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R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Rudy Pohl
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Last evening I was out with my R5 photographing a local Barred Owl at sunset and shortly afterwards, something which I usually do at dawn. My camera's light meter called for an ISO value of 25,600 which I set as required. I took multiple shots with the e-shutter in short bursts.

When I got home and viewed my images I noticed that for some strange reason the camera had automatically set itself to ISO 1000 for two shots in the middle of an ISO 25,600 burst. Out of curiosity I decided to try to process one of the images despite the fact that the RAW file was so dark I couldn't discern a thing.

When I boosted the exposure 4.5 stops in Adobe Camera Raw and raised the shadows 50% I was shocked to see how good this image was. I then used Photoshop's new AI Denoise Enhanced feature which did a great job, plus I did some colour processing and tweaking and was pleased enough with the result that I posted it.

Then I tried doing the same things with the very next image in the burst sequence which was shot at ISO 25,600. The result was so terrible that the image was unusable! The excessive high-ISO noise shredded all the fine details, washed out the colours, and reduced the dynamic range to the point where the image was an awful mess. I would never post such an image.

This morning, I went out in my back yard at sunrise to try to do the same thing. In order to see the scenes I was shooting at 4-5 stops underexposed and to assist in focusing I disabled the Exposure Simulation in the EVF and everything worked great.

Conclusion:
It seems that with the R5 it's better to rely on the sensor's ISO-Invariance property and underexpose the image in camera and then restore it in post, than to use the high ISO levels indicated by the camera's meter.

I'm very happy about this serendipitous discovery because I spend a lot of time throughout the year in dimly lit forests photographing and video recording Owls.

Hope this might be helpful to some folks.

Rudy

Edited on Nov 21, 2023 at 01:31 PM · View previous versions

Nov 21, 2023 at 12:22 PM

kylebarendrick
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

I've reached similar conclusions shooting nightscapes. I've had better results shooting at ISO 1600 and pushing the exposure in post than shooting at a higher ISO. The result is significantly better than shooting at ISO 6400 or higher and slightly better than shooting at ISO 3200.

Nov 21, 2023 at 12:35 PM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

In case you don't know, you should typically either shoot at either base ISO or ISO 400 on the R5 to maximize recovery via the dual gain properties of the sensor. This applies to every dual gain sensor, but the 2nd optimized ISO value (not base) will vary by body.

Nov 21, 2023 at 12:45 PM

artsupreme
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Rudy Pohl wrote:
Last evening I was out with my R5 photographing a local Barred Owl at sunset and shortly afterwards, something which I usually do at dawn. My camera's light meter called for an ISO value of 25,600 which I set as required. I took multiple shots with the e-shutter in short bursts.

When I got home and viewed my images I noticed that for some strange reason the camera had automatically set itself to ISO 1000 for two shots in the middle of an ISO 25,600 burst. Out of curiosity I decided to try to process one of the images despite...Show more →

Can you post the examples?

Nov 21, 2023 at 12:46 PM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Do any other Canon RF bodies work this way or just the R5?

Nov 21, 2023 at 01:05 PM

Rudy Pohl
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Sorry, I'm double-checking the images and their settings and I'll report back as well as posting some images later today. Thanks.
Rudy

Nov 21, 2023 at 01:39 PM

macwest
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

https://photographylife.com/iso-invariance-explained

Nov 21, 2023 at 01:53 PM

Rudy Pohl
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

macwest wrote:
https://photographylife.com/iso-invariance-explained

Yes, that's a great article on ISO-Invariance. I read the whole thing this morning.

If I understood it correctly he came to the same conclusion I did and said that high ISO really kills highlight details, washes out colours and reduces dynamic range. He suggests that the better way to go is to underexpose your images in camera and then boost the exposure and blacks in post. I found on my particular Owl at sunset image that the R5 easily handled boosting exposure 4.5 stops.

Nov 21, 2023 at 02:03 PM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

This doesn't really sound correct, although I realize chrominance NR doesn't do color any good.

Are you saying that you picked up the 1000 files 4.5 stops, and the 25,600 4.5 stops? or that you left 25,600 exposure alone

Nov 21, 2023 at 04:21 PM

Kameratrollet
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Mike_5D wrote:
Do any other Canon RF bodies work this way or just the R5?
https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR_Shadow.htm#Canon%20EOS%205D%20Mark%20II,Canon%20EOS%20R5,Canon%20EOS%20R6,Canon%20EOS%20R6%20Mark%20II

https://clarkvision.com/articles/iso/

Nov 21, 2023 at 04:25 PM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

If you are using a tripod, why not take 5 shots using exposure-bracketing? See which one post-processes the best for you, or exposure stack 2, 3, 4, or 5 of the images.

Nov 21, 2023 at 04:48 PM

macwest
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

CANON
Canon EOS-1D X Mark III
Canon EOS R3
Canon EOS R5
Canon EOS R6
Canon EOS R7
Canon EOS R
Canon EOS RP

list of iso invariance Canon might be old

https://capturetheatlas.com/iso-invariance/#models

Nov 21, 2023 at 05:02 PM

Rudy Pohl
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Thanks everyone for your input.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave off from this discussion at this point mainly because I'm way out of my technical knowledge comfort zone here.

All I know is that I've been struggling with processing crappy high-ISO raw images of Owls at dawn and dusk from my R5 for the last year and yesterday after either the camera or I screwed up somehow I ended up with an image that was underexposed by almost 5 stops. And when I boosted the Exposure 4.5 stops and the Blacks 50% in Adobe Camera Raw the image turned quite nice.

I think I need to leave it there for now.

Thanks
Rudy

Nov 21, 2023 at 06:21 PM

Jeff Nolten
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

I was surprised how well the R7 did in these comparisons.

R7 added to previous P2P comparisons.

Nov 21, 2023 at 06:46 PM

marsguy
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

I've been used to underexposing and bringing shadows up in post for many years on my Fuji cameras. I found that it's still very possible on the R5, though I found I should not be as aggressive with it. I still try to get the exposure right, and not underexpose if I don't need to. By default, I typically underexpose -1 to -2/3 EV, as I've found my R5 tends to like to overexpose more often than not.

I shoot lots of landscape so I sometimes have bright and dark parts in a single frame. What I've found is that if you have deeply underexposed shadows, like -5EV or more, along with a very bright section in the frame, trying to bring the shadows up too much will induce horizontal purple banding. You can find a few examples of this but not many people have written about it. I discovered it when taking a picture inside a brewery taproom which was dim on the inside but bright outside. In practice, I have only actually seen it maybe once with my landscapes, and it was only when pushing shadows more than I wanted to anyway, out of curiosity.

Overall I'm a big fan of shadow recovery and will continue to underexpose photos if I really need to protect highlights or scavenge all shutter speed I can get when handholding in low light. I hope that future R5-class sensors only improve upon this shadow recovery performance.

Nov 21, 2023 at 06:46 PM

exdeejjjaaaa
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

RoamingScott wrote:
In case you don't know, you should typically either shoot at either base ISO or ISO 400 on the R5 to maximize recovery via the dual gain properties of the sensor. This applies to every dual gain sensor, but the 2nd optimized ISO value (not base) will vary by body.

R5 is NOT dual gain sensor... it just Canon's tricks with forced NR applied @ nominal ISO values <= 800... compare MS vs ES where Canon's can't hide the fact

https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Canon%20EOS%20R5,Canon%20EOS%20R5(ES)

usual classic Canon's see-saw which Canon makes look like a proper Sony dual gain sensor using NR

here is a real dual gain = MS or ES - same sh$t ... no NR detected

https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Sony%20ILCE-7RM3,Sony%20ILCE-7RM3(ES)

Nov 21, 2023 at 08:08 PM

Bill Gass
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Rudy Pohl wrote:
Thanks everyone for your input.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave off from this discussion at this point mainly because I'm way out of my technical knowledge comfort zone here.

All I know is that I've been struggling with processing crappy high-ISO raw images of Owls at dawn and dusk from my R5 for the last year and yesterday after either the camera or I screwed up somehow I ended up with an image that was underexposed by almost 5 stops. And when I boosted the Exposure 4.5 stops and the Blacks 50% in Adobe Camera Raw the image turned...Show more →
Thanks for the info, nice to hear about your experience, and others as well.
Technical or not, this is a forum to talk and learn about photography.
Would love to see the pixs, especially before and after.

Nov 21, 2023 at 11:59 PM

Rudy Pohl
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Bill Gass wrote:
Thanks for the info, nice to hear about your experience, and others as well.
Technical or not, this is a forum to talk and learn about photography.
Would love to see the pixs, especially before and after.

Thanks Bill.

OK, here are the before and after images.

I did not include the ISO 25,600 image for comparison because after reading all the comments I realize that I did not do a proper control when shooting so the comparison would not be entirely valid. However, it was a pretty poor image and I couldn't make it look good no matter what I tried in post. When I have some time I will try doing a properly controlled comparison between a high ISO shot and the same shot but heavily underexposed and report back to the forum.

Regarding the AFTER image below, there was no processing done to it besides what has been noted. When the image was further processed with Topaz Denoise AI and in Photoshop 2023 it turned out quite nice with good details, good highlights, good colours and a decent dynamic range. Not bad IMO considering it was shot after sunset in a fairly dense forest.

Cheers,
Rudy

Edited on Nov 22, 2023 at 05:27 AM · View previous versions

Nov 22, 2023 at 04:49 AM

macwest
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

very nice recovery .

Nov 22, 2023 at 04:54 AM

Jeff
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · R5's ISO-Invariance - a happy discovery for shooting Owls at dawn and dusk

Rudy Pohl wrote:
Thanks Bill.

OK, here are the before and after images.

I did not include the ISO 25,600 image for comparison because after reading all the comments I realize that I did not do a proper control when shooting so the comparison would not be entirely valid. However, it was a pretty poor image and I couldn't make it look good no matter what I tried in post. When I have some time I will try doing a properly controlled comparison between a high ISO shot and the same shot but heavily underexposed and report back to the forum.

Regarding the AFTER image...Show more →

Please post the ISO 25600 image for comparison, otherwise the main point of the thread is lost. I would be curious to see the difference (to see what you saw to prompt you to post).

Nov 22, 2023 at 06:10 AM

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