Thanks for that, Mel.
"[Westfall] characterized [the announcement] as good news for owners of Canon's newest digital SLR"
I take this to mean that a quick firmware update is in the offing and not a recall.
How about a 5D mkII Mooner. I know partial moon shots are better but they were posting moon shots over on the Landscape forum and I had a clear sky and couldn't resist. Used 500 f/4 + 1/4 tc , 100% crop, mirror lock up, ISO 200, f/10 due to brightness and spot metering.
That's a great shot of the moon Gil. I've also noticed that there are bodies in the Seattle area, some at Best Buy in Bellevue that really tempted me (though, I'd rather buy out-of-state to avoid the sales tax). As much as I really would like the new camera, since I'm also a documentary filmmaker, and would love to get some super-wide angle video with my 16-35, and a 15 fisheye... I'm going to continue holding off till at least mid-January. I have a couple contracts that should be paying out around then. Till then, I keep shooting video with my Panasonic HVX200 and stills with my trusty 1D3 and 5D.
This is perhaps the hardest camera to resist (I've gone through the 10D, 20D, 1D, 1DmkII, 1DmkIII and 5D so far). I don't want to sell my current bodies, because I love them... but having 3 dSLRs seems like overkill.
Oh well... at least my wife will be happy that I'm not spending more money on another camera. I have a moratorium on lens purchases that's lasted a year now. She didn't think I could last that long... and neither did I
Mel Gross wrote:
According to the Pop Photo review, the color accuracy is very highest, one of the highest recorded so far, and much better than that of the Sony a900.
Pop Photo uses jpegs to evaluate color accuracy and the a900 jpeg color, though pleasing, is not accurate. Raw color accuracy from the a900 is very good though. For instance, DXoMark uses raw files to evaluate color. The a900 tests extremely high in their color test as does the 5DII.
From DXo:
"The best image quality metric that correlates with color depth is color sensitivity. Color sensitivity indicates to what degree of subtlety color nuances can be distinguished from one another, often meaning a hit or a miss on a pantone palette. Maximum color sensitivity reports, in bits, the number of colors that the sensor is able to distinguish. The higher the color sensitivity, the more color nuances can be distinguished. As with dynamic range, color sensitivity is greatest when ISO speed is minimal, and falls rapidly with rising ISO settings. DxO Labs has focused on measuring only maximum color sensitivity."
Shutter sound - just got my 5D Mkii. Expected a nosiy shutter based on posts - but I would say just the opposite. Not a harsh sound at all. Sounds very soft with the sound damped. No gridning, not metallic, not anything I expected based on a few posts. Compared to my 20D it sounds very refined and much lower in pitch.
jerrykur wrote:
Moire is not a bad thing in a lot of cases. The 5D series has always had a weak AA filter and thus showed more moire. But, with proper technique a weaker AA filter produces sharper images since a AA filter blurs the images. Some companies will "hot rod" your camera by removing the AA filter.
Color saturation and contrast is a function of post processing or in camera settings. Just like using different films to get a certain look. I suspect any difference in samples is due to variations in settings.
Well, I can tell you that the 5DII per pixel detail is nothing like that from my 5D. The 5DII is much softer and also very noticeably softer than anything coming out of a leaf or phase one back so there must be a fairly strong AA filter in the 5DII and I guess there is a decent one in the 1dsIII as well. I have not been impressed by the "hot roded" 5D images I have seen personally. I think Canon really struck the perfect balance in that camera between per pixel sharpness and lack of moire. Moire was rarely an issue.
The color issue is very subtle and not the result of raw setting differences. It's most likely the result of the more transparent color filter array used in the 5DII which supposedly results in lower noise, high ISO IQ as the sensor then becomes more efficient.
CMOS wrote:
Thanks for that, Mel.
"[Westfall] characterized [the announcement] as good news for owners of Canon's newest digital SLR"
I take this to mean that a quick firmware update is in the offing and not a recall.
Yeah. Some people are reacting too strongly to this. It's not a new phenomena. It's been around since the beginning of digital. Every so often, you see it.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Pop Photo uses jpegs to evaluate color accuracy and the a900 jpeg color, though pleasing, is not accurate. Raw color accuracy from the a900 is very good though. For instance, DXoMark uses raw files to evaluate color. The a900 tests extremely high in their color test as does the 5DII.
From DXo:
"The best image quality metric that correlates with color depth is color sensitivity. Color sensitivity indicates to what degree of subtlety color nuances can be distinguished from one another, often meaning a hit or a miss on a pantone palette. Maximum color sensitivity reports, in bits, the number of colors that the sensor is able to distinguish. The higher the color sensitivity, the more color nuances can be distinguished. As with dynamic range, color sensitivity is greatest when ISO speed is minimal, and falls rapidly with rising ISO settings. DxO Labs has focused on measuring only maximum color sensitivity."...Show more →
I'm not happy about the way DXo evaluates cameras either.
They use 18% grey cards, which has been shown, long ago, to not be a proper way to do exposure, or much of any digital evaluations. There are also other problems with thier methods. Their evaluations measure too many areas at one point to come up with much valid info. I know that their new site is being applauded, but it's also being warned about, as it only shows what they want to show. I find some of their results bewildering.
lskelly wrote:
Shutter sound - just got my 5D Mkii. Expected a nosiy shutter based on posts - but I would say just the opposite. Not a harsh sound at all. Sounds very soft with the sound damped. No gridning, not metallic, not anything I expected based on a few posts. Compared to my 20D it sounds very refined and much lower in pitch.
That's what I've said a couple of times. It's just a lower pitch shutter re-wind.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Well, I can tell you that the 5DII per pixel detail is nothing like that from my 5D. The 5DII is much softer and also very noticeably softer than anything coming out of a leaf or phase one back so there must be a fairly strong AA filter in the 5DII and I guess there is a decent one in the 1dsIII as well. I have not been impressed by the "hot roded" 5D images I have seen personally. I think Canon really struck the perfect balance in that camera between per pixel sharpness and lack of moire. Moire was rarely an issue.
The color issue is very subtle and not the result of raw setting differences. It's most likely the result of the more transparent color filter array used in the 5DII which supposedly results in lower noise, high ISO IQ as the sensor then becomes more efficient.
Canon's AA filtering has always been considered to be modest. Compared to Nikon's, it's mild.
Most medium format backs have problems with moire. I test Leaf backs, and have been doing so since they first came out. It's been so bad with MF, that they've had to come out with special software to deal with it years ago. First, it was manual, then it became automatic.
Moire is more due to the processing of the Bayer mosaic than anything else. That processing creates the oddities that we see, that actually are moire, rather than a natural problem of the subject.
As far as color goes, I've found that my various Canons over the years have had very good color indeed.
All cameras should be getting better as time goes on. But most all are about as good as needed. Someone may prefer the way one camera looks over another, but that doesn't mean that it's actually better, just that the person prefers it. I know that you really like the a900, because I've been to that thread.
Mel Gross wrote:
I'm not happy about the way DXo evaluates cameras either.
They use 18% grey cards, which has been shown, long ago, to not be a proper way to do exposure, or much of any digital evaluations. There are also other problems with thier methods. Their evaluations measure too many areas at one point to come up with much valid info. I know that their new site is being applauded, but it's also being warned about, as it only shows what they want to show. I find some of their results bewildering.
such as?
they appear to be the most carefully carried out of all the review sites so far
(although i think there are a few things about hte D90 that make one wonder if nikon is doing something to the raw on that one)
To deal with the exposure issues when shooting video...how does the exposure work when you are using fully manual lenses? What order does the camera decide to set shutter, aperature and ISO with these lenses?
One other thing...the camera has the ability to control the ISO, aperture and the shutter through the software that has been programmed into the camera. Right now the software does not allow those controls to be exposed to the user (when shooting video) for any individual manual controls. But wouldn't it be possible to modify these controls and settings if you could get access to the inner workings of this software code? I can only hope that someone out there (or Canon) can get in there and create some type of simple manual controls for the aperature, shutter and ISO. Wireless control would be really nice (including focus)...any third party companies out ther that could do this?
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Well, I can tell you that the 5DII per pixel detail is nothing like that from my 5D. The 5DII is much softer and also very noticeably softer than anything coming out of a leaf or phase one back so there must be a fairly strong AA filter in the 5DII and I guess there is a decent one in the 1dsIII as well.
I'm sorry, I really have to question this one. Put a Zeiss 21 or a 200 f1.8, or any other really sharp lens on your 5D2, at f5.6, and you won't need to sharpen any more than with a 5D. The stronger AA filter you think you are seeing is really just your lens. I specifically warned about this mistake on the following thread months ago: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/688976
Hi, Now that I have my 5F II, I'd be interested in sharing ideas for:
1) The best set of 3 combinations of saved settings for the C1 to C3 dial settings
2) The best set of My Menu options
3) A good working s set of CF settings
In this was we can share ideas about how to get the best out of the camera.
Now I know that for (say) a landscape photographer their best 3 C1-C3 settings may be different from a wedding photographer etc. But I hope that by sharing setting combinations, we can get some good ideas and make out camera more productives
Someone may prefer the way one camera looks over another, but that doesn't mean that it's actually better, just that the person prefers it.
Do you remember in the early 70s when the film racks in American camera stores were yellow brick walls and Fuji was first breaking into the US market, their ads for Fujichrome said, "The Japanese see color differently?"
brainiac wrote:
I'm sorry, I really have to question this one. Put a Zeiss 21 or a 200 f1.8, or any other really sharp lens on your 5D2, at f5.6, and you won't need to sharpen any more than with a 5D. The stronger AA filter you think you are seeing is really just your lens. I specifically warned about this mistake on the following thread months ago: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/688976
Hey Brainiac, can you post an example from the 5DII? I would really love to see this confirmed with a really good lens. I have yet to see anything shot at a distance such as a landscape shot that demonstrates the per pixel quality of the 5D coming out of the 5DII. Thus far, the best test showing comparative moire and IQ has been the below posted examples, the 5D interpolated up of course to match the 5DII:
Example showing the superior per pixel iq of 5D which, even when interpolated up, is close to the iq of the 5DII, even with a 50 1.4 at 5.6:
Gil_W wrote:
How about a 5D mkII Mooner. I know partial moon shots are better but they were posting moon shots over on the Landscape forum and I had a clear sky and couldn't resist. Used 500 f/4 + 1/4 tc , 100% crop, mirror lock up, ISO 200, f/10 due to brightness and spot metering.
Aww, man! What is it now!? That shot is ABSOLUTELY FULL of WHITE dots now! What in the world is going on with these new cameras!?!?
Mel Gross wrote:
I'm not happy about the way DXo evaluates cameras either.
They use 18% grey cards, which has been shown, long ago, to not be a proper way to do exposure, or much of any digital evaluations. There are also other problems with thier methods. Their evaluations measure too many areas at one point to come up with much valid info. I know that their new site is being applauded, but it's also being warned about, as it only shows what they want to show. I find some of their results bewildering.
My reservation about the way DXo conducts their tests is that, in the tests which require a lens, they appear to use different lenses on the various bodies. Ideally, they would find a way to use the exact same lens on every camera to remove the variable of the lens from the test result. The other issue is that they don't test for resolution.
