Sorry, it's worse now because of that...
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Canon R7 owners : are you happy with your high iso shots?
- Thread starter Younes B
- Start date
Alastair Norcross
Forum Pro
Pretty funny. There are always some….
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
You are struggling with the limits of magnification with finite numbers of photons, and you don't have any sense of context that would normalize your expectations. If you judge IQ by how pixel level views look when you have more of them, you will be confused, especially when most converters and camera JPEG engines try to both sharpen and noise reduce at the same time, which results in artifacts not seen with larger pixels, in typical viewing conditions.
The alleged "problem" that you perceive is universal; it is not an "R7 problem". The R7's sensor is among the best in the mainstream commercial world for not adding too much visible electronic noise to a given exposure, and its quantum efficiency is similar to other current sensors. There isn't going to be a sensor that comes out next year where you can crop 1/2 MP from 3.2 micron pixels at ISO 3200 and it looks like 6 micron pixels from this year, or 5 years ago; not unless there is a total revolution in color filtration that makes almost all photons reach the photosites (only about 15% do in current cameras for a grey/white object in daylight). There may be inroads in eliminating read noise (close to done already with some special sensors not used in popular cameras), but you will still see similar photon noise without such a revolution.
Get used to the fact that light is finite, especially when you need shutter speed, but the fact that smaller pixels show this more readily at 100% does not mean that they are worse; if you convert an R7 image taken at ISO 25600 and don't sharpen at the original resolution, but bin the pixels 2x2 such that there are the same pixels-on-subject as an R6, the R7 will not only have more (and less aliased) color resolution, but pretty much the same noise, and greater sharpness, due to a halving of AA filter strength relative to the new pixel size. The R5 or R3 would not give a simple binning ratio, so you might want to use other types of resampling to normalize pixels-on-subject, but binning is a good model because it actually mimics larger pixels (which are larger "bins", which proper downsampling and its inherent smoothening, does not do).
What would you think of a 500MP FF sensor that had 100% quantum efficiency and no read noise? It would look much noisier than the R7, with the way that you view results, even though it would completely trash any existing FF or APS-C sensor for noise and resolution.
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Beware of correct answers to wrong questions.
John
http://www.pbase.com/image/55384958.jpg
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Not funny at all - because now people feel compelled to use this crap...
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
There is no such tradeoff, in general. People who see such a trade-off in general simply don't understand anything deeply at all about the math and scale of imaging, or even human interpretation of visual experience.
People lit on stage against a dark background is one of the environments where noise visibly expresses least, because it visibly expresses most in midtone areas of substantial spatial size.
The Studio Comparison Tool doesn't have your camera. Does one of the ones that they do have have the same sensor?
I am sure that the R7 would do much better than your Pentax if it the Pentax was in the Tool, but the tool protects old cameras, because the too does not shoot cameras past their official ISO settings, and older cameras had lower max ISOs.
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
Even at ISO 32,000, the R7 OOC JPEG images can be made into sharp 6x4" size images with no obvious visible noise. People add noise to their images all the time, because they do not understand post-processing, especially the relationship between sharpening, NR, and resampling.
Anyone who lets pixel-level sharpening happen at the pixel level in an image which will ultimately be shown with less pixels has already SABOTAGED their results. You increase noise when you sharpen, so you'd better have a darn good reason to ever sharpen the original pixels.
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
Perhaps to recognize its R3-like AF in some ways, we can call it the "R93".
Steve Balcombe
Forum Pro
Well, it's true that the AF is awesome, and I choose my overused-on-the-internet word carefully. It's staggeringly good.
Latest rumour is that the R6 Mark II is coming and will have the R3 sensor...
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevebalcombe/ or
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/stevebalcombe/popular-interesting/
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Alastair Norcross
Forum Pro
I'm sorry, I will stay off your lawn, I promise. I'll also use what I choose to use, without any feelings of compulsion. Aesthetic judgments are, of course, highly subjective. What you judge to be crap, I, and many others, judge to be an excellent tool to help produce fine images. What we should all agree on, but apparently you don't, is that more choice is better, at least in this respect. You choose not to use DXO. Many of us choose to use it. The existence of that choice can, in no way, shape, or form, make the R7 any worse than it was before the choice was available to us. Presumably you are not suggesting that your own aesthetic tastes should be imposed on the rest of us? Or maybe you are. That's certainly how your increasingly aggressive posts read.
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
What is considered a "fast enough" lens for AF has changed quite a bit. You always get more light on AF sensors with faster lenses (although faster than f/2.8 was usually wasted with DSLRs), but with DSLRs, it wasn't just about the amount of light; the AF sensors under the mirror depended upon the optical GEOMETRY of faster lenses to find the phase relationships, and they had no way to use imagery at all to see a subject (except models like the 1Dx3, which have a hires metering sensor that aids with AF). So, now we can use very slow lenses, as long as there is enough light; we may lose the phase-detect capabilities, but we still have a processor examining imagery, too, which can still get accurate (if very slow) AF in very poor light.
The R7 clearly has slower AF in very low light and/or with slower open f-numbers than the R5, R6, and R3, AOTBE, but that occurs when accepting the very different number of pixels on-subject. If you target pixels-on-subject, and normalize them with TCs, however, the situation can reverse, and the R7 will AF faster than the R6 or R5 with a slow lens and/or low light (don't know much about the R3, and there wouldn't be a close TC match, anyway, for simple comparison).
For the R7, I find 400/8 to rarely be a problem, and 800/11 is noticeably slower in very low light and/or low subject contrast, but when light is good and the lens is already close to focus, even 1600/22 can be "fast enough" for many subjects.
With DSLRs, I have never heard of accurate AF with any open f-ratio higher than f/9; f/10 might work but there just isn't a whole lot of f/10 out there in lens/TC combos. f/11 does exist, though, and AFAIK, no one has had it work for accurate AF even in the brightest of light with a B&W subject. IOW, the AF of a DSLR falls dramatically off of a cliff somewhere around f/10.
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
That would be a bit of a "give-away" with that sensor readout speed at an R6 price point, but Canon has done some stuff like that in the past. Still, as much as I'd like that sensor readout speed, I'd prefer it with higher pixel density. 24MP FF is just too coarse for my needs, and would require extra tele-conversion. I'll hobble along with mechanical shutter on the R7 for the time being (it is no slouch there - it has a rolling shutter at least 1/320s, probably closer to 1/400s with the margins they use for such things).
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
I'm not happy with the fact that all color sensors waste lots of photons on passive filtration.
I am not happy with the fact that a lens that captures more light from a subject with a given illumination, shutter speed, and distance has to be larger, heavier, and more expensive, and can only deliver that extra light with shallow DOF, which you may not always want.
I'm not happy with how few photons come off of a subject in very low light, per millisecond, but that is an immutable property of the universe.
The R7 sensor specifically causes none of this, but does very well, considering all this.
--
Beware of correct answers to wrong questions.
John
http://www.pbase.com/image/55384958.jpg
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My problem with this "choice" is that it leads to false decisions while taking the images - in the belief that the AI will remedy that false initial decision. It will not!
I kindly disagree. I choose the best setting possible for the situation and lighting condition - result is photo with grainy ISO 12800 anyway. I could just delete the photo, or use one of the AI software to make it usable for me needs. Win!
Your statement could be true for beginners though.
False, you lost the character of the light because you are having unreasonable expectations...
Only beginners would fall into the trap of AI noise reduction. Experienced photographers would provide the appropriate lighting or shutter speed or make the character of the light work with the photo.
Steve Balcombe
Forum Pro
Welcome to that very special club on the Internet, for people who believe that what (they believe) applies to their photography must therefore apply to everybody else.
I say "welcome", but to be clear I'm not a member myself.
It's hard to become a member, with such excessive gatekeeping!
Just few notes to this topic:
My commentary is from my perspective of amateur enthusiast photographer, so I'm not paid and not forced for perfect results for client. So I don't need to bring flash, lights or whatever. I just use what I have in my bag in the moment and hope that results make me happy.
I could have zero expectations, I just find an interesting subject and try to shoot it in interesting way. AI denoise software is just an another tool, which can or maybe not help me with my hobby, similar like fast lens, stabilisation, flash or tripod.
If somebody have difficulties to accept new technology and like to shoot manual, on film etc, fine. But seems not correct to me to bash new technology, just because you don't like to use it.
Reliance on AI is giving away all that would make photography an art - if you are incapable or unwilling to put your subject into the right light then you shouldn't call yourself a photographer. The AI results will be random, as random as attaching the camera to your dogs leash and have it take a shot every 10 minutes.
Younes B
Senior Member
putting the subject into the right light is a luxury for many. Not everyone takes pics in a studio & controlled environments.
If you shoot sports or wildlife, you basically have no control on the subject and the available light is subject to weather conditions.
And there are many capable & willing photographers out there that still manage to get stunning shots.
If AI in PP helps them, very well.
For all others, the option not to use AI is still there....but stop criticizing those that try to make the best of available technology.
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