Is the difference of DR on MFDB vs 35mm dslr discernible on print?

[EricWHiss]

DxO Mark apparently measures from the sensor.  Let us not forget that, due to internal reflections/flare, even the best primes only allow 11 stops or so of DR, which becomes quite a neutralizer.

That's weird, never heard that before.  And all my Imatest test were done by taking pictures through the lens and some were higher than 11 stops.  Can you point me to any reference where this is detailed.  
Thanks,
Eric

[Christopher]

I love it. It's fun to read.

Ok back to the topic.

I will be in Sydney from the 19th if Sep till the 5th of October. I will get a Nikon d3x and do the following: Nikon d3x, Canon 5DII, Leica M8 and M9 and P65, I will only look for DR and yes once done you can have the raw files and go out and play.

Now the question for you. What is the best place to get a Nikon d3x in Sydney ?

thx to all and plz keep talking, it's better than a movie ;-)

[BernardLanguillier]

Well fine, show me another comparison that prooves your point.  Which point? I am only referring to the DXO thing. But I absolutely don't care which camera has the highest DR.

OK, my misunderstanding then.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Simple; one make appointment with a Leaf, Phase-One or other MFDB dealer in ones area and run own tests and test in actual shooting. If tests are run on basis of testing/proving within capabilities of a DSLR, then one might go blind to the difference.    However, if running tests to see the actual capabilities of high image quality of the back in normal through extreme photographic conditions - at low iso, then... it is likely similar to driving little circles with a Ferrari around a Toyota. On other hand, for high ISO, obvious a DSLR prevails.

The question was about the test mentioned by Eric, we all know your Leaf keeps you warm at night Anders.  

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

I will be in Sydney from the 19th if Sep till the 5th of October. I will get a Nikon d3x and do the following: Nikon d3x, Canon 5DII, Leica M8 and M9 and P65, I will only look for DR and yes once done you can have the raw files and go out and play.

You're the man Christopher! If you can make the resulting raw files available that will be best, if you cannot then please convert these files with a decent converter like C1 Pro 4.8 or Raw developper.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Dick Roadnight]

Marc!

Thank's for your support. Unfortunately I'm in Sweden and Bernard in Japan I think. My suggestion was to make two identical identical photos of the same subject under the same conditions and make available to whoever is interested to print or evaluate. Something like I have on my site here:
Erik

Sweden is not a million miles from the UK... I think that real 3d subjects are a better test than test charts, (especially for DR) and lighting is a variable even if we sent the same objects to make up a scene.

Who has a P65 + in the UK?

[JSK]

I love it. It's fun to read.

Ok back to the topic.

I will be in Sydney from the 19th if Sep till the 5th of October. I will get a Nikon d3x and do the following: Nikon d3x, Canon 5DII, Leica M8 and M9 and P65, I will only look for DR and yes once done you can have the raw files and go out and play.

Now the question for you. What is the best place to get a Nikon d3x in Sydney ?

thx to all and plz keep talking, it's better than a movie ;-)

Can't wait to see the results..
Thanks for the effort!

[ErikKaffehr]

Thanks a lot Christopher!

Best regards
Erik

I love it. It's fun to read.

Ok back to the topic.

I will be in Sydney from the 19th if Sep till the 5th of October. I will get a Nikon d3x and do the following: Nikon d3x, Canon 5DII, Leica M8 and M9 and P65, I will only look for DR and yes once done you can have the raw files and go out and play.

Now the question for you. What is the best place to get a Nikon d3x in Sydney ?

thx to all and plz keep talking, it's better than a movie ;-)

[Christopher]

Thanks a lot Christopher!

Best regards
Erik

Still waiting for ideas where to get the Nikon in Sydney ? Any rental house or other options ?

[Guillermo Luijk]

It's very frustrating discussing this topic over and over with people who seem intent to win an argument based only on numbers when the answers are easy to see with your own eyes.  If you only had both cameras at your disposal you would clearly see that MFDB have big advantages in "usable" DR at base, while DSLR have advantages at higher ISO settings.

If you find frustrating to discuss this topic, don't be silly and don't discuss it. I already told you that I did not realize about how much noise the Hasselblad MFDB had looking at any numbers, but looking with my (trained) eye to the amount of noise it showed, which was close, and even more than a D3X RAW file at the same RAW exposure level. DxO numbers just confirmed what I _saw_ (is that word clear enough?).

As Panopeeper cleverly said, once the noise is or is not there in the RAW data, it's just a matter of proper postprocessing to take advantage of the absence of noise when printing all the captured DR.

It seems very easy for you to have both a D3X and some MFDB for testing. I am sorry to tell you none of them are available to me, so if you have access to both machines many here would be pleased to see your evidences.

I will be in Sydney from the 19th if Sep till the 5th of October. I will get a Nikon d3x and do the following: Nikon d3x, Canon 5DII, Leica M8 and M9 and P65, I will only look for DR and yes once done you can have the raw files and go out and play.

Christopher, please make sure you shoot at several exposure levels for each machine, so that we can end with RAW files at base ISO with exactly the same RAW exposure on all sensors under test.

Regards.

[ErikKaffehr]

Thank's, that was very interesting!

Best regards
Erik

It's very frustrating discussing this topic over and over with people who seem intent to win an argument based only on numbers when the answers are easy to see with your own eyes.  If you only had both cameras at your disposal you would clearly see that MFDB have big advantages in "usable" DR at base, while DSLR have advantages at higher ISO settings.    Many are quite misinformed about DR and why many cameras come up with high DR but low usable DR.  
Please read here: http://www.imatest.com/docs/dynamic.html#dr

I used this software to compare DR of my Leica DMR against a canon 1D3.  The canon had 12.7 stops DR according to the standard definition, while the leica had 12.6 stops - so the canon won right?  But using the imatest guidelines for "usable"  DR - see the other values in the charts top right - the Leica won by almost two stops. While the canon 1d3 had 12.7 stops according to definition (and probably close to what DXO is measuring)  it only had a little more than 8.5 usable @ the .25 ratio, and actually in the most stringent measurement only 6.6 stops of DR.  The Leica had not dropped as much from the max and was still showing 10 stops of DR at the .25 ratio measurement.    While I haven't taken the time to test my new Canon 5DmkII or my P20, I can see side by side shots show the P20 has a fair bit more usable.  What I'm saying is that while DXO measurements may be accurate according to definition they are not usable for photographers an only present an idealized case which is not good for photographers.  Better measurements can be made and the cameras do not compare the same!  

Now when I said I did my own testing, I hope you believe I was really testing!  It's a lot of work to do this right and the results only confirm what I was seeing.  Now I just trust my eyes.

[attachment=16575:Stouffer...7_Step_2.jpg]

[EricWHiss]

If you find frustrating to discuss this topic, don't be silly and don't discuss it. I already told you that I did not realize about how much noise the Hasselblad MFDB had looking at any numbers, but looking with my (trained) eye to the amount of noise it showed, which was close, and even more than a D3X RAW file at the same RAW exposure level. DxO numbers just confirmed what I _saw_ (is that word clear enough?).

As Panopeeper cleverly said, once the noise is or is not there in the RAW data, it's just a matter of proper postprocessing to take advantage of the absence of noise when printing all the captured DR.

It seems very easy for you to have both a D3X and some MFDB for testing. I am sorry to tell you none of them are available to me, so if you have access to both machines many here would be pleased to see your evidences.


Christopher, please make sure you shoot at several exposure levels for each machine, so that we can end with RAW files at base ISO with exactly the same RAW exposure on all sensors under test.

Regards.

It's really too bad that none of the cameras you want to theorize and study are not available to you. A small violin plays sad music in the background.   Have you considered holding back on your posts until you get a chance to really investigate what you write about?  

Is it fair to assume that if you can't gain access to cameras that you won't have access to printers capable of making large prints too?  How far are you willing to go beyond your keyboard to test out these cameras and theories?

As you may have seen, I did my own testing some of which was fairly rigorous and quantitative.  I've come to what I believe is fair and accurate conclusion - so I have absolutely nothing more to find out at the moment. I'm satisfied and have reported what I found here in this and other threads.  Nice to be able to share real information and not just conjecture and I hope that readers can sort the differences.

Had you looked at the Hasselblad files using Flexcolor or Phocus before coming to your incorrect conclusion about how much noise it has at least in practical terms ( meaning the way most photographers will use it ) then I might have been willing to provide you RAW files just to be nice and give you a chance - though I'm pretty certain you could do a demo for free of any of the MFDB systems (have you even tried or do you really just want to play with numbers in the computer?).   Providing you with files definitely seems fruitless to me as I have already done my homework and posted it here but especially feel it would be not a good idea to give you RAWs because your approach is flawed in my opinion.

If you bothered to read on the Imatest page about how to test DR - the best way is with a transmission step wedge which I have purchased specifically for that purpose. Put the step wedge on a light table and shoot that so that the lighting and environment can be controlled and eliminated as a variable.      It's better to test after RAW conversion than before because that yields the most accurate results for real shooting - one isn't going to just look at the RAW numbers and stop.  If you intend to to make real images they will have to be converted.   Very few people are going to buy these cameras and just sit around and examine the data mid-point and then go have a smoke and revel in the bits and bytes.  

I continue to post to this thread to provide real camera experience to counter the plethora inexperienced information and conjecture.  As I wrote earlier, its a lot of work to do this kind of testing right and you have to have the right tools.  You can't just go out and shoot from a balcony and expect to get meaningful data.  

I hope that everyone interested in this subject will inform themselves and hopefully test shoot with a variety of systems and process the files through a number of different RAW converters including the manufacturers own.  Even if you don't have the interest or time to do more scientific testing, you'll have some qualitative tests to go by. Trust your self, not the internet.

[Jeremy Payne]

Why is it such a surprising and controversial point that on per-pixel basis the top-of-class CMOS sensors produce comparable results to the top-of-class CCD with similarly sized sensels?

It would seem (as has been mentioned previously) that much, if not all, of the differences between the final output of MFDBs and the best DSLRs would be attributable to:

1) MFDBs have bigger sensors

2) MFDBs don't have AA filters

3) They use different lenses

I seriously doubt the extra money has anything to do with it ... but I can see how spending as much money on a camera as I spent on my BMW would make you want to believe it is magic ... 'cause my BMW is magic ...

    .... but let's keep talking about it!

[rethmeier]

Chris,
I'm in Sydney and I have a D3x.
Cheers,
Willem.

[David Grover / Capture One]

Most likely this argument will never be won on either sides.

Lisa aptly demonstrated and explained earlier that any camera of any description can be used to take great photographs.

I believe the photographers who have bought into MFDB didn't do so because it made them feel warm and squishy inside, but they did it for sound technical, creative or other reasons.

The majority of our sales this year have been 'New Business'.  ie sales to those who previously were using 35mm cameras, found something 'missing' in either the workflow or image quality and decided to additionally make use of a medium format camera alongside their other equally useful cameras.

I don't expect that any of these new customers, who spent a not small amount of money, did so just on a whim, but after careful consideration.

My advice to anyone who is unhappy with their current equipment, whatever size shape or form, is to test an alternative and see for themselves if it works.

Only you are the judge.  

Wether DR, resolution, [insert long list] is discernible, is probably less of an issue.  If the tool at hand (35mm, MF, pinhole, holga, Range....) allows them to fulfill a creative target above another tool, then it should be worthy of purchase regardless of any technical differences.

Best,



David

[Jeremy Payne]

I don't expect that any of these new customers, who spent a not small amount of money, did so just on a whim, but after careful consideration.

I don't either.  

But I do get the sense that many want that extra 'oomph' to have a linear relationship to $$$ spent.

The same paradigm exists with top of class DSLRs vs the best point and shoots.  Some D3 owners desperately want their camera to be "10x" better than a G10 'cause it costs 10x more ... and the D3 is better ... just not linearly better per dollar spent.

The first $500 buys you A LOT.

[bjanes]

To my best knowledge CMOS-sesors use a technique called "correlated double sampling" which essentially measure the cell voltages after reset (that is prior exposure) and after exposure. This eliminates the noise from the reset circuitry. Sony does employ some spatial noise reduction on chip but it can be disabled. There is little evidence of spatial noise reduction with NR off at low ISO AFAIK. This cannot be done CCD because they work differently.

I would guess that the advantage of MFDBs over DSLRs is simple related to larger sensor which collects more photons and also some factors related to MTF which I don't want to discuss right now.

Correlated double sampling is widely performed in CCD as well, as explained here. The break trough in reducing noise with CMOS sensors introduced by Canon and now by Nikon (apparently with a Sony chip) may involve an imporved correlated double sampling process or something else. However, as Eric points out, the process does not cause a loss of detail, unlike the filtering used by most NR in post processing. The larger MFDB does collect more photons since it has a larger total area, but dynamic range is on a per pixel basis. None of the boosters of MFDBs have demonstrated improved dynamic range on this basis and more is required than merely looking at pictures.

[EricV]

The larger MFDB does collect more photons since it has a larger total area, but dynamic range is on a per pixel basis. None of the boosters of MFDBs have demonstrated improved dynamic range on this basis ...

Dynamic range should most definitely not be measured on a per pixel basis.  One perfectly valid way of increasing DR is to build a sensor with a great many noisy pixels, which then get averaged when making a print.  DXO properly corrects for pixel count in their DR measurements.

[Phil Indeblanc]

Hi Ted,

Thank's a lot for good info. I still feel that I would ask about sharpening. A DSLR needs more sharpening than an MFDB due to the AA-filter and probably also because of the optics. What is your view on this?

It would be a great service to the community if we had some comparison images to download.

Best regards
Erik

Michael the websites "master" ;-) has done this very test. When you receive the cd it will be full of info and great raw files to compare... Enjoy!

[Phil Indeblanc]

Higher DR on MFDB is a myth that serves well to MDFB sellers. DR depends on the overall quality of the sensor, not only on its size. Do some DR comparisions in DxO Mark and you will see the Nikon D3X's DR is higher than that found on any MDFB (Phase One, Hasselblad or Leaf).

Of course resolution, sharpness, being able to use great lenses,... is another story. But regarding DR, just look at the sensor your camera has.

Regards.

That is at a scale that considers ISO and is a overall score