DxOmark Canon 5DIII

[Chris Pollock]

The manager thought the R&D cost to develop a new sensor was way too high so he had the marketing  department talk a dealer into posting YouTube videos stating his camera is "as good as the competition" even better in low light conditions, then so it didn't look too biased lets compare the competitor to a Hassy and state the competitor "only has 16 skin tones not 27" cost a lot less than R&D, smart business man "eh"

The funny thing is that they did develop a new sensor, but for some reason it's not much better than the one that it replaces. It's a bit like what AMD did with their "Bulldozer" architecture. I can think of two possible explanations:

• For some reason the new design failed to live up to expectations, and there wasn't time to fix the problems before their planned release date.
• The new design wasn't intended to deliver superior image quality, but to be cheaper to manufacture.

Since I don't know the first thing about sensor manufacturing, I have no idea if either of these explanations is correct.

[BJL]

The funny thing is that they did develop a new sensor, but for some reason it's not much better than the one that it replaces. ... I can think of two possible explanations:

• For some reason the new design failed to live up to expectations, and there wasn't time to fix the problems before their planned release date.
• The new design wasn't intended to deliver superior image quality, but to be cheaper to manufacture.

I have a third conjecture:
- the sensor is somewhat better, though mainly for video, which Canon sees as one important selling point, so the sensor upgrade has some commercial value.
- Right now Canon cannot do much better with the sensor in things like reducing noise and increasing DR at low ISO speeds, because it has not yet made the next big technological step to column parallel ADC that team Sony-Nikon has.
- Without that technological step, increasing the pixel count would be
(a) a bit embarassing in DR and SNR comparisons to Nikon-Sony sensors,
(b) a disadvantage for video performance, because the 5D3 had a pixel count that is very convenient for producing 1920x1080 video, and
(c) a disadvantage for frame rate, where column parallel processing also gives Sony-Nikon a substantial advantage when pixel counts are high.

[Ray]

To be fair to Canon, they have improved performance at very high ISOs to a significant degree. At ISO 3200 and above the 5D3 is the equal of the D800 in terms of SNR and DR. At ISO 25,600 both SNR and DR in the 5D3 is a whole stop better than the 5D2. That's a degree which would be clearly noticeable. At ISO 25,600 the 5D3 even has slightly higher DR than the D800, but only by 1/4th of a stop which would hardly be noticeable. However, these results are at equal print size. At the pixel level the DR differences between the 5D3 and the D800 increases to a good half a stop at ISO 25,600, although I'm not sure how relevant that is in practice, but it might be useful to know. If one were to crop a D800 image to 22mp, keeping the aspect ratio the same, perhaps as a result of using a prime lens which didn't allow one to fill the frame with the desired composition, then one might like to know that the DR would be 1/2 a stop worse than the 5D3 shot of the same scene using a zoom lens to fill the frame, if one were using ISO 25,600.

Nevertheless, the 2.5 stop DR advantage of the D800 at base ISO is clearly huge, and of much greater significance than the 1 stop DR improvement of the 5D3 compared with the 5D2 at ISO 25,600.

[marcmccalmont]

I think the bottom line is that all of us Canon shooters are disappointed at the lack of new sensor technology in the most recent Canon releases. They hit a home run with the 5D, the 5DII would have been a home run if it had the lower noise and AF of the 5DIII and if the 5DIII had the equivalent of the Sony sensor it to would have been a home run. With 3 year product cycles instead of the 12 month cycles in other hi tech markets I think Canon will loose a lot of market share.
Marc

[DaveCurtis]

Canon seem to be at least one iteration behind.

With their current iteration they are doing the high ISO low noise thing. Nikon did that in their last iteration. Nikon are now onto wide DR with low noise and high res to boot!

I honestly cant tell a great deal of different between my 1DS3 and my new 5D3 up until about 1600ISO.

[Ray]

I think the bottom line is that all of us Canon shooters are disappointed at the lack of new sensor technology in the most recent Canon releases. They hit a home run with the 5D, the 5DII would have been a home run if it had the lower noise and AF of the 5DIII and if the 5DIII had the equivalent of the Sony sensor it to would have been a home run. With 3 year product cycles instead of the 12 month cycles in other hi tech markets I think Canon will loose a lot of market share.
Marc

I agree. I didn't go for the 5D2 because I could see that there wasn't that much improvement over the original 5D regarding noise. Didn't I sell my Nikon/Canon adapter to you, Marc? If that adapter had offered full functionality, I probably would have ordered a 5D2 and I would now be facing the same dilemma as many Canon owners who are looking enviously at the D800.

However, I'm keeping my options open. I haven't sold any of my Canon lenses yet. The value of lenses in total is greater than the cost of any DSLR body and I'd be surprised if Canon doesn't eventually catch up regarding pixel count and DR at low ISOs. They might even overtake Nikon, just as Nikon overtook them some time ago.  

[Chris Pollock]

However, I'm keeping my options open. I haven't sold any of my Canon lenses yet. The value of lenses in total is greater than the cost of any DSLR body and I'd be surprised if Canon doesn't eventually catch up regarding pixel count and DR at low ISOs. They might even overtake Nikon, just as Nikon overtook them some time ago.  

Actually I think Canon and Nikon sensors were pretty much neck and neck until the D800 came out. The D700 had superior low light performance to the 5D Mark II, but significantly lower resolution. The Canon was better for some types of photography, the Nikon for others.

[BernardLanguillier]

Actually I think Canon and Nikon sensors were pretty much neck and neck until the D800 came out. The D700 had superior low light performance to the 5D Mark II, but significantly lower resolution. The Canon was better for some types of photography, the Nikon for others.

If you leave the D3x aside, yes.

The DR of the D800 is a but better still, but the DR breakthrough happened more than 3 years ago.

Only did the high price of the D3x prevent some photographers from giving the attention it deserved.

Cheers,
Bernard

[shadowblade]

Actually I think Canon and Nikon sensors were pretty much neck and neck until the D800 came out. The D700 had superior low light performance to the 5D Mark II, but significantly lower resolution. The Canon was better for some types of photography, the Nikon for others.

Not really - the D3x came out not long after the 5D2, and killed it in terms of low-ISO dynamic range and (lack of) pattern noise. With poor high-ISO capability and high cost, though, it was a fairly specialised tool.

But, looking at their crop sensors, Nikon has been killing Canon sensor-wise since the start of 2009. The D5100, D90 and D7000 all beat the 7D sensor (which has been used in multiple cameras) as well as the 50D sensor (which, for still photography, is better in many ways than the 7D sensor). The D3s also beats the 1D4 without losing much in the resolution stakes, although, to be fair, we're comparing a full-frame sensor against a 1.3x crop sensor.

Pre-Exmor, Canon was on top. But, ever since Sony developed the Exmor, Canon has had no answer - and it's been a few years now.

[Chris Pollock]

Not really - the D3x came out not long after the 5D2, and killed it in terms of low-ISO dynamic range and (lack of) pattern noise. With poor high-ISO capability and high cost, though, it was a fairly specialised tool.

Considering the difference in price, I don't think it's fair to compare the D3x and the 5D Mark II. On the other hand, Canon had no match for the D3x at any price.

Let's hope that Canon lift their game soon. If they don't, the value of used Canon lenses will drop, and switching to Nikon will become even more costly.