brainiac wrote:
Here's a little reminder that there is a much more affordable alternative which will probably net you better photographic results:
Brainiac, define what you mean by better? How do you quantify the qualitative? You have gone through a great amount of trouble to prove what you were already espousing many, many pages ago. Your equipment and the way you view images is different from how many in this thread approach their art/hobby/profession. Why the need to keep turning this thread into a **ssing contest? You spent a few minutes with the M8 in order to put together an unscientific, yet predetermined point of view. My hope is that you feel content and can now return to conspiracy stories and the Canon forum.
Quite a lengthy post, with conclusions, and recommendations based on a "non-scientific" test. Sorry, but for me there is little to take away from a non-scientific comparison test.
brainiac wrote:
Disclaimer
This is by no means an exhaustive, scientific, or even fair test.
brainiac, I don't want to criticise your test unduly, but it looks like you have found exactly the point at which the extra few pixels make a huge difference in the final look of a picture. The 5D has 23% more pixels, ie. a linear difference of about 10% or 11%, yet what you are showing here looks like double the resolution or something, simply because of the same kind of effect which makes small fonts look awful while a tiny step up in point size looks much better. Much more fair would be to compare the quality of edges at 100%, not text at 400% or whatever that enlargement was. I suspect that if you look at most places in the file, you will barely be able to tell the difference. When I get my M8 back, I will run some tests as well. Perhaps a portrait, and close examination of hair, or something like that.
Jack, I'm merely saying that brainiac has wanted to make the decision to stay with a 5D. Great, he has now done so, so he can feel content with his decision.
Thanks Brainiac.
These samples certainly do not make a final point in the evaluation of the M8 image quality. My guess is that it is more easy to get a high quality file with the 5D than with the M8, but that they can be closer when both Cameras are compared under more controlled conditions.
There are many users who have a 5D and a DMR or already an M8 and I hope they are willing to post their findings here
I do agree that Brainiac't test was inclonclusive. It just was not taken in controlled way from the shot to processing. However, I do appreciate the Useability feedback. Again, someone compared M8 to 5D, and yet, we should not talk about FF vs Crop factor, right In this comparison, it is a important factor not to be ignored as Carstenw was geting at.
I strongly believe that there is simply no way for 5D to outperform M8 at Pixel level or at 600% zoom-in. Thus, I suspect the procesing flow.
I agree that the M8 is expected to have nicer pixels, but the 5D does have a resolution advantage, and whereas my test was meant to compare pixels, brainiac's test was meant to compare the entire resolution, not the pixels as such. Clearly the 5D has a resolution advantage which the M8 is going to have a hard time overcoming--not to mention the 1Ds2--but not by *this* much. Comparing something less sensitive to minor variations would be more fair.
woodyspedden wrote:
I took some wide photos with the CV 15. The light was such that it was a very very high contrast shot and not very pleasing. However I will process it and post so you can at least see the sky, vignetting etc. Just don't judge me too harshly from this image.
Woody
Hi Woody,
I wouldn't judge you at all from a shot taken under those conditions at The Bend. Lord knows mine were pretty hopeless the one time I was there and forgot about the time differences, slept too late, and arrived about 90 minutes after sunrise.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the results which might well be an acid test for using the M8 for landscape work.
"brainiac has wanted to make the decision to stay with a 5D."
No. A year and a half ago I was a Nikon user. Ten years ago I was a Rollei 6008, Mamiya 6 and Contax RTS user.
I had previously used Nikon, Bronica (cheap), Hasselblad (nice lenses but couldn't afford full outfit at the time), Pentax 6x7 (more affordable but sync too slow for studio). It took me years to gradually discover exactly what I wanted from my gear, and to be able to afford it.
If the M8 I used yesterday had been capable of significantly better images than I think it is, and if I thought I could use it, I would get one. It's that simple. But the results I am seeing here are not good enough.
The reason I appear to be prejudiced is simply that I had a pretty good idea what to expect, and I did not find much to surprise me. Contrast that to what happened last year when I tried a 5D with Zeiss 35 f1.4 and a D2x with 18mm. I got a big surprise: I thought the D2x image quality sucked by comparison. Noise, rich blacks, and chromatic aberrations were particular areas of difference. I immediately sold all of my Nikon gear and my Mamiya 6, because I could see the 5D's MF-matching results. That's not prejudice, that's objective appraisal of results, usability, and cost. I am doing the same thing now, but in this case I will pass for reasons I have made clear. I think some people are not applying that kind of objective approach, which is why I take the flak and share these thoughts ;-)
I agree that the M8 is expected to have nicer pixels, but the 5D does have a resolution advantage, and whereas my test was meant to compare pixels, brainiac's test was meant to compare the entire resolution, not the pixels as such. Clearly the 5D has a resolution advantage which the M8 is going to have a hard time overcoming--not to mention the 1Ds2--but not by *this* much. Comparing something less sensitive to minor variations would be more fair.
Again, the comparison shots were taken in uncontrolled way. It probably wouldn't make much sense to talk about it any further. But here is one thing that I notice. Look at the vertical electric post right in the middle ( poor composition ). You can see that M8 has has more focus on it. It may mean that the cropped portion from far scene is more focused in 5D shot.
I wouldn't judge you at all from a shot taken under those conditions at The Bend. Lord knows mine were pretty hopeless the one time I was there and forgot about the time differences, slept too late, and arrived about 90 minutes after sunrise.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the results which might well be an acid test for using the M8 for landscape work.
Thanks,
Johnny
O.K. Johnny
Here is a sunrise shot of Horseshoe Bend taken with the M8m AWB, F8. I converted in C1 using Jamie Roberts first profile. I also looked at the shot using C1 with the generic M8 profile and in this light there was little difference. As you can see, there was tremendous contrast from the foothills in the distance to the bottom of the Canyon. So I also did a little work with shadows and highlights in Photoshop CS2 to bring the contrast range to something even a little useful.
However what you wanted to learn was how the CV 15 looked so I hope you can learn something here. If you would like, I could shoot a more normal scene to perhaps give you something a little more useful by which to judge the lens. PM me if you would like. Perhaps you could give me some guidance as to what would prove meaningful to you.
I don't need to. I just look with my eyes, and ask myself 'is that better?' That's how I make my mind up.
I uploaded those crops just now so you guys can look with your eyes. You are quite entitled to treat my results with skepticism - that's fine.
I can talk about what I see too, but that doesn't always affect the seeing. What I see there is an M8 struggling to produce a realistic colour pallet, a problem that I expected, and a problem that I have noticed in some DMR files too, although the M8 is worse, but will be better real soon now. When the IR problem is fixed, we don't know how accurate the colour pallet is going to be. I see considerably less resolution than the most obvious competitor. I see the appearance of strange colours in text which is almost certainly moiré, and is hurting capture of fine details. I see a lot of weird red pixels on the black metalwork. I see that the spokes of the brolly have completely disappeared which makes me wonder if the camera is applying some kind of noise reduction, and I see a future full of correction work if I buy this camera. Tell me what you see. I'm interested, though I can't promise to see it too.
Look at the vertical electric post right in the middle ( poor composition ;)). You can see that M8 has has more focus on it. It may mean that the cropped portion from far scene is more focused in 5D shot.
I am sorry about the composition :) I put the post there so that I could see foreground bokeh. The M8 lens was focussed all the way to infinity for this picture, and at f5.6 with a 35 that should be pretty fair focus. The reason the post appears more focussed is that a 35mm lens at f5.6 has greater depth of field than a 50mm at f5.6. I did check both files to make sure that I had found an area where both cameras appeared to be optimally focussed.
Brainiac: It looks to me like the lampost in the foreground of your 5D shot is showing some pretty strong CA where it is backlit by the sky. Do you by any chance that same shot with a Canon lens? I'd be curious to see if it has the same issue as your Contax lens.
brainiac, I don't think this test shows "considerably less resolution" from the M8. I think your test shows slightly more resolution for the 5D, which in the case of the text you have singled out makes a huge difference. Try something with some more normal edges, and you should see that the difference is much smaller.
By the way, I don't know if you are referring to me with your comment about prejudiced appraisal, but I am not looking to show that the M8 is better than the 5D. I want the M8 for other reasons. I am looking to see that they are close, and I don't mind which comes out on top, as long as the M8 is not way behind in most ways. From my tests so far (to be continued...) I see some advantages for each, but none very strong. The two cameras are similar in capability, in most ways.
lampost in the foreground of your 5D shot is showing some pretty strong CA
I think it's actually the weird Zeiss bokeh. It does this strange trick of wrapping light round corners. Well, I don't know a better way to describe it. If the sky were red, you would see red fringing instead, so it's not really CA in the usual sense.
Below is an example of the effect that I think this is. Look at the grey edge on the nose like an aura. Also the shadowy lines in the blurred hair beyond the cheek which appear to be sharper than the bokeh would allow, and the strange double ghost line around the lower, and even upper sides of the cheek which also seem to contain edges sharper than the bokeh. I first noticed this effect on a Hasselblad when shooting backlit close ups of flowers with wide aperture about 20 years ago. It may well have something to do with the supposed 3D effect. I like it, and it's one of the reasons why I sold my APO-Summicron 180 f2 and kept the Aposonnar 200 f2. I see it with quite a few of my Zeiss lenses.
In this comparison, it is a important factor not to be ignored as Carstenw was geting at.