Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: Leping on January 05, 2009, 03:07:35 am
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$8000 is not a small stack of money especially in today's economy. So how dare Nikon was to put up such a price tag for the new D3x? Does they fall into a crack and totally out of the reality?
So there are complainers who swear they would never buy a D3x because of the price. However, let's first face the fact that the Canon's flagship, the 1Ds Mark III, also retails at $8000, although they are routinely sold at discount since it has been on the market for a while. But when it came out the price was the same so we can hardly say Nikon is too crazy.
Then there start to merge the reviews from the real D3x users, mostly from pros who have extensive experiences with the Canon 1DsIII. And it happens majority of these if not all are seemly pointing to the same observations: the D3x RAW files set a brand new standard for a DSLR, which has passed the 1DsIII quality level.
Let's first look at the professional review site of Lloyd Chambers, who has on going exhaustive D3x tests including comparisons with the 1DsIII, D3, A700, and with both the Nikon and the Carl Zeiss lenses:
http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html (http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html)
Yes, the real reviews on his DAP ("Diglloyd's Advanced Photography") are not free, but from my opinion and as I read from many others, the $29.99 fee is well deserved. You can also get the DAP and his extensive Zeiss lens review free, if you order a D3x soon through his links to Amazon, B&H, and Adorama.
Here let us see what Lloyd have found and put out today (on his free blog):
"And so I’ll repeat what I’ve stated before: the Nikon D3x offers the finest image quality in a DSLR the world has yet seen. The online bitching and moaning about the price won’t change that fact—I don’t like it either. But if you need or want the very best DSLR available today, the Nikon D3x is your camera. In fact, I have zero desire to shoot my Canon 1Ds Mark III any more. None at all. It’s not about resolution: it’s about stunning image quality."
"How well do D3x images scale? The crop below is actual pixels after scaling to 97.5 megapixels (12096 X 8064), using RAW Developer. It has been sharpened during RAW conversion and also in Photoshop CS4. Probably those versed in the finer points of image scaling could do even better, and sometime soon I’ll be exploring how well PhotoZoom Pro and Genuine Fractals do scaling of D3x images.
You don’t need “faith” with the Nikon D3x: it’s offers the finest image quality in a DSLR the world has yet seen."
Is Lloyd, who offers both free and paid reviews of photographic products from all the makers for many years like many others, just biased, or simply over-excited, even he had reviewed the Sony A900 and the Canon 1DsIII just recently? Let's checkout an independent and totally free review on our own Luminous Landscapes forum, from Dan Wells, again a long time 1DsIII user. The title of the topic was titled "Nikon is NOT on crack - Initial D3x image quality is AMAZING!"
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=30658 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=30658)
, where we can find the following words:
"I just got out for about 4 hours of serious (landscape and macro) shooting with the D3x this morning, and have been looking at the files for most of the afternoon. The easiest comparison I can make is to the 1Ds mk II (note: NOT mk III), as that is the highest-resolution camera I have a lot of experience with (other than the D3x). I am comparing at ISO 100, converting from 14-bit NEFs (in Nikon Capture NX2) and viewing at 100% on screen (unfortunately, my printer is 180 miles away right now, and I'm on my laptop monitor, NOT my calibrated work monitor, because I am visiting my parents for the holidays). There are two apparent differences - first is the incredible sharpness of the D3x. When I've nailed the focus, the D3x looks very darned sharp at 100% without applying any sharpening - because of the AA filter, the Canon never did that. It would PRINT very sharp, but 100% on screen always revealed a slight blur. There is absolutely no noise in an ISO 100 D3x file, even at 100%, which adds to the impression of sharpness - very slight shadow noise in the Canon files adds a slight haze to dark ones - that is simply not there in a D3x file. The second difference is the dynamic range - the D3x has about a stop more range in the highlights, plus at least an extra stop in the shadows, maybe even 1.5 stops extra in the shadows, all of it very clean. This camera, properly handled, should print 24x36 inches with ease from its base ISO of 100 (I get 16x24 out of the Canon, but don't like to go larger than that).
ISO 400 on the D3x is very usable - it looks roughly like an ISO 100 file from a 1Ds mk II in terms of noise - it may have extra dynamic range, which I wouldn't have seen because my ISO 400 tests were on a very dreary, grey day and would have fit easily within the DR of the 1Ds mk II). This is comparing on a per-pixel basis, so the D3x file still has 3/2 the detail in it, due to the increased resolution... I have even fooled around a bit with ISO 3200 (HI 1.0), which looks awful on screen (although quite good considering that it's ISO 3200 - much better than any ISO 3200 film ever looked), but will make a pretty decent 8x10 print with no trouble, and should even print 11x17 with some careful handling. I didn't buy the camera to shoot at ISO 3200, but it's nice to know the capability is there should it be needed. Those unbelievable ISO 100 files are what I bought the camera for, and it is certainly worth its price for its low-ISO performance! There is something highly unusual in the imaging chain of the D3x to get these results - the sensor may NOT be stock Alpha 900 issue (I suspect it isn't - I don't have a lot of Alpha experience, but the test files I've seen are not anywhere near as clean, even at low ISOs) , and if it is, the AA filter in the D3x is extremely unusual, probably made out of pure unobtainium.
Add that performance to a superb rugged and ergonomic camera body with class-leading AF and metering, and the result is a remarkable machine. Yes, it's expensive, but the only way to get better files is three times as expensive and not nearly as rugged."
"Things like microlenses and AA filters are getting better - the D3x seems to have an AA filter that few if any cameras can match (the amount of detail per pixel is remarkably high). I've used a variety of digital setups and film formats over the years (from the original Canon D30 - not 30D, the original 3 MP D30!) to the D3x for the past couple of weeks. My serious photographic work is fairly traditional landscapes, including quite a bit of work much closer in than many landscape photographers work.
Subjectively, here's how a list of cameras I know well come out (when I say low ISO film, I mean Velvia, Extachrome 100, Tmax 100, etc - not Tech Pan or other exotic ultra-fine definition films). When I'm comparing film to a digital setup, I'm referring to film scanned at 4000 DPI on a Nikon 5000 or 9000 (a consumer flatbed wlll have significantly less resolution, and an Imacon may do somewhat better, although the Nikons manage to scan grain, so an Imacon can't be that much better, except perhaps in dynamic range and other non-resolution factors). I shoot everything serious in RAW at maximum bit depth at or near base ISO, and I have rarely used any film faster than ISO 100. This is a rather random sampling of cameras I have owned or used extensively over the years.
Canon D30 (3 mp) - less resolution than low-iso 35mm film, but noise less than grain on 35mm film (overall IQ fairly similar to good 35mm film) - prints 6x9 inches very comfortably, 8x12 in a stretch. Dynamic range of low-DR slide film at 5-6 stops (nail exposures and be careful with subjects).
Sony 6 mp CCD (was in a ton of DSLRs for a while, still in Nikon D40) - resolution more or less equivalent to 35mm, prints a little bigger than I've ever been comfortable with from 35mm due to noise advantage, especially in its newer incarnations (8x12 easily, 11x17 possible). Dynamic range better than most slide films, not close to print film (in the range of 7 good stops).
Nikon D200 (10 mp) - resolution significantly better than 35mm (between 35mm and 645). Overall image quality approaching 645 (which I'd say still has the edge). Prints 11x17 easily, but 16x24 is a big stretch (I've done it, am not terribly happy with the results). Dynamic range similar to 6 mp sensor.
Canon EOS 1Ds mkII (16.7 mp) - resolution nearly equivalent to 645 film, with overall image quality probably slightly to somewhat ahead of 645. The first digital camera I have used that really plays in medium format (film) territory. Dynamic range improved over any previous digital camera I had used by at least a stop (8 or more really good stops in a raw file). Prints 16x24 fairly easily, but gives up before 24x36.
Nikon D3x (24.4 mp) - resolution well into medium-format territory, close to 6x9 cm scanned film (much sharper per pixel than 1Ds mkII due to improvements in sensor/AA technology). Overall image quality significantly better than scanned 6x9 cm Velvia! Dynamic range appears to be over 9 stops, maybe 10, while remaining completely noiseless. The only files I've seen that are definitively better are scans from large-format film. Prints 24x36 inches (a 25x enlargement) very comfortably, even examining the print from a few inches away. Files appear sharp and detailed on screen at 100%
I'm sure that MF digital is even better than the D3x (although I'd be surprised if the 30ish mp variety were a big jump). 60+ MP MF digital would be approaching well-scanned 4x5 film image quality very closely, if it carries at least the same amount of information per pixel as the D3x. The few Hasselblad H3D II/31 files I've seen are in a similar league to D3x files, with the Hasselblad's edge being roughly the resolution difference (20%). I have not seen a Hasselblad file with enough subject dynamic range to make a meaningful DR comparison (it's certainly not less than the D3x, and could be significantly more)."
So, if Canon has the right to sell the 1DsIII at near the price, Nikon seems to have the right to demand the same amount of money. And if someone found the D3x price is too high, probably he or she does not need the tool of such caliber.
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My Goodness.. what a diatribe...
Good luck with all of that and the mission to convince the world of the D3x's superiority and value for money. I feel I should sell all my Canon gear right now and buy a d3X immediately. In fact maybee I should give away my 1dSMK3 instead of inflicting it on some other poor soul... I mean its never produced sharp images for me.... *shakes head*
Edit - I probably shouldnt have bitten on this thread.. and I will probably be made to regret it in ensuing posts.. but it just came across all 'fan boyish' to me.
Edit - looking more closely at DigitalLoyds website who is quoted extensivley above - he says 'Buy a D3X by clicking on the link on my website for a free upgrade or some such to his subscription'. Any credibility or iimpartiality he may have had is effectivley naught seeing as he is pushing the camera to make money himself.
Off topic...And in all seriousness, And since I want to end my post on a positive note - I think that there is some truly lovely landscape photography on your website. I spent some time there and very much enjoyed it.
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It's not a diatribe, it's simply an advertisement. Someone please delete this crap. What a joke: pay for a review? Get real. If I were the moderator I'd delete this person's subscription. Then I'd go over ot X's "paid" review website and robot email and auto post his forums at 500 GB an hour until his server crashed or his host cut him off. Idiot.
This kind of thing pisses me off, coming at me right after I shuffle through 40 spam messages in my personal email.
If this is for real, then one sentence would suffice: Dx3 new king of pro cameras, pay for my review and you'll see why. And I'm really anticipating the review, as I always do, but this is over the top.
Pure Shit.
I really hope Micheal deletes this or locks the thread. Yeah just lock the thread to prevent censorship.
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In defense of the topic I have started:
1. Among the words I quoted, Dan's reviews are totally free, and right here in the LL forum. Unfortunately he started the topic in a wrong forum and did not receive the due attention it deserves, to me.
2. I quoted Lloyd's because the other pro D3x review I am aware of, from Bjørn Rørslett, is also and completely a paid one:
http://nikongear.com/smf/index.php?topic=13106.0 (http://nikongear.com/smf/index.php?topic=13106.0)
3. As I mentioned, Lloyd reviews cameras from all the makes, Canon, Nikon, and Sony. In his previous review (D3 vs. 1DsIII) he showed that D3 has much inferior resolution and the 1DsIII resolved tons more. Now he is mentioning he is considering to sell his 1DsIII for a D3x, so at least he is convinced himself, hardly just a commercial plot. The commercial links has been there in his site for many years, not just for the high-ticket bodies such as 1DsIII and D3x.
4. These paid reviews are all over the internet, including many often quoted by Michael (such as the Reid Reviews). And Lloyd Chambers has been a long time contributor to Luminous Landscape: his paid review was first mentioned by MF on April 11, 2005:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/new/new-2005.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/new/new-2005.shtml)
5. Even in Lloyd's free blog site you can see clearly test examples of the resolution and noise advantages of D3x in comparison with 1DsIII.
6. From my point of view, there is no need to avoid paid reviews -- all the reviews you read in magazines and other publications are paid reviews. Pros and testers need means to support their work and their families, just as we all do.
7. I am currently shooting a Canon 5D Mark II, but I am convinced enough so that I will probably buy a D3x. Coupled with the far superior Nikon 14-24mm/f2.8 wide angle and the three new PC/E lenses plus the Carl Zeiss ZFs. I am personally interested in the topic and debating my investment, and hence I found the subject interesting and believe it is interesting to the others. I never buy anything thought Lloyd's links or anybody else's. I do not offer paid tests or a blog site, but I do have access, and carefully test 5DsII, 1DsIII, Phase One P45, and D3x. My preliminary conclusions happen to agree with the Dan's and the Lloyd's. My not having my own D3x right now is purely from financial reasons. And for sure I am keeping my Canon 5D and lenses.
8. The common say is that the Nikon ergonomics is better than the Canon and Sony. But Lloyed had reached an opposite conclusion -- the D3/D3x UI designs are severely flawed, MLU, self-timer, and Live View, etc. I feel the same way, say, the Nikon Live View is not reachable when the camera is 7.5" high on my tripod, while the 5DII's is, and easily. However, still mainly shooting LF and MF chrome film, I really need something that gives me at least the Imacon scanned 645 slide film quality on 24x30 prints, which the 1DsIII/5DII came little short but the D3x is comfortable with (Dan's experiences and mine).
To mention but a few. Please correct the misspelling of Michael Reichmann's name.
Leping Zha
Ph.D. in Physics
It's not a diatribe, it's simply an advertisement. Someone please delete this crap. What a joke: pay for a review? Get real. If I were the moderator I'd delete this person's subscription. Then I'd go over ot X's "paid" review website and robot email and auto post his forums at 500 GB an hour until his server crashed or his host cut him off. Idiot.
This kind of thing pisses me off, coming at me right after I shuffle through 40 spam messages in my personal email.
If this is for real, then one sentence would suffice: Dx3 new king of pro cameras, pay for my review and you'll see why. And I'm really anticipating the review, as I always do, but this is over the top.
Pure Shit.
I really hope Micheal deletes this or locks the thread. Yeah just lock the thread to prevent censorship.
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$8000 is not a small stack of money especially in today's economy. So how dare Nikon was to put up such a price tag for the new D3x? Does they fall into a crack and totally out of the reality?
So there are complainers who swear they would never buy a D3x because of the price. However, let's first face the fact that the Canon's flagship, the 1Ds Mark III, also retails at $8000, although they are routinely sold at discount since it has been on the market for a while. But when it came out the price was the same so we can hardly say Nikon is too crazy.
The reason why people think it is crazy is that when the Canon came out it had no competition and being the first in a field is expensive. Now you have serious competition from 3 other cameras, 2 of which are waaaaay cheaper. So that is why people are shocked at the price, if it had been that price before the 1DsIII had come out, there would have been less kerfuffle. It's the timing of the price, not the price per se.
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Hi,
The "diglloyd DAP pages" are actually useful like the Sean Reid Reviews are. IMHO there is nothing wrong if you charge for reviews.
This quote is also taken from the same analysis as referred from the initial article:
"The Nikon D3x is the resolution champ here, and also on the resolution chart.
The extensive work and cross-checking involved in preparing this comparison taught me that a great many choices influence the perceived end result; while the 24.4MP D3x will always be obviously sharper than the 12.1MP D3, the 21.1MP Canon 1DsM3 images are so close to D3x resolution territory that adding a bit more sharpening, a different tonal curve, etc, can easily fool the eye into believing less is more. For that matter, a 0.1mm excess rotation of the lens barrel (focus) carves off multiple megapixels from the end result!
In short, choosing the D3x over the Canon 1DsM3 purely for resolution would be a mistake, especially with the near-certainty that Canon will one-up the D3x resolution before long. One should choose by evaluating image quality as a whole. Therein lies the real advantage of the D3x, at least to my eyes."
Best regards
Erik
It's not a diatribe, it's simply an advertisement. Someone please delete this crap. What a joke: pay for a review? Get real. If I were the moderator I'd delete this person's subscription. Then I'd go over ot X's "paid" review website and robot email and auto post his forums at 500 GB an hour until his server crashed or his host cut him off. Idiot.
This kind of thing pisses me off, coming at me right after I shuffle through 40 spam messages in my personal email.
If this is for real, then one sentence would suffice: Dx3 new king of pro cameras, pay for my review and you'll see why. And I'm really anticipating the review, as I always do, but this is over the top.
Pure Shit.
I really hope Micheal deletes this or locks the thread. Yeah just lock the thread to prevent censorship.
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The reason why people think it is crazy is that when the Canon came out it had no competition and being the first in a field is expensive. Now you have serious competition from 3 other cameras, 2 of which are waaaaay cheaper. So that is why people are shocked at the price, if it had been that price before the 1DsIII had come out, there would have been less kerfuffle. It's the timing of the price, not the price per se.
The reason people think the price is crazy is because most are probably pixel peepers and internet experts who can only see the sensor. To them all that counts is the pixel count and/or high ISO performance. Hence for these people it is over priced. Heck, you can get almost the exact same thing from Sony and Canon right? Give it a year or so and we'll see the D3x-lite (sic) whatever it is called at a competitive price to the A900 etc.
BTW everyone complained about the price of the Nikon 600mm F4 VR etc lenses. Now that demand has slowed, the price has dropped to the level of Canon equivalents, in the UK anyway. That's how the market works.
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Hi,
The "diglloyd DAP pages" are actually useful like the Sean Reid Reviews are. IMHO there is nothing wrong if you charge for reviews.
This quote is also taken from the same analysis as referred from the initial article:
"The Nikon D3x is the resolution champ here, and also on the resolution chart.
The extensive work and cross-checking involved in preparing this comparison taught me that a great many choices influence the perceived end result; while the 24.4MP D3x will always be obviously sharper than the 12.1MP D3, the 21.1MP Canon 1DsM3 images are so close to D3x resolution territory that adding a bit more sharpening, a different tonal curve, etc, can easily fool the eye into believing less is more. For that matter, a 0.1mm excess rotation of the lens barrel (focus) carves off multiple megapixels from the end result!
In short, choosing the D3x over the Canon 1DsM3 purely for resolution would be a mistake, especially with the near-certainty that Canon will one-up the D3x resolution before long. One should choose by evaluating image quality as a whole. Therein lies the real advantage of the D3x, at least to my eyes."
My guess is that the D3X is probably in the same league as the other 20+ MPixel DSLRs, significantly better than the D3 resolutionswise. Much is depending on lenses an area where different optics may shine, or not, independent of the manufacturers name on the lens barell.
Best regards
Erik
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As someone that has now shoot with all three cameras extensively; four if you included the 1Ds MKIII, I can tell you that claims that one or the other is noticeably different than the others based solely on its sensor are fooling themselves. There are so many variable that if one wishes it would be trivial to bias any test one way of the other, depending on light levels, lens used, post processing and so forth.
Here's my considered opinion. The differences are mouse nuts. What are mouse nuts, you ask? Very, very very small, I reply.
Yes, there are differences in overall image quality between these three or four cameras. One will do better in very low light, another in high contrast situations. One will have wider dynamic range, and other a bit more resolution. But give me the raw files from each camera shot at the same time of the same subject and 9 times out of 10 I'll make 16X20" prints in a few minutes that will have you scratching your head over which is which. I've now done this little test so many times that people don't even come to the studio any more and pick up the challenge. They know that they'll end up buy the beer afterward almost every time.
The real differences come down to size, handling, lenses choices, features, support, cost etc. That's where the differences lie. Sure, one camera will have a slight edge in one extreeme performance area, and another in another. But on the main slope of the bell curve, they are more alike than they are different.
The rest is fan-boy fanaticism.
Michael
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Yes, there are differences in overall image quality between these three or four cameras. One will do better in very low light, another in high contrast situations. One will have wider dynamic range, and other a bit more resolution. But give me the raw files from each camera shot at the same time of the same subject and 9 times out of 10 I'll make 16X20" prints in a few minutes that will have you scratching your head over which is which.
Could it be that 16x22 is not large enough to tell them apart?
Regards,
Bernard
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Bernard,
That's roughly a 300PPI print from a 24MP camera. Go bigger and the PPI drops, which will start to be noticeable eventually and therefore one will have a hard time ascribing whether the image decline is due to one factor or another.
20X30" brings us down to 200PPI and at this point while nice prints can be made I don't think that the print is able to resolve the micro detail that the image might have to display.
That's why I do my on-print comparisons at 16X20 for a 21-25 MP camera. For a 40MP file a 20X24" print us used, and my guess is that once I start working with 60MP files from the Phase One P65+ next week 30X40" prints are going to have to become the evaluation norm.
Michael
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The real differences come down to size, handling, lenses choices, features, support, cost etc. That's where the differences lie. Sure, one camera will have a slight edge in one extreeme performance area, and another in another. But on the main slope of the bell curve, they are more alike than they are different.
The rest is fan-boy fanaticism.
Michael
That sums it up very nicely, in 100 words or less, and for free.
Nuff said, but I'll toss this in:
Walk away from the computer and carry your blooming camera gear 10 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week, 12 months a year, and you'll rate gear differently than at the keyboard. There's a sincere difference between sufficient image quality for the need, and the weight of carrying something "better."
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Hi,
Sharpening may also play a role, it's not exactly easy to make two images with two different sensors and possibly different raw processing pipelines to yield identical gradation curves.
I would suggest that author of the original article severely overstated the tone of review he quoted. That review is still going on, BTW. I simply don't believe that we can reliably see small differences like 21 or 24 MPixel images, especially not if the images are optimally processed. Not that I'm a very experienced pixel peeper, but I know simple math.
Just as a note on the side, Mr. Chambers uses among other the Coastal Optics 60/4 APO macro lens in this test, probably the finest lens ever built for an SLR, with an almost 5000 USD price tag.
http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/Coas...60f4/index.html (http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/CoastalOptics60f4/index.html)
He uses live view for focusing and a lot of other precautions. He is very careful to point out that even if the Nikon beats the Canon on this test the margins are very small. Mr. Chambers also tested the Sony Alpha 900 with the 135/1.8 which also beat the Canon 1SsIII, with a small margin. Without live view exact focus was really hard to achieve on the Sony.
Things like exact focusing and a well working and easy to use MLU are probably far more important than a couple of MPixels. A good reason for Michael Reichmann to pick on Canon and Nikon to make a decent MLU.
Best regards
Erik
Bernard,
That's roughly a 300PPI print from a 24MP camera. Go bigger and the PPI drops, which will start to be noticeable eventually and therefore one will have a hard time ascribing whether the image decline is due to one factor or another.
20X30" brings us down to 200PPI and at this point while nice prints can be made I don't think that the print is able to resolve the micro detail that the image might have to display.
That's why I do my on-print comparisons at 16X20 for a 21-25 MP camera. For a 40MP file a 20X24" print us used, and my guess is that once I start working with 60MP files from the Phase One P65+ next week 30X40" prints are going to have to become the evaluation norm.
Michael
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Yes, there are differences in overall image quality between these three or four cameras. One will do better in very low light, another in high contrast situations. One will have wider dynamic range, and other a bit more resolution. But give me the raw files from each camera shot at the same time of the same subject and 9 times out of 10 I'll make 16X20" prints in a few minutes that will have you scratching your head over which is which. I've now done this little test so many times that people don't even come to the studio any more and pick up the challenge. They know that they'll end up buy the beer afterward almost every time.
Michael
Michael, I'm sure the majority of us look forward to your camera reviews because we know you'll give us that rare balance between the objective and subjective. Plus, you then have the guts to use the cameras you like! Your too honest- we're going to have to send some men in black vans for you...ok, after you get back from Antarctica.
In response to Mr. Zha, I don't think anyone doubts the excellence of the D3x, and it's great that Nikon has recaptured their former glory. Other-brand fanboys who had counted them out have been silenced. At least until another maker announces a camera with a slightly better sensor, in 6 months. And 6 months after that, Nikon trumps that sensor- ever-so-slightly, of course. The camera makers aren't stupid. They've hooked into our collective perfectionistic and keep-up-with-the-other-guy neurosis...they must feel like they've discovered the Alchemy of the Ancients: a way to turn silicon into Gold! (silly-CON?)
The only catch for Nikon and their D3x pricing is the world has changed over the past year, as we all know. No more easy credit, a market crash...did I mention housing and jobs? When that bubble popped, so did $8,000 dslrs. And that era isn't coming back, btw. I'm willing to bet Nikon and Canon can make plenty of profit from their flagship cameras even if they list them under $5k...which they will, and sooner than they think.
Meanwhile, I find myself lusting after an A900...not just for the sensor, but that beautiful viewfinder, and those darned nice Zeiss lenses...oh yes, and the in-body IS. See, just another willing victim of the Alchemists of Japan. Yet I'd much rather spend the $$ on an A900 system than a shrink.
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Sharpening plays not only a role but can be also the most crucial one, as I learned from Lloyd's D3 vs 1DsIII review a while ago, where the initial conclusion that the D3 images are abnormally soft to the pixel count was only bursted later from using a better RAW converter (RAW Developer, which again I have no connection to and paid for my copy) that happens to use a much better demosiasing algorithm than the ACR/LightRoom, and offers much better sharpening options, especially for the Nikon NEF files for us landscape photographers.
Michael has stated nicely that under the real world situation all the three new cameras performs very similarly, which I totally agree. However, Lloyd's test is interesting because of that he is using the best optics under the ideal conditions, and comparing different RAW conversion and sharpening options viewed at 200% pixel level to see the differences (sharpening in conversion and upsampling in Photoshop, or no sharpening in conversion and do both in Photoshop, or let the RAW converters do the upsampling, etc.). As well known, the popular ACR/LR RAW engine does not work very well to the NEF files, and going through about the worst route (ACR/LR sharpening, which is basically deconvolution based, and output 100%, Photoshop upsampling) results in much inferior LOOKING results at 200%, 100%, and 50% than the better route outcomes, such as doing capture sharpening in RAW Developer (RD) with the DoG (Differential of Gaussians) sharpening option with parameters like 0.27 radius, 350 amount, no noise reduction, and the sharpening NR at the minimum, and let RD output at near 200% (it has little bit advantage to use a non-interger factor here, for example, 193% for 24x36 at 300dpi for my 5DII files) followed very little bit of Smart Sharpening (0.3/100 for example) in Photoshop before the output sharpening(s). Only under all the ideal lab conditions, RAW conversion, and super pixel-peeping, can one possibly pick, or simply prefer from the personal taste, one 21-25MP DSLR above the others, from the overall looking, artifact level, sharpness/acutance, noise, and luminal and chroma noise spectral characters. And you can say the conclusions can be more personal preference or taste than hardcore science.
Anybody taking a look of my work sees that I am a perfectionist, but also a real world photographer not only a pixel peeper. However, I have seen enough fine prints from my peers and master printers of our age, most from scanned film, to question the today's printing quality standards from digital sources, since I trust my own eyes to easily pickiing up problems and artifacts most of the "fine art prints" the other people rave about, just as my ears to tell the 192KHz/24bit digital or LP source apart from the AP3 128kbps. It is correct that looking at not 100% but 50% in Photoshop tells more about the final print, but a lot of digital artifacts and the common over-sharpening sickness can be also readily picked up at 50%, if all is not carefully done. Nevertheless, looking at 200% does make thinks considerately easier, and the ultimate quality level one can passibly reach with the capture engine of choice.
Acutance is not the only thing that makes great prints. Even though Lloyd showed the D3x resolved nicely the 70 level on resolution chart against 1DsIII's struggling 60, that's what we expected from the pixel count and a weaker or possibly different kind of AA filter. However, it seems what fascinated both Lloyd and Dan was the looking and cleanness of the D3x RAW files when processed appropriately, which was the original purpose of my initial post. Just as in my comparisons I found the P45/P45+ backs do not offer really any higher pure resolution (Mamiya zoom optics in comparison with the best primes on the 21-25MP DSLR), but much smoother toner transitions that makes them highly attractive.
Sharpening may also play a role, it's not exactly easy to make two images with two different sensors and possibly different raw processing pipelines to yield identical gradation curves.
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Anybody taking a look of my work sees that I am a perfectionist, but also a real world photographer not only a pixel peeper.
That's for sure. I've visited your website many times. Your work is absolutely beautiful.
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The reason people think the price is crazy is because most are probably pixel peepers and internet experts who can only see the sensor. To them all that counts is the pixel count and/or high ISO performance. Hence for these people it is over priced. Heck, you can get almost the exact same thing from Sony and Canon right? Give it a year or so and we'll see the D3x-lite (sic) whatever it is called at a competitive price to the A900 etc.
I'm not a fanatical pixel peeper by any stretch of the imagination and certainly not a slave to the MP race. Yet I still thought it was a stupid price. I wouldn't have if it had been introduced 18months ago, it's the timing of the price.
I bought a 5D in preference to the 1DsII and bought an EOS-3 in preference to the EOS-1 as in both cases I bought the best camera for my [professional] needs, not just the most expensive model. The handling of the two cheaper cameras was also much better [for me] and I still miss the EOS-3's eye control autofocus - the main reason I bought it.
BTW everyone complained about the price of the Nikon 600mm F4 VR etc lenses. Now that demand has slowed, the price has dropped to the level of Canon equivalents, in the UK anyway. That's how the market works.
But Nikon seem to ignoring the changed/changing market, which is why people questioned their sanity. It seems to be just the fanbois that don't think the pricing is abit daft/arrogant.
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Edit - looking more closely at DigitalLoyds website who is quoted extensivley above - he says 'Buy a D3X by clicking on the link on my website for a free upgrade or some such to his subscription'. Any credibility or iimpartiality he may have had is effectivley naught seeing as he is pushing the camera to make money himself.
He basically said if anyone wants to buy the camera and does it through his site he will give them a free pass to the paid section of his site. I have seen many sites that do that. Hell, dpreview and others are worse than that. At least he is giving people who do want to get the camera a free item that they would not have gotten if they bought it straight from amazon. Places like David Busch's website links to amazon actually give better pricing than direct from amazon, I don't see how this detracts from the reviewers credibility. It gives them a chance to offer a better price to their readership than the retailer does right off. I won't complain about a chance to get a lower price.
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Considering how much printing lags behind camera resolution these days, exactly WHY do you need a 25MP camera? This is the question I ask my friends when they are shopping for the latest toy. With a typical 8 X 12 print in a normal Epson or similar printer, anything over about 10MP is just wasted pixels. The D3x? Roughly 11x17 at 400dpi dye sub(or inkjet equivalent) - and that's look at it 3-4 inches away quality. That's as large as anyone typically would hand-hold a photograph or oversized album. Mostly it'll get put on the wall where 200 or 300dpi would suffice. Larger than that certainly is going on a wall.
As such, it is caught between a hard place. True pros use larger formats(digital backs as a rule) and more pixels than that because they can afford to, and mostly, because they have the equipment to print large enough($5-10K+ on a large format printer). The average consumer won't touch something like that and will flock to the Sony or other systems as they are cheaper and are overkill for anything they will print at home.
This leaves the Nikon essentially with no market. Pros are using better equipment and home users can't afford it the software, printers, and other goodies to realize the quality of the D3x. Not when the camera itself blows their entire budget.
Oops.
Sales seem to back this up as well - the A900 is flying off the shelves as is the older D3.
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But Nikon seem to ignoring the changed/changing market, which is why people questioned their sanity. It seems to be just the fanbois that don't think the pricing is abit daft/arrogant.
I don't know how often this has to be repeated, but they are not ignoring the changing market. The Canon 1Ds3 has about the same RRP and targets the same market. Or are Canon arrogant too? Once demand slows (assuming it ever picked up), the price will drop as per the 1Ds3.
Camera makers have to make decisions years in advance. Many Canon users were angry at Canon when they saw the Nikon D3 appear. You can't please everyone. Wait a while, and you'll get your 'D700x'. You are going to buy one aren't you? Or are you just whining about a camera you would never buy anyway?
Anyway, how many people would buy a D700x (or whatever)? Not many is my guess. Apparently in Japan the best selling FX class camera is the Nikon D700 with 1% of the market. Yup, a whopping 1%. The real money is to be made on DX.
As for me, I'll upgrade when I can see a worthwhile advantage ...
BTW it is probably in Chambers' interest to write striking prose in his free 'blog'. That way he'll get people signing up to his paid site. After all, if he said "Well, I've reviewed Camera X, and pooey, it's pants" how many would sign up?
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Anyway, how many people would buy a D700x (or whatever)? Not many is my guess. Apparently in Japan the best selling FX class camera is the Nikon D700 with 1% of the market. Yup, a whopping 1%. The real money is to be made on DX.
That would depend on the price. In US dollars, lots of people would buy a "D700x" at $2000, a significant number of pros and enthusiasts wouldn't hesitate at $3000, and I and a few others would willingly fork out about $4000. I wonder what your 1% of the market is based on, only DSLRs or does it include P&S cameras? When I asked how much a "D700x" would be worth to people in the D3 and D300 forums at DPR, the respondents that had a number (typically around $3000) was about 54% compared to the 46% who said they were not interested at any price. Regardless of the percentage, there are tens of thousands that want a reasonably priced "D700x" from Nikon, and there's money and market share being left on the table, and the potential to lose converts to the other brands if Nikon doesn't redress this hole in their DSLR line-up.
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How many photographers can afford to change entire systems because one manufacturer has a new camera model with an incremental improvement? If I had unlimited money, I might change to a Sony rig now, because I like Zeiss glass. But I don't, so I have to prioritize my resources. That means I'm sticking with Canons for the forseeable future. Not because I think Canon is far superior to any other company, but because I started buying Canon stuff back in the early 80s, and now I have a lot of it. If Nikon came out with a new camera tomorrow that had 25MP, fantastic noise characteristics, and cost $1,000, I still wouldn't buy one, because I'd have to spend many thousands on new lenses, batteries, flashes, etc., etc.
It seems to me that this sort of debate is primarily useful to certain kinds of people:
1. People that don't own any digital system right now, and are looking to step into the DSLR world completely fresh
2. People who have some very specific imaging need and absolutely require the best currently available tool for that purpose
3. Those who can afford to buy expensive things they don't need
4. Those who make a living (at least partially) evaluating different kinds of camera gear (i.e. Michael)
A friend brough me a Nikon DSLR last week because she couldn't get it to work. It was a fine camera, but I was suprised at how different it feels from my Canons. I can't imagine wanting to inflict that kind of learning curve on myself. I'd hate to be in the field and screw up a great shot because I forgot that Nikon lenses turn the opposite direction or something. (And I did get that Nikon to work, by the way - just changed the battery and refreshed it to default settings.)
I'm not saying the reviews aren't worthwhile; in fact, I think it's fatastic that they're available. And I don't believe someone would be wrong to go after a different sytem than I did - I'm in the mirror lockup mafia after all. But I think cross-brand DLSR comparisons are pretty silly if you aren't in one of the 4 categories above. Anyone have reasoned diagreement with that?
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Here's my considered opinion. The differences are mouse nuts. What are mouse nuts, you ask? Very, very very small, I reply.
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Michael
Funniest thing I've read online in a while.
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That would depend on the price.
No shit Sherlock! Let's suggest a sensible price. In which case the price would be no less than for a D700, almost certainly higher.
I wonder what your 1% of the market is based on
I believe it to be DSLRs. Consumer DX cameras sell in much bigger quantities than pro-grade cameras. And for most amateurs the D700 is expensive.
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I am still every bit as enthused about the D3x after another week of shooting as I was when I wrote the initial post Leping quotes. One interesting fact I notice is that most of the most positive remarks I see about the D3x are from actual D3x users, while a lot of the negative comments are from folks who haven't actually used one. To be fair to the competition, I haven't shot the 1Ds mkIII extensively, nor the Alpha 900 (a few shots on each at PhotoPlus in lousy conditions at high ISO), so I cannot fairly compare my D3x to those two cameras (having seen large sample prints from the A900, it seems to have a bit more shadow noise than the D3x, but that could be the particular prints). I do have 10,000+ images on the 1Ds mkII (I switched to Nikon, rather than moving to the mkIII, in large part due to handling considerations - I have one hand, and Nikons are easier for me to use, so when Nikon made a high-resolution body, I switched), and can say with confidence that the D3x is in a completely different league with nearly twice (by eye) the total resolved detail of the mkII. 1.5x, I would expect from the increase in resolution alone, but the additional increase is from something different in the design, perhaps the low-pass filter, which Nikon has been boasting about. The only number I have on resolution is that Imaging Resource has published their test chart (although they haven't put a review out), and I can read about 3200 lines of strong detail (a little better than the Alpha and 1Ds III, which are around 2900, and a lot better than the 1Ds mkII at 2200 - which corroborates my eyeball estimate of twice the detail on paper - 3/2 the resolution in each direction would be 2.25x the total detail on a print, and 3200/2200 is a tiny bit under 3/2). I haven't yet seen any formal dynamic range numbers for the D3x, but I am seeing on the monitor and in print over a stop above what the 1Ds mkII could do in similar conditions - this would put it at least in the Alpha 900/D3 class of the best DSLRs made, possibly even half a stop better than that.
I've managed two more landscape shoots in the past week, in which the camera performed very well, as I expected. Perhaps the most exciting test I've performed was to borrow a 24x36 inch printer (HP Z3100) and make a print from a D3x image to that size. It held up beautifully to that extreme degree of enlargement, and my next major investment will be to move my maximum print size from 16x24 on a 17 inch printer up to 24x36. My figure of "roughly twice the print detail of a 1Ds mkII" comes from comparing the 24x36 inch D3x print at close range to a 16x24 1Ds mkII print and finding that the detail per square inch on the page is about the same (the D3x is actually a tiny bit better, which may come from superior tonality and DR), when the D3x is printing twice as large. Anyway, I'm as comfortable with 24x36 on the D3x as I was with 16x24 from the 1Ds mkII.
In addition to the 1Ds mkII and various lower resolution DSLRs, the other meaningful comparison I can make is to different sizes of scanned film. The D3x hugely eclipses 35mm Velvia scanned with any scanner I've ever used, but this is hardly a surprise - 6-10mp DSLRs routinely returned images that were superior to 35mm film scans, and the 1Ds mkII is certainly far superior to any 35mm scan I've ever seen. I am also quite clear that the D3x surpasses even medium-format scanned film (645 and 6x6). In pure detail, 6x9 cm Velvia scanned on a Super Coolscan 9000 is a very close comparison, but the grainless nature and superb tonality of the D3x image at ISO 100 would lead me to choose the D3x image as the better overall in almost every case. 4x5 film still has a visible advantage over the D3x, which is unsurprising given the huge difference in area.
The one caveat I have about the D3x is that, to get its full performance, you need to treat it as a 6x9 cm camera (since that is its film equivalent). Would you shoot 6x9 cm (or print 24x36 inches, no matter what the image originated on) without a tripod? The D3x sans tripod will perform at least as well as any lesser DSLR without a tripod (24.5 mp blurred by handholding is still better than 12 or 16 mp also blurred by handholding), but its full performance is achieved by handling it as a 6x9 camera - tripod-mounted, released with a cable or the self-timer, very carefully focused. Its depth of field is narrow (because the sharpest parts of the frame are so sharp, small differences in other areas are noticeable), and I will probably purchase a PC-E lens or two eventually to give myself another tool to increase DOF (the superb LCD and flexible live view will serve as a near equivalent to a ground glass).
-Dan
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I don't know how often this has to be repeated, but they are not ignoring the changing market. The Canon 1Ds3 has about the same RRP and targets the same market. Or are Canon arrogant too? Once demand slows (assuming it ever picked up), the price will drop as per the 1Ds3.
The RRP of the canon is not the issue as it was for when it first came out, which was a while ago.The current price of the 1DsII is - at present in the UK, the Nikon is about 25% more, which is a very big difference! And as the 5dII is as god as the 1DsIII and is even cheaper, demand and prices for the 1DsII will drop further. Also I'm not sure who the 3Dx's market is, as those photographers who needed high res cameras would have bought a Canon and lenses a while back. I'm guessing it's aimed more at dentists and lawyers who buy cameras and like Nikon.
Many Canon users were angry at Canon when they saw the Nikon D3 appear.
Why? it was far more expensive than the 5D and there was very little in it, most testers put them on level pegging on image quality. There wer obviously other differences. My and I think of many other's particulary Canon users' view was positive that Nikon had finally produced a camera to rival Canon's kit. As this meant the price of theirs would come down and now one finally had a choice if buying a full frame camera and didn't want ot use Canon.
Wait a while, and you'll get your 'D700x'. You are going to buy one aren't you? Or are you just whining about a camera you would never buy anyway?
Whether I intend to buy one or not is irrelevant to my thinking it's somewhat expensive. Michael Reichman who can easily afford one as part of this site's business, cancelled his order as he thought Nikon were simply extracting the urine. If I want a big bulky high res camera, I probably buy a Hasselblad rather than a 1DsIII or D3x.
Anyway, how many people would buy a D700x (or whatever)? Not many is my guess. Apparently in Japan the best selling FX class camera is the Nikon D700 with 1% of the market. Yup, a whopping 1%. The real money is to be made on DX.
Again, simply not relevant to price of D3x.
Plus 1% may not seem a lot, but in many markets that's a good percentage if you consider the no of items in the market. There are probably hundreds of cameras in the market place and the D700 is near the top of the DSLR market in price terms, so is obviously going to sell in small quantities compared to much cheaper cameras.
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(24.5 mp blurred by handholding is still better than 12 or 16 mp also blurred by handholding)
Somehow I doubt that, as the factor limiting detail will be the amount of blur, not the resolution. You just get more pixels in your blur!
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The RRP of the canon is not the issue as it was for when it first came out, which was a while ago.The current price of the 1DsII is - at present in the UK, the Nikon is about 25% more which is a very big difference!
Now they are within 10% of each other here in Japan.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Shows the RRP was somewhat optimistic.
I imagine the price will also drop quickly here once they become properly available.
If any are sold at all in the current economic cimate!
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This leaves the Nikon essentially with no market. Pros are using better equipment and home users can't afford it the software, printers, and other goodies to realize the quality of the D3x. Not when the camera itself blows their entire budget.
My god, I don't exist.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Here's my considered opinion. The differences are mouse nuts. What are mouse nuts, you ask? Very, very very small, I reply.
FINALLY! A topic I actually know something about! Mouse nuts are about the size of a pea in a weanling (3 weeks old) and about the size of a small jelly bean in an adult (8 weeks or older) male. So... compared to a pixel on a 50D sensor, or even the size of the buttons on the top of my aging 20D, mouse nuts are much much larger. hardly small at all, really. Also, the average mouse 'event' delivers about 1/10th the number of sperm as a human 'event', which is pretty impressive for an animal that weighs an ounce.
OK, back to pixels and raw converters and 12 vs 14 bits...
Ted
[attachment=10764:mousenut.jpg]
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FINALLY! A topic I actually know something about! Mouse nuts are about the size of a pea in a weanling (3 weeks old) and about the size of a small jelly bean in an adult (8 weeks or older) male. So... compared to a pixel on a 50D sensor, or even the size of the buttons on the top of my aging 20D, mouse nuts are much much larger. hardly small at all, really. Also, the average mouse 'event' delivers about 1/10th the number of sperm as a human 'event', which is pretty impressive for an animal that weighs an ounce.
OK, back to pixels and raw converters and 12 vs 14 bits...
Ted
[attachment=10764:mousenut.jpg]
Thank you.
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This leaves the Nikon essentially with no market. Pros are using better equipment and home users can't afford it the software, printers, and other goodies to realize the quality of the D3x. Not when the camera itself blows their entire budget.
pros are using better equipment?
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I have two D3x bodies sitting here in front of me that I've been testing along side a 5Dmk2 and a 1Dsmk3.
I've shot them all at ISO 100, in RAW mode on a tripod with mirror lockup.
I convert the Nikon RAW's in ViewNX and the Canon RAW's in Lightroom 2.2.
I then apply optimum sharpening in Photoshop for printing.
At print sizes up to 24"x36" you can see almost no difference between any of these cameras with proper technique.
This includes viewing the prints at a hypercritical distance of 10"-12".
The colors are a tad different, but I could match that in Photoshop if I care to.
I even went so far is to use the same Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 lens on all three to level the playing field.
If anyone is seeing a difference, IMO it is because the Nikkor optics are slightly better the the Canon optics.
I've seen claims that the new super RAW converters, which make ACR and Lightroom obsolete.
At low ISO, {100-200} on close examination I find some of the new boys must be adding a little sharpening in the conversion, even when the sharpen slider is set to zero. Add about USM 50-80, 0.3, 1 in Photoshop to the softer conversions and it all equals out.
I think any of these cameras properly used can replace 6x9 film.
Am I a qualified judge? The several hundred fine art prints I made for my fine art clients, sold last year in
galleries for somewhere in the six figure range in US dollars.
Yes, I even have degrees in both engineering and science, and I know mouse nuts when I see them, PHD not required.
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No shit Sherlock! Let's suggest a sensible price. In which case the price would be no less than for a D700, almost certainly higher.
That would be $2400 ($2320 last time I looked at B&H) and dropping here in the United States.
I believe it to be DSLRs. Consumer DX cameras sell in much bigger quantities than pro-grade cameras. And for most amateurs the D700 is expensive.
Why don't you post the actual numbers and what they are based on? What is the percentage of the leading DSLR? Is it 10%, or perhaps less. P&S cameras sell in much greater quantities than DSLRs, but that doesn't mean companies should just stop producing DSLRs (which is what your "logic" would lead us to), just as they should not stop producing FX format, or stall producing a reasonably priced high MP DSLR. A company like Nikon which wants to be competitive in all areas should be particularly concerned with the gaping hole they leave for Sony and Canon to fill, so I would say the reasonable price for a "D700x" would be $3000.
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That would be $2400 ($2320 last time I looked at B&H) and dropping here in the United States.
Why don't you post the actual numbers and what they are based on? What is the percentage of the leading DSLR? Is it 10%, or perhaps less.
I believe the numbers are taken from here http://nikonrumors.com/2008/12/31/not-done-yet.aspx (http://nikonrumors.com/2008/12/31/not-done-yet.aspx). The numbers should be taken in context of the country (Japan) and time period vs. camera introduction and availability (whole of 2008). Nevertheless they are telling of an obvious fact: Cheap cameras dominate the sales by a huge factor. Don't know about the reliability of these numbers, but people frequenting photo forums, be that LL or stuff like dpr, tend to forget that they are in a minority amongst camera users (even dSLR users).
Now regarding the D3x, any price discussion should take into consideration an assumption about what the manufacturer thinks the initial target (latent demand) market for the camera is for an expected miniscule market share (see above). I will tend to believe that Nikon have priced the camera at a price where they think they could sell to fulfill their perceived latent demand. Demand for a high resolution, high end dSLR. That's high-end pros and studios. Judging from the comments starting to surface on the net from high end pros, Nikon have done a good job at that.
Price is already dropping in various markets where initial demand has been fulfilled and the camera will stabilise for some time at the 1DSIII price levels. I expect this reduction is initially coming off retailers margins rather than Nikon themselves. $6000-$8000 is the natural price range for such cameras at this time, if you think about how much the lesser (body wise if nothing else) 5DII and A900 go for and how much an entry level MFDB goes for.
Why don't people complain about the price of MFDBs by the way? Do $30000 buy you that much more than $8000?
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Hi,
I would say that around 3000 USD would be OK for the D700x. Nikon tradition was that the X-models were slightly more expensive than the "non-X" models.
Regarding the prices we need to keep in mind that Nikon like almost any other company is in business for profit. The objective is to earn money, pay your employees and keep your shareholders happy. Keeping your customers happy is just a way to achieve the former.
If Nikon can sell all D3X they build at the present prices they simply maximize profits, nothing wrong with that. Problem is that your customers can be alienated when the competition offers similar technology at a significant lower price. There is a certain "customer lock in" situation as the customer normally owns a system, not just a camera.
My suggestion is that Nikon needs to get that D700X or what it will be called to the market ASAP, else there is a significant risk that they will loose customers.
Of course there may be other realities we are not aware of. Supply of the Sony FF-sensors may be low, some technology used in the D3X may be very expensive, or need extensive cooling, for instance.
Best regards
Erik
That would be $2400 ($2320 last time I looked at B&H) and dropping here in the United States.
Why don't you post the actual numbers and what they are based on? What is the percentage of the leading DSLR? Is it 10%, or perhaps less. P&S cameras sell in much greater quantities than DSLRs, but that doesn't mean companies should just stop producing DSLRs (which is what your "logic" would lead us to), just as they should not stop producing FX format, or stall producing a reasonably priced high MP DSLR. A company like Nikon which wants to be competitive in all areas should be particularly concerned with the gaping hole they leave for Sony and Canon to fill, so I would say the reasonable price for a "D700x" would be $3000.
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Considering how much printing lags behind camera resolution these days, exactly WHY do you need a 25MP camera? This is the question I ask my friends when they are shopping for the latest toy. With a typical 8 X 12 print in a normal Epson or similar printer, anything over about 10MP is just wasted pixels.
Right, but if you aim to make gallery sized prints - i.e. A3, A2, A1 then the higher pixel count is immediately obvious.
Anyway, the differences in image quality between the high MP DSLR cameras may be relatively small to some (just as the difference between a G10 compact digital camera and a Hasselblad with digital back is to the owner of this site), and not at all to others.
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I just want to say that my original post was not personal to you Leping.
I can see why you would be excited about the technical aspects of the review, with your background, and for sure they have their place and should be done. I like the technology too. However, there are reasons I posted the caustic post that I did. I won't go over them because as you can see, the rest of the posters pretty much covered it.
True, there isn't anything wrong buying technical reviews, if you're you or Micheal. But there are other things more important after the fact of white paper analysis. 24MP out resolves 23.99MP, yeah duh? I think Micheal's post underlines this point, but I would exchange "mouse nuts" with "tick terds." What maters is the end result, or the possible end result.
Are you saying that the reviews are showing that no matter what post processing you do, the D3X files will be "better."
I also think it's a fallacy--and I'm not saying you made this mistake--to say that the "camera" is superior. It's not the camera, it's the electronics (CPU) in it + the lens used + post processing, which is the software after the fact. If the review states that JPG quality is "better" and here is why, x, y, z (e.g., w/o any post processing) then that is saying something.
Again, I respect your academic achievements and do not discount them (My parents were both highly educated and I've always respected intellectuals, not because they are intellectual, but because dammit they have something to say that most people don't, and they say it for a reason!). I also respect your photographic ability, not because other people say it's great, but because I have enough brain power to immediately see where I stand in comparison to what I call "real" professionals, which has nothing to do with income generation.
And I can see you were excited about the "physics" which is to say science of the review, and you were just passing that exuberance along.
For me the initial post was annoying, but I can now see where you are coming from for sure, which is not to say I agree with some of your post explanations--and I'm not taking to tasks any of the good physics that are in the reviews, they is what they is.
Your initial post It struck me as spam, again, for the reasons covered well enough by the posters.
Let's be friends!
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If there is practically no difference between the 1Ds mkIII and the D3X then that in essence means that Nikon have released 1.5 year old technology for the price that the technology was when it was brand new. Saying that the 1Ds mkIII cost the same when it was new is ignoring the fact that in 2009 a 20+ megapixel pro DSLR is worth $6500 not $8000. It was worth $8000 - one and a half years ago when Nikon were still sleeping. That amount of time is a huge gap in terms of technology, imagine if computer hardware manufacturers were to bring out 1.5 year old technology at cutting edge prices, they'd be laughed out of the market. The only reason Nikon have been able to do this is due to it's customer base locked into its system and that is taking exactly the wrong leaf out of canons book.
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I've shot them all at ISO 100, in RAW mode on a tripod with mirror lockup.
I convert the Nikon RAW's in ViewNX and the Canon RAW's in Lightroom 2.2.
If the intend is to extract the best possible detail from your D3x files, then you might want to try using Raw Developper 1.8.2, using DoG sharpening method with 0.10, 0.27 and 350 settings.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Well, I feel that people tend to look at gaps differently depending on what they are looking at... on the one hand all DSLRs are supposed to be the same, but on the other hand a 22MP MFDB is supposed to be way better.
My view is that there is probably less gap between a 22MP MFDB and D3x, than there is between a D3x and a 1ds3.
Cheers,
Bernard
Like you said above, the end result is in camera processing and the post processing. I assume the two sensors are not at all too different, except that Nikon doesn't make the D3X chip, Sony does. It's an A900 chip with Nikon electronic wizardry. It's a great camera for sure, but it ain't all Nikon, and that's for sure too. Sony even assembled the chip it. It's a Nisony. That's not bad, but that means Nikon is limited to what Sony can and is willing to do in the future with their FF Sensors.
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.............................Nikon is limited to what Sony can and is willing to do in the future with their FF Sensors.
That would be based on assumption that Nikon can acquire their sensors ONLY from Sony. They can outsource the sensors from any of many sensor manufacturers. I am sure Kodak & Dalsa will work with them as lots of people are predicting demise of M.F backs, while Canon can only do in house sensor manufacturing process. There is something called "Peter Principle" that WILL come into play. Look at the fast turnaround by Hasselblad from film to digital since they out sourced & outsourcing IS today's norm, isn't it?
Personally I believe Canon has reached the plateau of their R&D capabilities of ever expanding capabilites of sensor manufacturing, so I pressume (see Peter Principle). Also see the increase in profit of Nikon in 2008 & their next month's increase in prices in Australia & UK. I am glad you bought 1DsMk..., very good camera, but so is D3X. I almost bought one yesterday for lot less than list at a local store & they had one in stock.
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I assume the two sensors are not at all too different, except that Nikon doesn't make the D3X chip, Sony does.
Outourcing chip fabrication is normal. In fact having two source protects you against e.g. a fire in one fab.
It's an A900 chip with Nikon electronic wizardry.
Pure speculation on your part. We know that Sony had SOME input in the design. That's all we know.
It's a great camera for sure, but it ain't all Nikon, and that's for sure too.
You think Canon design and manufacture everything in their camera? They don't.
Sony even assembled the chip it. It's a Nisony.
See earlier.
That's not bad, but that means Nikon is limited to what Sony can and is willing to do in the future with their FF Sensors.
Pure speculation on your part.
What makes you think that Nikon haven't had key input to the design of the chip? After all, the D3 chip is 'pure' Nikon. People assume that Sony have Nikon by the nadgers. But it could be more of a symbiosis, Nikon chip design expertise, Sony fabrication and electronics expertise. Pure speculation on my part. But just as (un)likely as yours.
That's the problem with the inter-porn-net-web. It's full of people making statements with 100% certainty but which cannot be substantiated. Remember the Nikon MX camera that was a dead cert? Even the PC-E lenses were used as evidence by the experts.
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If there is practically no difference between the 1Ds mkIII and the D3X then that in essence means that Nikon have released 1.5 year old technology for the price that the technology was when it was brand new. Saying that the 1Ds mkIII cost the same when it was new is ignoring the fact that in 2009 a 20+ megapixel pro DSLR is worth $6500 not $8000. It was worth $8000 - one and a half years ago when Nikon were still sleeping. That amount of time is a huge gap in terms of technology, imagine if computer hardware manufacturers were to bring out 1.5 year old technology at cutting edge prices, they'd be laughed out of the market. The only reason Nikon have been able to do this is due to it's customer base locked into its system and that is taking exactly the wrong leaf out of canons book.
A product is worth what people will pay. And for a pro-grade camera that is largely dependent on the income stream that it can generate. The new VR telephotos were high priced for months, and have recently come down to 'sensible' levels. I thought the D300 was overpriced for ages. But it sold. And made lots of readies for Nikon.
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Shows the RRP was somewhat optimistic.
I imagine the price will also drop quickly here once they become properly available.
If any are sold at all in the current economic cimate!
It just been announced that the prices of Canikons may go up by 20% in the UK due to currency differences!
20% more!! As if it wasn't the most expensivce place to buy stuff anyway. Funny how stuff never goes down when currency moves the other way.
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[quote name='BernardLanguillier' date='Jan 6 2009, 05:02 AM' post='249912']
If the intend is to extract the best possible detail from your D3x files, then you might want to try using Raw Developper 1.8.2, using DoG sharpening method with 0.10, 0.27 and 350 settings.
Bernard, what is the DoG sharpening, I'm demoing the software right now and using the Hybrid method!
thank you in advance!
am
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…Bernard, what is the DoG sharpening, I'm demoing the software right now and using the Hybrid method!
thank you in advance!
am
It's one of the methods of sharpening offered by RAW Developer. Go to the SharpNR tab panel and there's is a menu "Method".
Edit: From RAW Developer Help:The DoG sharpening option uses the Difference of Gaussians algorithm and provides controls for Noise Reduction Radius, Sharpening Radius and Amount. Difference of Gaussians can be effective in increasing edge sharpness with noisy images without significantly enhancing the overall noise level. This technique is somewhat similar to that used by the Hybrid Sharpen option, but offers a little more flexibility in adjustments. When Noise Reduction Radius is set to the minimum value DoG will give results nearly identical to Unsharp Mask. Increasing the Noise Reduction Radius will reduce the effect of noise on the sharpened image. The Sharpening Radius value should always be larger than the Noise Reduction Radius. With a Sharpening Radius roughly equal to 1.7x the Noise Reduction Radius Difference of Gaussians will approximate a Laplacian of Gaussian filter (another edge enhancing technique).
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It's one of the methods of sharpening offered by RAW Developer. Go to the SharpNR tab panel and there's is a menu "Method".
Francois: thanks
I've seen it, I was more interested on why it maybe superior to the other methods and what "DoG" stands for....
am
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Francois: thanks
I've seen it, I was more interested on why it maybe superior to the other methods and what "DoG" stands for....
am
I edited my previous post to include the description.
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Thanks again
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Slough, Nikon came right out an said it was a Sony chip, and nearly all evidence points to it being the A900 sensor with different CFA and AA filter. These differences alone would make an impact, and adding Nikon's processing path adds even more. Regardless, like was mentioned earlier, Nikon has the freedom to use whomever they wish for their sensors, and currently using Sony is no big deal.
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Slough, Nikon came right out an said it was a Sony chip, and nearly all evidence points to it being the A900 sensor with different CFA and AA filter. These differences alone would make an impact, and adding Nikon's processing path adds even more. Regardless, like was mentioned earlier, Nikon has the freedom to use whomever they wish for their sensors, and currently using Sony is no big deal.
No, they haven't. They have said it is unique to the D3x. And they have indicated involvement with Sony. And they have said that it is fabricated by Sony. Anything more is supposition.
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Hi dwdallam,
Sorry I just had the moment to check and read your comments.
Of course I am not taking things personal, and we are all friends in this forum to try to communicate what we thought we know and what we want to learn and exchange, and friends from different background and experiences always have different opinions so that the forums are not monotonic.
As you see I only try to raise the attention to what the D3x users, the pioneers, were initially reporting, since some of the most interesting reports were not posted to this forum or unknown to many who might be interested.
Thank you for your kind words and let's be friends.
Best regards,
Leping
I just want to say that my original post was not personal to you Leping.
Your initial post It struck me as spam, again, for the reasons covered well enough by the posters.
Let's be friends!
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The real differences come down to size, handling, lenses choices, features, support, cost etc. That's where the differences lie.
Michael
Thanks for keeping it real Mr. LL. On that note, how do the large (2x3') prints from these cameras compare to those you have made from film?
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Bernard, what is the DoG sharpening, I'm demoing the software right now and using the Hybrid method!
thank you in advance!
am
RD offers 4 possible sharpening methods, among which DoG works best for me.
Cheers,
Bernard
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That would be based on assumption that Nikon can acquire their sensors ONLY from Sony. They can outsource the sensors from any of many sensor manufacturers. I am sure Kodak & Dalsa will work with them as lots of people are predicting demise of M.F backs
My money is on Fuji and Sigma(doubly so since they recently bought Foveon outright). MF DBs are going to have a rude awakening in another year or two. Of course, this is always a good thing. Competition always creates more toys for us consumers
Edit - and about the price, yes, the real pros who do studio and industry usually just get a DB and shoot that if they have tons of money. The semi-pros are more price conscious, as well as the guys doing work for magazines and newspapers and the like all aren't going to spend $8000. Or more likely, their bosses won't cough up the cash when they see the Canon 5DII with nearly the same specs on paper/in the advertisement for less than half the price. 21MP for $2500 versus 25MP for $8000... try to get that past the boss...
I guess the only exception would be the guy with tons of money in lenses who feels that he has to stay with Nikon. $5500 buys a lot of lenses, and that's not counting what the Nikon lenses would sell for used... In fact, you might actually make a profit by upgrading to the Canon and selling the Nikon gear.
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Hi,
I would say that around 3000 USD would be OK for the D700x.
The D700x, if introduced this year, will most probably carry an introductory price in the range of $3500-$4000. In any case, its introductory price will be higher than the 5DII or A900 introductory prices. I also predict that people will be furious then because, at the time, both the Canon and the Sony will have street prices significantly less than their manufacturer recommended prices. Thus, the apparent gap between the price of the D700x and those cameras will be viewed as large.
People should realize that most of the reductions in street price for cameras in the early months of their availability tend to come out of dealers pockets rather than the manufacturers.
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The D700x, if introduced this year, will most probably carry an introductory price in the range of $3500-$4000. In any case, its introductory price will be higher than the 5DII or A900 introductory prices. I also predict that people will be furious then because, at the time, both the Canon and the Sony will have street prices significantly less than their manufacturer recommended prices. Thus, the apparent gap between the price of the D700x and those cameras will be viewed as large.
Then Nikon should hurry up and introduce it.
People should realize that most of the reductions in street price for cameras in the early months of their availability tend to come out of dealers pockets rather than the manufacturers.
Not just in the early months.
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Personally I believe Canon has reached the plateau of their R&D capabilities of ever expanding capabilites of sensor manufacturing,
Why would you ever assume that? Canon can hire and fire whomever they want for fresh ideas, if they indeed have hit an intellectual wall, which I seriously doubt. When you outsource, you can't always control your quality the same as you can when you do it yourself. The point is that Nikon is now dependent on Sony, for now, while Canon is dependent on no one but Canon, for the same type of production.
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Outourcing chip fabrication is normal. In fact having two source protects you against e.g. a fire in one fab.
Pure speculation on your part. We know that Sony had SOME input in the design. That's all we know.
You think Canon design and manufacture everything in their camera? They don't.
See earlier.
Pure speculation on your part.
What makes you think that Nikon haven't had key input to the design of the chip? After all, the D3 chip is 'pure' Nikon. People assume that Sony have Nikon by the nadgers. But it could be more of a symbiosis, Nikon chip design expertise, Sony fabrication and electronics expertise. Pure speculation on my part. But just as (un)likely as yours.
That's the problem with the inter-porn-net-web. It's full of people making statements with 100% certainty but which cannot be substantiated. Remember the Nikon MX camera that was a dead cert? Even the PC-E lenses were used as evidence by the experts.
It's similar to but not the A900 chip, but it IS manufactured by Sony:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_pag...cid=7-9318-9761 (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-9318-9761)
"While it's acknowledged that Nikon uses image sensors principally designed by Sony in many of its digital SLRs past and present, the D3X's sensor was described in a recent briefing by Nikon USA's Silverman as an "original Nikon design" that does not and will not appear in cameras from other digital SLR manufacturers. In addition, Nikon issued the following response to the questions they received from us and others about the D3X imager's roots:
The Nikon D3X’s 24.5-megapixel FX-format (35.9 x 24.0mm) CMOS sensor was developed expressly for the D3X in accordance with Nikon’s stringent engineering requirements and performance standards, with final production executed by Sony. Featuring refined low-noise characteristics, 12 and 14 bit output, Live View capability and more, the D3X’s unique sensor design was carefully blueprinted to perform in perfect concert with proprietary Nikon technologies including EXPEED Image Processing and the Scene Recognition System. Meticulous efforts allowed the sensor to become one of the many essential components and technologies which contribute to the D3X’s superior image fidelity."
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No, they haven't. They have said it is unique to the D3x. And they have indicated involvement with Sony. And they have said that it is fabricated by Sony. Anything more is supposition.
Yep, it's MADE in Sony plant. It was designed by Nikon. But from my other post you can see it is very similar to the Sony chip. According to my other post showing you the link, Nikon has been using Sony as a chip maker for some time. That's not a bad thing. Sony has decades in the sensor business, and I'm sure their plants are up to task. It's just a fact: Sony manufactures Nikon chips and Canon manufactures Canon chips. Neither method is better or worse, necessarily.
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dwdallam: Thanks, I knew that information from Nikon was somewhere.
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Nikon has cleverly worded the D3x sensor scenario in that simply changing the AA and CFA would make the sensor "exclusive." Lets be a little realistic here. What are the odds that a D3x sensor that is exactly the same size as A900's, has the same unusual on chip A/Ds as the A900, and is made by the same company as the A900, is not the same silicon? Heck, even the actual pics of the sensors look identical. LOL. Now clearly the A900 and D3x have different output due to filter differences and processing, and each has it's strengths and weaknesses, but they are clearly closely related. I could get into the idea of Nikon resampling the camera's 12bit output to get 14bits, but I'll leave that to the tech guys
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Who cares?
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Who cares?
Exactly.
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Hi,
There may be some significant differences between Nikon's and Sony's sensors even if they use the same chip. The color filter array may be somewhat different. It's pausible that Nikon and Sony would prefer different spectral transmission characteristics. The other obvious difference is that Sony has on chip AD-converters (12 bit) and Nikon uses a few auxilary 14 bit AD converters AFAIK.
Erik
Nikon has cleverly worded the D3x sensor scenario in that simply changing the AA and CFA would make the sensor "exclusive." Lets be a little realistic here. What are the odds that a D3x sensor that is exactly the same size as A900's, has the same unusual on chip A/Ds as the A900, and is made by the same company as the A900, is not the same silicon? Heck, even the actual pics of the sensors look identical. LOL. Now clearly the A900 and D3x have different output due to filter differences and processing, and each has it's strengths and weaknesses, but they are clearly closely related. I could get into the idea of Nikon resampling the camera's 12bit output to get 14bits, but I'll leave that to the tech guys
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Hi,
There may be some significant differences between Nikon's and Sony's sensors even if they use the same chip. The color filter array may be somewhat different. It's pausible that Nikon and Sony would prefer different spectral transmission characteristics. The other obvious difference is that Sony has on chip AD-converters (12 bit) and Nikon uses a few auxilary 14 bit AD converters AFAIK.
Erik
I agree that there are still differences outside of the sensor itself, and that's why I mentioned the color filter in my post (CFA.) According to the Nikon website, the D3x A/D converters are on-chip, which is unique to Sony sensors. The real question is how they are attaining 14bits, which looks to be a matter of resampling (and thus slowing down fps,) but it's not known.
As far as the "who cares?" post, I agree. I'm not sure why so many Nikon users are reluctant to believe the D3x chip is a Sony. Sony has been in digital imaging as long as anyone, and is certainly capable.
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What makes me very happy is that my 1dsMk3 is going to stay current for at least another year or maybe two years. The quality is just amazing and there is no reason on earth to upgrade. In this economy it makes perfect sense to stay put. $8000.00 price point is a thing of the past and might be one that 2 1/4 systems will have to take. Canon and Nikon will have to come up with new technology, larger sensors or a lower price point to make me jump to a new body.
Dennis
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I also think it's a fallacy--and I'm not saying you made this mistake--to say that the "camera" is superior. It's not the camera, it's the electronics (CPU) in it + the lens used + post processing, which is the software after the fact. If the review states that JPG quality is "better" and here is why, x, y, z (e.g., w/o any post processing) then that is saying something.
A part of it may be due to the antialiasing filter - which is hardware. If the same or better algorithms than what Nikon use in their camera and Capture NX2 are not available elsewhere, does it really matter whether the quality is achieved in hardware or software - in either case it isn't available with other hardware. And even in the future, if Adobe catches up to Nikon's algorithms for raw conversion etc. they won't be tailor made to Nikon's optics (lenses, microlenses, and AA filter) so you have to spend time finding the right settings. I've never been able to obtain NX2 quality out of D3 NEF files shot at high ISO using ACR ... you can get lower noise but at far greater compromise to detail and vice versa. And finding the parameters which result in natural results using ACR is a royal pain whereas NX2 does it out of the box with minimal tweaking. This is because it's designed for Nikon's cameras and their optics, whereas ACR is generic.
Any interesting comparison of noise or detail needs to include both parameters as you can always trade off one for the other by a choice of parameters. And it should be made with the best raw converter available - which is the manufacturer's code usually. It really shows best when shooting and processing portrait images - as they have some fine detail, some relatively smooth areas, and the subject is 3D. The natural appearance of shadows and highlights, and the overall appearance of the image IMO comes out better with NX2. The general consensus seems to agree with me though some claim that it's just a question of parameters. IMO it is not. Software should be optimized to the hardware to provide optimum results. This is a generic principle of imaging systems.
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As far as the "who cares?" post, I agree. I'm not sure why so many Nikon users are reluctant to believe the D3x chip is a Sony. Sony has been in digital imaging as long as anyone, and is certainly capable.
Because you seem to be making assertions without proof. If you want to say "I think the chips excluding the cover-plate and AA filter are the same" fair enough. But if you say "They are the same" and provide only hand waving arguments, well, I'll refrain from drawing a conclusion.
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Because you seem to be making assertions without proof. If you want to say "I think the chips excluding the cover-plate and AA filter are the same" fair enough. But if you say "They are the same" and provide only hand waving arguments, well, I'll refrain from drawing a conclusion.
Maybe I worded things incorrectly, because I was typing quickly on my danged cell phone. Sorry What I'm saying is exactly that, and I don't mean to imply more. I think the chips of the D3x and A900 are the same, with different CFA, AA, and an unknown special sauce for 14 bits, which leads to a different output than the A900. That being said, I wouldn't say one is superior to the other. A few dual users, like Iliah Borg, have shown that each camera has it's own IQ positives and negatives, depending on the situation, and I guess that's an appropriate thing to mention, considering the title of this thread.
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Maybe I worded things incorrectly, because I was typing quickly on my danged cell phone.
Your wording was just fine, fairly precise. I think Slough was reading more into your statements than what was really there.
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Nikon has cleverly worded the D3x sensor scenario in that simply changing the AA and CFA would make the sensor "exclusive." Lets be a little realistic here. What are the odds that a D3x sensor that is exactly the same size as A900's, has the same unusual on chip A/Ds as the A900, and is made by the same company as the A900, is not the same silicon? Heck, even the actual pics of the sensors look identical. LOL. Now clearly the A900 and D3x have different output due to filter differences and processing, and each has it's strengths and weaknesses, but they are clearly closely related. I could get into the idea of Nikon resampling the camera's 12bit output to get 14bits, but I'll leave that to the tech guys
Nikon did the same there as they did with the D300 vs the A700. Same chip with different hardware attached for 14 bit, custom "Gapless microlens", etc.
A900 & D3x
http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/04/16/n...el-sensor-leak/ (http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/04/16/nikon-d3x-244-megapixel-sensor-leak/)
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/20...010E/index.html (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200801/08-010E/index.html)
A700 & D300
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/20...072E/index.html (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200708/07-072E/index.html)
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/...conductor/2007/ (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/Semiconductor/2007/)
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Nikon press statement, yes its a sony.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_p...cid=7-9319-9802 (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9319-9802)
look at these pictures of the chips side by side (scroll down the reviews).
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3X/D3XA.HTM (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3X/D3XA.HTM)
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900A.HTM (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900A.HTM)
They are identical.
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If someone or some test said something like, "The D3X is capable of capturing detail that the 1DS3 cannot produce, no matter what post processing you use"--now you have my attention. That is saying something substantial, although the extra detail the DX3 does produce may be tick terds in any real test, such as large printing. But it would still be saying something not so general or ethereal.
I wonder why one poster thinks the DS3 will be around for another year and maybe two? I'll bet it's gone with spring when Canon announces their new 1DS4 model at 25+MPs. There is no way Canon is going sit around and have the top end line suck second to Nikon, not even in pixels. Canon hasn't even worked on the 1DS3 anymore as far as firmware or anything else, plus the 1D model was from what I've read, a disappointment. Canon has some catching up to do.
And look what we have here:
AMAZON:
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
List Price: $7,999.00
Price: $6,549.88
You Save: $1,449.12 (18%)
Nice, I just lost 1500.00 dollars in less than a year. I actually lost more than that, because if that price hadn't dropped so radically, I could have probably gotten 6500 for it today, if the Nikon hadn't forced the price down.
This is good though. The next Canon flag ship may open at 8000, if it equals or betters the D3X. But it won't stay that way for long because people will say, hmmm, Nikon, good, Canon good, Nikon 6000, Canon 8000, Nikon good. Same thing that Canon is trying to do right now--keep people from moving or initially going to Nikon by dropping their prices 1500.00US You buy the 1DS3 and you have enough to buy a 70-200MM lens too. Nice. Or, Canon 1DS3 with Canon 70-200mmL IS 8000. NICE deal!
The way, and this is all speculation on my part, but somewhat educated in this game, I see it is that right about the time Canon was getting ready to release the 1D3 and 1DS3, they had this vision that Nikon was about to steal their prize. So they hurried to market the 1DS and 1DS3, and immediately started working on the updates for those two cameras. They probably found out about one year before they were going to release the 1DS and DS3 that Nikon was planning to knock their blocks off with a 24MP FF camera that would out resolve and have less noise and higher ISO. Canon got lucky--they got both the 1DS3 and the 5DMKII out before the release of the D3X. They got very lucky indeed, even though the 5D2 would probably gone over well anyway, since Nikon has nothing to compete with in that area, especially price wise. Canon was very savvy.
I think we'll see the release of a 30sih MP 1DS4 this spring. Can you imagine that? I mean have you thought about that? Canon not only reclaims the high end FF market share--given that the quality is up to task--but also begins to REALLY bring in the medium format people over to FF. So Canon not only gets back it's top position from FF people, but the MF people start buying the new Canon too. At that point, unless MF has something that you just gotta have, MF is in trouble big time, and Canon is there to lick up the profit. I jsut wish Canon's felt as good in my hand as the Nikons. Am I the only one who "feels" that advantage from Nikon?
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Nikon press statement, yes its a sony.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_p...cid=7-9319-9802 (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9319-9802)
look at these pictures of the chips side by side (scroll down the reviews).
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3X/D3XA.HTM (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3X/D3XA.HTM)
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900A.HTM (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900A.HTM)
They are identical.
It's not really a Sony from what I have been able to dig up. It's designed by Nikon. The specs are from Nikon., The pixel pitch is different than the Sony A900 chip and slightly different size too. Pretty much they just said, "Hey, we want one like this, can you make it, good, deal? It's still Nikon technology, just made in a Sony fab plant.
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Same thing that Canon is trying to do right now--keep people from moving or initially going to Nikon by dropping their prices 1500.00US
How many times must this be said to register? Canon (or Nikon) do not do most of the price reduction. Dealers and to a lesser extent the local distributors (i.e. the market) is doing it by lowering their margins. At least this is what industry watchers are maintaining. Does it make a difference? Well, yes in the context of these fairly useless discussions cum speculations, no if you're making your research as a prospective buyer.
Both Canon and Nikon have repeatedly shown they don't want a price war. You can only judge manufacturer pricing by RRP prices at introduction. Anything other than that and you end up making judgement errors since you discount the effect of the elasticity of margins down the supply chain. Also, as of now, because of the very volatile exchange rate markets, the best comparative indicator is to look at the Yen price and not the prices in $, Euro or other currency markets.
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How many times must this be said to register? Canon (or Nikon) do not do most of the price reduction. Dealers and to a lesser extent the local distributors (i.e. the market) is doing it by lowering their margins. At least this is what industry watchers are maintaining. Does it make a difference? Well, yes in the context of these fairly useless discussions cum speculations, no if you're making your research as a prospective buyer.
Both Canon and Nikon have repeatedly shown they don't want a price war. You can only judge manufacturer pricing by RRP prices at introduction. Anything other than that and you end up making judgement errors since you discount the effect of the elasticity of margins down the supply chain. Also, as of now, because of the very volatile exchange rate markets, the best comparative indicator is to look at the Yen price and not the prices in $, Euro or other currency markets.
So what %age are they making then on the 1DS3? 1500 price drop from 8000 assuming a 30% profit margin is pretty drastic. That's almost 19% profit they just lost.
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Maybe I worded things incorrectly, because I was typing quickly on my danged cell phone. Sorry What I'm saying is exactly that, and I don't mean to imply more. I think the chips of the D3x and A900 are the same, with different CFA, AA, and an unknown special sauce for 14 bits, which leads to a different output than the A900. That being said, I wouldn't say one is superior to the other. A few dual users, like Iliah Borg, have shown that each camera has it's own IQ positives and negatives, depending on the situation, and I guess that's an appropriate thing to mention, considering the title of this thread.
No problem, and you might be right. We don't know.
One way that manufacturers sometimes work is to have the same hardware for multiple products, but only the top end product uses all of the features. It's often cheaper due to economies of scale to produce twice as much of the nominally more expensive to make hardware, than making two different pieces of hardware with relatively small differences. So it could be that the chip is pretty much the same (subject to the AA filter, microlenses etc. as you mention) but that there are features used by Nikon alone due to licensing i.e. Nikon allows Sony access to some of its design expertise, but not all. Pure speculation on my part of course. And largely sterile, since all we care about is the price and the functionality.
And MR has shown that in terms of IQ alone the two cameras (A900 and D3x) are pretty damned close in IQ. But that is not what differentiates them. As to the post that started this thread, well, even as a Nikon user I feel it has over-egged the pudding somewhat.
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The differences between the A900 and D3X raw output are sufficiently different that it is highly unlikely that the changes are only due to different CFA and low-pass filters.
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How many times must this be said to register? Canon (or Nikon) do not do most of the price reduction. Dealers and to a lesser extent the local distributors (i.e. the market) is doing it by lowering their margins. At least this is what industry watchers are maintaining. Does it make a difference? Well, yes in the context of these fairly useless discussions cum speculations, no if you're making your research as a prospective buyer.
I am not sure if that's true. I just bought a Canon body and lens and when I registered my products online, Canon automatically emailed me a 15% discount coupon for my next lens purchase from their e-store.
When I asked B&H about their pricing on the Nikon D300, and why the price went up a bit when before it was down, B&H told me Nikon sets the price they (B&H) can advertise the camera for ... so I think there very much IS manufacturer control and dictation of what any dealer can advertise the company's products for.
My understanding is it's the advertised price that is controlled, but that (in private) a dealer can sell the camera for what he wants. But he is forced to keep the advertised (seen-by-the-public) price within very strict parameters.
Jack
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The differences between the A900 and D3X raw output are sufficiently different that it is highly unlikely that the changes are only due to different CFA and low-pass filters.
Are you talking in terms of color, tonality, resolution, noise or what? I know that one major problem for the A900 is it's gaining up. The D3x leaves it behind in noise after ISO 800, and part of what's to blame may be Sony's amps. Non-A900 users would be surprised at how much better noise perfeomance is on the A900 if say, rather than shooting ISO 1600 at f4 1/200 for some scene, you shoot f4 1/200 and lower the ISO to 100 and then boost the exposure in a good RAW program (ie not ACR or IDC.)
IMO, the differences Ive seen so far between the A900 and D3x could be down to CFA, AA, Nikons processing and non sensor hardware differences, but I'm not betting on it Itll be interesting to see if the expected Sony firmware upgrade narrows any differences, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on what one shoots.
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....
I wonder why one poster thinks the DS3 will be around for another year and maybe two? I'll bet it's gone with spring when Canon announces their new 1DS4 model at 25+MPs. There is no way Canon is going sit around and have the top end line suck second to Nikon, not even in pixels. Canon hasn't even worked on the 1DS3 anymore as far as firmware or anything else, plus the 1D model was from what I've read, a disappointment. Canon has some catching up to do.
......
I think we'll see the release of a 30sih MP 1DS4 this spring.
......
I have been tracking the release date and number of pixels/sensor on Canon DSLRs for some time. Here's the latest snapshot. I'll add Sony and Nikon to it at some point. If Canon hold to their current 1DSx release frequency we won't see a new version until 2010 and it will be ~28MP. It could well be that Sony will force a change from Canon's normal cycle, but I'm in the semiconductor manufacturing business and although I'm obviously not privy to Sony's turn around time from design to final qual of a new chip I can say that it's measured in 10's of months. If they figured out that Nikon had a 1ds3 breaker any time in 2008 and decided to change their design in response, I hardly see a 1ds4 coming out any time in 2009. Based on the design teams I've worked with, and the observation of when Canon released the 1ds1, 2 and 3 I figure that as soon as the latest 1ds is released they are putting together the specs for the next product to give to the designers.
But hey, it's all speculation...and fun
Cheers
Note, the red circles that are joined together indicate pixel size in um for the relevant camera. It uses the same Y scale though.
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I am not sure if that's true. I just bought a Canon body and lens and when I registered my products online, Canon automatically emailed me a 15% discount coupon for my next lens purchase from their e-store.
When I asked B&H about their pricing on the Nikon D300, and why the price went up a bit when before it was down, B&H told me Nikon sets the price they (B&H) can advertise the camera for ... so I think there very much IS manufacturer control and dictation of what any dealer can advertise the company's products for.
My understanding is it's the advertised price that is controlled, but that (in private) a dealer can sell the camera for what he wants. But he is forced to keep the advertised (seen-by-the-public) price within very strict parameters.
Jack
First, these are not only my observations from my small local market, the same thing is being said by people like Thom Hogan for the US market..
Secondly, allowing a lesser advertised price does not mean the margin loss is absorbed wholly by the distributor. This is solely controlled by the distributor price to the retailer. (BTW, AFAIK but I maybe wrong, control of the advertised price by the distributor / importer / manufacturer is something not practiced in the EU)
Thirdly, distributor companies are not the manufacturers. Even when they are subsidiaries or JVs they buy their stuff at the 'warehouse' prices from the factory adding their own flexible margin. If you take a look at the D3x vs 1DsMkIII pricing in markets other than the US you might be surprised with what you'll find.
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First, these are not only my observations from my small local market, the same thing is being said by people like Thom Hogan for the US market..
Secondly, allowing a lesser advertised price does not mean the margin loss is absorbed wholly by the distributor. This is solely controlled by the distributor price to the retailer. (BTW, AFAIK but I maybe wrong, control of the advertised price by the distributor / importer / manufacturer is something not practiced in the EU)
Thirdly, distributor companies are not the manufacturers. Even when they are subsidiaries or JVs they buy their stuff at the 'warehouse' prices from the factory adding their own flexible margin. If you take a look at the D3x vs 1DsMkIII pricing in markets other than the US you might be surprised with what you'll find.
Well, I don't know a thing about the intricacies of Canon's/Nikon's distribution rules and practices, as I am a greenhorn camera owner, but I am not sure anyone else here does either.
But what I do know is that (for instance in the automobile industry) there is the concept of perceived value that is crucial to a company's image and sales. The company spends x to make the product, and sells the product to the dealer for y, under the stipulation that said product be advertised at z price. Auto dealers can't just come out with TV commercials advertising Car A at whatever price they want to, they are forced by dealer contract to maintain the perceived value of the vehicle in their advertising.
If a particular car isn't selling well, you may see commercials with "Factory Rebates" of $x,000, but said rebates are all orchestrated by the automotive manufacturer, NOT the dealer. Dealers can't just make up whatever rebates they want, ALL rebates are manufacturer-set and manufacturer-controlled. So it is with rebates at B&H or at Adorama, when they show rebates on cameras, these online sellers can't just make them up, it is Canon and Nikon who are orchestrating said rebates.
Now, with new automobiles, there is the "advertised" price that the dealers are forced to comply with on TV and billboard advertisements, but we all know that once you get to the lot there is plenty of room for haggling. What the "advertised" price is, and what you wind up paying for a car, aren't going to be the same thing. You usually have between $500 and $4000 negotiating room on a vehicle, depending on make/model/etc. But NO dealer is authorized to just "advertise cheaper prices" than everyone else. And the reason is such advertising would lower the perceived value of the vehicle in the public eye, which is taboo. And it would ultimately generate mutually-destructive price wars amongst dealers of the same make, which would cripple sales not help them.
However, what can happen in the industry is you can get upstart companies (like Hyundai) who enter the fray with very inexpensive automobiles and THEY now lower their own price point, which makes it uncomfortable for everyone else. At first such cars basically suck (as Hyundai pretty much did at first), but after awhile (if they endure) such upstart companies eventually make everyone else drop their prices too.
Such is the case with Sony vs. Canon and Nikon. I would imagine that Canon and Nikon had some sort of "mutual agreement" to keep their price points high ... so each could enjoy the spoils ... but Sony slapped them all in the face with the A900. Sony cameras were like Hyundays to Nissan and Toyota ... they were no real qualitative threat at first. Sony cameras didn't mean much for awhile, and the fact was if you wanted top professional gear you had to go to Canon or Nikon. And if you wanted 15-24 mpx in a pro camera, you had to pay $$$$$$ for them.
But Sony basically "declared war" on Canon and Nikon by offering these kinds of capabilities in the A900 for only $3000. What Sony has done is universally lowered the perceived value of a 24 mpx camera ... in the same fashion that Nikon and Canon's solo efforts into 20+ mpx territory lowered the perceived value of the medium format camera. And what is really interesting is that Sony is making parts for one of the very companies they're hamstringing, Nikon
Whether there is some agreement that Sony won't make sensors "as good" for themselves as they will Nikon, I don't know. But for Nikon to be entrusting its very lifeblood technology to what is now its own fierce competitor isn't too bright IMO. I guess it's already being done with Leica/Panasonic and with Ford/Mazda, where a major company makes parts (if not whole products) for a minor company, so maybe it's no big deal.
But I for one wouldn't want to be in Nikon's position of entrusting myself as a leader to a giant of a corporation that is seeking to dominate that very market I used to dominate ... but maybe I am just rambling on too much
Jack
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I think there is another factor in play with respect to these manufacturers that Americans, in particular, don't understand and that is national pride. I believe that there is a degree of cooperation among Japanese manufacturers, even when they are competitive in the same markets, that we don't understand in the West. At one time Nikon manufactured lenses for Canon even when they were competitors. There are no order of magnitude advances in product among these companies, they are all incremental.
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I think one of two things are about to be realized:
1. We have reached a plateau in performance and will never again see a separation like we saw between the last two generations of Canons and their Nikon competitors. That is, all the major systems will be more or less equal both in performance and price;
2. Or, performance issues will begin to break out in dimensions other than resolution. If the next Canon is ~28mp, who's going to jump systems because the older Nikon is only 25, especially given emerging questions about glass? On the other hand, suppose Canon came out with a system that simply matched Nikon in resolution, but said, 'Hey, we give you 12 full stops of DR, and Nikon only has eight, and this picture shows the difference?" Or suppose Nikon comes out with some super-premium glass and advertises that Canon can't match it at any price? Or suppose one of them comes out with a FF pro model about the size of an ME Super? There are some things that can be done, but I think the resolution/ISO wars are pretty much over.
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@JohnKoerner
There's no indication whatsoever that Sony is engaging in any kind of price war with Canikon. The A900s closest competitor, the 5DII is cheaper. Similarly with much of Sony's line including the lenses. You also seem to forget that Sony was KM in this market. And it was the 5D that introduced the 'cheap' full frame segment. Your analogy of Sony = Huyndai is faulted. You must be imagining things.
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Hi,
My two cents are that:
1) We may see an increase in resolution, because it allows to oversample the image and eliminate the need for the anti aliasing filter. That may actually cause prices to go down.
2) We may see some improvements on the sensor side. One would possibly be an unfiltered luminance channel. Sony has now a sensor which is illuminated from the back side, this is said to expose the photosites to more light.
Best regards
Erik
I think one of two things are about to be realized:
1. We have reached a plateau in performance and will never again see a separation like we saw between the last two generations of Canons and their Nikon competitors. That is, all the major systems will be more or less equal both in performance and price;
2. Or, performance issues will begin to break out in dimensions other than resolution. If the next Canon is ~28mp, who's going to jump systems because the older Nikon is only 25, especially given emerging questions about glass? On the other hand, suppose Canon came out with a system that simply matched Nikon in resolution, but said, 'Hey, we give you 12 full stops of DR, and Nikon only has eight, and this picture shows the difference?" Or suppose Nikon comes out with some super-premium glass and advertises that Canon can't match it at any price? Or suppose one of them comes out with a FF pro model about the size of an ME Super? There are some things that can be done, but I think the resolution/ISO wars are pretty much over.
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@JohnKoerner
There's no indication whatsoever that Sony is engaging in any kind of price war with Canikon. The A900s closest competitor, the 5DII is cheaper. Similarly with much of Sony's line including the lenses. You also seem to forget that Sony was KM in this market. And it was the 5D that introduced the 'cheap' full frame segment. Your analogy of Sony = Huyndai is faulted. You must be imagining things.
I agree that this analogy is flawed in that Sony rarely, if ever, takes the affordable route in their endeavors. However, it should be said that had Sony not telegraphed their 24MP camera last January, it may very well have been the only 20+MP camera in it's price range.
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However, it should be said that had Sony not telegraphed their 24MP camera last January, it may very well have been the only 20+MP camera in it's price range.
I somehow doubt that competititors (cum co-operators in certain things) were waitng for the development announcement to know... Sony had to pre-announce as they had no real existing line or market share to defend.
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I know a tiny bit about semiconductor stuff. Design cycle length depends partly on the turnaround you need for prototypes. Canon has its own CMOS process for those sensors and its own factories, and I guess if they are really motivated they can schedule a really fast run if it is physically possible to set it up. Also, they have their own mask burning equipment. Also, the way the Japanese work, I'm fairly sure they have a leapfrog team predesigning and testing the sensor after the next, although I agree the camera team gets reconvened only after launch of the flagship.
Edmund
I have been tracking the release date and number of pixels/sensor on Canon DSLRs for some time. Here's the latest snapshot. I'll add Sony and Nikon to it at some point. If Canon hold to their current 1DSx release frequency we won't see a new version until 2010 and it will be ~28MP. It could well be that Sony will force a change from Canon's normal cycle, but I'm in the semiconductor manufacturing business and although I'm obviously not privy to Sony's turn around time from design to final qual of a new chip I can say that it's measured in 10's of months. If they figured out that Nikon had a 1ds3 breaker any time in 2008 and decided to change their design in response, I hardly see a 1ds4 coming out any time in 2009. Based on the design teams I've worked with, and the observation of when Canon released the 1ds1, 2 and 3 I figure that as soon as the latest 1ds is released they are putting together the specs for the next product to give to the designers.
But hey, it's all speculation...and fun
Cheers
Note, the red circles that are joined together indicate pixel size in um for the relevant camera. It uses the same Y scale though.
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Are you talking in terms of color, tonality, resolution, noise or what?
Noise.
(Colors are also clearly different, requiring a different color profile; but this is likely due to the CFA.)
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Noise.
(Colors are also clearly different, requiring a different color profile; but this is likely due to the CFA.)
The noise difference doesn't necessarily equate to different sensors, like I mentioned above. In fact, the D300 exhibited much better noise characteristics than the A700 until firmware V4 arrived for the Sony, and now they are virtually identical. Nikon clearly has the upperhand in regards to noise with their "special sauce."
NikosR, I wasn't implying that Canon was waiting around for Sony's announcement, but it seems possible that Sony forced Canon's hand. It seems like Canon wouldn't have been thrilled to undercut their flagship.
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@JohnKoerner
There's no indication whatsoever that Sony is engaging in any kind of price war with Canikon. The A900s closest competitor, the 5DII is cheaper. Similarly with much of Sony's line including the lenses. You also seem to forget that Sony was KM in this market. And it was the 5D that introduced the 'cheap' full frame segment. Your analogy of Sony = Huyndai is faulted. You must be imagining things.
You raise some very good points sir, and you did raise some interesting flaws in my reasoning, and yet your conclusion is also flawed.
The simple fact is, the perceived value of a 24 mpx camera has now been diminished.
This is why we had a 13,000-hit post about Nikon being "on crack" for even suggesting an $8000+ price on its new camera.
This is why Michael himself, in his very own review, compared the A900 not to the 5DMkII, but to the D3x, and in his own words refused even to buy the D3x because of HIS perceived value that the D3x was not worth the money, when it doubtless would have been even more expensive 1.5 years ago.
The perceived value of super high-tech cameras simply has been reduced.
They are no longer rare and exclusive, they are becoming a dime a dozen. While the 1DsMkIII and the D3x can talk about their superior build quality and such, as reasons to fork-out an extra 4-5 grand, at the end of the day they are no longer perceived as being worth "that" much more than a 5D MkII and an A900. You were correct in pointing out the 5DMkII, but I think that (as someone pointed out) that was Canon's quick response to getting a whiff of the A900 pre-release. And you had people very angry at their recent 1dsMkIII purchases right after the 5DMkII came out. You also had Michael refusing even to buy and look at the D3x because of its price compared to the A900.
The perceived value of high-tech cameras is simply on the decline.
However, the main thrust of my post wasn't even about that, it was about the simple fact that all advertised price drops are manufacturer-controlled, not dealer-controlled, same as in the auto industry. There may be room for private haggling while standing next to the cash register, as you can haggle before buying a vehicle, but authorized dealers of a manufacturer's goods MUST advertise within strictly-controlled parameters. Or they will lose their dealer's license.
Jack
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FYI: Lloyd Chambers has just published sample crops out of his paid DAP D3x/D3/1DsIII/5DII reviews, and I invite all to go there take a look:
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog....0090109NikonD3x (http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog.html#_20090109NikonD3x)
One of the key interest is that more pixels may not neccessarily downgrade SNR when down sampled to match the lower MP cases, but for the Bayer type sensors the demosiacing artifacts are greatly reduced. This may make D3x the only camera one needs, up to a point (no high ISOs above 3200, for example).
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Hi!
I like the Lloyd Chamber's reviews, but we need to keep in mind that he is very meticulous in hist testing. Using live view for focusing and that "Coastal Optics" lens.
I posted a question regarding the "antialiasing filter" on this forum and I think there seemed to be some agreement that there was a good reason for the use of those filters and that oversampling was probably the best way to eliminate the need for AA filtering, this is a bit similar downsampling high resolution images. So the "pixel race" may in the final outcome be a good thing.
Seems that Nikon makes excellent use of the new 24.5 MPixel sensor.
Best regards
Erik
FYI: Lloyd Chambers has just published sample crops out of his paid DAP D3x/D3/1DsIII/5DII reviews, and I invite all to go there take a look:
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog....0090109NikonD3x (http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog.html#_20090109NikonD3x)
One of the key interest is that more pixels may not neccessarily downgrade SNR when down sampled to match the lower MP cases, but for the Bayer type sensors the demosiacing artifacts are greatly reduced. This may make D3x the only camera one needs, up to a point (no high ISOs above 3200, for example).
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With the Bayer type sensors, the extra MP is not wasted, even the optics is not up to the task to reach per-pixel level spatial frequency sharpness everywhere.
Putting more Bayer pixels into the SAME optically projected image on the sensor plane is always better, for smoother toner transitions, better guessed colors (colors out of the Bayer sensors are almost always guesses), and much less (demosiacing) artifacts.
Remember that the chroma resolution of the Bayer sensor is only half of that for the luma. So untill the MP/4 pixel counts reaches the optical resolution, we are not done yet.
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One of the key interest is that more pixels may not neccessarily downgrade SNR when down sampled to match the lower MP cases, but for the Bayer type sensors the demosiacing artifacts are greatly reduced. This may make D3x the only camera one needs, up to a point (no high ISOs above 3200, for example).
These results are very similar to my own tests using Imaging Resource jpegs I downloaded from their Comparator. The D3X image after downsampling to the D3 size is still slightly sharper than the D3 image and, even at ISO 6400, hardly noisier. I got the impression that a D3 would be completely redundant for anyone who owned both cameras.
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These results are very similar to my own tests using Imaging Resource jpegs I downloaded from their Comparator. The D3X image after downsampling to the D3 size is still slightly sharper than the D3 image and, even at ISO 6400, hardly noisier. I got the impression that a D3 would be completely redundant for anyone who owned both cameras.
Iliah Borg, who owns both cameras, claims that, in many situations, using the D3 and upsizing at >ISO 800 is better than using the D3x, FWIW.
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Iliah Borg, who owns both cameras, claims that, in many situations, using the D3 and upsizing at >ISO 800 is better than using the D3x, FWIW.
Well, it certainly can't be better resolution-wise, so I suppose he must be referring to noise. When noise is an issue, the higher resolution image can still have an advantage. Resolution can be traded for lower noise, using noise reduction programs.
If anyone has an example of a D3 image which has lower noise yet at least equal resolution to the D3X, then I'd like to see it.
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Well, it certainly can't be better resolution-wise, so I suppose he must be referring to noise. When noise is an issue, the higher resolution image can still have an advantage. Resolution can be traded for lower noise, using noise reduction programs.
If anyone has an example of a D3 image which has lower noise yet at least equal resolution to the D3X, then I'd like to see it.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=30499149 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30499149)
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http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=30499149 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30499149)
I would like to see the image, the camparison and the methodology. I can then question the methodology. It's clear to me that the D3X will always produce a higher resolution image than the D3 whatever the ISO. If noise is likely to be an issue because it might be obvious on a print of a particular size, then the superior resolution of the Dx3 can be sacrificed to reduce noise with a program such as Noise Ninja, before the print is made. That's the principle.
The only doubt in my mind is whether or not the full resolution advantage of the D3X image would have to be sacrificed in order to equal D3 noise. I suspect that after equalising noise, even at ISO 6400, the D3X image would still have a resolution edge.
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I would like to see the image, the camparison and the methodology. I can then question the methodology. It's clear to me that the D3X will always produce a higher resolution image than the D3 whatever the ISO. If noise is likely to be an issue because it might be obvious on a print of a particular size, then the superior resolution of the Dx3 can be sacrificed to reduce noise with a program such as Noise Ninja, before the print is made. That's the principle.
The only doubt in my mind is whether or not the full resolution advantage of the D3X image would have to be sacrificed in order to equal D3 noise. I suspect that after equalising noise, even at ISO 6400, the D3X image would still have a resolution edge.
According to two extremely experienced photographers you would be wrong, and the difference between them and you is that they have both cameras and have done the head to head comparisons while you are speculating that you can do it better than they can. Thom Hogan and Iliah Borg agree that the resolution of the two cameras is pretty much the same at ISO 1600. Iliah Borg replied to me in that thread (and you can read it again just to get it clear what he wrote) that there are other parameters besides resolution that give an advantage to the D3 even as low as ISO 800 -- I'm sure color fidelity is one of those parameters he was referring to.
All of this discussion about downsampling images from higher resolution cameras to make them match lower resolution cameras reminds me killing flies with a shotgun -- you might be able to do it, but the guy with a flyswatter does it more efficiently and does a better job at it too. In the past this argument held up because the higher resolution cameras were newer technology, but right now the D3 sensor is still state of the art, so it still beats higher resolution cameras at what it does best, which is high ISO under dim artificial lighting.
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Thom is far from where I am but Lloyd Chambers is nearby, and I can observe he did his study as carefully as one possibly can with the world's best optics.
And from my scientific training, and experiences as a senior imaging scientist and also an experienced and well respected landscape photographer, it is a no brainer that for Bayer sensors more MPs always means less demosiacing artifacts, which is, again, clearly shown here:
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog....0090109NikonD3x (http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-01-blog.html#_20090109NikonD3x)
Killing flies with arrays of shotgun is called oversampling, even no Bayer sensors are involved, which is almost always a good thing in the world of digital sampling, and, in the case of flies, a cost insensitive over but more sure kill.
Get into Lloyd's DAP to see with your own eyes if the resolution at ISO 1600 is the same. Of course there are tons of ways to make them the same (handhold, not top notch optics, out of focus, motion, etc.) where only one way, called the right methodology, to demonstrate the big differences. If someone tells you D3x does not record any more details than the D3 at 1600 ISO, what it tells is only that you were listening to an incompetent tester, even he or she actually has the means to own the equipment.
According to two extremely experienced photographers you would be wrong, and the difference between them and you is that they have both cameras and have done the head to head comparisons while you are speculating that you can do it better than they can. Thom Hogan and Iliah Borg agree that the resolution of the two cameras is pretty much the same at ISO 1600. Iliah Borg replied to me in that thread (and you can read it again just to get it clear what he wrote) that there are other parameters besides resolution that give an advantage to the D3 even as low as ISO 800 -- I'm sure color fidelity is one of those parameters he was referring to.
All of this discussion about downsampling images from higher resolution cameras to make them match lower resolution cameras reminds me killing flies with a shotgun -- you might be able to do it, but the guy with a flyswatter does it more efficiently and does a better job at it too. In the past this argument held up because the higher resolution cameras were newer technology, but right now the D3 sensor is still state of the art, so it still beats higher resolution cameras at what it does best, which is high ISO under dim artificial lighting.
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According to two extremely experienced photographers you would be wrong, and the difference between them and you is that they have both cameras and have done the head to head comparisons while you are speculating that you can do it better than they can.
I'm always happy to be proved wrong. That's how I learn. I do a few tests with the material available. I use my common sense, experience and what little knowledge I possess to make certain deductions and draw certain conclusions.
If I've overlooked something, or my testing material was flawed in some way, or perhaps I didn't use the best converter available for a particular camera, then I'm happy to have such flaws in my methodology mentioned. I've got no barrow to push here except getting at the facts.
What I don't go along with are claims that because so and so are very experienced photographers and actually own the equipment under discussion, they must always be right on all issues.
Show me the images. Describe the methodology.
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I don't have any issue with your conclusions but I'm suspicious about using JPEGs. Really looking forward to see the analysis of the D3X sensor on the DxO-mark site, BTW.
As I see it we need to see a camera as a part of workflow. IMHO it is perfectly OK to process a high res image in Noise Ninja (or similar products). What I really would like to see is a parametric workflow like in LR but Noise Ninja introduced early in the process. Bibble 5 is coming this year, it has a lot of promise in this area.
What I see as a problem with high ISOs is that DR is going down. According to DxO-mark it's going down faster on the Alpha 900 than on the Canon 5DII, this could be possibly an area where 14 bits are in advantage over 12 bits.
The issue doesn't really matter for me, in the film days I was shooting Panatomic and Velvia even on my Pentax 67 and always had the view that a tripod was a perfect place to put the camera on.
Erik
These results are very similar to my own tests using Imaging Resource jpegs I downloaded from their Comparator. The D3X image after downsampling to the D3 size is still slightly sharper than the D3 image and, even at ISO 6400, hardly noisier. I got the impression that a D3 would be completely redundant for anyone who owned both cameras.
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I don't have any issue with your conclusions but I'm suspicious about using JPEGs. Really looking forward to see the analysis of the D3X sensor on the DxO-mark site, BTW.
Erik
Erik,
Unfortunately DXOmark does not show results at equal image size. But they do have an article admitting and explaning the noise reduction that takes place when an image is downsampled. I have no doubt that DXOmark graphs will show the D3 being better in terms of S/N and DR (than the D3X) at the pixel level.
Only carefully executed comparison shots with the two cameras, and appropriate noise reduction and downsampling (or upsampling) will tell the true story.
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Unfortunately DXOmark does not show results at equal image size.
Select the view for "print", and you do get that.
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Select the view for "print", and you do get that.
Well, I'll be damned! Has that box always been there? Looks like I've been doing so much pixel-peeping I can't see the forest for the trees .
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Get into Lloyd's DAP to see with your own eyes if the resolution at ISO 1600 is the same. Of course there are tons of ways to make them the same (handhold, not top notch optics, out of focus, motion, etc.) where only one way, called the right methodology, to demonstrate the big differences. If someone tells you D3x does not record any more details than the D3 at 1600 ISO, what it tells is only that you were listening to an incompetent tester, even he or she actually has the means to own the equipment.
Whatever, I've read your nonsense (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30621342) and it doesn't carry any weight with me. Lots of "scientists" also dispute evolution or the role of people in global warming and just about any other quackery you can imagine.
In the real world you turn up ISO when you have to cope with no tripod, bad light, using the camera's AF, and subject motion. What you, Lloyd Chambers, and others are saying is that in a studio where you eliminate all these considerations that you can get better results with the D3x than the D3 -- that makes sense since the D3x was designed as a studio camera. Try putting a D3x in the real world and see how it does under poor artificial lighting; that's when things start breaking in favor of the D3.
(http://photos.imageevent.com/tonybeach/mypicturesfolder/sharing/large/_AB25255%20sample.jpg)
My client asks for this shot, taken with my D300 at 14mm, f/6.3, 1/250s, and ISO 1000. Now I could buy a D3x (I will buy a "D700x" instead when it is available) and take this image two ways: DX mode at 10 MP with all the same settings I used; or FX mode at 24 MP, 21mm, f/9, f/250s and ISO 2000. Now I go to Imaging Resource which is a site I don't care for, but I download their D3x ISO 1600 studio shot with NR turned off, and everywhere I look my D300 shot above has far less noise even after resizing the D3x images. Looks like the client who has more than enough resolution at 10 MP would rather I shot at ISO 1000 than ISO 2000 with 2.4 times as many pixels -- that's because in the real world where format, DOF, shutter speed, and ISO matter you will trade noise for resolution and at some point that noise will eat up the resolution (especially when you prepare images for final output which raises the thorny issues of conversion, post processing, and what the print is capable of showing).
Show me the images. Describe the methodology.
Thom will be publishing a review of the D3x, which he is working on now. He has been using both the D3x and the D3 in a basketball gym (just like a "real" photographer would) and that's what he has based his preliminary evaluations on. As for Thom and Iliah showing you their methodology; why don't you show us yours? Only problem is that you have none to offer because you don't have either camera.
Really looking forward to see the analysis of the D3X sensor on the DxO-mark site, BTW.
As if that were the last word.
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FWIW, the D3 sensor's read noise makes it ideal for mid to high ISO ranges, whereas the Sony sensor's column ADCs produce very low read noise at and around base ISO, but it doesn't fair as well at mid to high ISO. Essentially, the argument that the D3x can do the work of the D3 when downsized would hold more water if they were the same sensor design with different megapixel counts, but the sensor designs are so different and tailored for different things that such a comparison is more difficult. Iliah's brief comparison of the two at higher ISO were for very large prints where both files needed to be substantially upsized, and he's found that the D3 does a better job in this case at ISO 800+
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Canon D30 (3 mp) - less resolution than low-iso 35mm film, but noise less than grain on 35mm film (overall IQ fairly similar to good 35mm film) - prints 6x9 inches very comfortably, 8x12 in a stretch. Dynamic range of low-DR slide film at 5-6 stops (nail exposures and be careful with subjects).
Sony 6 mp CCD (was in a ton of DSLRs for a while, still in Nikon D40) - resolution more or less equivalent to 35mm, prints a little bigger than I've ever been comfortable with from 35mm due to noise advantage, especially in its newer incarnations (8x12 easily, 11x17 possible). Dynamic range better than most slide films, not close to print film (in the range of 7 good stops).
Nikon D200 (10 mp) - resolution significantly better than 35mm (between 35mm and 645). Overall image quality approaching 645 (which I'd say still has the edge). Prints 11x17 easily, but 16x24 is a big stretch (I've done it, am not terribly happy with the results). Dynamic range similar to 6 mp sensor.
Canon EOS 1Ds mkII (16.7 mp) - resolution nearly equivalent to 645 film, with overall image quality probably slightly to somewhat ahead of 645. The first digital camera I have used that really plays in medium format (film) territory. Dynamic range improved over any previous digital camera I had used by at least a stop (8 or more really good stops in a raw file). Prints 16x24 fairly easily, but gives up before 24x36.
Nikon D3x (24.4 mp) - resolution well into medium-format territory, close to 6x9 cm scanned film (much sharper per pixel than 1Ds mkII due to improvements in sensor/AA technology). Overall image quality significantly better than scanned 6x9 cm Velvia! Dynamic range appears to be over 9 stops, maybe 10, while remaining completely noiseless. The only files I've seen that are definitively better are scans from large-format film. Prints 24x36 inches (a 25x enlargement) very comfortably, even examining the print from a few inches away. Files appear sharp and detailed on screen at 100%
I'm sorry, but what is this based on? 10mp resolution "significantly" better than 35mm film? 24mp close to 6x9?
Look how well Velvia and Ektar 35mm hold up to 24mp digital: http://www.boeringa.demon.nl/menu_technic_ektar100.htm (http://www.boeringa.demon.nl/menu_technic_ektar100.htm)
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Sony 6 mp CCD (was in a ton of DSLRs for a while, still in Nikon D40) - resolution more or less equivalent to 35mm, prints a little bigger than I've ever been comfortable with from 35mm due to noise advantage, especially in its newer incarnations (8x12 easily, 11x17 possible). Dynamic range better than most slide films, not close to print film (in the range of 7 good stops).
Nikon D200 (10 mp) - resolution significantly better than 35mm (between 35mm and 645). Overall image quality approaching 645 (which I'd say still has the edge). Prints 11x17 easily, but 16x24 is a big stretch (I've done it, am not terribly happy with the results). Dynamic range similar to 6 mp sensor.
Sorry but that is incorrect. I am currently performing some tests to compare a D200 with Fuji Velvia 100 F colour slide film. I am using a laboratory microscope to enlarge portions of the slide film, and my results indicate that in terms of resolution the two are pretty much on a par. In terms of IQ though the DSLR image is noticeably superior due to smoother gradations of tones. Basically the slide image is rather grainy and 'soft'. Of course what I am recording is an upper limit for film, since in practice we do not use a high quality microscope to view the slide, but an enlarger to create a print, or a film scanner to create a digital file. So your statements might be correct when taken in the context of using a typical desktop scanner. I hope to check to see if that is true using a Minolta 5400 slide scanner.
One interesting result found by someone else is that a 6 MP DSLR has much higher resolution than a 200 ASA print film. It looks as if print film is optimised for dynamic range and not resolution.
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I'm sorry, but what is this based on? 10mp resolution "significantly" better than 35mm film? 24mp close to 6x9?
Look how well Velvia and Ektar 35mm hold up to 24mp digital: http://www.boeringa.demon.nl/menu_technic_ektar100.htm (http://www.boeringa.demon.nl/menu_technic_ektar100.htm)
To my eyes the A900 knocks the spots off the 'horrible' film images. What the author takes as extra detail in the Velvia image is in fact noise. Add speckle noise to the A900 image, and it will 'improve' it to the level of the Velvia one.
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It got so rude and personal, this will be my last post in the thread since it does not worth my time to say anything more. Just as I said, there are hundreds of situations in which the D3 makes a better camera in the world, such as handhold, and the rude party is admitting he is talking about handhold. Oranges to apples, to say the least. I never found a tripod setup less than 20lb in weight is adequate, and I drill holes through the center column to hang my 35+ pound backpack before I even consider a shot. Apparently some handhold people don't understand how capable landscape photographers work, and simply categorize anything not relevant to their style "nonsesnss", as their corner is the whole world. More than enough said.
There happens some landscapers also understand handhold, and the attached is one of mine.
Whatever, I've read your nonsense (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30621342) and it doesn't carry any weight with me. Lots of "scientists" also dispute evolution or the role of people in global warming and just about any other quackery you can imagine.
In the real world you turn up ISO when you have to cope with no tripod, bad light, using the camera's AF, and subject motion. What you, Lloyd Chambers, and others are saying is that in a studio where you eliminate all these considerations that you can get better results with the D3x than the D3 -- that makes sense since the D3x was designed as a studio camera. Try putting a D3x in the real world and see how it does under poor artificial lighting; that's when things start breaking in favor of the D3.
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Iliah's brief comparison of the two at higher ISO were for very large prints where both files needed to be substantially upsized, and he's found that the D3 does a better job in this case at ISO 800+
I find that to be a very strange result indeed. Results like that which are counterintuitive deserve more attention and scrutiny. It's difficult to grasp how an image with half the pixel count of another could look better when both are interpolated for very large prints, unless the larger image initially was substantially more noisy and degraded.
However, I could believe such results if the D3 was compared with the A900 at ISO and above, because we already know that A900 resolution begins to suffer above ISO 400, and some reports claim even above ISO 200.
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Hi,
My impression is that nowdays the frequency at which MTF of 50 percent is achieved is regarded a better measure of image quality than pure resolution. This does not contradict your findings in any way, but can explain if we perceive digital images to be sharper than film even if digital does not resolve higher.
Another aspect is that sharpening is always a part of the digital workflow. So we need to compare optimally sharpened images fro each medium. What is optimal sharpening is also a matter of perception.
Best regards
Erik
Sorry but that is incorrect. I am currently performing some tests to compare a D200 with Fuji Velvia 100 F colour slide film. I am using a laboratory microscope to enlarge portions of the slide film, and my results indicate that in terms of resolution the two are pretty much on a par. In terms of IQ though the DSLR image is noticeably superior due to smoother gradations of tones. Basically the slide image is rather grainy and 'soft'. Of course what I am recording is an upper limit for film, since in practice we do not use a high quality microscope to view the slide, but an enlarger to create a print, or a film scanner to create a digital file. So your statements might be correct when taken in the context of using a typical desktop scanner. I hope to check to see if that is true using a Minolta 5400 slide scanner.
One interesting result found by someone else is that a 6 MP DSLR has much higher resolution than a 200 ASA print film. It looks as if print film is optimised for dynamic range and not resolution.
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However, I could believe such results if the D3 was compared with the A900 at ISO and above, because we already know that A900 resolution begins to suffer above ISO 400, and some reports claim even above ISO 200.
This depends on a lot of things. RAW converters, exposure technique, etc. With your average workflow, the A900 is competitive until ISO 800, and starts to loose lots of ground at ISO 1600+. However, bypassing the camera's ISO boosting results in much better low light shots. For example, if you meter a scene at ISO 1600, F8, 1/100 in manual mode, and then drop the ISO to base ISO, shoot the scene, and then boost the exposure in a good RAW program like RPP, the noise of the A900 improves dramatically. Iliah has helped a lot of A900 users with this info. He owns the D3, D3x, and A900, and here is a quick blurb from him about his opinions:
"I compared prints from D3, 1D MkIII, 1Ds MkIII, D3X, and A900 in this regards [24"x26".] To my humble opinion, in complex natural light D3X gives me more opportunity to pull the shadows out. Canons and D3 were second best. For normal landscapes with rather flat light (scene range was slightly more than 8.5 eV) separation in greens was better with A900, followed by D3X. Same, for portraits of dark-skinned persons and persons with dark hair; as well as for an imitated wedding shots D3X is easier for me, followed by A900. Lenses were all Zeiss, though different between Sony and others. All shots were carefully focused manually, 5 times, best were compared. To eliminate the lens factor I will reshoot with Zeiss 2/110 as soon as I will have an adaptor for Sony."
All of the fullframe cameras are nuanced, and each has it's own strengths/weaknesses.
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Thom will be publishing a review of the D3x, which he is working on now. He has been using both the D3x and the D3 in a basketball gym (just like a "real" photographer would) and that's what he has based his preliminary evaluations on. As for Thom and Iliah showing you their methodology; why don't you show us yours? Only problem is that you have none to offer because you don't have either camera.
Tony,
Nor do you have both cameras. Having just one of them is not enough. But that doesn't stop you mouthing off.
I've already described my methodology in a previous post. I'll repeat it... "I do a few tests with the material available. I use my common sense, experience and what little knowledge I possess to make certain deductions and draw certain conclusions."
In situations like this where different experts who appear to be competent and experienced arrive at different conclusions, we have to get more tests and comparisons before we can be certain, and/or more details on what these experts are actually saying.
If you want to throw into the mix the variability of uncontrolled shooting conditions, camera shake with hand-held shots, moving subjects which cannot be photographed twice in the same position, unavoidable imprecision of focussing however slight, less than a perfect ETTR for the precise conditions which are likely to vary with each shot however slightly, then we are really into probability theory.
Even when the subject is stationary and I'm relying upon image stabilisation to give me a reasonably sharp result at a slow shutter speed, the sharpness of the results can vary noticeably with successive shots of the same scene at the same shutter speed. This is because camera shake can be slightly different with each shot. Take enough hand-held shots of the same scene at the same shutter speed and the best is likely to be significantly sharper than the worst.
I would concede the point that, if shooting conditions are such that it's not possible to get a sharp result with the D3X, then there's no resolution advantage of the D3X to be traded for lower noise. In those circumstances, the noise at high ISO will be in favour of the D3 statistically, whatever the print size.
Just as the resolution differences between the D3 and D3X will diminish as one stops down to diffraction limited f stops, the resolution differences will also diminish as one uses a slower and slower shutter speed. The resolution of the D3X will never be less than that of the D3 (statistically) as a result of a slow shutter speed, but it needs to be more.
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For example, if you meter a scene at ISO 1600, F8, 1/100 in manual mode, and then drop the ISO to base ISO, shoot the scene, and then boost the exposure in a good RAW program like RPP, the noise of the A900 improves dramatically.
Well, that explains a lot and it's very surprising that anyone should produce a camera these days that behaves like that. Just so I've understood what you are saying, are you saying that an A900 shot which is underexposed 3 stops at ISO 200 actually has less noise than an ETTR shot at ISO 1600 employing the same F stop and shutter speed?
I used to complain that my first DSLR, the Canon D60, produced very little improvement in noise when comparing fully exposed images at ISO 800 with 3-stops-underexposed images at ISO 100. However, there was at least some improvement at ISO 800, most noticeable in the deep shadows. Two models later, with the 20D, the situation was radically different. High-ISO images were significantly cleaner across the entire tonal range, compared with underexposed shots at base ISO. That pleased me greatly. .
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Well, that explains a lot and it's very surprising that anyone should produce a camera these days that behaves like that. Just so I've understood what you are saying, are you saying that an A900 shot which is underexposed 3 stops at ISO 200 actually has less noise than an ETTR shot at ISO 1600 employing the same F stop and shutter speed?
I used to complain that my first DSLR, the Canon D60, produced very little improvement in noise when comparing fully exposed images at ISO 800 with 3-stops-underexposed images at ISO 100. However, there was at least some improvement at ISO 800, most noticeable in the deep shadows. Two models later, with the 20D, the situation was radically different. High-ISO images were significantly cleaner across the entire tonal range, compared with underexposed shots at base ISO. That pleased me greatly. .
All cameras behave this way, more or less. Iliah doesn't shoot over ISO 800 with the D3x. Once you find a camera's sweetspot, it is nearly always more affective to stay at that ISO and underexpose, then boost in RPP or equivalent. The secret is exposing for your RAW converter. If your using ACR, then any IQ subtleties are thrown out the window, and there's really no point. The a900s sweetspot happens to be 1/3 stop underexposure at ISO 100. BTW, ETTR is really only effective at base ISO.
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All cameras behave this way, more or less. Iliah doesn't shoot over ISO 800 with the D3x. Once you find a camera's sweetspot, it is nearly always more affective to stay at that ISO and underexpose, then boost in RPP or equivalent. The secret is exposing for your RAW converter. If your using ACR, then any IQ subtleties are thrown out the window, and there's really no point. The a900s sweetspot happens to be 1/3 stop underexposure at ISO 100. BTW, ETTR is really only effective at base ISO.
Sorry! You are saying the opposite of what my eyes are telling me, at least with Canon DSLRs. I've made careful comparisons in relation to such issues and it's very clear to me that:
(1) ETTR is more important the higher the ISO and less important the lower the ISO.
(2) If noise is a concern, it's always better to aim for an ETTR at a higher ISO than use the same exposure at a lower ISO.
There might be a sweet spot where such differences are most noticeable, but as a general trend it works across the whole range of 'real' ISO settings. An ETTR at ISO 200 is better than a one-stop under-exposure at ISO 100. An ETTR at ISO 1600 is better than a one-stop underexposure at ISO 800 and also better than a 4-stop underexposure at ISO 100, with Canon cameras.
I understand the reason for this result is that at higher-than-base ISO, Canon amplify the analogue signal before it is subject to A/D conversion and all the other processes that might introduce noise. By amplifying the signal whilst it's still at the analogue stage, the total noise component of the signal is not reduced (in fact it's probably increased slightly) but the size of the signal in relation to the size of the noise is very much greater, therefore S/N ratio is much improved.
I'm surprised that Sony are not using such methods. Perhaps both Canon and Nikon have a patent on their own methods in this respect and Sony are unable to devise a different way of reducing noise without infringing on such patents.
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Hi,
There have been discussions on this forum about something called "unity gain". To my understanding once ISO is increased beyond "Unity Gain" ISO there is little or no utility of increasing preamplification before AD conversion.
From "Clarkvision.com"
"The Unity Gain ISO is the ISO of the camera where the A/D converter digitizes 1 electron to 1 data number (DN) in the digital image. Further, to scale all cameras to equivalent Unity Gain ISO, a 12-bit converter is assumed. Since 1 electron (1 converted photon) is the smallest quantum that makes sense to digitize, there is little point in increasing ISO above the Unity Gain ISO (small gains may be realized due to quantization effects, but as ISO is increased, dynamic range decreases)."
Best regards
Erik
Sorry! You are saying the opposite of what my eyes are telling me, at least with Canon DSLRs. I've made careful comparisons in relation to such issues and it's very clear to me that:
(1) ETTR is more important the higher the ISO and less important the lower the ISO.
(2) If noise is a concern, it's always better to aim for an ETTR at a higher ISO than use the same exposure at a lower ISO.
There might be a sweet spot where such differences are most noticeable, but as a general trend it works across the whole range of 'real' ISO settings. An ETTR at ISO 200 is better than a one-stop under-exposure at ISO 100. An ETTR at ISO 1600 is better than a one-stop underexposure at ISO 800 and also better than a 4-stop underexposure at ISO 100, with Canon cameras.
I understand the reason for this result is that at higher-than-base ISO, Canon amplify the analogue signal before it is subject to A/D conversion and all the other processes that might introduce noise. By amplifying the signal whilst it's still at the analogue stage, the total noise component of the signal is not reduced (in fact it's probably increased slightly) but the size of the signal in relation to the size of the noise is very much greater, therefore S/N ratio is much improved.
I'm surprised that Sony are not using such methods. Perhaps both Canon and Nikon have a patent on their own methods in this respect and Sony are unable to devise a different way of reducing noise without infringing on such patents.
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Hi,
There have been discussions on this forum about something called "unity gain". To my understanding once ISO is increased beyond "Unity Gain" ISO there is little or no utility of increasing preamplification before AD conversion.
From "Clarkvision.com"
"The Unity Gain ISO is the ISO of the camera where the A/D converter digitizes 1 electron to 1 data number (DN) in the digital image. Further, to scale all cameras to equivalent Unity Gain ISO, a 12-bit converter is assumed. Since 1 electron (1 converted photon) is the smallest quantum that makes sense to digitize, there is little point in increasing ISO above the Unity Gain ISO (small gains may be realized due to quantization effects, but as ISO is increased, dynamic range decreases)."
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
My understanding is that Canon amplifies the initial analog signal before A/D conversion takes place, when an ISO higher than base is used. Such amplification also amplifies existing noise but ensures that further noise in the processing chain, such as Read Noise and noise from the A/D conversion, is smaller as a proportion of the total signal. Signal-to-noise ratio is thus better than it otherwise would be.
Dynamic range usually decreases with increasing ISO in all cameras. For example, DXOmark shows the 5D2 at the measured ISO of 1600 having a DR of about 9.5EV whereas at ISO 100 it's about 11.16EV, approximately 1.6 stops greater. However, a full ETTR at ISO 100 would require 4 stops more exposure than a full ETTR at ISO 1600. Why is the difference in DR between ISO 100 and ISO 1600 only 1.6EV and not 4EV?
By the way, the 4 stop difference in exposure with the A900 does not translate to a 4 stop difference in DR either. But it's almost a 3 stop difference between the measured ISOs of 119 and 1904.
However, using the camera's ISO of 1600 and 100 for the 5D2 (instead of the values on the horizontal axis) we get DR values of 11.16EV at ISO 100 (measured as ISO 73) and 10.05EV at the camera's ISO of 1600 (measured as ISO 1093). The difference in DR is hardly more than 1EV. Applying the same method of comparison with the A900, the measured ISOs are 119 and 1264 and the DR figures are 11.5EV and 8.46EV respectively, which represents a full 3 stops difference.
The DR graph for the A900 is a straight line, all the way from the camera's nominated value of ISO 100 to ISO 6400. However, the DR graph for the 5D2 has a more gently slope down to ISO 1600, after which it becomes a straight line and for each increase in ISO of one stop beyond ISO 1600, DR is reduced by almost the same amount.
It would therefore seem from this analysis that the 5D2's DR performance does not vary consistently across the entire ISO range. Up to ISO 1600 there's minimal loss of DR. Beyond ISO 1600 there's a more dramatic loss of DR. The A900 seems to show a more consistent and dramatic loss of DR across the entire ISO range, moving from base ISO to maximum ISO. However, it does appear to be less than a 1EV difference in DR for each 1 stop of ISO increase up to about ISO 200, and slightly less than 1EV between ISO 200 and 400. Beyond ISO 400, for each doubling in ISO there's a corresponding loss of 1EV of DR.
These graphs would suggest that little point is served using ISOs higher than 400 with the A900. You might as well underexpose at a lower ISO.
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Ray, the D3x also uses column adcs on the chip, like A900. The a900 and D3x have the lowest read noise of base ISO of any of the new fullframes. There are lots of tradeoffs. CFA makes a big difference.
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Ray,
I agree with you on this. The reasoning that Roger Clark does is that noise will decrease with increasing ISO when compared with "pushing" the raw data in conversion at low ISO, up to a certain level which used to be around 800 ISO (or so) increasing ISO beyond that amplifies noise and signal the same. So ISO up "unity gain ISO" is "is real ISO" and beyond that is "fake ISO". The 800 ISO figure is not valid any longer, because 14 bit ADCs redefine the playing field (causing Unity gains ISO to go down) and also because of cameras with big sensels (like the Nikon D3 and the original 5D) which have very high Unity Gain ISO.
I had a short discussion about this with Guillermo Glujik on this forum and I think that he both explained what was going on and demonstrated the concept experimentally.
At this stage we now very little about the Nikon D3X, especially we don't know how much of the advantage that some thrustworthy testers report comes from sensor, camera electronics and "raw" processing. DxO-mark analyses "raw" data and that should offer some insight in what the camera delivers to "raw conversion".
It seems that the sensor itself is the same on the A900 and the D3X but there may be differences in color filter array (which DxO also covers, BTW), AA-filtering and signal processing. Regarding signal processing the A900 has column AD converters, but they are 12 bit AFAIK. For 12 bit conversion Nikon would need off chip AD-conversion and preamps, essentially giving a fully new signal processing pipeline.
From the data at DxO-mark it seems that there is something like 1 eV advantage of the Canon 5DII sensor over the A900 sensor, except for DR where DR drops of much faster on the Alpha than on the 5DII. DxO did not publish data for the Alpha 700 which shares sensor technology with the Nikon D300, unfortunately.
Regarding DxO-mark I don't really care about the DxO-mark itself. For one thing trying to turn a lot of data into a single figure of merit is not a smart thing in my view. The other issue is that DxO clearly states that it takes about 5 DxO mark units for any visible difference. So it essentially says that a camera with DxO-mark 83.9 performs the same as a camera with DxO mark of 82, 83, 84, 85, 86 and so on.
One other nice thing with DxO is that they measure many cameras and sensors under well defined lab conditions. Very few reviewers are in a similar situation. Add to this that the DxO folks are image scientists and the developers of an advanced "raw" converter pipeline. No doubt that Phase One, Adobe, Bibble or Iridient would be able to supply similar data, DxO decided to share this information doing a great service to anyone interested in sensor technology.
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
My understanding is that Canon amplifies the initial analog signal before A/D conversion takes place, when an ISO higher than base is used. Such amplification also amplifies existing noise but ensures that further noise in the processing chain, such as Read Noise and noise from the A/D conversion, is smaller as a proportion of the total signal. Signal-to-noise ratio is thus better than it otherwise would be.
Dynamic range usually decreases with increasing ISO in all cameras. For example, DXOmark shows the 5D2 at the camera's ISO of 1600 having a DR of about 9.5EV whereas at ISO 100 it's about 11.16EV, approximately 1.6 stops greater. However, a full ETTR at ISO 100 would require 4 stops more exposure than a full ETTR at ISO 1600. Why is the difference in DR between ISO 100 and ISO 1600 only 1.6EV and not 4EV?
By the way, the 4 stop difference in exposure with the A900 does not translate to a 4 stop difference in DR either. But it's almost a 3 stop difference between the measured ISOs of 119 and 1904.
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Hi,
Are you sure? On the D700 Nikon can use either 12 bit readout from column ADCs or 14 bit readouts from a set of readout channels. I'm pretty sure column ADCs are only 12 bits!
Have you any reference for your statement that: "The a900 and D3x have the lowest read noise of base ISO of any of the new fullframes." ? I have not found any information on this, but I got the impression that this is an are where Canon used to excel.
The CFA probably matters, and different vendors may opt for different CFAs to be able to achieve specific colors. There is also some info on CFA implementation on the DxO-mark site, under the "Color Response" tab. It's missing from the "camera comparison pages".
Best regards
Erik
Ray, the D3x also uses column adcs on the chip, like A900. The a900 and D3x have the lowest read noise of base ISO of any of the new fullframes. There are lots of tradeoffs. CFA makes a big difference.
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Hi,
My impression is that nowdays the frequency at which MTF of 50 percent is achieved is regarded a better measure of image quality than pure resolution. This does not contradict your findings in any way, but can explain if we perceive digital images to be sharper than film even if digital does not resolve higher.
I think you are right. Basically the micro-contrast of the digital image is far higher. Although the two are providing about the same level of detail, the film image has so much noise that the IQ is degraded significantly. So, from an aesthetic point of view, the film image is significantly inferior. However, were I to pass the film image through some form of grain removing software, the two might be rather close. And I will try that if I can find some software without having to pay an arm and a leg for it.
This incidentally is probably why some people still claim that a camera such as the D2x does not outperform 35mm slide film, despite the fact that we all know that in practice it does.
Another aspect is that sharpening is always a part of the digital workflow. So we need to compare optimally sharpened images fro each medium. What is optimal sharpening is also a matter of perception.
Best regards
Erik
True, though in the tests I carried out, the sharpening is not an issue as the detail provided by the DSLR is limited by the number of pixels.
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Regarding DxO-mark I don't really care about the DxO-mark itself. For one thing trying to turn a lot of data into a single figure of merit is not a smart thing in my view. The other issue is that DxO clearly states that it takes about 5 DxO mark units for any visible difference. So it essentially says that a camera with DxO-mark 83.9 performs the same as a camera with DxO mark of 82, 83, 84, 85, 86 and so on.
One other nice thing with DxO is that they measure many cameras and sensors under well defined lab conditions. Very few reviewers are in a similar situation. Add to this that the DxO folks are image scientists and the developers of an advanced "raw" converter pipeline. No doubt that Phase One, Adobe, Bibble or Iridient would be able to supply similar data, DxO decided to share this information doing a great service to anyone interested in sensor technology.
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
Nor do I, but the graphs are meaningful and, as you mention, the lab conditions and methodology are consistent which is essential for accurate comparisons. I also like the way one can compare three different cameras on the same screen and also get an idea of how 8x12 prints would compare, with respect to DR and noise. However, I would prefer it if DXO were to provide another option showing results in respect of a larger print, say 24x36".
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Erik, the D3x 14bit mode is a cludge just like the D300, and Im pretty convinced by the evidence that points to it not being a true 14bit mode like on the D3, but rather a resampling of the 12bit column ADCs. This extra sampling does result in less shadow noise, but that isn't so much a by-product of 14bits, but rather a benefit from a slow resample. There is no evidence showing a seperate analogue output from the D3x sensor; and Nikon themselves claim the chip has onchip ADCs.
There specific benefits to each of these cameras, and there is a reason that guys like Iliah own and use he D3, D3x, and A900 (and btw, not the 5dii.)
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Just a wild thought here, did it ever occur to anyone just to take some real world photos [not test charts] with some cameras, develop them to their best and and then simply look at some prints to see which one looks best?
In Hifi you do blind listening to determine which kit sounds best - also gets rid of fanboyism bias as well. For all the talk about best s/n, least distortion, most power etc, in reality these absolute figures told you squat about how good stuff sounded or even how loud it was. A 20W amp could be louder than a [claimed] 80w amp for example.
I did see some real world shots recently comparing the 5DII's noise with a Nikon and what was at first very obvious, is that all the Canon shots were underexposed - which isn't going to help when comparing noise.
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Point taken! Appreciate your comment!
Best regards
Erik
Just a wild thought here, did it ever occur to anyone just to take some real world photos [not test charts] with some cameras, develop them to their best and and then simply look at some prints to see which one looks best?
In Hifi you do blind listening to determine which kit sounds best - also gets rid of fanboyism bias as well. For all the talk about best s/n, least distortion, most power etc, in reality these absolute figures told you squat about how good stuff sounded or even how loud it was. A 20W amp could be louder than a [claimed] 80w amp for example.
I did see some real world shots recently comparing the 5DII's noise with a Nikon and what was at first very obvious, is that all the Canon shots were underexposed - which isn't going to help when comparing noise.
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I thought this was an interesting point ...
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=30639804 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30639804)
anyone noticed polarizing oddities with their cameras?
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It got so rude and personal, this will be my last post in the thread since it does not worth my time to say anything more.
"If someone tells you D3x does not record any more details than the D3 at 1600 ISO, what it tells is only that you were listening to an incompetent tester, even he or she actually has the means to own the equipment."
Calling others incompetent is rude in my book.
Just as I said, there are hundreds of situations in which the D3 makes a better camera in the world, such as handhold, and the rude party is admitting he is talking about handhold.
Actually it is only one variable, and the shot I showed was done with a tripod. Another variable that you completely ignore is spectral properties differences between the two cameras and what happens when those are compensated for by conversion; then you impugn the competence of those that are aware of these issues because you saw a comparison made under studio lighting.
Oranges to apples, to say the least. I never found a tripod setup less than 20lb in weight is adequate, and I drill holes through the center column to hang my 35+ pound backpack before I even consider a shot. Apparently some handhold people don't understand how capable landscape photographers work, and simply categorize anything not relevant to their style "nonsesnss", as their corner is the whole world. More than enough said.
Galen Rowell was a hand hold person, he couldn't hold on to 55 lbs while hanging from a rock face and taking the shot you missed because you stayed on the ground. Thom Hogan is his most notable protege; and he points out that the farther you get from the main road, the fewer big rigs you see. You think pretty highly of yourself when you refer to such people as not being "capable landscape photographers".
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The comparisons I've made that find a D3x close if not equal to 6x9 cm film on detail extraction , and noticeably superior on overall image quality, use a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 to scan the film (all of my film vs. digital subjective numbers are based on the Super Coolscan 5000 and 9000, the scanners with which I have the most experience) . That's actually a very fair comparison, because any scanner better than the Super Coolscan would cause the 6x9 outfit to significantly exceed the cost of the D3x (without factoring in the cost of film and processing). A better scanner could not extract much more detail from the Velvia, because the Super Coolscan is already scanning film grain - it could, however, potentially extract more dynamic range, especially in the shadows, bringing the overall image quality closer.
I am confident in saying that the only film setup that can produce an image with overall quality superior to the D3x (and potentially the 20+ mp Canons and/or the Alpha 900, about none of which I claim knowledge) correctly handled (ISO 100, good lens, tripod) without significantly exceeding the cost of the D3x (therefore no drum scanners or $50,000 EverSmart flatbeds) would rely upon 4x5 or larger sheet film or possibly slow, exotic 120 black and white film (Tech Pan, etc...).
It is certainly possible to beat the detail extraction of ANY digital camera, including the 50+ MP medium format digital backs, by the simple expedient of using a large enough piece of film. Right now, it seems to me that the best digital sensors are roughly equivalent to a piece of film 4x their ares (FF35 digital ~6x9 cm film, 645 digital ~4x5 film), and that various technical limits (diffraction, quantum-related noise) will hold them not too far above that (I would have a hard time seeing pure detail extraction ever exceeding a piece of film 6x the area of the sensor), although perhaps with improved image quality in other areas such as dynamic range or tonal scale. If this is even roughly correct, it will take an image sensor somewhere on the scale of 4x5 inches to equal the quality possible from 8x10 film, and around 5x7 inches to equal 11x14 film. While the cost of silicon of a given capability goes down rapidly with time, the cost of a given AREA of silicon does not. A 4x5 inch single-shot image sensor will remain prohibitively expensive to anyone who is neither Jim Jannard (the eccentric billionaire founder of Oakley sunglasses and the RED movie camera company, who owns 1500 cameras) nor employed by the "Bureau of Public Roads" (the famed label on the CIA's highway exit) in Langley, VA. An 11x14 Canham field camera will remain forever capable of capturing an image that no digital sensor in general circulation can touch without a lot of stitching (of course, an 11x14 camera is so tricky to set up and use that I'm not AT ALL sure that a 20-shot stitch with a D3x isn't an easier way to that image quality).
-Dan
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Sorry! You are saying the opposite of what my eyes are telling me, at least with Canon DSLRs. I've made careful comparisons in relation to such issues and it's very clear to me that:
(1) ETTR is more important the higher the ISO and less important the lower the ISO.
(2) If noise is a concern, it's always better to aim for an ETTR at a higher ISO than use the same exposure at a lower ISO.
There might be a sweet spot where such differences are most noticeable, but as a general trend it works across the whole range of 'real' ISO settings. An ETTR at ISO 200 is better than a one-stop under-exposure at ISO 100. An ETTR at ISO 1600 is better than a one-stop underexposure at ISO 800 and also better than a 4-stop underexposure at ISO 100, with Canon cameras.
I understand the reason for this result is that at higher-than-base ISO, Canon amplify the analogue signal before it is subject to A/D conversion and all the other processes that might introduce noise. By amplifying the signal whilst it's still at the analogue stage, the total noise component of the signal is not reduced (in fact it's probably increased slightly) but the size of the signal in relation to the size of the noise is very much greater, therefore S/N ratio is much improved.
I'm surprised that Sony are not using such methods. Perhaps both Canon and Nikon have a patent on their own methods in this respect and Sony are unable to devise a different way of reducing noise without infringing on such patents.
Ray, based on tests with my A900 (and my Phase back, for that matter) you are absolutely correct. Whatever ISO you're using, flood the pixels with as much light as you can w/out serious clipping and then dial-in the right density in post processing. (Thomas Knoll expounded on that several years ago somewhere in an article MR wrote on this site.)
Bill
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The cost of a sensor of a given size is slowly going down, in part due to economies of scale, and in part due to improved manufacturing techniques. A large part of the cost arises from the high defect rate, so addressing that could easily halve the production cost per unit. Also, we are seeing displays being made using printing processes, whereby the transistors are printed on a substrate. I do not know enough about the physics to know if it would be possible to print a sensor. It might be that the incident photon to recorded electron ratio would be low, so ISO performance might not be good. But then again, a 4"x5" digital camera with a D3 equivalent pixel density restricted to ISO 100 might be a pixel peepers dream. As to whether or not a lens could be manufactured to illuminate such a large image circle and make use of such a high pixel density, who knows.
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Bill, using ETTR is fine by me, and I use it frequently. However, Ettr at an ISO above your sensor sweetspot does not gain anything. Even if you meter for ETTR, you're still better off holding those shutter and fstop settings and then cranking down the ISO that happens to be your camera's sweetspot, and that would be ISO 100 on the A900. After that, boost exposure in raw with highlight compression. What raw converter are you using?
Ps. This all about eeking out best results. Shooting regularly, the A900 is competitive through ISO 800 with the other makes.
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Bill, using ETTR is fine by me, and I use it frequently. However, Ettr at an ISO above your sensor sweetspot does not gain anything. Even if you meter for ETTR, you're still better off holding those shutter and fstop settings and then cranking down the ISO that happens to be your camera's sweetspot, and that would be ISO 100 on the A900. After that, boost exposure in raw with highlight compression. What raw converter are you using?
Ps. This all about eeking out best results. Shooting regularly, the A900 is competitive through ISO 800 with the other makes.
I'm not sure that 'sweet spot' is the correct term here, Doug. Most cameras have a sweet spot at base ISO. That is, the camera can perform at its full potential at base ISO with regard to DR, S/N and resolution, given proper exposure. The A900 seems to be unusual in the respect that best performance is at one of the expanded ISO settings, ie. ISO 100. Base ISO is 200, is it not?
Basically, I would characterise the A900 as a 'one ISO' camera. It seems that the only purpose served by using a higher ISO than 100 (which is actually ISO 119 according to DXOmark), is to brighten the image review on the camera's LCD screen, and/or allow the camera to produce decent jpegs with its internal processing. For those who shoot RAW, it would seem best practice to always have the camera set on ISO 100 for all shooting conditions.
There is the concept of the 'false' ISO setting. For Canon cameras such as the 5D, there is little point in using ISO 3200, if you shoot RAW. DR and shadow noise are no better than they would be using the same exposure at ISO 1600, which is effectively a one stop underexposure. In fact it can be disadvantageous to use the false ISOs and attempt to get a full ETTR at such ISOs, because there's always a danger of miscalculating exposure and blowing highlights. Using the same exposure at a lower ISO greatly reduces the risk of blown highlights whilst presenting no disadvantages.
I guess one could claim that all ISOs on the A900 above ISO 100 are false ISOs. They serve no image quality purpose. This is not the case with Canon cameras and, it seems clear, is not the case with the D3X.
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I would have agreed with mostly everything you just said a while back, but after jumpin down the rabbit hole with Iliah Borg and others involved in raw conversion, I'm beginning to understand choosing the right raw converter, exposing for that converter, the nuances in the ways these cameras are built...and the nuance and dependability of reviews/tests, and that includes DXO mark.
When I say sweet spot, I'm referring to the point where it becomes more advantageous to boost in raw devoloper rather than boost ISO in camera. This rarely correlates to extended camera ISOs. With the A900, that number is between ISO 100-400, depending on the converter used (maybe higher with Adobe, as it's about the worst out there.) That number goes a stop higher to ISO 800 with the D3x. I don't know what that number is on your Canons, but I can almost guarantee it's not what you think it is, given what you've been saying.
Saying that the A900 is a single ISO camera is absurd, unless you shoot in the way I mentioned above, in which all cameras are essentially single iso cameras. If using in camera ISOs, the A900 does fine in the noise department compared to the competition until iso1600, where it starts losing noticeable ground. Of course, it also has distinct advantages over other cameras at ISOs lower than 1600. The issue that some are having with the 5dii is that's a jack of all trades, master of none. If shooting in the lower ISOs, the D3d and A900 reign supreme, with each having advantages over the other depending on the scene. At the higher ISOs, the D3/700 is still king.
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Saying that the A900 is a single ISO camera is absurd, unless you shoot in the way I mentioned above, in which all cameras are essentially single iso cameras.
No, I don't think you've grasped the point. It is never better on a Canon to underexpose at a lower ISO instead of using the same exposure as an ETTR at a higher ISO, unless one uses the expanded ISO range, which is ISO 3200 on the 5D, 40D, 1Ds2, 1Ds3; ISO 6400 on the 50D and ISO 12,800 on the 5D2.
Maybe I've misunderstood what you are saying which is why I asked for clarification in a previous post, so I'll ask again. If you meter at ISO 800 and get a reading of 1/100th sec at F8, which you estimate would give you a full ETTR exposure maximising DR and S/N at that specific ISO of 800, you are saying that you will get better results by using that same exposure of 1/100th sec and F8 at ISO 100, and compensating for the underexposure of 3 stops in the RAW converter. Right?
Now I know that different RAW converters can produce slightly different results, depending on the camera. I used to prefer RSP before Adobe bought them out. DPP seems to produce a marginally finer noise pattern than ACR with Canon RAW files, but I consider such differences to be of the nature of extreme pixel-peeping. But sometimes they may not be, so let me ask you a few more questions.
(1) Are you claiming that your RAW converter of choice for A900 images, does a better job than ACR in compensating for underexposure across the whole range of ISO's, or are you claiming that it mainly does a better job with the A900 only at ISO 100?
(2) Are you claiming that ACR conversions of A900 images underexposed by 3 stops at ISO 100 are the same, better or worse than ACR conversions at ISO 800, using the same exposure for a full ETR at ISO 800?
(3) Are you claiming that full exposures at ISO 1600 on the A900 are the same, better or worse than 4-stop underexposures at ISO 100, using your favourite converter?
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As the pixel peepers seems to be clustered in this thread like a decay of zombies around a still breathing human.
Try this quiz to see how good you really are.
Spot the gifference (http://www2.b3ta.com/spot-the-giference/#)
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I grasped the point. I just believe you're wrong.
Really, outside of highlight recovery, ACR is poor for all cameras, comparitively. Making IQ judgements and using ACR don't mix well, and it happens to be particularly bad for the A900. I agree that this is all pixel peeping to a point, but so is comparing the high ISO noise of all of these cameras, so we should be consistant.
Yes, bumping the ISO down to around 100-400 and boosting in raw (not ACR) is better than shooting ISO 1600 with the A900, but that is not unique to Sony.
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jjj, I agree that this is all pixel peeper mumbo jumbo, but the title of this thread evokes exactly that. If you're not printing large, there is little difference between any of these cameras.
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I'm always happy to be proved wrong. That's how I learn. I do a few tests with the material available. I use my common sense, experience and what little knowledge I possess to make certain deductions and draw certain conclusions.
If I've overlooked something, or my testing material was flawed in some way, or perhaps I didn't use the best converter available for a particular camera, then I'm happy to have such flaws in my methodology mentioned. I've got no barrow to push here except getting at the facts.
What I don't go along with are claims that because so and so are very experienced photographers and actually own the equipment under discussion, they must always be right on all issues.
Show me the images. Describe the methodology.
I think Lepig's point is that all things being equal, the D3X out resolves the D3 and I can understand that because the D3X is a superior resolution camera. That's pretty common sense. And when I say all things being equal, I mean that the Nikon sensor is at least as good at what it does as the Canon sensor. There is yet another way to put this: What "sensor" is more efficient at what it does? The Nikon sensor would have to be "better" if it were to have, say, lower noise, since the same size sensor has more MPs, and thus more possible noise. If the Nikon has the same noise as the DS3, then the Nikon sensor (or other electronics) are doing a better job at canceling noise and keeping detail. Lepig is a scientist in this respect. What he is talking about are those variables that can be measured by testing equipment where the eyes fail.
The next question is something like: All things being equal, such as in a lab environment, which camera can produce better prints when viewed by the naked eye? And that question would be of no concern for some application that is screen based and seen at 100%. I don't know of any of those, except maybe some sort of scientific application, or maybe forensics. Again, Lepig's point, I think, is that using specific test equipment and parameters that are measurable, even if you can't see them with the naked eye, Nikon wins. Likewise, if you scan in a perfect negative from a medium format camera and scan it with a film grain resolution, the film MF camera will out resolve a 50MP camera because at that scan resolution, I think you get around a 128MB file.
My point here is that to argue scientific tests with your eyeball is missing the point of the scientific test. I guess a really simple analogy would be something like this: A 1MT Nuclear bomb releases less power than a 1.0000000000000000000000000000000009MT bomb, and that is surely true as true can be. Does it make a difference when bombing? Nope. And this these are the two arguments we are confusing here, I think.
Why do I get sucked into these types as analysis? It must be a guy thing.
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As the pixel peepers seems to be clustered in this thread like a decay of zombies around a still breathing human.
Try this quiz to see how good you really are.
Spot the gifference (http://www2.b3ta.com/spot-the-giference/#)
jjj,
Why are you seeking the company of a cluster of decaying zombies? Is it because of your fascination with cats? These creatures cause great havoc in our pristine Australian environment (the cats, not the zombies).
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"If someone tells you D3x does not record any more details than the D3 at 1600 ISO, what it tells is only that you were listening to an incompetent tester, even he or she actually has the means to own the equipment."
Calling others incompetent is rude in my book.
Actually it is only one variable, and the shot I showed was done with a tripod. Another variable that you completely ignore is spectral properties differences between the two cameras and what happens when those are compensated for by conversion; then you impugn the competence of those that are aware of these issues because you saw a comparison made under studio lighting.
Galen Rowell was a hand hold person, he couldn't hold on to 55 lbs while hanging from a rock face and taking the shot you missed because you stayed on the ground. Thom Hogan is his most notable protege; and he points out that the farther you get from the main road, the fewer big rigs you see. You think pretty highly of yourself when you refer to such people as not being "capable landscape photographers".
It's not rude to call someone incompetent if it is true. The word just means not up to the task.
INCOMPETENT:
1: not legally qualified 2: inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose 3 a: lacking the qualities needed for effective action
What is so rude about that?
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I grasped the point. I just believe you're wrong.
You reckon my eyes are deceiving me and I should see a doctor?
I've addressed this issue a number of times over the years and have made several test comparisons to confirm what others have also claimed. The early Canon cameras such as the D60 offered only a very marginal improvement in DR and S/N when using a specific exposure at a higher ISO instead of a lower ISO. This situation changed dramatically with the 20D.
Nevertheless, there's still not much difference between ISOs of one stop difference. An ETTR at ISO 1600 is still only marginally cleaner than the same exposure at ISO 800, which in turn is only marginally cleaner than ISO 400. But compare a shot at ISO 1600 with a shot using the same settings at ISO 100, and the difference is like chalk and cheese.
Yes, bumping the ISO down to around 100-400 and boosting in raw (not ACR) is better than shooting ISO 1600 with the A900, but that is not unique to Sony.
You haven't answered all my questions regarding this point. Are you saying that ACR produces a better image with the A900 at ISO 1600, than it does at ISO 100 when underexposed 4 stops, but that your favourite converter produces a better image at ISO 100 than it does at ISO 1600? Or, are you saying that your favourite converter produces better images than ACR at both ISO 100 and ISO 1600, in these circumstance where actual exposure is the same at both ISOs?
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jjj,
Why are you seeking the company of a cluster of decaying zombies?
No, it's a 'decay of zombies' not a cluster. Girlfriend asked me the other day what the collective noun for a gathering of zombies was, not sure why, maybe trying to describe her workmates? And a 'decay' seemed apposite.
Is it because of your fascination with cats?
I didn't design the kitten quiz, I just saw it after reading this thread.
These creatures cause great havoc in our pristine Australian environment (the cats, not the zombies).
So you've tamed the zombies but cannot control kittens!?! Weird country.
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You reckon my eyes are deceiving me and I should see a doctor?
I've addressed this issue a number of times over the years and have made several test comparisons to confirm what others have also claimed. The early Canon cameras such as the D60 offered only a very marginal improvement in DR and S/N when using a specific exposure at a higher ISO instead of a lower ISO. This situation changed dramatically with the 20D.
Nevertheless, there's still not much difference between ISOs of one stop difference. An ETTR at ISO 1600 is still only marginally cleaner than the same exposure at ISO 800, which in turn is only marginally cleaner than ISO 400. But compare a shot at ISO 1600 with a shot using the same settings at ISO 100, and the difference is like chalk and cheese.
You haven't answered all my questions regarding this point. Are you saying that ACR produces a better image with the A900 at ISO 1600, than it does at ISO 100 when underexposed 4 stops, but that your favourite converter produces a better image at ISO 100 than it does at ISO 1600? Or, are you saying that your favourite converter produces better images than ACR at both ISO 100 and ISO 1600, in these circumstance where actual exposure is the same at both ISOs?
Sorry, Ray. I'm trying to answer your questions, but Im posting on a cell phone and I can't review your questions as I'm typing. These long posts are tedious BTW, if there is a shortness to my posts, please don't take it as being rude. It's just because of my input device. Freakin technology LOL.
Anyways, with ACR or Sony's IDC software, I shoot normally, because there does not seem to be any real advantage to underexposure with boosting in RAW. A RAW converter with more advanced demoisacing, like RPP, does show me that underexposing and then boosting in RAW does show advantages. So I believe that the answer to both your questions is yes. I believe that if you dump ACR and DPP, you may form new opinions about this with your Canons.
Basically, all of the fullframe cameras are very good now, and each has it's strong suits. The problem arrises with arm chair pixel peeping, as it's what's become popular for easy to understand, short reviews. However, if making judgements between cameras involves using ACR or similar, those judgements should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Bill, using ETTR is fine by me, and I use it frequently. However, Ettr at an ISO above your sensor sweetspot does not gain anything. Even if you meter for ETTR, you're still better off holding those shutter and fstop settings and then cranking down the ISO that happens to be your camera's sweetspot, and that would be ISO 100 on the A900. After that, boost exposure in raw with highlight compression. What raw converter are you using?
Ps. This all about eeking out best results. Shooting regularly, the A900 is competitive through ISO 800 with the other makes.
I use Capture One for RAW conversion then LR2 for final adjustments, unless I need PS, which is very rare now. Aperture actually does a bit better than C1 at high ISOs but I rarely use it because my final product is a print - and even with 16 by 20s, I just cannot see the difference. By 24 by 36, it certainly becomes visible but I don't routinely print to that size from my a900 - I'd normally be using MFDB for those pix.
Pixel peeping is an interesting "academic" exercise but really it's the end product that should be critiqued, not 100% images on a screen.
But hey, it's all fun!
Bill
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Good points, Bill. I've currently settled on C1 as a compromise between workflow an IQ, but I've been reading a lot about flat RAW conversion with PS corrections, and that is apparently the top of the IQ mountain so far. However, like you said, at 16x20 the noise differences between any of these cameras and converters is minimal. Hilariously, I tend to add noise to a lot of my low ISO stuff. Go figure
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Whoops, double post.
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So you've tamed the zombies but cannot control kittens!?! Weird country.
Cannot is not the operative word. Don't want to, or can't be bothered is more like it. It seems unnatural to me to keep a cat locked up in the house 24 hours a day, or keep a close watch on it when it's let out into the garden, in case it starts playing with a near-extinct species of lizard. Animals should be allowed a certain degree of freedom. Do you want to spend your life as an animal baby-sitter?
However, cats in Australia present a different problem because they are not indigenous, just as rabbits and Cane Toads are also not indigenous and also create problems as a consequence.
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Basically, all of the fullframe cameras are very good now, and each has it's strong suits. The problem arrises with arm chair pixel peeping, as it's what's become popular for easy to understand, short reviews. However, if making judgements between cameras involves using ACR or similar, those judgements should be taken with a grain of salt.
Doug,
I know that they are all very good, on balance, and that each camera has its strong points and weak points. The purpose of pixel-peeping is not necessarily an end in itself, as an armchair exercise. It might be for some, but it isn't for me. For me it's a way of finding out the true advantages of a piece of equipment so I can justify buying it. Most people simply haven't got the time and money to buy or hire each piece of equipment that they might be interested in, and test it for themselves in the field. And, of course, new equipment is often not available for hire. I once tried to hire a D3 in Australia with Nikkor 14-24/2.8 lens. Neither were available at the time and the lens was never going to be available for hire because its bulbous front element prevented the attachment of a protective UV filter.
The problem is, essentially, that all sorts of claims are made about equipment that may be broadly true but need to be quantified, otherwise one could waste a lot of money buying certain equipment with the understanding that there is an advantage in some important respect, DR, noise, resolution, whatever, and then find out later that in practice the advantage is insignificant. In order to quantify such differences, someone has to engage in pixel-peeping and the results ideally should be accompanied with images demonstrating such difference.
The possibility that RPP might do a better conversion job than ACR is interesting, but again, some of us want to know how much better. It would have to be very much better for me to use that program because it seems to be restricted to the Mac operating system and I'm a PC guy.
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It's not rude to call someone incompetent if it is true. The word just means not up to the task.
INCOMPETENT:
1: not legally qualified 2: inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose 3 a: lacking the qualities needed for effective action
What is so rude about that?
Okay, I think you're incompetent too -- no offense intended.
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No, it's a 'decay of zombies' not a cluster. Girlfriend asked me the other day what the collective noun for a gathering of zombies was, not sure why, maybe trying to describe her workmates? And a 'decay' seemed apposite.
Can't agree. Decay is more appropriate for corpses. A decay of corpses. Sound right, doesn't it? Zombies are still living, or at least animated, aren't they? Incidentally, Wikipedia uses the collective noun of 'horde' and 'plague' for zombies. For cats it's a clutter.
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Ray, nearly any raw converter...rpp, raw therepee, rawmagick, bible, capture one, etc is better than ACR, outside of highlight recovery. I'm using C1 currently. ACR is still fine for most, but if you care about the slight nuances between these cameras, using acr is contradictory.
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Ray, nearly any raw converter...rpp, raw therepee, rawmagick, bible, capture one, etc is better than ACR, outside of highlight recovery. I'm using C1 currently. ACR is still fine for most, but if you care about the slight nuances between these cameras, using acr is contradictory.
Wow! You've actually compared all those? Did it take long?
If you admit that ACR is better at highlight recovery, then it's difficult to claim that the others are better at shadow recovery since you would have to give a shorter exposure to avoid blowing highlights. The shorter exposure cause the shadows to be noisier so the other converters need to be better at shadow recovery to achieve the same result as ACR.
In what respect are these other converters better than ACR? Color accuracy? Sharpness and detail? Can you show some example images?
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Okay, I think you're incompetent too -- no offense intended.
The problem with the word is that like "pitiful" its vernacular usage has deviated from its actual definition. As such, people tend to think "pitiful" is a derogatory or put down remark, when it's actually a form of compassion. You're using the word here, in my case, to show how it can be used a a rude remark, but only if you take it in the wrong way in the first place. Of course you have also used the word out of any context, unlike Lepig, because you have not stated in which way--and proved it--that I am "incompetent."
In other words, you need to show in which way someone is incompetent, which goes beyond your subjective point of view, which is what Lepig was trying to explain using scientific criteria. If you do not state in which way, the first intelligent response to any assertion of incompetence would be, "In which way?" Lipeg used the word correctly in that he applied it contextually to faulty research and methodology, and his assumption is that the person was not up to the task. There is another option in that the person could have been up to the task, but simply made methodological errors. Either way, it's not meant a a put down the way Lepig used the word, and he used it quite correctly.
I think the word you are confusing with "incompetent" is "charlatan."
Incompetent: 1. not legally qualified 2. inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose 3. lacking the qualities needed for effective action 4. unable to function properly
Charlatan: 1. quack 2. one making usually showy pretenses to knowledge or ability 3. fraud 4. faker
Similar, but very different.
In either case, make sure to back up any assertions of incompetence (as Lepig did) or a charlatanism, because if you don't, you may diminish your own credibility.
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To my eyes the A900 knocks the spots off the 'horrible' film images. What the author takes as extra detail in the Velvia image is in fact noise. Add speckle noise to the A900 image, and it will 'improve' it to the level of the Velvia one.
No doubt, in these tests the a900 outclasses the films. My point was that they're still competing even at the 24 mp level, and reasonably will outresolve the 6, 10 and 12 sensors.
Ah, found the old thread on dpreview - http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat...4253&page=1 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1037&thread=29704253&page=1)
Naturally it eventually descended into petty bickering, and at best, film really only competes with a900 resolution under perfect conditions with select, very low iso film and a perfectly calibrated drum scanner. And even then, the film exhibits more grain.
I'm not arguing that 35mm film is better than the d3x/a900, the only thing film would have against these beasts is dynamic range - it's interesting though that there is still a comparison. And I've no doubt that it will easily outresolve those lower mp sensors.
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No doubt, in these tests the a900 outclasses the films. My point was that they're still competing even at the 24 mp level, and reasonably will outresolve the 6, 10 and 12 sensors.
Ah, found the old thread on dpreview - http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat...4253&page=1 (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1037&thread=29704253&page=1)
Naturally it eventually descended into petty bickering, and at best, film really only competes with a900 resolution under perfect conditions with select, very low iso film and a perfectly calibrated drum scanner. And even then, the film exhibits more grain.
I'm not arguing that 35mm film is better than the d3x/a900, the only thing film would have against these beasts is dynamic range - it's interesting though that there is still a comparison. And I've no doubt that it will easily outresolve those lower mp sensors.
You make very valid points, but is resolution the best measure of IQ? I would argue that the A900 is easily outresolving the film in your tests, though I do agree that the film is doing well in that regard. But in terms of IQ, I find the film horrible. (Subjective I know.) I did my own comparison here:
Velvia 100F versus D200 (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/DigitalVersusFilm/Velvia100-versus-D200.html)
Take it with the measure of salt intended. How does your film compare to Velvia 100F?
I find it incredible how far we have come in less than 10 years.
"Naturally it eventually descended into petty bickering"
A dpreview thread descended into bickering? Crikey, now there's a first ...
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You make very valid points, but is resolution the best measure of IQ? I would argue that the A900 is easily outresolving the film in your tests, though I do agree that the film is doing well in that regard. But in terms of IQ, I find the film horrible. (Subjective I know.) I did my own comparison here:
Velvia 100F versus D200 (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/DigitalVersusFilm/Velvia100-versus-D200.html)
Take it with the measure of salt intended. How does your film compare to Velvia 100F?
I find it incredible how far we have come in less than 10 years.
"Naturally it eventually descended into petty bickering"
A dpreview thread descended into bickering? Crikey, now there's a first ...
Abosolutely not, resolution is significant, but hardly defines IQ. Overall, the very clean grain and iso performance of digital hold such a significant advantage over film, that it's easy to compromise with dynamic range and compete with resolution. That's not getting into colour, saturation, contrast, etc that can get into a whole other discussion
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Wow! You've actually compared all those? Did it take long?
If you admit that ACR is better at highlight recovery, then it's difficult to claim that the others are better at shadow recovery since you would have to give a shorter exposure to avoid blowing highlights. The shorter exposure cause the shadows to be noisier so the other converters need to be better at shadow recovery to achieve the same result as ACR.
In what respect are these other converters better than ACR? Color accuracy? Sharpness and detail? Can you show some example images?
I'm specifically referring to detail, sharpness, and noise "blotchiness..." really the whole demosaicing process.
Regardless, here is an interesting thread on RAW processing, and it's the direction I plan on taking.
flat raw conversion (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=30613647&page=1)
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I think that by the time you are quibbling over which RAW converter to use just to show ANY difference between the cameras, the choice is no longer pure resolution, it's systems, usage, etc. You might be willing to live with a lesser body/system for superior IQ (the 5D in it's heyday) however when the superior IQ is so hard to get at that it's pretty much only visible with specific converters which may have an inefficient workflow in comparison anyway, the ability to use better lenses, weather proofing, superior AF, dual card, etc should be far more important a consideration than an extra 3% better resolution possibly visible using specific software only. The choice between a 1Ds mkIII or a D3x is far more the choice of system than a possible insignificant difference in resolution. Ditto the 5D mkII vs the Sony.
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Hi,
A couple of comments.
1) Slide film has very narrow DR about 5 steps IMHO, that's much less than digital which is the nine+ steps of territory.
2) Drum scanning is not exactly cheap. Top class MF slide scanners are quite expensive.
3) With digital and raw format it is possible to emulate almost any color (within the limitation of the color filter array and its spectral characteristics).
Best regards
Erik
Abosolutely not, resolution is significant, but hardly defines IQ. Overall, the very clean grain and iso performance of digital hold such a significant advantage over film, that it's easy to compromise with dynamic range and compete with resolution. That's not getting into colour, saturation, contrast, etc that can get into a whole other discussion
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I think that by the time you are quibbling over which RAW converter to use just to show ANY difference between the cameras, the choice is no longer pure resolution, it's systems, usage, etc. You might be willing to live with a lesser body/system for superior IQ (the 5D in it's heyday) however when the superior IQ is so hard to get at that it's pretty much only visible with specific converters which may have an inefficient workflow in comparison anyway, the ability to use better lenses, weather proofing, superior AF, dual card, etc should be far more important a consideration than an extra 3% better resolution possibly visible using specific software only. The choice between a 1Ds mkIII or a D3x is far more the choice of system than a possible insignificant difference in resolution. Ditto the 5D mkII vs the Sony.
Very good point. I'm looking at it in similar terms. By the time you get to the point about quibbling between the difference of theses cameras, choice of RAW converter and lens, and overall RAW technique, has as much to do with IQ as the camera itself.
Interestingly enough, I've been reading some stuff about lens DR, which I'd never really considered. Apparently, many lenses tend to top out in DR around 11 stops, but I'm new to this stuff and have little understanding.
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In either case, make sure to back up any assertions of incompetence (as Lepig did) or a charlatanism, because if you don't, you may diminish your own credibility.
Well, I don't think Lepig did back up his assertions of incompetence and I couldn't care less what you think of my credibility; I have been ignoring you for a long time in these forums (I click on replies from people on my "Ignore User" list to see what they are saying about me and if my name doesn't come up I don't read them). I'm not going to go searching for the reason why I started ignoring you, but it was obvious to me when I did it that you had nothing to offer me, just as I now consider your pedantic defense of Lepig a lot of BS and a waste of my time to read. I backed up my critique of Lepig by linking to some bizarre claim of 300% improvement he claimed for the D3x over its competitors, so by your own reasoning I was not rude either. Write whatever you want in reply, but realize that I will not be reading it as I'm done caring what you write about me in this thread.
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Enough. You people have the collective IQ of a clam. Let me be clearer: Individually you are all nice guys and bright cogent practitioners of the art of photography, and i have the highest respect of your skills, far superior to mine. Together you are a bunch of querellous tykes, and you spout insulting nonsense. Go home, get a drink. Kiss your wife and tell her you love her and she makes you happy every day. Get a life. Stop polluting this forum.
This was a public service broadcast. Thank you for tuning in.
Edmund
Well, I don't think Lepig did back up his assertions of incompetence and I couldn't care less what you think of my credibility; I have been ignoring you for a long time in these forums (I click on replies from people on my "Ignore User" list to see what they are saying about me and if my name doesn't come up I don't read them). I'm not going to go searching for the reason why I started ignoring you, but it was obvious to me when I did it that you had nothing to offer me, just as I now consider your pedantic defense of Lepig a lot of BS and a waste of my time to read. I backed up my critique of Lepig by linking to some bizarre claim of 300% improvement he claimed for the D3x over its competitors, so by your own reasoning I was not rude either. Write whatever you want in reply, but realize that I will not be reading it as I'm done caring what you write about me in this thread.
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I'm specifically referring to detail, sharpness, and noise "blotchiness..." really the whole demosaicing process.
Regardless, here is an interesting thread on RAW processing, and it's the direction I plan on taking.
flat raw conversion (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=30613647&page=1)
Don't ask me to wade through the posts at dpreview. There are sufficient here .
The idea that a particular converter can do a better de-mosaicing job than another, and extract more detail than ACR can, has its appeal. We all want to get the most out of our RAW images.
What I've found in the past when comparing converters is that some converters do indeed produce 'better' results than ACR with a few clicks and slides of the control options. ACR does tend to produce a slightly blotchy result, even at its best, when compared with certain other converters, including Canon's DPP.
However, I get the impression that the reason for the blotchiness may be due to the fact that ACR performs some noise reduction which cannot be switched off. As a consequence, the price to pay for the additional detail that another converter may provide, is greater noise in the shadows and the lower mid-tones. This what I have found with the trial version of Bibble which I downloaded yesterday.
A few years ago I shot a couple of hundred bracketed shots of the city of Brisbane for the purpose of making a gigantic panorama. I used the Canon 100-400 IS at 400mm and F11 with the 20D. The atmospheric turbulence and dust, combined with the slight softness of F11 produced rather flat images that need a lot of sharpening and local contrast enhancement. I put the project to one side. Too much work.
I wondered what Bibble would make of these images. Bibble has an interesting feature called "Perfectly Clear" which optimises contrast and color with one click. It really seems to work.
Basically, I wanted to know if Bibble could extract more detail than ACR from the slightly blurry and blotchy foliage, so I selected one of the 200 shots from my panorama project and converted it in ACR and Bibble with zero noise reduction but maximum sharpening in both converters. The starting positions were the 'Auto' setting in ACR and the 'Perfectly Clear' setting in Bibble. I made further adjustments in Photoshop to get the color and contrast matching as closely as possible.
It seems clear from the results that Bibble is able to extract more detail than ACR and produce more naturally looking highlights, when sharpening is at its maximum. But it's also clear that ACR produces less noise in the shadows and the lower midtones. Any attempt to apply noise reduction in the Bibble software, destroys the detail advantage over ACR. Any attempt to produce smoother highlights in ACR by reducing sharpening, increases the smearing and blotchiness of the foliage.
These are simply different results. Neither is necessarily better than the other, taking everything into consideration. I suppose I should take this experiment one step further and make prints.
Judge the results for yourself.
[attachment=10899:8315_full_image.jpg] [attachment=10900:8315_com..._foliage.jpg] [attachment=10901:8315_com...uildings.jpg] [attachment=10902:8315_com...t_cranes.jpg]
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Hi,
I downloaded Bibble yesterday, too. Bad news is that it doesn't read my DNGs, neither does DxO, so it seems that a DNG-based workflow is a one way solution.
I didn't have the time to play around with Bibble yet. I have used Bibble earlier and at that time "Perfectly Clear" introduced some artifacts, mostly double contours around bright edges. I have not seen this on the few pictures I checked since yesternight.
Thanks for observations
Erik
Don't ask me to wade through the posts at dpreview. There are sufficient here .
The idea that a particular converter can do a better de-mosaicing job than another, and extract more detail than ACR can, has its appeal. We all want to get the most out of our RAW images.
What I've found in the past when comparing converters is that some converters do indeed produce 'better' results than ACR with a few clicks and slides of the control options. ACR does tend to produce a slightly blotchy result, even at its best, when compared with certain other converters, including Canon's DPP.
However, I get the impression that the reason for the blotchiness may be due to the fact that ACR performs some noise reduction which cannot be switched off. As a consequence, the price to pay for the additional detail that another converter may provide, is greater noise in the shadows and the lower mid-tones. This what I have found with the trial version of Bibble which I downloaded yesterday.
A few years ago I shot a couple of hundred bracketed shots of the city of Brisbane for the purpose of making a gigantic panorama. I used the Canon 100-400 IS at 400mm and F11 with the 20D. The atmospheric turbulence and dust, combined with the slight softness of F11 produced rather flat images that need a lot of sharpening and local contrast enhancement. I put the project to one side. Too much work.
I wondered what Bibble would make of these images. Bibble has an interesting feature called "Perfectly Clear" which optimises contrast and color with one click. It really seems to work.
Basically, I wanted to know if Bibble could extract more detail than ACR from the slightly blurry and blotchy foliage, so I selected one of the 200 shots from my panorama project and converted it in ACR and Bibble with zero noise reduction but maximum sharpening in both converters. The starting positions were the 'Auto' setting in ACR and the 'Perfectly Clear' setting in Bibble. I made further adjustments in Photoshop to get the color and contrast matching as closely as possible.
It seems clear from the results that Bibble is able to extract more detail than ACR and produce more naturally looking highlights, when sharpening is at its maximum. But it's also clear that ACR produces less noise in the shadows and the lower midtones. Any attempt to apply noise reduction in the Bibble software, destroys the detail advantage over ACR. Any attempt to produce smoother highlights in ACR by reducing sharpening, increases the smearing and blotchiness of the foliage.
These are simply different results. Neither is necessarily better than the other, taking everything into consideration. I suppose I should take this experiment one step further and make prints.
Judge the results for yourself.
[attachment=10899:8315_full_image.jpg] [attachment=10900:8315_com..._foliage.jpg] [attachment=10901:8315_com...uildings.jpg] [attachment=10902:8315_com...t_cranes.jpg]
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Well, I don't think Lepig did back up his assertions of incompetence and I couldn't care less what you think of my credibility; I have been ignoring you for a long time in these forums (I click on replies from people on my "Ignore User" list to see what they are saying about me and if my name doesn't come up I don't read them). I'm not going to go searching for the reason why I started ignoring you, but it was obvious to me when I did it that you had nothing to offer me, just as I now consider your pedantic defense of Lepig a lot of BS and a waste of my time to read. I backed up my critique of Lepig by linking to some bizarre claim of 300% improvement he claimed for the D3x over its competitors, so by your own reasoning I was not rude either. Write whatever you want in reply, but realize that I will not be reading it as I'm done caring what you write about me in this thread.
Sounds like for some reason you have a lot of anger and hate in your life at this time for some reason. I'm sorry to about that. Good luck to you.
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[attachment=10899:8315_full_image.jpg] [attachment=10900:8315_com..._foliage.jpg] [attachment=10901:8315_com...uildings.jpg] [attachment=10902:8315_com...t_cranes.jpg]
Seattle--!!!
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Seattle--!!!
Brisbane, Australia. Capital of the State of Queensland. Bigger than Texas.
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Brisbane, Australia. Capital of the State of Queensland. Bigger than Texas.
LOL--those cranes looks just like the ones in Puget Sound, Seattle. I can see the difference now!
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Hi,
A couple of comments.
1) Slide film has very narrow DR about 5 steps IMHO, that's much less than digital which is the nine+ steps of territory.
2) Drum scanning is not exactly cheap. Top class MF slide scanners are quite expensive.
3) With digital and raw format it is possible to emulate almost any color (within the limitation of the color filter array and its spectral characteristics).
Best regards
Erik
1 - True, but negative film still usually has more dynamic range than digital (although digital is catching up very fast). Using Kodak Ektar gives you almost the same resolution of Velvia 50 and the benefit of a negative's much higher dynamic range. I still love those Velvia colours though, heh.
2 - Yes, to do a proper conversion to digital is expensive. The resolution is still there though and available to use.
3 - Also true. With film a shot that's in black and white is in black and white and that's it. And a shot with tungsten film is always going to be a shot with tungsten film, you can't just change it afterward.
I'm not arguing that film is better than digital. In the 35mm world, the advantages of digital now are so strong that it really doesn't make sense except for certain niche shooting styles where people might prefer the film.
It is a misconception though, that the resolution of film was surpassed "a long time ago", that's all I'm trying to say
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The Nikon D3X is precisely $28.65 better in image quality then a Canon 5D Mark II.
Therefore anything over $2,728.65 is way too much to pay for the Nikon D3x. Sure it offers faster, and more features, but if one determines value by image quality alone, then the D3X is > 1000% over priced.
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The Nikon D3X is precisely $28.65 better in image quality then a Canon 5D Mark II.
Therefore anything over $2,728.65 is way too much to pay for the Nikon D3x. Sure it offers faster, and more features, but if one determines value by image quality alone, then the D3X is > 1000% over priced.
Yeah that's what I think too. You can buy 3 5D MKIIs for the price of one DX3, and have 500.00 left over to buy equipment. If I were a pro and were worried about image quality plus reliability, I think 3 5D MKIIs would beat one DX3.
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Yeah that's what I think too. You can buy 3 5D MKIIs for the price of one DX3, and have 500.00 left over to buy equipment. If I were a pro and were worried about image quality plus reliability, I think 3 5D MKIIs would beat one DX3.
Haven't you forgotten a couple of useful features that Nikon cameras have, that Canons don't have? You can autobracket 9 consecutive shots at intervals from 1/3rd EV to 1 EV. You have complete control over aperture and shutter speed for any shot, however sudden and unpredictable, and rely upon getting a reasonably accurate exposure.
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Haven't you forgotten a couple of useful features that Nikon cameras have, that Canons don't have? You can autobracket 9 consecutive shots at intervals from 1/3rd EV to 1 EV. You have complete control over aperture and shutter speed for any shot, however sudden and unpredictable, and rely upon getting a reasonably accurate exposure.
If you need those two things, then you have to buy the Nikon. As far as auto bracketing goes, yeah it's a nice option, but I can do that manually too. The option of autobracket 9 shots for an additional 5500 dollars is NOT on my list. I don't know what you mean by total control over shutter and aperture. I thought all cameras came with the option of changing your shutter and aperture for at least the last 50 years.
If you really don't HAVE to have those two options, I'd say a camera that is going to take pretty much the same quality of image x3 would be pretty compelling, especially since the 5D II has "pretty" good sealing. How often do you think you would run out of camera backs using 3 5D IIS? That's a lot of redundancy. So to counter, 3 camera redundancy for less money vs one camera for more money. Of course this would not even be an arguing point if the 5D II were not tough enough in the first place. If I were a war correspondent in the field, then I'd think about the best built/sealed camera I could buy. For the rest of us, 3 vs 1. It is compelling.
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I don't know what you mean by total control over shutter and aperture. I thought all cameras came with the option of changing your shutter and aperture for at least the last 50 years.
Sorry! I thought you'd work it out . With a Canon, you can walk around with camera in aperture priority mode, or TV mode and let the camera do the rest. With Nikon DSLRs (not necessarily all models. I'm not sure about that.) you can walk around in full manual mode (selecting both aperture and shutter speed) and let the camera do the rest (ie. aut-adjust ISO for correct exposure).
That seems to me to be a very sensible and useful feature. I can't understand why Canon have not adopted it.
Of course, you are right. Those two features alone are not necessarily worth the extra bucks, but they help .
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The Nikon D3X is precisely $28.65 better in image quality then a Canon 5D Mark II.
Therefore anything over $2,728.65 is way too much to pay for the Nikon D3x. Sure it offers faster, and more features, but if one determines value by image quality alone, then the D3X is > 1000% over priced.
I guess that it depends how much you value one stop of DR at base ISO, to cite only one major advantage.
Many pros have been selling their wife's Porsche in order to afford Phaseone/Leaf backs offering about the same advantage over the competition, but I guess that you are not one of them.
Cheers,
Bernard
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The simple fact is, the perceived value of a 24 mpx camera has now been diminished.
I fully agree with this and think it's a great point and wonder how many potential purchasers of the D3x are holding off for the half (or less) priced competitor from Nikon themselves ?
Personally I think the more robust bodies in the Canon DsIII (what I use) and the Nikon D3x (I'm aussuming ) are worth more money then the lower priced models, but IMHO both companies are making it harder to justify the extra spend on these models by releasing the same (ish) image quality in much lesser priced models..
I wonder would Nikon, Canon and Sony give me a few of the cheapies to do a drop test on ??
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I fully agree with this and think it's a great point and wonder how many potential purchasers of the D3x are holding off for the half (or less) priced competitor from Nikon themselves ?
Personally I think the more robust bodies in the Canon DsIII (what I use) and the Nikon D3x (I'm aussuming ) are worth more money then the lower priced models, but IMHO both companies are making it harder to justify the extra spend on these models by releasing the same (ish) image quality in much lesser priced models..
I wonder would Nikon, Canon and Sony give me a few of the cheapies to do a drop test on ??
I'm afraid that a dropping test would damage or kill any of the bodies regardless of brand and grade.
On the other hand, a banging test , will show that the pro grade bodies can take more abuse.
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Enough. You people have the collective IQ of a clam. Let me be clearer: Individually you are all nice guys and bright cogent practitioners of the art of photography, and i have the highest respect of your skills, far superior to mine. Together you are a bunch of querellous tykes, and you spout insulting nonsense. Go home, get a drink. Kiss your wife and tell her you love her and she makes you happy every day. Get a life. Stop polluting this forum.
This was a public service broadcast. Thank you for tuning in.
Edmund
well said.
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well said.
The only thing I can say, it is that with a Nikon ( Or Canon to a lesser extent) lens in front, the resulting image will always look like a 35mm photo, regardless of how this marvel of a camera can handle photons, electrons, neurons and testosterone.
That is what you get: the classic Nikon look. It may work for some landscape, reportage and and environmental photography, but as for portrait, beauty, advertising and fashion it will always show that look. It is a matter of midrange contrast and bokhen, it is very distictive of 35mm lenses (a part for Leica and Zeiss), and it was not meant to be a compliment..
Do you remember how your contact sheet of the same shoot from the nikon looked close to the contact sheet from the hasselblad, contax or mamiya?
there you go.
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As far as auto bracketing goes, yeah it's a nice option, but I can do that manually too.
You can, but at a high risk to move the camera and get misaligned RAW files. With so many users and applications around making full use of bracketed shots in digital photography, designing the Canon 5D MKII with the old {-2,0,+2} scheme in mind is just ridiculous. Among other things, enhanced bracketing and the higher quality of wide angle lenses available in Nikon are making me seriously think of a change from Canon.
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I fully agree with this and think it's a great point and wonder how many potential purchasers of the D3x are holding off for the half (or less) priced competitor from Nikon themselves ?
Personally I think the more robust bodies in the Canon DsIII (what I use) and the Nikon D3x (I'm aussuming ) are worth more money then the lower priced models, but IMHO both companies are making it harder to justify the extra spend on these models by releasing the same (ish) image quality in much lesser priced models..
I wonder would Nikon, Canon and Sony give me a few of the cheapies to do a drop test on ??
Well, glad someone thought what I said made sense
While the majority are buzzing and squawking about whether the $8100 D3x is capable of marginally-eclipsing the $2700 Canon 5DMkII, in certain "areas of blackness," some people might ask the question is this really worth paying 3x as much over? I am not sure if we should be doing backflips over what the D3x can do, or ask the question, "Is that it, for 3x the price?"
Which camera is the better value? I think even Lloyd himself answered that ...
For those into telephotos and animal shots, another way to look at value is the fact a person could but a Canon 5DMkII and a 500mm f/4L IS USM for just about the same price as a D3x with no lens ... $8100 spent and you can't even take a photo yet
Same money spent on a 5DMkII and you're ready for a safari ...
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Sorry! I thought you'd work it out . With a Canon, you can walk around with camera in aperture priority mode, or TV mode and let the camera do the rest. With Nikon DSLRs (not necessarily all models. I'm not sure about that.) you can walk around in full manual mode (selecting both aperture and shutter speed) and let the camera do the rest (ie. aut-adjust ISO for correct exposure).
That seems to me to be a very sensible and useful feature. I can't understand why Canon have not adopted it.
Of course, you are right. Those two features alone are not necessarily worth the extra bucks, but they help .
Ah I see what you mean. Hmmm, for me that option would be of limited use, since I want full control of my ISO when shooting. And one button allows me to quickly adjust ISO on the fly is I need to, but I never need it so quickly that auto ISO would be a sale maker for me. When camera come with 100 ISO noise all the way up to 1600, or even 100-800 that would THEN be a very useful option. Now that I think about it, it would be useful RIGHT NOW, if you can limit how far it goes, say from 100-400?
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You can, but at a high risk to move the camera and get misaligned RAW files. With so many users and applications around making full use of bracketed shots in digital photography, designing the Canon 5D MKII with the old {-2,0,+2} scheme in mind is just ridiculous. Among other things, enhanced bracketing and the higher quality of wide angle lenses available in Nikon are making me seriously think of a change from Canon.
I agree. If you need that for the reasons you state, then it's priceless for sure.
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One area of photography I can say the 8K DSIII now 6500.00 and the 8K Nikon D3X are nice to have is when you pull out your camera in a situation where the folks who hired you are more interested in "what" you shoot with rather than "how good" you are shooting. I got hired to do some modeling school work a while back and the woman who hired me said, "Oh that's a IDS MKIII, no one around here shots with one of those. That's professional for sure." It was all I could do to stop my eyes from rolling and from shaking my head. I felt like shooting the whole thing with my 5D1 just so I could watch her fascination as the "Professional IDSMKIII" files came out shot with a 5D1. I should have shot the whole thing with a G9--lol.
I read once where Joe McNally was in a pissing contest with the art director of a shoot where he was the photographer, and he kept saying he wanted to do the shoot with one light and she was saying that just wasn't possible with one light and that they needed a minimum of four lights and that was that. So he set up the lights, turn all of them off but one, shot the test shots, and she said, "See, it looks great." He never told her the truth.
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The show is sometimes as important as the shoot..
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The show is sometimes as important as the shoot..
Sad but true. The show part is not an area at which I excel.
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Ah I see what you mean. Hmmm, for me that option would be of limited use, since I want full control of my ISO when shooting. And one button allows me to quickly adjust ISO on the fly is I need to, but I never need it so quickly that auto ISO would be a sale maker for me. When camera come with 100 ISO noise all the way up to 1600, or even 100-800 that would THEN be a very useful option. Now that I think about it, it would be useful RIGHT NOW, if you can limit how far it goes, say from 100-400?
You can limit that in Nikon cameras (don't know about other makes). I shoot my D700 at auto ISO very often capping it at 800 or 1600 depending on the subject and use since I find I get very acceptable results within that range for a multitude of subject / use combinations. Your mileage might differ.
Classic example for Auto ISO use often mentioned is sportshooting when targeting a subject moving fast from sunlight to shade.
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The show is sometimes as important as the shoot..
I have found this to be the case on nearly every job I've ever worked.
What sets apart the working stiffs from the superstars is delivery and showmanship.
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I have found this to be the case on nearly every job I've ever worked.
What sets apart the working stiffs from the superstars is delivery and showmanship.
This made me laugh out loud. I used to work with an art director that carried a man-purse (no offense if any of you do). When he would show up at a location, he would put on this artist's face and walk all around and look and study like a creative genius. Clients would stand back in hushed amazement at the creative force at work. Then we would shoot. I always thought that if I walked around looking at the locationthe same way everyone would say "What? Doesn't he know what he's doing?" This guy had a wall full of Addy Awards. We'd still be working together, but he divorced his wife, married his assistant and moved away.
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Haven't you forgotten a couple of useful features that Nikon cameras have, that Canons don't have? You can autobracket 9 consecutive shots at intervals from 1/3rd EV to 1 EV. You have complete control over aperture and shutter speed for any shot, however sudden and unpredictable, and rely upon getting a reasonably accurate exposure.
Yea, yea Ray. Good point. Those nikon-only features are surely worth the extra $4,500+ over the stupid crappy junk Canon 5D Mark II.
If a Nikon D3X shooter uses that feature more then a few times a year, I would be surprised, to be sure.
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Yeah that's what I think too. You can buy 3 5D MKIIs for the price of one DX3, and have 500.00 left over to buy equipment. If I were a pro and were worried about image quality plus reliability, I think 3 5D MKIIs would beat one DX3.
Quite right. And the D700 is so much more than a Canon 350D too. These Nikons are all so over-priced. Er ...
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I have found this to be the case on nearly every job I've ever worked.
What sets apart the working stiffs from the superstars is delivery and showmanship.
And don't forget brown nosing with art directors ..
Yep, any chump can get a good picture with a 5DsIIIx and an Octa-light, but brown nosing is an art..
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I just started shooting with a D3x. It kind of seems to "just work", more so than any other camera I have used. Looks more blocky than the Canons, though
Edmund
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I just started shooting with a D3x. It kind of seems to "just work", more so than any other camera I have used. Looks more blocky than the Canons, though
Welcome to the club.
It looks like our planned camera performance comparison will be pretty boring... D3x vs D3x... we could perhaps focus on drinking some Hakaisan instead then?
Nikon's philosophy has remained the same these past few years and is awfully simple. Provide a film like experience with a DSLR. The D3 was already amazingly good at doing just that, the D3x pushes the enveloppe further. Lack of moire, focus on smooth transitions, images that appear sharp when viewed at 100% on screen... the target of the D3x is a well exposed Velvia slide shot with a Pentax 645. The attempt to get great DR is just a means to reach a goal that is "non digital looking files".
Cheers,
Bernard
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So let's see some photos boys.
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Nikon's philosophy has remained the same these past few years and is awfully simple. Provide a film like experience with a DSLR. The D3 was already amazingly good at doing just that, the D3x pushes the enveloppe further. Lack of moire, focus on smooth transitions, images that appear sharp when viewed at 100% on screen... the target of the D3x is a well exposed Velvia slide shot with a Pentax 645. The attempt to get great DR is just a means to reach a goal that is "non digital looking files".
Cheers,
Bernard
Those don't seem to be strong reasons for getting a D3X, Bernard . I thought the whole idea of image editing programs and RAW converters was to create any effect you want. Surely I don't need to splash $8,000 on a camera to get the Velvia look.
If we assume the reasons for buying a new camera are of a practical nature, and not merely as a new toy to play with or a status symbol to impress one's clients, then the major considerations would be; dynamic range; noise; resolution and perhaps most important of all, availability of the right type and quality of lenses for one's purposes.
Secondary considerations would be ergonomics and features such as high resolution LCD screen, Live View, micro-adjustment of autofocussing, flexibility of manual adjustments and any useful feature which contributes to the ease and speed of controling the camera's parameters for a good shot.
I bought my D700 mainly on the strength of a single lens, the Nikkor 14-24/2.8. The Nikon is also an upgrade from my 5D in respect of DR and noise; auto-bracketing range and auto-ISO flexibility. However, I'm a bit disappointed that I can't find other Nikkor lenses which interest me. I'm not a fan of prime lenses because any resolution advantage is often dissipated in subsequent cropping if the focal length does not exactly match the composition. Nor do I see much point in buying a lens without image stabilisation unless it's a specialised lens such as a PC lens, or an exceptionally fine macro lens or an ultra-wide-aperture lens for extreme shallowness of DoF or for use in poor light without flash.
I considered the new Nikkor 50/1.4 AF-S, but I already have a couple of fine Canon 50mm lenses. I considered the Micro-Nikkor AF-S 105/2.8 VR. That at least has the benefit of image stabilisation, but unfortunately the VR doesn't appear to be useful where it's most needed, ie., for macro photography. The closer you focus, the less effective the VR, according to Thom Hogan.
The 24-120 F3.5/5.6 VR seems a bit below par. The 80-400 VR is no better than the Canon 100-400 IS; maybe not as good. The AF-S 70-200/2.8 VR is a fine lens; at least the equal of the Canon 70-200/2.8 IS, but it's way too heavy for me. The Canon 70-200/F4 IS appears to be a slightly sharper lens (than both the Nikkor and Canon 70-200/2.8) and is both cheaper and lighter. If I were to buy a new lens at this stage, that's the lens I would buy.
The new Nikkor 70-300 VR seems useful and the right weight, but alas! it's really only a good quality 70-200. Performance at 300mm seems well below par.
I guess I'm stuffed. Sorry to be so provacative .
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So let's see some photos boys.
There you go.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlangui...57612182394492/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/72157612182394492/)
Cheers,
Bernard
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So let's see some photos boys.
Lisa,
Images may be more interesting than endless techno-babble, but unless we have comparisons using sound methodology, the images are worthless for the technical purposes of assessing image quality, although such images might well be esthetically pleasing despite such technical considerations or inadequacies.
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Those don't seem to be strong reasons for getting a D3X, Bernard . I thought the whole idea of image editing programs and RAW converters was to create any effect you want. Surely I don't need to splash $8,000 on a camera to get the Velvia look.
It is not a matter of look, but of ease of use.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Ray, I think you're right, Nikon cameras and lenses are not for you. Don't fight it, just give in. From now on you should restrict your comments to Canon topics.
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You see! Bernard has already responded with a link to some very fine images which have nothing to do with comparisons. We have surely got beyond the stage where we see a photograph that we like, which is even sublime or superb, and we ask the question, "Which camera took that shot?" I must buy that camera. Maybe I will also be able to take such a shot.
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From now on you should restrict your comments to Canon topics.
Why should I restrict my comments to Canon topics? I'm having trouble following your line of reasoning. Are you trying to warn me, perhaps? Am I in a situation analgous to being in a Muslim country and criticising Mohammed? I would never be so foolish as to do that.
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I'm afraid that a dropping test would damage or kill any of the bodies regardless of brand and grade.
On the other hand, a banging test , will show that the pro grade bodies can take more abuse.
Well, it is really depend on how it dropped. I once have my Contax 645 with the battery pack, a P45 back, a Quantum Freewire transmitter, a Vario-Sonnar 45-90 zoom, a RRS L bracket, slide off my Arca-Swiss ballhead mounted on Foba studio stand - concrete floor, from about 1.3 meters height, I am still wondered today where is the dent or point it dropped? Seriously!
Samething happened to my older Canon 1Ds MK2 mounted with a 100/2.8 macro and a pocket wizard and the only thing damage was the filter mounted on the lens, and the filter itself does not even break, only the rim was damaged, so today's camera is I think stronger than we think. But anyway, I think of a professional camera is a little beyond the image quality only, it survive the accident like this and might save your work. So the equation might be yes, you need 3-4 lower level body to meet one top level body, and perhaps in many ways, offer advantages of being more flexible. So, let's hope the customer understands and willing to pay for quality and professional whosoever has no issue on budget of looking for the latest stuff of any budget and quantity.
Regards, K
P.S. This does not mean if I ever try to sell my equipment over this forum were somehow dropped
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Lisa,
That's a very good point!
My pictures are here: http://www.pbase.com/ekr (http://www.pbase.com/ekr)
with more to come.
Best regards
Erik
So let's see some photos boys.
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Samething happened to my older Canon 1Ds MK2 mounted with a 100/2.8 macro and a pocket wizard and the only thing damage was the filter mounted on the lens, and the filter itself does not even break, only the rim was damaged, so today's camera is I think stronger than we think.
My personnal advice is to always have a camera checked after a fall.
There is a very significant chance that the lens mount's angular positioning is compromised. With today's sensor resolution, even a very small offset can impact sharpness.
It happened to my previous D2x, fell from a tripod only showing a slight dent in the magnesium body. When I had it checked a few months later prior to selling it, I was told that the lens mount was off...
Regards,
Bernard
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Those don't seem to be strong reasons for getting a D3X, Bernard . I thought the whole idea of image editing programs and RAW converters was to create any effect you want. Surely I don't need to splash $8,000 on a camera to get the Velvia look.
If we assume the reasons for buying a new camera are of a practical nature, and not merely as a new toy to play with or a status symbol to impress one's clients, then the major considerations would be; dynamic range; noise; resolution and perhaps most important of all, availability of the right type and quality of lenses for one's purposes.
Secondary considerations would be ergonomics and features such as high resolution LCD screen, Live View, micro-adjustment of autofocussing, flexibility of manual adjustments and any useful feature which contributes to the ease and speed of controling the camera's parameters for a good shot.
I bought my D700 mainly on the strength of a single lens, the Nikkor 14-24/2.8. The Nikon is also an upgrade from my 5D in respect of DR and noise; auto-bracketing range and auto-ISO flexibility. However, I'm a bit disappointed that I can't find other Nikkor lenses which interest me. I'm not a fan of prime lenses because any resolution advantage is often dissipated in subsequent cropping if the focal length does not exactly match the composition. Nor do I see much point in buying a lens without image stabilisation unless it's a specialised lens such as a PC lens, or an exceptionally fine macro lens or an ultra-wide-aperture lens for extreme shallowness of DoF or for use in poor light without flash.
I considered the new Nikkor 50/1.4 AF-S, but I already have a couple of fine Canon 50mm lenses. I considered the Micro-Nikkor AF-S 105/2.8 VR. That at least has the benefit of image stabilisation, but unfortunately the VR doesn't appear to be useful where it's most needed, ie., for macro photography. The closer you focus, the less effective the VR, according to Thom Hogan.
The 24-120 F3.5/5.6 VR seems a bit below par. The 80-400 VR is no better than the Canon 100-400 IS; maybe not as good. The AF-S 70-200/2.8 VR is a fine lens; at least the equal of the Canon 70-200/2.8 IS, but it's way too heavy for me. The Canon 70-200/F4 IS appears to be a slightly sharper lens (than both the Nikkor and Canon 70-200/2.8) and is both cheaper and lighter. If I were to buy a new lens at this stage, that's the lens I would buy.
The new Nikkor 70-300 VR seems useful and the right weight, but alas! it's really only a good quality 70-200. Performance at 300mm seems well below par.
I guess I'm stuffed. Sorry to be so provacative .
Ladies and Gents,
You're reading the nth post in the new Ray 'can't find a Nikon lens that I want to buy' saga. Keep tuned. This is going to be much fun, even more fun than last year's ' D3 High ISO is not really better than 5D underexposed and overdeveloped' saga which broke the world record of 2999 episodes. The story of a man with too much time in his hands trying to negotiate his way through the Nikon wasteland with lots of internet parrot knowledge and no real experience under his arm.
Yes Ray, you ARE in my ignore list, but I admit it, sometimes when I'm feeling masochistic, I can't resist peeking at your posts. I know I shouldn't do that it's just that this urge overcomes me sometimes. Now, where did I place my shrink's phone number?
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It is not a matter of look, but of ease of use.
Cheers,
Bernard
Bernard,
Have you found Canon cameras difficult to operate? I've found them quite easy to use. I'm rather dismayed by the fact that the D700 has about 21 buttons, 4 dials, 3 multi-position switches and a 434 page manual on how to operate them.
Am I to become a button-pusher in my old age .
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It is not a matter of look, but of ease of use.
Cheers,
Bernard
Sorry Bernard, I have to STRONGLY disagree with you on that !
I tried one yeaterday at ECS with a couple zooms (14-24 and 24-70) and found it almost impossible to use because everything is backwards on it, all the bottons are in the wrong place and the zooms zoom the wrong direction.
I also turned the camera off 4 times while trying to change the aperture..
Clearly Nikon don't have long term Canon users in mind when they design these things !!
Seriously - it's a nice camera and the zooms where very impressive, it's hard to tell much about absolute image quality from the large Jpegs I shot, but they do look good for zoom lenses and no doubt would look better again had I taken more time and shot raws.
The price (12,500 ish) here in OZ does seem a tad expensive when compared to the now $10,ooo DSIII given that the DSIII has been around for over a year now, but I guess to a dedicated Nikon person the extra resolution and image quality might be worth the money.
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Bernard,
I love "The Cat." All that severe rectilinear weathered wood with that furry curved ball in the middle. Is that also the cat in "On the Way to the Cat," that you can barely see in the back? What happens when you take advantage of the D3x's famous resolution to blow up *that* cat?
JC
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Bernard,
I love "The Cat." All that severe rectilinear weathered wood with that furry curved ball in the middle. Is that also the cat in "On the Way to the Cat," that you can barely see in the back? What happens when you take advantage of the D3x's famous resolution to blow up *that* cat?
The cat is there all along...
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3393/3182626644_42b4a87fa3_o.jpg)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3420/3191693240_e29e6e8466_o.jpg)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3190635843_b207d36a50_o.jpg)
These 3 images will be part of a single very large print with a progressive zoom towards the cat. Only the D3x made such a revolutionary concept possible... or not?!?
Incidently, each of these 3 images is itself a multi-row panorama in the 150+ MP resolutions... so the blowing up of the cat can be pretty explosive!
Cheers,
Bernard
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I read once where Joe McNally was in a pissing contest with the art director of a shoot where he was the photographer, and he kept saying he wanted to do the shoot with one light and she was saying that just wasn't possible with one light and that they needed a minimum of four lights and that was that. So he set up the lights, turn all of them off but one, shot the test shots, and she said, "See, it looks great." He never told her the truth.
big deal.
we all do that, even without having the AD complaining.
just to make a client comfortable that is spending few hundred grands on agency, model and photographer fees on a beauty campaign shoot, but you just need one strobe and an umbrella only. that is what makes the light you need. OK plus a reflector.
You order few cases of lights and ask the assistants to put everything on the stands and make them look like they are being used, except that they are never going to be turned on.
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Clearly Nikon don't have long term Canon users in mind when they design these things !!
Of course! And I'm aware of this factor . But sometimes I wonder why Nikon have not, for example, used the centre button in the multi-selector dial as an "OK" button. They have a separate "OK" button on the bottom left corner of the back. The fact that this confused me at first is of no consequence. I just think, the fewer buttons the better.
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Of course! And I'm aware of this factor . But sometimes I wonder why Nikon have not, for example, used the centre button in the multi-selector dial as an "OK" button. They have a separate "OK" button on the bottom left corner of the back. The fact that this confused me at first is of no consequence. I just think, the fewer buttons the better.
You can use the centre button in place of the OK button in many cases where it is modaly possible to do that (i.e. center button cannot perform any other function, like zoom in, in that mode. e.g. when looking at the info screen you can select the current highlighted item by either OK or center button). You can also program the center button to perform other than the default functions by using function F2. (But to know this you have to read the 443 page manual which might be too much for you).
Oh God! I did it again!
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Oh God! I did it again!
No need to be sarcastic! I appreciate your feed-back, but it seems I'm into a new era of complexity here. I'm working my way through the manual, but I fear by the time I've sorted everything, things will change again with a new model.
Seriously, there's really no problem. Just teething issues. I can work it out. The D700 is a fine camera, I'm just disappointed there are no other Nikkor lenses on a par with the 14-24/2.8
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I'm just disappointed there are no other Nikkor lenses on a par with the 14-24/2.8
Episode n+1...
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Episode n+1...
And a serious episode indeed.
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The best thing with a Nikon: the ability to program the center button in the multi-selector dial for one-push 100% (or 200% if you do not mind a little mosiacing) view AT the selected focusing point any time.
With the Canons it is multiple pushing of three bottoms and dials (depending on how far you are from the focusing point) and no way around. Dancing through the routine hundreds of times in a productive day made my figners cramped.
The 5DII's Live View and LCD are better though, just to be fair.
Of course! And I'm aware of this factor . But sometimes I wonder why Nikon have not, for example, used the centre button in the multi-selector dial as an "OK" button. They have a separate "OK" button on the bottom left corner of the back. The fact that this confused me at first is of no consequence. I just think, the fewer buttons the better.
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The best thing with a Nikon: the ability to program the center button in the multi-selector dial for one-push 100% (or 200% if you do not mind a little mosiacing) view AT the selected focusing point any time.
With the Canons it is multiple pushing of three bottoms and dials (depending on how far you are from the focusing point) and no way around. Dancing through the routine hundreds of times in a productive day made my figners cramped.
The 5DII's Live View and LCD are better though, just to be fair.
Well, I don't think we'll get very far by comparing Nikon's implementation of button-pushing with Canon's. I accept you have to study the manual and work it out. I was responding to Bernard's claim that Nikon was easier in general.
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Well, I don't think we'll get very far by comparing Nikon's implementation of button-pushing with Canon's. I accept you have to study the manual and work it out. I was responding to Bernard's claim that Nikon was easier in general.
I must be really unclear.
What I am trying to say is that Nikon is trying to deliver DSLR that can product usable images as easily as film cameras were able to.
I am not talking about the physical user interface (both Canon and Nikon have plus and minus), but about the amount of images manipulations that are required to create a usable file. I am not saying that they are 100% successful in this, but that is what they have been targetting.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I must be really unclear.
What I am trying to say is that Nikon is trying to deliver DSLR that can product usable images as easily as film cameras were able to.
Bernard,
I was never under the impression that film cameras were able to easily produce usable images. Where are you coming from? Film is a bygone era of inefficiency and great difficulty. Why hark back to it? The whole process was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. We're far beyond that, surely.
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Bernard,
I was never under the impression that film cameras were able to easily produce usable images. Where are you coming from? Film is a bygone era of inefficiency and great difficulty. Why hark back to it? The whole process was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. We're far beyond that, surely.
Ray,
The process was super easy on the contrary and there were very few choices to make:
- Select a film (mostly always the same kind)
- Get the film out of the camera,
- Send it to develop and print
- Receive prints back
No need to worry and make conscious choices about:
- histogram
- white balance
- moire
- color space
- choice of raw converter
- ...
There were a lot fewer choices to make with film.
Again, I am not speaking about the quality of the results that can be obtained, but about the ease/complexity of handling the process and about the perception of opportunity cost for those who don't want to dive into the intricacies of the digital world. You know that these options are available, and you suspect that they are important and you feel guilty not having looked at them well enough.
This speech on Ted might help you better understand what I am talking about, especially the jeans part.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_s..._of_choice.html (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html)
What I am saying is that Nikon's philosophy has been to help photographers not having to care too much about these things, which is what I mean by reproducing a film shooting experience in the digital world.
cheers,
Bernard
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Yea, yea Ray. Good point. Those nikon-only features are surely worth the extra $4,500+ over the stupid crappy junk Canon 5D Mark II.
If a Nikon D3X shooter uses that feature more then a few times a year, I would be surprised, to be sure.
He would use it all the time if he were shooting sports. And if he were shooting for Sports Illustrated, he'd probably already have one. Nikon got it together on this camera for sure. It's just that 8K for a camera any longer is a hard sell--lol. (Especially when you can get the DSIII for less than 6500 now.)
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- Select a film (mostly always the same kind)
- Get the film out of the camera,
- Send it to develop and print
- Receive prints back
Good point except you forgot - Go to a cafe and sip coffee while waiting for slides.
I sure do miss film some days...
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He would use it all the time if he were shooting sports. And if he were shooting for Sports Illustrated, he'd probably already have one. Nikon got it together on this camera for sure. It's just that 8K for a camera any longer is a hard sell--lol. (Especially when you can get the DSIII for less than 6500 now.)
This argument keeps cropping up. The world is not the USA, and USA is not the world.
Where I live, the two cameras are priced almost exactly the same in the market. I could, theoretically, save the equivalent of USD 40-50 by choosing the Canon.
YMMV.
And even in the USA, moving to the 1Ds MkIII costs more than the 6500 if you're already a Nikon user. If that's your choice, then it's probably not a hard sell at all.
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Good point except you forgot - Go to a cafe and sip coffee while waiting for slides.
I sure do miss film some days...
Probably because I am a tea drinker.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard,
I was never under the impression that film cameras were able to easily produce usable images. Where are you coming from? Film is a bygone era of inefficiency and great difficulty. Why hark back to it? The whole process was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. We're far beyond that, surely.
I am not surprised that the simple tasks associated with using a film camera are beyond your ability.
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Bernard,
I was never under the impression that film cameras were able to easily produce usable images. Where are you coming from? Film is a bygone era of inefficiency and great difficulty. Why hark back to it? The whole process was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. We're far beyond that, surely.
To generalize that film is cumbersome and time consuming, is not accurate for all photographic disciplines, or all parts of the photographic process.
I went fully digital almost a decade ago. Processing RAW images from sports events, where a few hundred images can amass (4 day event) is no fun, even with in-depth knowledge of the workflow. Digital image quality is fantastic but I preferred handing film over the counter to a pro lab as it was 'Photoshopped' by the film manufacturer and chemicals - in my case Fuji Velvia rated at 40 ISO was my choice of film. I also knew with experience how the final image looked with Velvia, rich and full of beautiful deep shadows - we can obviously replicate this look digitally.
The downside from running a library is scanning, the dust and scratch removal is a painstakingly laborious task. Bear in mind that commission shoots didn't require any scanning, or pre-press skills, as the film was handed over to the client for reproduction; in the case of editorial submissions duplicate slides were forwarded that were fast to copy and submit - approximately 30 minutes to copy the slides and once again the lab did the processing - allowing me to be getting on with other chores, or relaxing.
When shooting film, we (snappers), would get back to our hotel after a long day on the golf course, meeting up for a meal, and a drink, having walked, on average, 8 miles (At the 2000 Open Championship, at St Andrews, my pedometer recorded 11.4 miles), lugging a 600 F/4 (6.5 kilos in those days), sometime plus a 300 F/2.8; 70-200, and 17-35 lens, as you can imagine the restaurant meal was needed, a well deserved break, and relaxing time. Nowadays most of the photographers are still sat in the media tent meticulously captioning images, to specific standards for their employers, and transferring data, etc, until they get fed up and leave (often tidying-up and finishing tasks the next day). Those rare photographers still shooting film have polished off their main course by the time photographer's, who shoot digitally, leave the press centre, often not having completed all of their laptop chores.
Being sat a computer for several hours, even if taking breaks, is not my idea of fun for the routine tasks that it demands - not all tasks can be automated. Over the years metadata (IPTC and then XMP) have caused many problems between software vendors, and operating systems, causing keyword and captioning errors; I must have had to tidy-up the metadata on at least three occasions, on thousands of images, the time involved, regardless of saved templates and key-wording expertise, has on occasions driven me, almost, to despair. The benefit of image metadata captioning chores are the sales potential.
If someone developed an 400 ISO, 35mm film, with the much finer grain, and resolution, than Fuji Velvia 50 ISO, I might be just be tempted to buy some second hand F5's before E6 chemicals run dry - there again pigs might fly.
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To generalize that film is cumbersome and time consuming, is not accurate for all photographic disciplines, or all parts of the photographic process.
That was my experience. Loading the film in the camera, pointing the camera in the right direction and pressing the shutter button was pretty straight forward. But getting the finished result, print or slide, was so complicated, time-consuming and cumbersome, I actually had to pay someone to do it for me.
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He would use it all the time if he were shooting sports. And if he were shooting for Sports Illustrated, he'd probably already have one. Nikon got it together on this camera for sure. It's just that 8K for a camera any longer is a hard sell--lol. (Especially when you can get the DSIII for less than 6500 now.)
Speaking of the Canon 1DS Mark III, I don't think evan that camera is worth $6,500, or $4,500 for that matter. Judging by IQ alone, the 5D Mark II provides better image qualities, and because IQ is the prime directive, my money would be on two 5D Mark II's over one 1DS Mark III.
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Hi,
You still need to scan film, add metadata, edit in Photoshop...
Best regards
Erik
To generalize that film is cumbersome and time consuming, is not accurate for all photographic disciplines, or all parts of the photographic process.
I went fully digital almost a decade ago. Processing RAW images from sports events, where a few hundred images can amass (4 day event) is no fun, even with in-depth knowledge of the workflow. Digital image quality is fantastic but I preferred handing film over the counter to a pro lab as it was 'Photoshopped' by the film manufacturer and chemicals - in my case Fuji Velvia rated at 40 ISO was my choice of film. I also knew with experience how the final image looked with Velvia, rich and full of beautiful deep shadows - we can obviously replicate this look digitally.
The downside from running a library is scanning, the dust and scratch removal is a painstakingly laborious task. Bear in mind that commission shoots didn't require any scanning, or pre-press skills, as the film was handed over to the client for reproduction; in the case of editorial submissions duplicate slides were forwarded that were fast to copy and submit - approximately 30 minutes to copy the slides and once again the lab did the processing - allowing me to be getting on with other chores, or relaxing.
When shooting film, we (snappers), would get back to our hotel after a long day on the golf course, meeting up for a meal, and a drink, having walked, on average, 8 miles (At the 2000 Open Championship, at St Andrews, my pedometer recorded 11.4 miles), lugging a 600 F/4 (6.5 kilos in those days), sometime plus a 300 F/2.8; 70-200, and 17-35 lens, as you can imagine the restaurant meal was needed, a well deserved break, and relaxing time. Nowadays most of the photographers are still sat in the media tent meticulously captioning images, to specific standards for their employers, and transferring data, etc, until they get fed up and leave (often tidying-up and finishing tasks the next day). Those rare photographers still shooting film have polished off their main course by the time photographer's, who shoot digitally, leave the press centre, often not having completed all of their laptop chores.
Being sat a computer for several hours, even if taking breaks, is not my idea of fun for the routine tasks that it demands - not all tasks can be automated. Over the years metadata (IPTC and then XMP) have caused many problems between software vendors, and operating systems, causing keyword and captioning errors; I must have had to tidy-up the metadata on at least three occasions, on thousands of images, the time involved, regardless of saved templates and key-wording expertise, has on occasions driven me, almost, to despair. The benefit of image metadata captioning chores are the sales potential.
If someone developed an 400 ISO, 35mm film, with the much finer grain, and resolution, than Fuji Velvia 50 ISO, I might be just be tempted to buy some second hand F5's before E6 chemicals run dry - there again pigs might fly.
-
Hi,
You still need to scan film, add metadata, edit in Photoshop...
Best regards
Erik
Not necessarily. At one time people simply kept a room full of slides, and sent out originals to photo editors. Having an editor keep or damage a slide was not uncommon, and in camera duplicates were not unknown. Happy snappers merely took the film to "Happy Snaps Ltd" to process and print.
The advantages of digital for me come down to the ability to achieve accurate colours (white balance) without using colour correction filters on the lens and flash.
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Not necessarily. At one time people simply kept a room full of slides, and sent out originals to photo editors.
Having previously paid someone to develop whole batches of film (individual rolls) in accordance with a set standard that would not necessarily be ideal for each individual exposure or even any single exposure on the roll. But too bad; once it's developed it's developed...... as opposed to having a disc full of slides (RAW files) which can be developed and redeveloped as may times and in as many different ways as one likes.
There's no comparison. Only the sentimental would want to go back to the days of film.
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once it's developed it's developed...... as opposed to having a disc full of slides (RAW files) which can be developed and redeveloped as may times and in as many different ways as one likes.
There's no comparison. Only the sentimental would want to go back to the days of film.
[/quote]
Fuji Velvia was exposed and lit correctly at the time, there was no requirement to reprocess it - why would I want to alter a look that I, and many other photographers liked, including clients.
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The advantages of digital for me come down to the ability to achieve accurate colours (white balance) without using colour correction filters on the lens and flash.
I think a digital 101 course would change your view.
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.... why would I want to alter a look that I, and many other photographers liked, including clients.
To see if you can come up with something that you and your clients like even more .
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Post process for me in the film days was simply a matter of having a quick look at the lab (after coffee), addressing the envelope to the client and ringing them to pick-up.
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Post process for me in the film days was simply a matter of having a quick look at the lab (after coffee), addressing the envelope to the client and ringing them to pick-up.
And no doubt storing film in the fridge, keeping a track of the 'use-by' date and stuffing around changing film or camera back when you needed a different ISO.
Is there any good reason why you can't electronically send your clients a copy of the jpegs (after shooting in 'RAW+Jpeg' mode) whilst actually drinking your coffee?
You could also include with your electronic transmission a few samples of various 'looks'; Velvia, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, whatever. Give your client a few choices .
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Bernard, we must be cut from the same cloth, as I'm a tea drinker, and I reference that TED jeans video all of the time to family and friends. Granted, I am a lowly A900 shooter, rather than that sweet D3x
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To get back to the real and sensible reasons for choosing a camera; the quality and range of available lenses.
I'd like to expand upon an earlier comment I made a few pages back, namely: The 24-120 F3.5/5.6 VR seems a bit below par. The 80-400 VR is no better than the Canon 100-400 IS; maybe not as good. The AF-S 70-200/2.8 VR is a fine lens; at least the equal of the Canon 70-200/2.8 IS, but it's way too heavy for me. The Canon 70-200/F4 IS appears to be a slightly sharper lens (than both the Nikkor and Canon 70-200/2.8) and is both cheaper and lighter. If I were to buy a new lens at this stage, that's the lens I would buy.
The new Nikkor 70-300 VR seems useful and the right weight, but alas! it's really only a good quality 70-200. Performance at 300mm seems well below par.
It occurred to me that maybe the Nikkor 70-300 VR might be useful as a 70-200 lens. Perhaps I could simply ignore the extra reach to 300mm and pretend it didn't exist. So I compared the Canon 70-200/f4 at 200mm with the Nikkor 70-300 at 200mm and F5.3, at Photozone. I added just 5% to the Canon LP/PH figures to compensate for the additional pixels of the D200 test camera used for the Nikkor lens (as opposed to the Canon 350D for the Canon lens). That's a very conservative figure.
Alas! The Nikkor still doesn't make the grade at 200mm, compared with the Canon at 200mm. However, the Nikkor is good at 70mm. I don't want to give the impression that I am in any way biased towards Canon you understand, so I'm always willing to give credit where credit is due.
Now, I can sense some of you getting a bit hot and bothered under the collar. You're probably thinking, the Nikkor 70-300/F3.5-5.6 VR is a budget lens. It's cheaper than the Canon 70-200/F4 IS. What do you expect?
And you are right. It is cheaper. But what's the alternative? A very heavy and more expensive Nikkor 70-200/2.8 which is actually not quite as sharp as the cheaper and lighter Canon 70-200/F4 IS?
Do I buy a D3X on the basis that I can save money by buying cheap Nikkor lenses which might well be good value but are optically mediocre? I think not.
Do I sacrifice this wonderful technology of IS or VR so I can use a sharper lens at a less sharp shutter speed? I think not.
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Episode n+2
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Having previously paid someone to develop whole batches of film (individual rolls) in accordance with a set standard that would not necessarily be ideal for each individual exposure or even any single exposure on the roll. But too bad; once it's developed it's developed...... as opposed to having a disc full of slides (RAW files) which can be developed and redeveloped as may times and in as many different ways as one likes.
There's no comparison. Only the sentimental would want to go back to the days of film.
I don't reply to arseholes like you. (I am replying in the language that you understand since the moderators consider verbal abuse acceptable, as your earlier abuse of me is still online.)
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I think a digital 101 course would change your view.
How do you mean? Actually after years of using slide film, and finding a low keeper rate due to 1) narrow dynamic range 2) high grain 3) difficulties with colour casts and 4) colour shifts due to different riciprocity failure in each layer, I would not touch film with a barge pole. For me - someone who uses a PC on a daily basis - digital is far better. But not everyone thinks that way.
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How do you mean?
Accurate colours aren't quite as easy as it appears that you claimed in your previous post.
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Narrow dynamic range, for me, is a positive, not a negative. My favourite paintings (including old masters), and photographs, are of narrow dynamic range subjects.
You can always go from a wide dynamic range to a narrow dynamic range, so I don't quite see how it's a positive.
But the wideness of the dynamic range may be something that has no significance to you, something you simply don't care about.
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How do you mean? Actually after years of using slide film, and finding a low keeper rate due to 1) narrow dynamic range 2) high grain 3) difficulties with colour casts and 4) colour shifts due to different riciprocity failure in each layer, I would not touch film with a barge pole. For me - someone who uses a PC on a daily basis - digital is far better.
You had written before
The advantages of digital for me come down to the ability to achieve accurate colours (white balance) without using colour correction filters on the lens and flash
I meant that if this is all the advantage you find in digital vs film, then you have not discovered many of the possibilities the digital way is offering, particularly with raw data. However, now I see that that post had not expressed exactly what you had been thinking of.
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You had written before
The advantages of digital for me come down to the ability to achieve accurate colours (white balance) without using colour correction filters on the lens and flash
I meant that if this is all the advantage you find in digital vs film, then you have not discovered many of the possibilities the digital way is offering, particularly with raw data. However, now I see that that post had not expressed exactly what you had been thinking of.
Ah, okay, that's fair enough. Yes, I think digital is amazing! Not that I don't admire the results that skilled MF film users can get.
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Accurate colours aren't quite as easy as it appears that you claimed in your previous post.
Would you care to enlarge on that?
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Do I buy a D3X on the basis that I can save money by buying cheap Nikkor lenses which might well be good value but are optically mediocre? I think not.
I think this is one of the few lines that make sense, on this two millions nonsense thread.
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Would you care to enlarge on that?
Accurate (correct) colour isn't necessarily pleasing colour or natural looking, and correct colour isn't necessarily just a matter of setting the white balance.
In addition, different software deals differently with white balance, so the procedures and results may differ.
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Hi,
Color is perception, not reality. Illumination is continous spectrum (natural or incdescent light). Colors reflected are non continous.Fluorescent illumination is spiky, has large spikes in the spectrum. The eye gets three stimuli dependent on the spectral characteristics of light and object. Brain combines tristimulus signals and interpretes as color.
Best regards
Erik
Would you care to enlarge on that?
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Quote from Ray:
Do I buy a D3X on the basis that I can save money by buying cheap Nikkor lenses which might well be good value but are optically mediocre? I think not.
I think this is one of the few lines that make sense, on this two millions nonsense thread.
Ziocan,
Thanks for your support, but I fear that some folks might misinterpret such selective quoting and draw the conclusion that I'm saying that all Nikkor lenses are mediocre. This is clearly not the case.
We all have different interests, shooting styles and lens requirements. Buying a new camera without consideration of your lens requirements is a bit shortsighted, in my view. I'm disappointed that Nikon does not have the equivalent of the Canon 24-105/F4 IS or the 70-200/F4 IS. On the other hand, I shall at least save some money as a consequence.
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I'm testing out a D3x at the moment and one thing it has very much in common with my DSIII's (and I suppose the new 5DII or Sony thing) is that it has no tolerance for an average lens or a sloppy picture - this chip (again, like the others) will test a lens and your photography skills to to their very limits.
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I'm testing out a D3x at the moment and one thing it has very much in common with my DSIII's (and I suppose the new 5DII or Sony thing) is that it has no tolerance for an average lens or a sloppy picture - this chip (again, like the others) will test a lens and your photography skills to to their very limits.
No, it doesn´t. Its mostly the mind that causes the limits.
What in hell has the chip to do with skill ?
The D3x is a tool, nothing more or less.
A simple tool like a hammer could produce art or scrap. YOU make the difference.
You can´t buy skill, passion or soul.
Thanks god.
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Accurate (correct) colour isn't necessarily pleasing colour or natural looking, and correct colour isn't necessarily just a matter of setting the white balance.
In addition, different software deals differently with white balance, so the procedures and results may differ.
All true, but with respect, rather academic. I find that with a digital camera I can (almost always) get 'natural' looking colours, which is my aim. I discovered that using fill flash allows the camera to get much better white balance, presumably because it knows the colour temperature of the flash, hence it can work out how the scene should look. Were I picky about white balance, I could use a gray card. To process images I use Nikon Capture as that understand the camera's white balance settings, unlike all other RAW converters that I have used.
When I slide used film, it was very hard, especially in situations such as dark woods with overhead canopies, or in shade on a day with a clear blue sky.
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Hi,
Color is perception, not reality. Illumination is continous spectrum (natural or incdescent light). Colors reflected are non continous.Fluorescent illumination is spiky, has large spikes in the spectrum. The eye gets three stimuli dependent on the spectral characteristics of light and object. Brain combines tristimulus signals and interpretes as color.
Best regards
Erik
Yes, quite true, but as I said earlier, rather academic. Dare I say that what matters to most people is whether or not the result looks 'right', or 'natural', and for my purposes (nature photography) digital delivers the goods.
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What in hell has the chip to do with skill ?
Lots.
At this resolution you can clearly see the difference between sharp and very sharp - the skill is in getting very sharp.
I wonder would you notice the difference between the 70mm end of the 24 to 70 2.8 vs. the 70mm end of the 70 - 200 2.8 VR on the old camera..
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Yes, quite true, but as I said earlier, rather academic. Dare I say that what matters to most people is whether or not the result looks 'right', or 'natural', and for my purposes (nature photography) digital delivers the goods.
In that case, you should consider yourself a very lucky person indeed. I'm not that lucky. All I need to mess it all up is a billiards hall, with the reflected green light from the cloth on a player's face, and there goes the "natural" look down the drain.
I strongly disagree that what I wrote was "academic" in nature. It's elementary digital photography. Erik was going a bit deeper into the reasons for why "correct"/"accurate"/"right" colours are difficult to achieve, but even that can hardly be called "academic".
Perhaps my perspective is different from yours; I have a background from academia, and I think I have a fairly good clue about what that's about.
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In that case, you should consider yourself a very lucky person indeed. I'm not that lucky. All I need to mess it all up is a billiards hall, with the reflected green light from the cloth on a player's face, and there goes the "natural" look down the drain.
I was talking about my experience of using digital and film. I take photos in some complex lighting situations, and usually get good results. The point I was making is that I get much much better colours using digital than when I used slide film. I take photos in a wide range of outdoor situations, where slide film was a nightmare. I happen to use Nikon, and that colours (sic) my experience. I cannot comment on other brands, though I doubt that Nikon cameras are any worse, or better. I also made no comment on other peoples experiences. Clearly when there are very complex lighting situations, such as multiple light sources, each with quite distinct spectral distributions, life gets complex.
I strongly disagree that what I wrote was "academic" in nature. It's elementary digital photography. Erik was going a bit deeper into the reasons for why "correct"/"accurate"/"right" colours are difficult to achieve, but even that can hardly be called "academic".
Saying something is 'academic' is an English idiomatic phrase. It means something like 'true, but not of direct relevance'. There was nothing at all complex in your posts. Obviously the spectral distribution of the ambient light need not be anything like that at noon outdoors on a sunny day.
I am interested in what works, rather than an academic discussion of the underlying principles, which risks not seeing the wood for the trees. As I am sure you and others know well, decent white balance can be obtained using a gray/white card.
I also worked out a simple trick to good auto-white balance most of the time. It involves using fill flash, which allows the camera to work out the colour temperature of the ambient light. At least that is my assumption. Nikon do not document their algorithms.
Perhaps my perspective is different from yours; I have a background from academia, and I think I have a fairly good clue about what that's about.
Quite why you need to be so condescending is beyond me.
I have a degree in physics (a first) from a major university and a Ph.D. in physics (theory of condensed matter) from another major university. And I have a string of publications in major academic journals with my name as first or sole author. However, I do not usually mention those facts. I suppose that is because a substantial amount of innovative work is done outside universities, so I see it as pointless to mention. I also note that most of the photographers whose work I admire are self taught, and do not have an academic background. You do not have to understand the processes of thermonuclear fusion in order to appreciate the warmth of the sun.
Of course if you or anyone else has 'academic' knowledge about white balance which allows achieving better white balance, then do share. But then it would not be 'academic' knowledge, at least not in the idiomatic sense of the term.
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Lots.
At this resolution you can clearly see the difference between sharp and very sharp - the skill is in getting very sharp.
I wonder would you notice the difference between the 70mm end of the 24 to 70 2.8 vs. the 70mm end of the 70 - 200 2.8 VR on the old camera..
Some chips are more "forgiving". But your skill isn´t the factor.
You mentioned the new 24-70 which is sharp on my D3x and my D3.
And you mentioned the 70-200 which is not sharp wide open (center only) and will never be on any of the FX Nikons.
Or do you mean it needs skill to close the aperture 1 more step?
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You do not have to understand the processes of thermonuclear fusion in order to appreciate the warmth of the sun.
Love it.
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Some chips are more "forgiving". But your skill isn´t the factor.
You mentioned the new 24-70 which is sharp on my D3x and my D3.
And you mentioned the 70-200 which is not sharp wide open (center only) and will never be on any of the FX Nikons.
Or do you mean it needs skill to close the aperture 1 more step?
What would you call it, luck ?
Anyway, never mind all that boring photography stuff, I"ll test the camera in 'P' and see how good it really is for the money !
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If anyone should care to send me a D3x I will be more than happy to test it & give detailed feedback. Anyone? No?
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Saying something is 'academic' is an English idiomatic phrase. It means something like 'true, but not of direct relevance'.
I'm sorry, but the way I read your post, it seemed that you used it with a different meaning than that one.
But I'd still disagree.
Quite why you need to be so condescending is beyond me.
Quite why you need to feel that someone mentioning their background means that they're condescending is completely beyond me.
YMMV, and I'm sorry that I offended your sensibilities.
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I'm sorry, but the way I read your post, it seemed that you used it with a different meaning than that one.
But I'd still disagree.
Life's too short to worry about something so insignificant. You are probably younger, so have more time to squander.
Quite why you need to feel that someone mentioning their background means that they're condescending is completely beyond me.
YMMV, and I'm sorry that I offended your sensibilities.
You didn't. But you seemed to be putting yourself on a pedestal, by suggesting that you were 'learned', and I wasn't.
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You didn't. But you seemed to be putting yourself on a pedestal, by suggesting that you were 'learned', and I wasn't.
I'm not that ingrained in academia, I left it eight years ago, and I haven't looked back. I merely implied a different perspective, in a humouristic manner. Well, that was the intention, anyway. I'm not stupid enough to think that an academic background somehow implies that I'm better than other people, but I'm aware that that's how a lot of people see it, hence the joke.
But please at least try to not ignore the smileys, or I shall be forced to employ "BEGIN humouristic sentence" and "END humouristic sentence" markers in plaintext.
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I'm not that ingrained in academia, I left it eight years ago, and I haven't looked back. I merely implied a different perspective, in a humouristic manner. Well, that was the intention, anyway. I'm not stupid enough to think that an academic background somehow implies that I'm better than other people, but I'm aware that that's how a lot of people see it, hence the joke.
But please at least try to not ignore the smileys, or I shall be forced to employ "BEGIN humouristic sentence" and "END humouristic sentence" markers in plaintext.
Okay, fair enough. Actually the smiley reinforced the meaning that I read into your phrase. It is easy to convey an unintended meaning (or have the reader interpret it in an unimagined way). That is not a criticism of you, or of me, but a general observation.
Now what was the original question ...
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Bernard, we must be cut from the same cloth, as I'm a tea drinker, and I reference that TED jeans video all of the time to family and friends. Granted, I am a lowly A900 shooter, rather than that sweet D3x
One thing is sure, a good photographer using an A900 will always outshoot a poor one with a D3x.
Ted is great isn't it?
Cheers,
Bernard
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i dont know who this guy lloyd is but you know i think im in the wrong business .. ill start a web blog and do my own "reviews" and call myself an expert .. sheesh ... i dunno some people think im an expert because they ask my opinion all day ..hahahaha
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Of course if you or anyone else has 'academic' knowledge about white balance which allows achieving better white balance, then do share. But then it would not be 'academic' knowledge, at least not in the idiomatic sense of the term.
Run a profiler on a Macbeth chart in your lighting and you'll fix the wb issues and the color issues for that series of shots. I think there's a profile tool out there for free from Adobe, works only for PS and LR. Of course, that'll give you accurate color, not pleasing color. You want pleasing color, or access to whatever knowledge I happen to possess feel free to pay me -however, I'm sure Andrew will be delighted to educate you at no cost
Edmund
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Run a profiler on a Macbeth chart in your lighting and you'll fix the wb issues and the color issues for that series of shots. I think there's a profile tool out there for free from Adobe, works only for PS and LR. Of course, that'll give you accurate color, not pleasing color. You want pleasing color, or access to whatever knowledge I happen to possess feel free to pay me -however, I'm sure Andrew will be delighted to educate you at no cost
Edmund
Quite true, but is that a practical method when photographing plants, insects and fungi in the wild? Not that I am trying to be awkward, or even rude, but I might walk 5 to 10 miles in search of specimens, and each photo might take 30 minutes, for various reasons such as setting up lighting. I am aware of profiling tools - I use one on my monitor - and the theory behind profiles, white balance, spectral distributions (absorptiion and emission spectra etc), but it comes down to what can be done in the field. (At present I seem to get pretty good colours, with no WB issues. Maybe someone more skilled in the science of lighting would see issues.)
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Quite true, but is that a practical method when photographing plants, insects and fungi in the wild? Not that I am trying to be awkward, or even rude, but I might walk 5 to 10 miles in search of specimens, and each photo might take 30 minutes, for various reasons such as setting up lighting. I am aware of profiling tools - I use one on my monitor - and the theory behind profiles, white balance, spectral distributions (absorptiion and emission spectra etc), but it comes down to what can be done in the field. (At present I seem to get pretty good colours, with no WB issues. Maybe someone more skilled in the science of lighting would see issues.)
Yes, it is practical. You need to get a shot of a Macbeth *in approximately that light* with the camera you are using. Just takes a moment. BTW, there exists a pocket mini Macbeth card. What is happening here is that you need to re-establish the camera primaries in *those* light conditions.
On tests I did with my own profiling code, the local profile made all the difference. And I'm sure that Adobe's profiler is at least as good as mine. I'm not giving any secrets away here, to get pleasing color you still neeed skill and good eyes.
Edmund
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Yes, it is practical. You need to get a shot of a Macbeth *in approximately that light* with the camera you are using. Just takes a moment. BTW, there exists a pocket mini Macbeth card. What is happening here is that you need to re-establish the camera primaries in *those* light conditions.
On tests I did with my own profiling code, the local profile made all the difference. And I'm sure that Adobe's profiler is at least as good as mine. I'm not giving any secrets away here, to get pleasing color you still neeed skill and good eyes.
Edmund
Okay, I think I see your point. Take two pictures in the same light, one of the subject, and the other of a colour card, then use the latter to correct the colours in the former when back home. Hence no need to have profile kitin the field apart from a card. I guess that is rather like the WB preset option whereby you photograph a white card. Still, I can get what look like good colours using the knowledge I have. This is a very rare fungus and on my calibrated monitors the colours look spot on:
http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC6...%20parasite.jpg (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC6588%20Exidia%20glandulosa%20and%20parasite.jpg)
And another rare fungus:
http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC1...0erubescens.jpg (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC1338%20Inocybe%20erubescens.jpg)
Again, the colours appear spot on i.e. more than good enough. I use my pop-up flash trick to get good auto white balance. With film these would have been a nightmare. (Long exposures, colour shifts, reciprocity failure, colour casts etc.)
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http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image...d3)/Phase%20One (http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality-Database/Compare-cameras/(appareil1)/287|0/(appareil2)/291|0/(appareil3)/304|0/(onglet)/0/(brand)/Nikon/(brand2)/Canon/(brand3)/Phase%20One)
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Look I'm not saying you won't get excellent colors most of the time with your method. I'm saying you will always get acceptable colors with mine
Edmund
Okay, I think I see your point. Take two pictures in the same light, one of the subject, and the other of a colour card, then use the latter to correct the colours in the former when back home. Hence no need to have profile kitin the field apart from a card. I guess that is rather like the WB preset option whereby you photograph a white card. Still, I can get what look like good colours using the knowledge I have. This is a very rare fungus and on my calibrated monitors the colours look spot on:
http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC6...%20parasite.jpg (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC6588%20Exidia%20glandulosa%20and%20parasite.jpg)
And another rare fungus:
http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC1...0erubescens.jpg (http://www.leifgoodwin.co.uk/Fungi/0__DSC1338%20Inocybe%20erubescens.jpg)
Again, the colours appear spot on i.e. more than good enough. I use my pop-up flash trick to get good auto white balance. With film these would have been a nightmare. (Long exposures, colour shifts, reciprocity failure, colour casts etc.)
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Look I'm not saying you won't get excellent colors most of the time with your method. I'm saying you will always get acceptable colors with mine
Edmund
Fair enough. BTW I don't suppose you know anything about the white balance algorithms used by Nikon et al? I think the flag ship cameras used to have a small incident light sensor on the top of the prism.
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i rented the canon 5Dm2, a900 and d3x for a 2 week period. the $5k difference wasn't too much of an issue for me.
i liked the d3x the best in terms of overall handling and non-processed picture quality, but ended up buying the 5Dm2. for my fine art apps (low, artificial light), the raw images looked about the same...i spend hours and hours in photoshop and couldn't distinguish the differences in the end product (30x40 inch digital c prints).
Fair enough. BTW I don't suppose you know anything about the white balance algorithms used by Nikon et al? I think the flag ship cameras used to have a small incident light sensor on the top of the prism.
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harlemshooter, these are interesting findings. Did you find the 5D2 to be the best in low light? And what did you like about the non-processed D3x files as you mentioned? Thanks!
p.s. do you live in harlem?
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the a900 aside (too much noise at this iso), i really couldn't detect much difference in the raw files at 600-800 iso. i thought the unprocessed d3x files were a bit more pleasing in the dark shadows. but after processing both sets of files the way i like, they looked very similar.
yes, i'm in harlem...
harlemshooter, these are interesting findings. Did you find the 5D2 to be the best in low light? And what did you like about the non-processed D3x files as you mentioned? Thanks!
p.s. do you live in harlem?
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i find all these inclement weather related issues around the 5Dm2 most interesting. i shot for 2.5 hours today in 28 degree weather with no issues (camera turned on w/o any sort of protection for the entirety). it will be interesting to see how the camera behaves in the humidity of august (my manual says don't use in humidity exceeding 85%, but i intend to).
the a900 aside (too much noise at this iso), i really couldn't detect much difference in the raw files at 600-800 iso. i thought the unprocessed d3x files were a bit more pleasing in the dark shadows. but after processing both sets of files the way i like, they looked very similar.
yes, i'm in harlem...
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Did Michael say the failed 5D2s had grips attached?