Switch to Sony for HDR Reasons? G7X vs RX100 M3/M4

I have always been a Canon user (Ixus 400, EOS 450D and S90). I love the interface and the colors.

Now that HDR has become a standard feature on mobile phone cameras, I realized it's about time to get a camera that has this feature and save myself a lot of headache when taking scenes with imbalanced lighting.

As you can see, all my cameras are for long-term use. The 450D is already 8 years old and the sheer bulk is no longer feasible for vacation trips. Basically I'm now looking for the best compact out there below $1000.

I've read the reviews and have seen the photo comparisons both in studio and real life. If there was no side by side comparison, the Sony colors would have been OK. Unfortunately it turns out Sony still produces slightly pale photos when compared to Canon. This is the biggest downer for me.

On the Canon side, I found out that the HDR feature on its cameras are either useless or too much. I want something "just right", something similar to what phones do, which the Sony does very well. The USB charging option is an added bonus.

Is there a way to "fix" the HDR on Canons? Or is there a way to make the Sony take similarly-colored shots to Canon in-camera without post processing?

Finally, which one should I get? The price matters but not entirely; since this will be a long-term investment. Should I wait for the G7X successor and hope they fill fix the HDR?

(BTW I rarely shoot videos, I don't shoot RAW, I rarely use the zoom and I don't have a lot of time to do post-processing besides tweaking the contrast, brightness, shadows and highlights.)

greenarcher86 wrote:

I have always been a Canon user (Ixus 400, EOS 450D and S90). I love the interface and the colors.

Now that HDR has become a standard feature on mobile phone cameras, I realized it's about time to get a camera that has this feature and save myself a lot of headache when taking scenes with imbalanced lighting.

As you can see, all my cameras are for long-term use. The 450D is already 8 years old and the sheer bulk is no longer feasible for vacation trips. Basically I'm now looking for the best compact out there below $1000.

I've read the reviews and have seen the photo comparisons both in studio and real life. If there was no side by side comparison, the Sony colors would have been OK. Unfortunately it turns out Sony still produces slightly pale photos when compared to Canon. This is the biggest downer for me.

On the Canon side, I found out that the HDR feature on its cameras are either useless or too much. I want something "just right", something similar to what phones do, which the Sony does very well. The USB charging option is an added bonus.

Is there a way to "fix" the HDR on Canons? Or is there a way to make the Sony take similarly-colored shots to Canon in-camera without post processing?

Finally, which one should I get? The price matters but not entirely; since this will be a long-term investment. Should I wait for the G7X successor and hope they fill fix the HDR?

(BTW I rarely shoot videos, I don't shoot RAW, I rarely use the zoom and I don't have a lot of time to do post-processing besides tweaking the contrast, brightness, shadows and highlights.)

The Icontrast on canon cameras works extremely efeectively to enhance DR by rolling off the highlights curve and raising shadows, without applying too much HDR affect, I leave mine turned on to AUTO all the time, it just applies the exact amount depending on the scene.  Is that what you are after?

Brian

greenarcher86 wrote:

The results I want when I turn HDR on can be found on samples below:

http://maxcnash.com/sony-rx100-iii-in-review-the-best-performing-compact-is-back-with-a-vengeance/

http://photoframd.com/2013/06/03/high-line-nyc-2013-late-afternoon-walk/

Possibly similair to Icontrast, but a bit more effect, too much for my liking, but that doesn't matter because its what you want.

These albums show what Icontrast looks like:

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/5128303546/albums/cruising

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/5128303546/albums/central-australia

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/5128303546/albums/vietnam-cambodia

Brian

greenarcher86 wrote:

Might be too much to ask but would you have sample shots comparing shots with and without Icontrast side by side? It's the only way I can see whether it can give me what I need or not.

Not at the moment, I haven't turned it off since I discovered it a few years ago.  I could do a couple of shots for you but I will need to wait until we have the sun here because that is where the DR enhancement does its magic.

Icontrast and the 'my colors' settings is just about the only reason I buy canon cameras.

Brian

This may or may not help. Using my G7X, I took a series of photos with areas of full sun on white surface and areas in shadow. I figured this would challenge the DR mechanism. The first three are in P mode with auto ISO. I'm not seeing a huge difference between standard DR and 200% DR compensation (other than my 200% shot being out of focus), and both did a good job of pulling the flowers out of the shadow. The HDR version looks too dark to me.

Dan

Base scene with no DR or shadow correction applied.

Standard DR and shadow correction applied.

200% DR and shadow correction applied.

HDR mode.

This goes to show the standard hdr mode on g7x is virtually useless. Step it into 'art standard' and it does a much more obvious job, but with colors grossly oversaturated. For me not so unpleasant, but not very realistic either.

requa wrote:

This may or may not help. Using my G7X, I took a series of photos with areas of full sun on white surface and areas in shadow. I figured this would challenge the DR mechanism. The first three are in P mode with auto ISO. I'm not seeing a huge difference between standard DR and 200% DR compensation (other than my 200% shot being out of focus), and both did a good job of pulling the flowers out of the shadow. The HDR version looks too dark to me.

Dan

Base scene with no DR or shadow correction applied.

Standard DR and shadow correction applied.

HDR doesn't work at all, and the first normal shot the grass that is in the sun looks like its in dark shadows, but the one done with the DR and shadow raising the grass looks like its in the sun and the shadows under the tree are less deep.  To me the only shot that looks normal here are the ones done with DR enhancement, which I assume was Icontrast.

Brian

requa wrote:

This may or may not help. Using my G7X, I took a series of photos with areas of full sun on white surface and areas in shadow. I figured this would challenge the DR mechanism. The first three are in P mode with auto ISO. I'm not seeing a huge difference between standard DR and 200% DR compensation (other than my 200% shot being out of focus), and both did a good job of pulling the flowers out of the shadow. The HDR version looks too dark to me.

Dan

Base scene with no DR or shadow correction applied.

Standard DR and shadow correction applied.

HDR doesn't work at all, and the first normal shot the grass that is in the sun looks like its in dark shadows, but the one done with the DR and shadow raising the grass looks like its in the sun and the shadows under the tree are less deep.  To me the only shot that looks normal here are the ones done with DR enhancement, which I assume was Icontrast.

Brian

There was some big discussion about this in the past. It's not labeled as icontrast in function menu. It's DR correction and shadow correct. Icontrast is in playbakc mode. Not sure how they're related, but likely icontrast is the same as shadow correct as you've surmised, though the settings are different in playback mode (low med high).

damian5000 wrote:

requa wrote:

This may or may not help. Using my G7X, I took a series of photos with areas of full sun on white surface and areas in shadow. I figured this would challenge the DR mechanism. The first three are in P mode with auto ISO. I'm not seeing a huge difference between standard DR and 200% DR compensation (other than my 200% shot being out of focus), and both did a good job of pulling the flowers out of the shadow. The HDR version looks too dark to me.

Dan

Base scene with no DR or shadow correction applied.

Standard DR and shadow correction applied.

HDR doesn't work at all, and the first normal shot the grass that is in the sun looks like its in dark shadows, but the one done with the DR and shadow raising the grass looks like its in the sun and the shadows under the tree are less deep. To me the only shot that looks normal here are the ones done with DR enhancement, which I assume was Icontrast.

Brian

There was some big discussion about this in the past. It's not labeled as icontrast in function menu. It's DR correction and shadow correct. Icontrast is in playbakc mode. Not sure how they're related, but likely icontrast is the same as shadow correct as you've surmised, though the settings are different in playback mode (low med high).

Exactly. The manual at p.77 says i-Contrast (in shooting modes) involves two functions of Dynamic Range Correction (correcting for blown highlights) and Shadow Correct, which are controlled independently.

brianj wrote:

requa wrote:

Standard DR and shadow correction applied.

HDR doesn't work at all, and the first normal shot the grass that is in the sun looks like its in dark shadows, but the one done with the DR and shadow raising the grass looks like its in the sun and the shadows under the tree are less deep. To me the only shot that looks normal here are the ones done with DR enhancement, which I assume was Icontrast.

Brian

In the HDR picture there's more detail in the dark tree trunks than there is standard shot. And the tree trunks look like mud in the contrast altered pics.

It's hard to tell if the chairs are enhanced since there's basically no detail in smooth plastic chairs.

semifast wrote:

brianj wrote:

requa wrote:

HDR doesn't work at all, and the first normal shot the grass that is in the sun looks like its in dark shadows, but the one done with the DR and shadow raising the grass looks like its in the sun and the shadows under the tree are less deep. To me the only shot that looks normal here are the ones done with DR enhancement, which I assume was Icontrast.

Brian

In the HDR picture there's more detail in the dark tree trunks than there is standard shot. And the tree trunks look like mud in the contrast altered pics.

It's hard to tell if the chairs are enhanced since there's basically no detail in smooth plastic chairs.

I see what you mean. Playing with these images in Lightroom, if I bump the shadow slider to 100% it's pretty dramatic. I wasn't focusing on the tree trunks when I took or posted the images. I was looking more at the pot of flowers in mid-shadow. I may have to play a bit more this weekend. I don't think in-camera HDR is the approach I would choose, largely because of the slow processing time, but this may push me back toward raw capture, at least in tricky lighting like this.

Incidentally, the chairs are actually composite not smooth plastic. I don't expect you to care what kind of furniture I'm sitting on; I'm just pointing it out because the wood fiber/plastic composite material actually does have a very fine grain, but it's no surprise that it doesn't show in the photos given how bright the white is. I can see it with the naked eye, but only from close distance, and can certainly feel it.

Actually, this may be good news for me. I've been looking for evidence in my own photos to convince me that I should switch to raw. I suspect raw will give better detail without the lag and without the overall dark image of the HDR. If so, and if I can't figure out how to get the same in JPEG, I may finally be convinced.

Dan

Nobody is going to focus on one single area and pixel peep it. The question is what does default HDR do for pictures here, and the answer is virtually nothing. Try art standard, that produces more dramatic results, but vey saturated color.

damian5000 wrote:

Nobody is going to focus on one single area and pixel peep it. The question is what does default HDR do for pictures here, and the answer is virtually nothing. Try art standard, that produces more dramatic results, but vey saturated color.

I take it the Canon HDR has limited controls ?

I'm not sure about the RX100 but other Sonys, like the Nex cameras, have 5 or 6 levels of automatic HDR processing.

greenarcher86 wrote:

I'm really puzzled with Canon. How can one of the pioneers and landmark companies in digital photography not be able to do something what all mobile phones can today...

I played around with my friend's RX100M3 and the colors are really too far off from Canon's.

Guess I just have to wait until Canon learns how to do HDR the right way...

Maybe canon is using HDR for what it is meant for, extreme cases of high DR which needs two images blended into one to cope, not for producing adsurd over the top cartoon looking images.

Brian