The 5Dii samples also look very mushy. Bottom line is that there really aren't any good examples to cross compare between the A900 and 5Dii. At the end of the day, it's probably going to end with the A900 having slightly better detail and the 5Dii having slightly better noise. It's ridiculous to think we're talking about 2 stops difference of noise between these two cameras. The 40D, D300, and A700(firmware V4) are all a wash more or less in overall IQ, and I'd expect the same from the 5Dii, A900, and whatever high MP Nikon brings. I've already seen some reviews say the D90 images look better than the 50D, so don't say some magic new tech is gonna give the Canon a 2 stop advantage.
p.s. I will say that it looks like Sony has a long way to go on their jpegs. RAW is a different story.
I'm not sure what "mushy" means here. Is that a technical term? Outside of some lenes issues (poor corner performance, etc.), the samples I've seen look sharp, detailed and clean.
Further why is it "ridiculous" to talk about a 2 stop difference of noise? If you look at the images (and as I said this is based on these preliminary images) it is evident that there is a 2 stop difference. I'm not going to say that there is some "magic" involved. I don't need to. It has been understood by most that Canon's full frame sensor technology is a step ahead of most of it's competitors, particularly with respect to noise. The observation of a difference in noise performance is not really surprising. I was hoping the the Sony would be better. Maybe, as I also suggested, production cameras and experience (and perhaps better RAW processing) will produce better relative performance for the a900.
douglasf13 wrote:
The 5Dii samples also look very mushy. Bottom line is that there really aren't any good examples to cross compare between the A900 and 5Dii. At the end of the day, it's probably going to end with the A900 having slightly better detail and the 5Dii having slightly better noise. It's ridiculous to think we're talking about 2 stops difference of noise between these two cameras. The 40D, D300, and A700(firmware V4) are all a wash more or less in overall IQ, and I'd expect the same from the 5Dii, A900, and whatever high MP Nikon brings. I've already seen some reviews say the D90 images look better than the 50D, so don't say some magic new tech is gonna give the Canon a 2 stop advantage. ...Show more →
Lotusm50 wrote:
It has been understood by most that Canon's full frame sensor technology is a step ahead of most of it's competitors, particularly with respect to noise.
What makes you say this? Until the A900, there has only been one competitor recently to bring a fullframe chip to the market, and the D3/D700 is quite competitive to Canon in noise. Even if you compare the Imaging Resources A900 vs. 1Ds III RAWs (which I believe are flawed,) there isn't a 2 stop difference...unless you believe the 5Dii will be 1.5-2stops better than the 1ds III as well?? Some users seem to think there is a special magic to Canon sensors, but that advantage has been narrowed to negligible over the past few years.
BTW, imatest shows that the A900 RAW dynamic range is only narrowly beat by the D700.
My point in this thread, and any other, is never to say the A900 or any Sony cam is better than a Canon camera, but I will back them up by saying they're as good.
I'm with Lotusm50 regarding the noise based on what I have seen thus far from the 5DII and A900. I am seeing 1.5-2 stops better noise performance between the 5DII and the 1DsIII. The sample at Dpreview from the 5DII showing the Olympus cameras at ISO 1600 is simply amazing. Great detail and noise which looks like what my 5D gave at ISO 400. The Sony A900 samples, even the RAW samples I have played with, shot at ISO 400 are noisier than the 5DII ISO 1600 samples mentioned above.
I guess what I understood to be widely discussed, common knowledge, apparently isn't. When I get time, I'll post comparative samples (maybe tomorrow night). I saw the imaging resource samples, and in the comparison the 1DsMkIII was clearly superior to the a900 by 1-2 stops in terms of noise. With NR on, the detail in a900 was decimated, and with NR off it was very noisy. The 5D MkII is superior in terms of noise to the 1DsMkIII. It's sensor is advancement beyond the sensor in the 1DsMkIII. As for Nikon, Nikon's FX chip is comparable to the original 5D which has been around for 3 years already. And the Nikon only gets to that level of performance by applying a lot of noise reduction in software (which, by they way, it does really quite well).
I am, of course, only talking about noise performance here. The a900 has a lot of other exceptional attributes if noise performance is not important to you. It is an exceptional camera at a great price. I just hope that it's noise performance, in practice, proves to be better than what I am currently seeing.
douglasf13 wrote:
What makes you say this? Until the A900, there has only been one competitor recently to bring a fullframe chip to the market, and the D3/D700 is quite competitive to Canon in noise. Even if you compare the Imaging Resources A900 vs. 1Ds III RAWs (which I believe are flawed,) there isn't a 2 stop difference...unless you believe the 5Dii will be 1.5-2stops better than the 1ds III as well?? Some users seem to think there is a special magic to Canon sensors, but that advantage has been narrowed to negligible over the past few years.
BTW, imatest shows that the A900 RAW dynamic range is only narrowly beat by the D700.
My point in this thread, and any other, is never to say the A900 or any Sony cam is better than a Canon camera, but I will back them up by saying they're as good.
This is a confusing issue really, because I believe all sensors are noisy, some more than others of course. But imho, the differences we see between Canon, Nikon, and Sony is all due to noise reduction done either within the hardware and/or in the processing stage. That's why a Sony sensor produces less noise with a Nikon than with a Sony. I still have to look at more real life samples from the A900 but as far as I'm concerned, i would prefer Sony's noisy pictures over Canon's clean pictures.
Btw, I was wondering about Sony's raw conversion software. Canon spoiled us with DPP which is pro class. Is Sony's software comparable to DPP, or is it more like RIT, emulating the camera's jpg settings?
Here is his first ISO 3200 shot, which he compares favorably to the D3. He re-sized it down by half. Resizing it back up to 24MP and then taking a quick look at the histogram, this example looks truly bad, particularly when you try to reclaim any detail from the severely blocked up shadows which were hiding most of the noise. From the looks of that histogram, he really underexposed things so I really don't think this guy has a clue OR he does and is trying to make the A900 look better than it is. Notice on his blog how bright the Nikon high ISO D3 shot is? No blocked shadows. Yet, all the A900 high ISO examples are blocked up in the shadows hiding the noise.
Well that guy that doesn't have a clue has been in this business testing cameras for 25 years. I would wait for a real comparison from him, since he frequently uses the D700 as well.
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Who said anything about 6400 or 12,800? 'Take a look?' I was one of the first photographers to use the D3 and publish large images taken at 25,600 - I just have not published any report on the web, at all, because I was commissioned by the British Journal and I do not 'undercut' people who hire me. I did let a few images out however. I know exactly how the D3 and the D700 perform, especially at 3200 which I used most of all settings with the D3. Now on the basis of a few shots I can't tell too much about the A900, but hold your 'fanboy' fire and don't be so keen to trash the party before the birthday girl has arrived!
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I do not know, by the way, how the Canon 5D MkII performs and therefore make no comment. But I'm pretty sure the Alpha 900 will do everything the Nikon D3 can do at ISO 3200, an important ISO value which is the highest setting on the Nikon cameras retaining normal colour saturation."
Histograms don't lie! Perhaps he just rushed to make a judgement. I mean no offense to him but his example is terrible. Am I the only person who sees an underexposed image with terribly blocked up shadows in that A900 example? I could care less about the noise at high ISO's myself but for those who do care, the A900 is not going to turn in a good performance at high ISO's. I never mentioned 6400 or 12800 ISO by the way. I"m just looking at that ISO 3200 example he posted and further down the blog, the properly exposed(or perhaps slightly overexposed) NIkon D3 example. Someone else mentioned pudding before. Brainiac I think. I'm just judging the pudding on its taste, not on its prominence.
Tariq, I cant find the images that you are referring too a few posts up. Could you please post a link.
David will post a blog comment in a few days with a better comparison. Better wait until then. But his findings are usually very interesting.
For example he discovered that for a given scenario D300 exposures 2/3 more then A700. This in a controlled studio setup up running both cameras in parallell
Not sure which image you are referring to. Just to give some idea of what the 5DII high ISO noise is like, and what the A900 will be compared to, here is a 100% crop at full resolution taken from the ISO 3200 jpeg over at dpreview. This is unfair to the A900 in that this is a studio shot taken with plenty of light but its still very impressive, particularly since its a jpeg and not even RAW.
That Canon 5Dii shot doesn't surprise me at all, because, as you said, it's in a well lit environment. This makes a huge difference, and shows why testing conditions are so important. Either way, I have a similar Olympus called the SP. Cool cameras.
You need to go back and read the blog again. He used a different picture than you show above to roughly compare to the D3. And, in fact, he says "This illumination represents low theatre/stage/stadium level lighting accurately," so he clearly exposed to his liking for the scene, regardless of "proper" exposure. Here are the pics he compared. BTW, why did you upsize the image above? It doesn't make since to compare a 12MP image to a 24MP image. Viewing/print size must be the same to make a noise comparison.
People who use a 5DII or a A900 will be comparing them at their native resolution and the two are fairly close to one another as far as MP are concerned. The D3 and A900 examples posted above do look as if they both are much better exposed than his first A900 ISO 3200 example and that should definitely result in less noise. The crop I posted was from his first image and its not a good example of low noise at all which is the point I was making.
I agree. Underexposure in low light always results in lots of noise. I've seen some beautiful high ISO shots from the 5Dii, but they're generally in very good light, so it's tough to really get an idea how all these cameras differ.
