Canon M6ii and EF-S 15-85mm IQ Tests (DXO vs Lightroom Enhance Details)

I grabbed a great deal on a near mint EF-S 15-85mm to adapt to my new to me Canon M6ii.  Light had faded before I could really get a true walkabout in, but here are two snaps to sample its IQ.  All shot hand held with IS on.

Each shot will be Lightroom image first, then DXO processed image second.  I think DXO handles noise more pleasingly if you zoom in, but otherwise, not much between them to my eyes, and man, once you do this you can get some massive files to play around with.

Number 2

Thanks for the time and effort to post, always interesting to see post-processing tools comparisons.

I agree with your assessments, DxO seems to have the edge handing noise but otherwise the images are very close. I've found fine-tuning noise vs. grain using PL5 to be great --- you can take shots at high ISOs and adjust the 'grain' and detail using the Deep Prime luminance slider, to get a very clean look which looks like it was shot at a normal ISO.

I have not used Lightroom, but know a lot of folks locally that do, it's an extremely competent and mature tool which should do as well if not better than DxO for images (besides noise).

Larry Rexley wrote:

Thanks for the time and effort to post, always interesting to see post-processing tools comparisons.

I agree with your assessments, DxO seems to have the edge handing noise but otherwise the images are very close. I've found fine-tuning noise vs. grain using PL5 to be great --- you can take shots at high ISOs and adjust the 'grain' and detail using the Deep Prime luminance slider, to get a very clean look which looks like it was shot at a normal ISO.

I have not used Lightroom, but know a lot of folks locally that do, it's an extremely competent and mature tool which should do as well if not better than DxO for images (besides noise).

Thanks, I should add that I only have DXO PureRaw (latest version), so I imported into LR from DXO PR to match slider adjustments before posting (no additional sharpening).

nnowak wrote:

Hard to see much in these small files.

I would suggest reshooting your 15mm image, but wide open at f/3.5. Step forward on the path so you have a full line of grass across the bottom of the frame and set the focus point on those two trees. The 15-85mm is notorious for defective copies that exhibit decentering at the wide end. If your copy is good, the lower left and lower right corners of the frame will be equally blurry.

Personally, it took three tries to get a copy that was not decentered.

Yeah, I guess I forgot how poor the DPR image viewer is at times…

I will try another test over the weekend, I had not seen much said about issues with this lens, so thanks for bringing that to light.