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Author Topic: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600  (Read 13757 times)

digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2012, 12:07:33 pm »

Andrew, if you want to send me a 5D mark II to directly compare it to, I'll be happy to check that out  ;D

I believe you are missing Eric’s point and my query. You don’t need a 5DMII. But it would be interesting to know if the higher ISO settings on the 5DMIII behave as reported by Eric on the 5DII in terms of better noise reduction with lower settings and appropriate edits in LR.
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mac_paolo

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2012, 12:08:47 pm »

In terms of the results, I’m wondering how this pans out with the new camera compared to the 5DMII in terms of what Eric Chan at Adobe had said:

Is there an algorithm to evualuate this ISO value?
I always thought the same, but I try to get my shots to be as ready-made as possible, so high ISO levels on camera and no exposure compensation under LR.
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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2012, 12:10:50 pm »

Is there an algorithm to evualuate this ISO value?

Perhaps, I’m not aware of one. But one can test this by bracketing and setting differing ISO settings and altering the Exposure slider in ACR to normalize all images, then must inspect the images up close.
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mac_paolo

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2012, 12:11:46 pm »

Perhaps, I’m not aware of one. But one can test this by bracketing and setting differing ISO settings and altering the Exposure slider in ACR to normalize all images, then must inspect the images up close.
G. Galilei wins again. Thanks anyway :)
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2012, 12:18:28 pm »

Quote
I believe you are missing Eric’s point and my query. You don’t need a 5DMII. But it would be interesting to know if the higher ISO settings on the 5DMIII behave as reported by Eric on the 5DII in terms of better noise reduction with lower settings and appropriate edits in LR.

And you missed my grin. I'll shall repeat it here  ;D

But yes I will look at that as well.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2012, 01:37:11 pm »

Is there an algorithm to evualuate this ISO value?

This needs to be determined empirically, and may proof to be an eye-opener ...

I tested this with a Color Checker card for my 1Ds3 and found no benefit for ISO settings beyond 800 and benefits for the highlight headroom. Shooting at ISO 1600 or H was more noisy than underexposed at ISO 800 + push.

You basically shoot at a given ISO setting at or above the unity gain level, and with several bracketed exposures (1/3rd stop steps) shorter than that. Push the 'under-exposed' images to the same output level as the base exposure and measure the standard deviation in the same (uniform) area.

Then repeat with the next higher full ISOs, and compare the output noise figures.

Cheers,
Bart
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2012, 01:52:10 pm »

Dear Andrew and Bart,

I get your points but if you are being realistic you know that most photographers  - working professionals (photojournalists, videographers, wedding and event shooters) as well as casual amateurs -- are going to take the more direct route and simply set the camera's ISO higher, even if a more complicated shooting and processing routine will yield somewhat technically better results.

Our goal as photographers should be to make better photographs than we made yesterday and not to become technique jockeys. Well that is my goal but I fully recognize that others might have different goals. For me, great or even good photographs have never been about technique and tools but about communicating my visions of the world. I am foursquare for whatever tools make that possible and will happily explore the possibilities combinations of available tools will offer, but will not sacrifice concentrating on seeing for the distraction of technology.

I will run the tests
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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2012, 01:56:48 pm »

I get your points but if you are being realistic you know that most photographers  - working professionals (photojournalists, videographers, wedding and event shooters) as well as casual amateurs -- are going to take the more direct route and simply set the camera's ISO higher, even if a more complicated shooting and processing routine will yield somewhat technically better results.

That’s dumb. It plays into what could be considered marketing hype in terms of ISO settings. IF you can get better quality and the same results setting at a lower ISO and adjusting the raw, that says a lot. Assuming you are writing a review of this camera, it would be useful to separate the reality of the ISO benefits from the hype.

As you can see in another post here on LuLa, there are conditions where an ISO800 capture can have less noise than one set for ISO100. An eye opener for those so called working and casual photographers who take a more direct (if misleading) route.

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Our goal as photographers should be to make better photographs than we made yesterday and not to become technique jockeys.

I agree and hence why I asked that you examine the results of setting the ISO real high versus lower and using the raw converter to possibly produce a better photograph.
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2012, 02:04:53 pm »

Quote
That’s dumb. It plays into what could be considered marketing hype in terms of ISO settings. IF you can get better quality and the same results setting at a lower ISO and adjusting the raw, that says a lot. Assuming you are writing a review of this camera, it would be useful to separate the reality of the ISO benefits from the hype.

Is it really "dumb" to look at how most people will use a camera? This has nothing to do with hype. It is looking at the camera from the perspective of the actual user experience.

And yes I am reviewing the camera and if the technique we are discussing yields better results I will certainly point it out. But once I do that, I am reviewing the camera + a specific raw processing software's capabilities + an informed user and not just the camera.


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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2012, 02:10:47 pm »

Is it really "dumb" to look at how most people will use a camera?

IF they are using it incorrectly yes. Look again at Eric’s post about raw capture and high ISO settings. You’ll get less good results if you up the ISO for raw. Just because there is a high setting, doesn’t mean it is a good idea to use it, be it on a camera or your sound system. If you want to write about the new ISO capabilities of the camera, well test it so that you can inform if the settings are useful or not. IF you get better results with a lower ISO setting and a normalization with the raw converter, why on earth would you use the higher setting?

Or to put it another way, if using ISO 1600 produces better results in terms of noise with a raw adjustment than using 3200, how would you describe that 3200 setting? Useful? Or marketing hype? If it produces a better JPEG than a raw, that’s worth knowing and mentioning. Treating a camera system set for raw and JPEG identically isn’t useful in such conditions no?
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #30 on: March 13, 2012, 02:18:25 pm »

IF they are using it incorrectly yes.


It may be dumb for them to use it that way. It isn't dumb to recognize that most are using it that way.And then I can point out that that there may be a better way - if they have the time and the inclination to explore that route.

That we still have to fight the raw vs. jpeg battle is bad enough.

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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #31 on: March 13, 2012, 02:22:12 pm »

I t may be dumb for them tosue it that way. It isn't dumb to recognize that most areusing it that way.

Then teach them! Isn’t that part of the goal of a review?

Quote
And then point out that that there may be a better way - if they have the time and the inclination to explore that route.

They can’t make such a decision of someone hasn’t tested the two processes and informed them that possibly, a higher setting produces worse images than using a lower setting and just moving a darn slider!

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That we still have to fight the raw vs. jpeg battle is bad enough.

Yes, and consider where we’d be today if more knowledgeable people didn’t point out the differences.

You asked for comments on your captures. My comments were questions: Does the higher ISO settings bring anything to the party. I’ll let you know if you want to send me that 5DMIII <g> (grin emphasis)
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #32 on: March 13, 2012, 02:28:33 pm »

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Then teach them! Isn’t that part of the goal of a review?

no that is the goal of a tutorial. The goal of a review is to look at the product or performance and point out its good and bad points.

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I’ll let you know if you want to send me that 5DMIII <g> (grin emphasis)

In the interest of your prolonged good health I don't want to tax your ability to hold your breath for long enough for that to happen. ;)
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #33 on: March 13, 2012, 02:33:26 pm »

Quote
just moving a darn slider!

for some people just moving a darn slider in a specific piece of software doesn't work in terms of their necessitated by reality or choice workflow.  What if they prefer, possibly by training or habit  to use a third party piece of noise reduction or sharpening software?
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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #34 on: March 13, 2012, 02:35:47 pm »

The goal of a review is to look at the product or performance and point out its good and bad points.

This will be the last I’ll say on the subject unless you care to answer my initial question: If the performance of the product is inferior using a higher ISO setting than a lower one and adjusting a slider in a raw converter, don’t you think your readers would find that useful? If setting a higher value for ISO produces an inferior quality in this context, would you consider that a bad point?

Yes or no is all needed.

Better still would be an answer to the qualities and limits of the ISO options. Or you could just bracket some images and upload the raws. Some of us will be happy to inspect them.

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for some people just moving a darn slider in a specific piece of software doesn't work in terms of their necessitated by reality or choice workflow.

So these raw shooters are expected to simply render the images provided with no alterations what-so-ever in their converters? Sounds more like JPEG shooters. The questions I asked are specifically targeted to the raw data. I fully expect JPEG users to futz with the higher settings and be done. The question wasn’t directed to that audience. Eric’s post make the distinction between JPEG and raw clear to me.
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #35 on: March 13, 2012, 03:04:40 pm »

Quote
This will be the last I’ll say on the subject unless you care to answer my initial question: If the performance of the product is inferior using a higher ISO setting than a lower one and adjusting a slider in a raw converter, don’t you think your readers would find that useful? If setting a higher value for ISO produces an inferior quality in this context, would you consider that a bad point?

Yes or no is all needed.

Fortunately you are not an attorney and  I am not in the witness box and so I can give a more a more complicated, reality based, larger than binary answer.

The question your question begs is a simple one: At the end of the day, when  a photographer delivers a photograph either as a digital file or as a print to a client  how much better or inferior is one way of doing things than another?

I think it is very important that a photographer either get trained or train themselves to deliver the best quality photograph they are capable of delivering but even inside that criteria  there are nuances -some assignments  will require a lot of processing and post processing to reach that goal and some will not. Elliot Erwitt makes the point eloquently when he said that his goal as a photographic technician was to "Work myself into a position of total versatility, so that I can do anything I want to do at the time I want to do it. Whether I do it or not is another question."

An even deeper look at the question you raise Andrew is to see that  what you essentially propose  is that for my (or anyone else's)  review to be fair I need to look at this every possible combination of a camera's ISO settings put through every possible permutation of raw processing (Lightroom v4 /ACR 7; Capture One, Capture One pro, DPP,  etc.) , sharpening, and noise reduction software. And maybe we should throw interpolation software in there as well. I have no doubt that after a few weeks of doing so we can each find the perfect combination for every photographic situation that presents itself  - but in the meantime many photographs won't be made in the pursuit of am ever receding grail of absolute best technique.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2012, 03:10:08 pm by Ellis Vener »
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digitaldog

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #36 on: March 13, 2012, 03:09:34 pm »

Fortunately you are not an attorney and  I am not in the witness box and so I can give a more a more complicated, reality based, larger than binary answer.

You asked for comments. I asked a question. Just tell me you have no desire to answer the question and that the posts you made were for some other purpose and we can all go our merry way.
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #37 on: March 13, 2012, 03:15:26 pm »

As I said you aren't an attorney.

Hey tell you what : you are obviously a far better man than me Andrew Rodney. Far superior in every possible way. Who can possibly doubt that? I bow deeply and apologize to you and everyone else who is reading this for not following your explicit orders by not giving you the simple answer you ordered me to deliver.
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Ellis Vener

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III @ ISO 25,600
« Reply #38 on: March 13, 2012, 03:22:40 pm »

But by the way I did point out long ago that i would be testing the under-expose-and-over-develop technique Bart and Eric suggested  . If it yields better results, hats off to both of them and I'll share the results.
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BJL

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The D800 is halfway there; analog gain ends at ISO 1600.  Now all Nikon engineers have to do is realize (doh!) that there is nothing to be gained by bit-shifting the data and throwing away all that highlight info, and put the ISO setting in metadata.
Thanks; that is nice to know. (As an aside, I recall many years ago that with the Olympus E-1, ISO settings beyond 800 had no effect on raw except through meta-data: is this common?)
And the rough figures I have seen suggest that full-well capacity on these sensors is in the range 30,000 to 60,000, or 2^15 to 2^16, so with 14-bit ADC output, there are 2 to 4e- per level at base ISO speed, which is 200 or less, so that by ISO 800, there are already at least as many levels as electrons.

But as you indicate in this comment
it's not the 'unity gain' which determines when pushing lower ISO competes with 'normal' exposure at higher ISO; rather it's when read noise in electrons stops decreasing.
the relevant maximum useful gain level is about "one level per photo-site dark noise electron count", rather than counting every electron, and that noise floor seems to be at least 2e- of dark noise from the well itself, so even one level per 2e- is enough, and that probably happens by ISO 400.

But speaking as one semi-physicist to a real physicist: it is not that increasing ISO speed decreases the number of electrons of read noise, since that converse of output noise levels back to an electron count is at best a convenient fiction, converting measured output noise levels back on the false assumption that all noise comes from noise present in the charge in the electron well, before ISO gain. I would prefer to say that the useful threshold for analog gain is when any additional increase in gain produces a linearly proportional increase in read noise, measured downstream of the amplification. Or more simply,

"further analog gain is only useful if it improves the S/N ratio in the output signal".
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