cineski wrote:
Fanboy responses much? There's quite a few murmurs going on the web, as wells as posts on FM about the 5D2 and 1Ds3's bad low ISO performance. I was able to duplicate this easily with a Samy's camera 1Ds3. I'm sitting tight with my 5D.
I've yet to see anyone do a low ISO comparison that demonstrates the 5D2 or 1Ds3 being worse than their predecessors. If you have both cameras, this should be a trivial comparison to make so I don't understand why it would just be 'murmurs', concrete examples should be easy to show. I have however seen lots of compelling evidence to show that neither the 5D2 nor the 1Ds3 can compare to the D3x in low ISO.
Underexposure here doesn't mean squat. It's disappointing that there is shadow noise at such low ISO's. If those shadows have been pushed, then obviously these concerns are nothing.
cineski wrote:
Fanboy responses much? There's quite a few murmurs going on the web, as wells as posts on FM about the 5D2 and 1Ds3's bad low ISO performance. I was able to duplicate this easily with a Samy's camera 1Ds3. I'm sitting tight with my 5D.
So if someone hasn't had this issue, they're a fanboy? Unreal...
Personal experience with the 1Ds3. However, my fanboy comments go toward people who discount people's findings as user problems. I've seen quite a few responses about Canon's poor low ISO performance, and tested it out myself and got the same results. No user error involved, and very real.
I have both the 5D2 and 1Ds3... I will do some comparison tests when I have the time... but right now my feeling is that the 1Ds3 has the edge at lower ISO's and the 5D2 has the edge at higher ISO's (ISO1600/3200). Besides that, the 1Ds3 contains more shadow detail. Shadows in 5D2 files are easily clipped and contain nothing more than noise and other ugly pollution when you open them in PP. Even at low ISO's. Not so with the 1Ds3...
The 1Ds3 is a wonderful camera that produces excellent files with an almost "magical" quality. The 5D2 also produces nice files, but in a different league IMO. The fact that both cams share 21MP's doesn't mean they share the same IQ (appearantly). I prefer the 1Ds3 files over the 5D2 files any time
You really can't say much unless you took the same exact shot with a 1ds3. I've not experienced any of these issues with my 5d2 and I've pixel peeped the crap out of a lot of my files.
Oh, before I forget... Brainiac: I assume you shot RAW? If so, what converter did you use? And what FW does the 5D2 have?
I will have to do some further testing, but it seems ACR/LR has some troubles with 5D2 RAW files after the FW 1.0.7 update: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/735917 (I hope to receive some feedback on this).
When I first got the 5D2 the first thing I did was to stick it and my 1dsmk3 on a tripod, even lighting at ISO 200 and 400. (can`t find the files I must have deleted them)
On my calibrated 27" monitor after converting the files from raw I saw just a slight touch of exposure difference (can`t remember which way now) anyway those images could well have been taken with the same camera, it was very hard to separate them. If anything going from memory the 5D2 images had just a very slight better DR but that could have been exposure. My standard ISO setting now is 400/800. I`m not bothered about MTF`s and DXO but just the end result and I find the end results from the 5D2 great with nothing to complain about.
I micro adjusted my 85 1.8 on the 5D2 and was surprised that it was the only lens that needed anything other than 0 (it actually needed -13) I`m looking at a 100% image taken today in good light with the 5D2+85 1.8 and this image will not need any form of sharpening. I`ve now shot more than 2,000 images with the 5D2 and still gets NO creaks, black dots, white dots, error codes or anything else. I`ve been reading many threads and would be at all surprised if there were more than one factory used to make them because there does seem to be the good and bad.
One of the things I really like about the 5D2 is that I can calibrate my lenses if I feel the need under every different shooting condition out in the field and correct them just from the 10x view on the superb lcd.
My advice to any would be buyers is to go and try one out, if you don`t like it fine because we are all different in our expectations OH Yeh! BTW I`m very fussy.
Does anyone on this forum ever engage in photography rather than magnifying bits of images then engaging in numerous debates about those bits?
Anyone who can't produce superb images with either of these cameras....just isn't any good. What is the universal saying about a poor workman blaming his tools?
It s difficult to tell from this image, it is obviously about 3 stops underexposed and may be closer to ISO 1600 and not 200. Also it is too difficult to guess how a 1ds image would look against it, side to side.
I am looking forward to more users report though
So many people saying that the 1Dsmk3 image quality is preferable to the 5Dmk2's. I don't have the kind of $$$ to splurge on a 1Dsmk3, so I did the next best thing: I downloaded RAW files of those test shots at Imaging Resources. ISO 100 studio shots, I processed with DPP with no NR and no sharpening. I raised exposure by +2 EV to reveal any noise in the shadows, and saved as JPEGs. I took 100% crops off the darkest area in the entire sample, shown below.
My initial trial showed slightly more noise in the 5D2. But then I realized that DPP was activating ALO on the 5D2 (but not the 1Ds3), hence the extra noise. I had to re-do the conversion with ALO deactivated in both cases. And here are the final results:
Maybe my eyes are failing me, but I see absolutely no difference between the two. Nothing that would suggest that the 1Ds3 was better in any way. And these results seem to confirm what DXOmark had quantitatively measured: That both cameras show virtually identical performance at ISO 100.
I have the 5D Mk II and I don't think it's super-clean, but I am not expecting a 21mp camera to be cleaner than the 12mp camera .... nor do I expect it to match the $8,000 D3X. There is a trade-off and you get what you pay for. Yes, there is noise in the shadow areas even at low ISOs but you have to under-exposed these images and open up the shadow areas by a couple of stops or so before you see the noise.
On the whole, I am very happy with the 5D II, and the noise issue is easily mitigated with a good NR software, so it's not a big deal to me. I would still rather have a 21mp than a 12mp body any day. I couldn't have got these pictures with my 5D and using the same 200/1.8 lens as the 5D wouldn't allow me to do any serious cropping:
Maybe...just maybe, it's about photographers who know what they're doing being a bit surprised that the new offerings from Canon don't live up to their expectations (at least that's my case after playing with Canon's new flagship). Shadow noise like I've seen (and in examples here) increases the amount of post production I have to do to get a clean image out. Or it dictates that I'm not able to give my images their look because the image can't handle the heat. Of course I have to choose more post production time. When I'm already dealing with a large amount of images, that's not a friendly encounter. There's obviously a wide range of acceptable image quality amongst members on any forum, but my expectations are a bit let down. Hopefully time will tell how this turns out.
anthonygh wrote:
Does anyone on this forum ever engage in photography rather than magnifying bits of images then engaging in numerous debates about those bits?
Anyone who can't produce superb images with either of these cameras....just isn't any good. What is the universal saying about a poor workman blaming his tools?
First of all, your post says Canon lied because they said that the 5D2 has even better IQ than the 1Ds3. I find this a strong accusation of a company that does care about it's customers. Especially since Canon never stated the 5D2 has better IQ than the 1Ds mkIII.
Second, why show us this kind of miserable underexposed and technically bad processed shot as an illustration of your point. You should know better and we know you can. Your gallery shows great event and party photography, portraits and other subjects that have been covered much much better than what you show here. You'd better make your point with a right exposed picture than with a shot like this. It's suggestive and not convincing, especially coming from you!
Third, and this is a point I'd like to make to other posters in this thread, I have told you before the sensors in the 5DmkII and 1Ds mkIII are not exactly the same. The layering of the sensor unit, especially anti alias filter and coating layers are different. The 5DmkII sensor unit is simpler to make in order to create the amount of sensors that have to be delivered in much greater volumes every month to meet market demands. AA and high pass are constructed in less different construction steps and more or less part of the process of making the sensor, while the 1Ds mk III sensor unit and the AA high pass unit are kind of separate units that become mounted together in a high precision mounting step. One of the issues with this construction is higher loss of units that don't meet quality standards, hence the higher costs of a 1Ds sensor. The simpler construction for the 5DmkII, with lower high pass and AA filter does have slight advantages in the high ISO performance and hardly, if any, effects on low ISO, except for a relatively slightly more sensitivity for moire. The cost however is significantly lower, again for a great part because of higher quality standards.
I hope this clarifies some, but not the point Brainiac is trying to make in his post.
When using 5D, I try avoid even ISO 400, if possible. There are obvious noise differences between ISO 200 and 400.
Don't know about 5DII, but I assume that since its pixels are smaller than 5D, ...If Canon is capable of making a camera whose ISO 400 is as good as ISO 200, that will be a real revolution.
What's that supposed to mean? If any part of the shot is underexposed then the whole shot is underexposed. Brainiacs shot is at least 1EV underexposed, so the shadows will be also and shadows suffer more from underexposure than bright areas. Noise rises very quickly in shadows with underexposure.
rhtml wrote:
When using 5D, I try avoid even ISO 400, if possible. There are obvious noise differences between ISO 200 and 400.
Don't know about 5DII, but I assume that since its pixels are smaller than 5D, ...
ISO 400 on the 5D is very clean and even on something like blue skies, if the exposure is good, they show very little noise, noticeably less than my 1D II and 40D.
