons. However, it seems a little odd that you might expect the Canon 80D to ever compare pixel for pixel with the 5DsR which is over 3x the cost and a FF. Also, why not use a cropper at low ISO? I would prefer using one a low ISO than higher ISO where a FF may produce cleaner, less noisy images.
Derek
There is rarely enough light to use low ISO for the wildlife where I need the reach.
p.1 #15 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
Interesting seeing how quickly sensors lose dynamic range. My 5D III is never below ISO 400, probably averages 800-1600, would love to see maximum DR maintained through 400 at least. ISO 100 is just for shooting at f/1.4-f/2 outdoors. Nice to see Canon catching up with Sony and Nikon though!
p.1 #16 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
Thanks for posting this. This is great! ISO 6k totally useable out of the box. If they put this tech in a M body with integrated EVF, then I would be salivating...
p.1 #18 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
ShutterbugJ wrote:
Interesting seeing how quickly sensors lose dynamic range.
It's pretty much by definition of ISO in digital cameras. With an ideal sensor, DR decreases exactly one stop per each ISO stop. This is simply due to the discrete nature of light, as an ideal sensor is only limited by photon shot noise. If you collect half the photons, then amplify the current you got to compensate, you double the noise floor and halve the signal-to-noise ratio.
p.1 #19 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
better late than never; promising :-)
I will gladly sacrifice a bit of extreme High ISO performance for much better low ISO DR because in many of my shots (landscape/cityscape) the limited low ISO DR of current APS-C cameras is a major problem for shadow lifting and I never use extreme ISO. Also such a trade-off makes perfect sense for a more 'general use' camera like 80D compared to the 'niche' 7D2. Looking at the chart even at 400-800 ISO the 80D will still be 1-2 stops better than my 450D ;-)
Might be the ticket to keep me in the Canon camp instead of switching to Sony/Nikon and selling most of my lenses. But I will await D500 tests before deciding, just in case it proves to be far ahead of 80D in image quality or AF performance.
Where is that SL2 with the same new sensor technology, in order to compete with Nikon D3300 and D5500? ;-)
p.1 #20 · Canon 80D dynamic range: good news! (quick test with RAW images)
Great info, do you have similar Numbers for the d7200 that you coups add to the graph?
I Looked at the dxo numbers for the d7200 and 7d mark II and they are slichgly different then your numbers. D7200 scores 14.6 I think in print DR which is still 1.5 stops above the canon 80d
Nice to see Canon catching up with Sony and Nikon though!