Demoing a P65+ is the obvious course for those considering it (or any other digital back) – not consulting Dx0 or any other similar site.
Dale
Dale,
If you consider that demoing a P65+ is the obvious course of action for those considering it, or any other digital back, is there any reason why such an approach should not apply to all cameras? If you think this is true, then, according to you, we could dispense with all technical tests of cameras and just rely upon word of mouth or simply adopt a 'follow the leader' approach.
When the cost of the equipment is of a minor concern, you don't even need to demo the equipment. Just buy what the leading photographers in your field are using, and you'll be right, or simply buy the most expensive equipment available on the assumption that the higher the price, the better the equipment.
Speaking from personal experience, demoing equipment should only be necessary in the absence of thorough technical reviews. When Nikon caused a big stir with its first FF 35mm DSLR, the D3, which seemed to have better SNR and DR than any Canon DSLR then available, there was initially simply no reliable information that quantified the improvements over the Canon equipment. Most reviewers just compared in-camera jpegs. The Nikon shots clearly had had a lot of in-camera chroma-noise reduction applied, which Canon wasn't doing in-camera. The Nikon shots at ISO 3200 therefore were significantly cleaner than the Canon shots, but
not after one applied an appropriate amount of chroma-noise reduction to the Canon images using a program like Noise Ninja. The Canon 5D shots then sometimes looked better than the D3 shots, but on balance about equal. The argument used by some that any additional noise reduction applied in post processing to the Canon images should also be applied to the Nikon images, was a false argument. You cannot apply chroma noise reduction twice and expect a further improvement. The Nikon images simply had the benefit of in-camera chroma noise reduction. The Canon images didn't have that benefit.
If the reviewers had been doing their job properly, they would have reported that for jpeg shooters the D3 had the time-saving feature of in-camera chroma noise reduction which Canon DSLRs lacked, and that in order to get a high-ISO 5D image looking almost as good (if not as good) as a D3 image it was necessary to apply chroma noise reduction in post-processing.
In fact, what we got was wild exaggeration about the D3's high ISO performance. Such exaggeration was made easier by the fact that the D3 boasted a number of very high ISO settings from ISO 6400 to ISO 256,000. The high numbers seemed to have their intended psychological effect and soon the rumour was widespread that the D3 had up to 2 stops better high-ISO performance than any Canon DSLR on the market.
Since I place a high value on high-ISO performance (I like to do street photography without flash) I decided to demo a D3 and compare it with my 5D. It wasn't easy. I was in Bangkok at the time. No-one was hiring out this latest Nikon DSLR; they were in such short supply. The best I could do was struggle through the dense traffic in Bangkok to the main Nikon agent and use their D3 demo model to compare with my 5D, photographing dark corners inside the shop.
The results were surprising. From ISO 3200 to ISO 256,000 (underexposing the 5D to simulate the higher ISOs), the difference in DR and noise was of the order of 1/3rd of a stop. Sometimes a little more. Sometimes a little less. That's a far cry from the 'up-to-two-stops' claims from some who had actually used and demoed the camera but who had not done any thorough comparisons. It's clear to me that simply demoing a camera, giving it a twirl and a spin in the haphazard manner that most photographers would apply, is not necessarily sufficient to get an accurate impression of its performance in relation to other systems.
When I returned later to Brisbane, Australia, I tried to hire a D3 with the Nikkor 14-24 lens, which I was very interested in. No chance. The major camera hire company in Brisbane was still fulfilling back orders for the D3, and the Nikkor 14-24 was never going to be available for hire becase its protruding front element prevented the fitting of any protective filter.
The fact is, hiring the latest equipment to make your own tests is not only expensive and time-consuming, it's sometimes not even possible. This is why DXOmark is so useful. Instead of spending half a day battling through Bangkok traffic, or going to the expenses of having equipment for hire shipped from the other end of the country because it's not available at your location of residence, you can sit comfortably on your computer stool and get accurate information on most aspects of camera performance from competent testers with a scientific background who know what they are doing.
For information on the more personal aspects of ergonomics and handling, one can refer to field reports from users of the equipment, such as our host, Michael Reichmann.
If DXOmark had been available 18 months ago, I could have saved myself hours of stuffing around. When I examine their graphs carefully, comparing the DR and SNR of the D3 versus the 5D, I find their results at ISO 3200 are almost exactly the same as mine. So close in fact, it's uncanny.
DXOmark results at ISO 3200 place the D3 as having 0.42EV higher DR than the 5D. However, they also show that the 5D at ISO 3200 is slightly more sensitive than the D3 (real ISO 2710 for the 5D compared with real ISO 2566 for the D3). The difference is so slight it's insignificant in practical terms, but it's sufficient to bring that O.42EV difference in DR closer to my O.33EV estimate, which is why I say the closeness of the result is uncanny. All my comparisons were made at equal f stop and equal shutter speed. My 100% crops are available on this forum, somewhere, if the search engine is functioning properly.
There's another interesting result from DXOmark regarding these two camera. Whilst everyone seemed to be trumpeting the high-ISO capabilities of the D3 in its early days, that we now realise were much exaggerated, it seems that the more significant performance advantage of the D3 is at base ISO, at ISO 200. Here, DR is a whole stop better than the 5D, even comparing the D3 at ISO 200 with the 5D at ISO 100, or more precisely, the D3 at ISO 162 with the 5D at ISO 92.
This is something I didn't have time to test during the brief time I had to demo the D3. This advantage is also something that wasn't made explicit in the early reviews. For practicing photographers to test different systems thoroughly and at different ISOs by demoing hired equipment at great expense to themselves is not only a huge job but simply inefficient.
Organisations like DXO who share their results with the public should be congratulated. Those who state that DXO results are a load of codswallop are merely displaying their scientific illiteracy. Perhaps they are proud of such illiteracy. Reading a graph is not
that difficult, is it?
