1DX Photographic Dynamic Range and Read Noise available

[bclaff]

I now have some 1D X images and have measured Photographic Dynamic Range (PDR) and Read Noise (in ADUs not electrons yet)

The 1D X has the highest DR that I have measured for a Canon camera at 9.07 although this is still 2 1/3 stops short of the D800.

Low light performance is excellent; on a par with the D4 and D800.

 
Bill

[Mcthecat]

Great site Bill and easy to compare camera to camera. Just a thought, how do you think my 1D4 stacks up against the 5d3 in terms of noise? I looked at the site and from what i see the DR is a tad off but the noise performance was as good and better in part from my MK4. Or am i reading it wrong. Im not the most technically gifted person. I only ask because im doing some low light stuff soon and was thinking of a 5D3 but if my sensor noise performance is on a par I wont bother.

Thanks again.

Mick

p.s Please test a 1DS3 to. I own one and always wondered how it stacks up against the new stuff.

[BernardLanguillier]

The 1D X has the highest DR that I have measured for a Canon camera at 9.07 although this is still 2 1/3 stops short of the D800.

Is that real world DR?

Cheers,
Bernard

[marcmccalmont]

Is that real world DR?

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard
What do you mean by "real world DR"?
Bills definition of "Photographic DR" is more conservative than DxO's DR definition by a couple of stops which I think makes it a more practical measurement.
I guess anyone could define what ever noise level they think is an unusable lower limit.
Marc

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernard
What do you mean by "real world DR"?
Bills definition of "Photographic DR" is more conservative than DxO's DR definition by a couple of stops which I think makes it a more practical measurement.
I guess anyone could define what ever noise level they think is an unusable lower limit.
Marc

Thanks Marc.

Then, Nikon has a lead even larger than what I what expected. Heck, I don't think that the top MFDB ever had more than 2 stop real DR advantage compared to the best DSLRs.

This means that Nikon could, tomorrow if they wanted to, release a 140 mega pixel sensor and still get as much DR as the current top of the line Canon.

Such a lead in such a competitive and mature market is simply mind boggling.

But even more impressive with recent Nikon offerings is this capability: http://nikonrumors.com/2012/07/28/pimp-your-nikon-1-camera.aspx/

Cheers,
Bernard

[Ray]

Wow! It seems Canon is catching up.  DXOMark rate the D800 as having 2&1/2 stops better DR than the 5D3. 

For those who wonder just how real such figures are; if Camera A has 2 stops better DR than Camera B it means that one can underexpose a shot from Camera A by 2 stops and the deep shadows in the Camera A shot will be just as detailed and clean as in a normal or ETTR exposure from Camera B. Alternatively, if one overexposes the shot from Camera B by 2 stops, totally blowing the highlights, the deep shadows will be the same as in an ETTR shot from Camera A.

However, to be fair and objective, as I always am, it should be stated that mid-tones are another matter. The overexposed Camera B shot might have noticeably smoother mid-tones than Camera A, depending on the nature of the subject. If the subject is such that midtones are important, as in portraits of lovely ladies advertising make-up products, one wouldn't want to underexpose Camera A in order to retain unimportant highlight detail whilst maintaining good, but equally unimportant, shadow detail.

[marcmccalmont]

BTW it was the day Bill posted the 5DIII DR results that I placed an order for a D800E
Marc

[NancyP]

Any guesses as to what engineering issue might be involved in the difference between Canon sensor DR and Nikon sensor DR?

[BJL]

Any guesses as to what engineering issue might be involved in the difference between Canon sensor DR and Nikon sensor DR?

Guesses, sure!

One big obvious technological difference is that:

- Canon still does analog to digital conversion off the sensor, so the analog signal (charge/current) has to be moved from photosite to the edge of the senor and then moved at far higher speed along the edge of the senor and off-board, where about four or eight ADC units operate at high speed to process the pixels.

- recent sensors used by Nikon (and Sony, and in the Panasonic GH models cameras, and maybe in the Olympus E-M5) instead use a column-parallel on-sensor approach to ADC: they have ADC units on the sensor, one at the bottom of each of the thousands of columns of photosites.  The analog signal only has to make the one, slower, trip from photosite to sensor's edge, where with thousands of ADC units operate in parallel, so that each can operate at a far lower rate.

These differences seem to allow greatly reducing the read noise and thus improving the deep shadow handling, dynamic range, and high ISO/low light performance. It has been shown with some high-end Canon SLRs (like the 1DMk3?) that the noise floor in the final output at base ISO speed is far higher than the noise floor in the signal produced within the photosites, so the villain seems to be additional noise that enters during the analog signal transportation and/or in the high speed ADC operation.


With so many major rivals now using column-parallel ADC (Samsung also has that technology at least in some video cameras) and getting excellent results with it, my guess is that Canon is developing something similar, and we will see it in the next generation of high end Canon SLR models in a few years' time.