Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: marty m on February 15, 2008, 07:46:22 pm
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My guess is that some of you have run intensive tests on the new 1Ds Mk III, and I would really welcome your opinion as to how useful these custom settings are based on your own tests or experience:
FOR GENERAL AND SPECIFICALLY LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY:
** CFN II-2 High ISO Speed Noise Reduction
The manual says that "although noise reduction is applied at all ISO speeds, it is particularly effective at high ISO speeds. At low ISO speeds, the noise in the shadow areas is further reduced."
The default is off, although based on the above description it should be left on, since it works at all ISOs, and reduces noise at low ISOs.
The only downside is that it reduces the speed for continuous setting. So I assume that CFN II-2 should be turned on, with the option to turn it off for continuous shooting. (The reverse of the recommended default setting in the manual.)
What is your experience? Has anyone noticed if it improves noise in shadows at low ISOs? What constitutes a high ISO where the improvement is most noticeable? 400? 800? Or higher?
Finally, how does the noise reduction applied by the camera compare to leaving the setting off and then using a program like Noise Ninja? Although if they are equal, it would make more sense to just the camera handle it and save the hassle in processing.
** CFN II-3 Highlight Tone Priority
The manual says that this "improves the highlight detail. The dynamic range is expanded from the standard 18% gray to bright highlights. The gradation between the grays and highlights becomes smoother."
Again, the default is off. Again, that makes little sense. If it does what the manual says, it should be left on most of the time -- the reverse of the recommendation in the manual.
The only downside, according to the manual, is a that "noise in the shadow areas may be slightly more than usual."
So if you use both of the above custom settings together, one will expand the dynamic range, but slightly increase shadow noise, and the other will cut shadow noise.
The best of both worlds?
** CFN II-1 Long Exposure Noise Reduction
The auto setting appears to be best?
FOR BIRD AND EAGLE PHOTOGRAPHY:
** CFN III-2 AI Servo Tracking Sensitivity
I am not the best at tracking, especially against a busy background. So it would seem that "slow" is best since it is described as "interruptions by any obstacles will be less disruptive. It makes it easier to keep tracking the largest object."
** CFN III-8 AF Expansion with Selected Point
The default is that this is disabled. The expansion under "Enable surrounding Assist AF points" would appear to make it easier to track eagles or fast moving birds, although it operates somewhat at cross purposes with the CNF III-2 since it might then pick up more objects. What do you use?
BRIGHTER FOCUS SCREEN THAN PROVIDED WITH THE CAMERA:
Finally, for those who don't ever or rarely use manual focus, have you tried the Ec-N New Laser Matte screen? I believe it is the equivalent of 1/2 or one stop brighter than the standard screen but less suitable for manual focusing. But if you primarily auto focus, then it should make the already great viewfinder even brighter?
THANKS VERY MUCH for any responses!
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I do mainly landscape shooting on a tripod and rarely use high ISOs, so some of these settings I don't bother with. I do set the long exposure noise reduction on. As I understand it, highlight priority doesn't really do anything I can't do when I select my exposure in raw mode, which is what I use. I use expand focus points - seems handy.
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The default is that this is disabled. The expansion under "Enable surrounding Assist AF points" would appear to make it easier to track eagles or fast moving birds, although it operates somewhat at cross purposes with the CNF III-2 since it might then pick up more objects. What do you use?
The immediate inclination is to enable this - however there is a 'gotcha'.
From Canon's 'Optimising the 1DS MKIII PDF'
Shooting subjects with little detail — change the size of an AF point:
This changing size of an AF point is similar to the EOS-1D Mark II’s C.Fn 17-1. Option #1 (below) is new to the Mark III series.
C.Fn III-8-1 — adds a single additional “assist point” to the left and right of a user’s manually-chosen AF point
C.Fn III-8-2 — adds in invisible ring of six additional “assist points” surrounding the manually-chosen AF point
This can be useful when shooting very plain, solid subjects having little detail. The chosen AF point is always the one
first called upon, but if it’s unable to “see” the subject adequately, the surrounding AF points are used if either of these
C.Fn options is active. Like the Mark II series, the additional AF points do not light up, unless involved in actual
subject focusing. Also, if selecting an outer AF point, there are no further “assist points” outside the oval-shaped ellipse.
From this description it seems Canon reccomend the assist points only for poor contrast subjects.
The 'supposed' implied gotcha [from my reading] being - it 'may' make the auto focus 'slightly' less responsive in AI mode when tracking fast moving subjects [say like race cars with bright high contrast paint schemes]? And of course.. the assist point may not be where you actually want critical focus if shooting wide open.
Eg. Shooting a flying eagle with a big tele is likely to be around F2.8 with bugger all depth of field - critical focus is the 'eye' - not much good to u if the assist point lands on the wing as an example. But by the same example.. Canon say it only uses the assist points if it cant focus on the primary point.
Clear as mud Canon description eh.
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Forgot to add - and on the topic of custom functions - this is WELL worth a look and read
Noise at Fractional ISO (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/cameras/canon_1ds3_noise.html)
I turned off fractional ISO after reading this test.
Reality is.. I dont need it anyway.. I am perfectly happy with ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200
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Let's face it, these are tools that can help us in different situations, but every person's shooting environment, technique and purpose is going to be different to some extent or another. The best we can hope for initially is to determine whether something can potentially help us, get any feedback we can on it, and decide to check it out or not.
Then we need to try them out in the field and see what works and doesn't in our specific use. Since my typical fast moving target is a leaf being blown by the wind, and I'm really waiting for it to stop moving , the auxiliary focus points work for me.
Most of these features have trade-offs, hence they're optional. If they were win-win they wouldn't be optional. Like Josh, I've also turned off fractional ISOs.
Now I'm going out and do some shooting with my 1Ds3 - finally! It's been at Canon repair for almost 4 weeks (two trips), and now I get to use it again! Woo-hoo!
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So if you use both of the above custom settings together, one will expand the dynamic range, but slightly increase shadow noise, and the other will cut shadow noise.
The best of both worlds?
Not really. The noise reduction is for the JPEGs, and causes a loss of detail. The HTP at ISO 200, for example, is just ISO 100 under-exposed by a stop, with about double the read noise of ISO 200 or 100 without HTP.
** CFN II-1 Long Exposure Noise Reduction
The auto setting appears to be best?
I would test that, to see how long an exposure is needed at ISO 100 to incur the dark frame subtraction. You don't want dark frame subtraction for exposures of only a few seconds at ISO 100; the extra noise from the two exposures will be worse than the time'/heat-related noise. The way it should work, I would think, is to have a threshold of 1 second for ISO 1600, 2 seconds for 800, 4 seconds for 400, 8 seconds for 200, 16 seconds for 100, etc, or something that parallels that pattern at a given temperature. Dark frame subtraction *can* ruin the shadows, because it always creates noise of its own (it increases read noise by 41%).
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Not really. The noise reduction is for the JPEGs, and causes a loss of detail. The HTP at ISO 200, for example, is just ISO 100 under-exposed by a stop, with about double the read noise of ISO 200 or 100 without HTP.
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If the noise reduction is only for jpgs, then why when set to RAW only and manual (always on) noise reduction do I get a double exposure time--time of the exposure and then the same time to compare for noise reduction when shooting raw?
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Forgot to add - and on the topic of custom functions - this is WELL worth a look and read
Noise at Fractional ISO (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/cameras/canon_1ds3_noise.html)
I turned off fractional ISO after reading this test.
Reality is.. I dont need it anyway.. I am perfectly happy with ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175411\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The 1D* series and the 5D use a simple amplifier before the ADC to get the 125/250/etc and 160/320/etc groups of ISOs, so, basically, all they are doing is under-exposing and then scaling up the signal at an analog stage. This gives consistency in highlight headroom, relative to metering, but brings up the read noise very high relative to the general trend of the "main" ISOs. This is only an issue with Canons, and the D3 if it does something similar, and does not affect most digital cameras, especially ones with CCDs.
The difference is that CMOS cameras with high-ISO optimizations have read noise at their main ISOs which does not increase in proportion to the ISO. ISO 100 and 200 have almost exactly the same read noise on most Canons (the 10D was the last camera where they were really much different), so when you under-expose ISO 100 and scale up the data, the read noise gets scaled up higher than it is at ISO 200. As you approach the highest ISOs, the relationship between ISO and read noise is closer to linear, and the in-between ISOs are not as detrimental, but it is important to remember that when you are in a range of ISOs where the read noise is proportional to ISO, then you might benefit more from using a lower "main" ISO and under-exposing yourself, to get the highlight headroom if needed.
Most traditional designs, including most CCD cameras, have a nearly linear relationship between ISO and read noise, made only slightly non-linear by the relationship of ADC-generated noise to the signal, so there is no special loss due to intermediate ISOs, but still, you might benefit from the extra highlight headroom by shooting at a lower ISO with the same absolute exposure, especially if you shoot RAW. The traditional method of ISO gain will give about 15x as much read noise at ISO 1600 as at ISO 100. Most Canons, however, only have 2.25x - 2.5x as much read noise at ISO 1600 as they do at ISO 100, and most of that gain is in the range above ISO 400, as ISO 400 has only a small amount of extra read noise over ISO 100 on some models, like the 1Dmk3.
The other main noise component, shot noise, has nothing to do directly with ISO settings, but is directly tied to the actual exposure you are getting (Av and Tv value in the given lighting).
The Canon APS-C cameras that offer in-between ISOs work on a slightly different principle; rather than having an additional late-stage amplifier, they simply under-expose ISO 100 for 125, and over-expose ISO 200 for 160, and just manipulate the original RAW capture arithmetically, to push and pull the RAW file back to a normal exposure. In this case, ISO 125/250/etc are ISOs to be skipped over, but in the case of the 30D and 40D, the 160/320/etc group actually have less read noise. In the 30D and 40D, ISOs 125 and 640 have approximately the same read noise. On the 30D, highlight headroom varies between the groups by a good amount, and ISO 160 actually has more DR than 200, from which it is derived (because the camera clips some of 200's capture before writing the RAW file - very stupid), but it is preserved when scaled down to ISO 160. ISO 160 also has slightly more DR than ISO 100 in the 30D.
It's one big mess, I tell you. A pitiful lack of standards.
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If the noise reduction is only for jpgs, then why when set to RAW only and manual (always on) noise reduction do I get a double exposure time--time of the exposure and then the same time to compare for noise reduction when shooting raw?
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Which NR are you talking about? I wasn't talking about the long-exposure NR, but the high-ISO NR.
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As far as I understood it from my 1DsII days (ahh, how quickly we forget our old friends!), long exposure NR is done through subtraction of a blank image exposure and does affect raw, as well as pretty much doubling your exposure time, or am I way off here?
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Which NR are you talking about? I wasn't talking about the long-exposure NR, but the high-ISO NR.
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I didn't know there was a high ISO noise reduction. Is this an option, or built in?
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As far as I understood it from my 1DsII days (ahh, how quickly we forget our old friends!), long exposure NR is done through subtraction of a blank image exposure and does affect raw, as well as pretty much doubling your exposure time, or am I way off here?
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Pretty correct, except it doesn't really double your exposure time. it just takes that much more time for the camera to inspect and delete the noise it finds using it's method of NR. As you're aware, you'll hear the shutter close, but you don't get back your camera for as long as the exposure was. So if you have a 20 second exposure, you have to wait 40 seconds. However, your exposure time is still--20 seconds.
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Sorry, I meant it doubles the time it takes relatively, as you point out. Didn't mean the actual exposure was twice the time .
The Hi-ISO NR is an option (Custom FN-II 2), like the long-exposure NR (Custom FN-II 1). Although it's aimed at the higher ISOs, apparently it also affects low ISOs, but not as much. I haven't tried it as I haven't felt a need for it. It also slows down the drive significantly as previously stated and according to the manual.
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The Hi-ISO NR is an option (Custom FN-II 2), like the long-exposure NR (Custom FN-II 1). Although it's aimed at the higher ISOs, apparently it also affects low ISOs, but not as much. I haven't tried it as I haven't felt a need for it. It also slows down the drive significantly as previously stated and according to the manual.
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Wanted to jump in to ask if Hi-ISO NR affects RAW data or just JPEG. Have heard conflicting info on this and was wondering if anyone has the answer. Since it decreases buffer was wondering if it was helpful for those that only shoot RAW. Thanks.
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I'm guessing it affects the raw, and hence the JPEG, since they don't specify and it would be very embarrassing if the said this function reduced noise and then it didn't .
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I'm guessing it affects the raw, and hence the JPEG, since they don't specify and it would be very embarrassing if the said this function reduced noise and then it didn't .
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Well, why doesn't someone link to two RAWs (with lots of shadow areas), otherwise the same?
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Because it's work and there other are things we'd rather do? Like working on my resume ?
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Because it's work and there other are things we'd rather do? Like working on my resume ?
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No. No no no. That means you have to go to work if someone likes it.