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I second that "request." All the way to 3200. innocent:
***DSLR/Photography MegaThread***
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I second that "request." All the way to 3200. innocent:
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DeaderFan
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Exactly my plan. The high ISO quality is what I am most curious about. I have been lusting after the D3, but the cost and the larger body put me off. Plus I shoot a lot of my kids hockey games and I like the reach I get with the 70-200 on the DX size sensor. When the DX size first came out I wished for a fullsize sensor, but now I have gotten used to the 1.5x factor, and the less glass (and cheaper glass)I have to carry. Shooting hockey I would love to get better results at high ISO. Can you imagine shooting at 6400 and getting quality images? Once we started seeing limitations of lens resolution in 10 and 12 megapixel images, I have to agree with Nikon that the next thing pros would demand would be light sensitivity and not more pixels. The D3 is probably the most interesting pro camera to come along in years--a journalist and wedding photographer's dream.
Unfortunately it's just a little too expensive for something I mostly use for a hobby.
My hope is that the D300 provides a decent compromise between cost and high ISO image quality. The 3" LCD, extra pixels, and live viewing are a bonus.
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I shot with a bit at Samy's on Friday. I dug it quite a bit, but stupid me didn't bring a CF card. (I went to buy not to try.
)I really liked the weight and feel of the body with the lens. (I checked it out with what I think it was a 18-135.)
I liked enough about it, but I couldn't justify the extra 500 bucks for the body, and then have to buy new glass. But if I had a D80/200, and a bunch of Nikon lenses, and you wanted to upgrade, I think it's a no-brainer.
While I'm thinking about it, I created a new Group Pool on Flickr for us LGK photogs. I'll update you all when I have a chance.
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Okay. After reading about this in Popular Science, this is the next thing I want to try:
High-Dynamic-Range Photography.
This is the kind of stuff you can do (not my photo):
High-Dynamic-Range Photography.
This is the kind of stuff you can do (not my photo):
There was an(other) interesting article in this month's PCPhoto magazine about improving your low/light, high ISO photographs.
After reading this article (specifically the part about the guy's student who was so worried about noise that he was reluctant to jack the ISO of his camera up so he could attain the proper shutter speed for his focal length), I realized that I was far too worried about noise. I've also started thinking about buying the Noise Ninja plugin for PS.
With the picture being sharper due to the higher shutter speed, it will come out to be a MUCH better image (even before you run it through a noise-reduction plugin) than it would have without utilizing the higher ISO settings of your camera. Though having a camera with a CMOS sensor will be very nice (when I do manage to get one), I'm going to stop worrying about higher ISO noise for the time being.
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Nice D300 review.
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Sweet! I didn't know Ken updated his D300 page. Thanks, FBJ!
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Okay. After reading about this in Popular Science, this is the next thing I want to try:
High-Dynamic-Range Photography.
This is the kind of stuff you can do (not my photo):
Yeah, delving into the HDR world is something I plan on doing with the 40D. I can't wait!
You can find the HDR Surreal pool on Flickr here.
Another HDR tut.
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DeaderFan
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Got the D300 today. Pulled it out of the box, charged the battery and put a 28-200 on it. It wouldn't focus-just hunted no matter what I aimed it at. So I put the 18-200 VR and got the same result. One of my D200 bodies was defective from the factory, so I was beginning to think "here we go again." So I switched it from Single Servo mode to Continuous Servo auto focus. Single servo by default won't let you take a picture unless it gets a focus lock. It still hunted, but I was able to release the shutter. After taking that one out-of-focus picture, all focus modes started working. It's the weirdest thing and doesn't give one a lot of confidence that it won't have a problem down the road. It also taints my first impression.
I will take some picture over the next couple days and get back to you with details. Tonight I cut right to the chase and took a picture in my office under fluorescent lights at ISO 1600, 160/sec at f3.5 and auto white balance with both the D300 and the D200. The results were fairly dramatic. The D200 had a pink cast to it and noticeable noise, especially chromatic noise. The D300 had near perfect white balance, some noise but very little chromatic artifacts. It's nowhere near what we have been seeing from the D3 but it is definitely better than the D200. Next I shot the same shots (still in the office) at 200,400, 800 and 1600 ISO. The color accuracy was better for all on the D300. As far as noise, the D300 at 1600 was better than the D200 at 800 ISO. I would say the D200 probably has comparable noise at an ISO setting somewhere between 400-800. That's all for now. More later.
If you have any suggestions for comparing, I'd be happy to try it.
I will take some picture over the next couple days and get back to you with details. Tonight I cut right to the chase and took a picture in my office under fluorescent lights at ISO 1600, 160/sec at f3.5 and auto white balance with both the D300 and the D200. The results were fairly dramatic. The D200 had a pink cast to it and noticeable noise, especially chromatic noise. The D300 had near perfect white balance, some noise but very little chromatic artifacts. It's nowhere near what we have been seeing from the D3 but it is definitely better than the D200. Next I shot the same shots (still in the office) at 200,400, 800 and 1600 ISO. The color accuracy was better for all on the D300. As far as noise, the D300 at 1600 was better than the D200 at 800 ISO. I would say the D200 probably has comparable noise at an ISO setting somewhere between 400-800. That's all for now. More later.
If you have any suggestions for comparing, I'd be happy to try it.
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DeaderFan
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A quick example. These are small portions taken from two of the photos I took. These are window blinds in the corner of my office, in shadow. The blinds and wall are white.
D300 at 1600 ISO
D200 at 1600 ISO
D300 at 1600 ISO
D200 at 1600 ISO
Congrats on the new body! No fun not having it work as you expect out of the box, but good to hear it seems to be working now. As for the high ISO noise (or more accurately, the lack thereof) I have been reading that the D3 has fairly aggressive and sophisticated noise reduction algorithm going on in camera, and I wonder if the D300 has the same thing, only less so, but I have no idea how you would test that.
I have been itching to upload my Thanksgiving pics, but work has been an absolute bear this week (there is even an HDR sunset since you guys have been talking about them)
I have been itching to upload my Thanksgiving pics, but work has been an absolute bear this week (there is even an HDR sunset since you guys have been talking about them)
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DeaderFan
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Thanks! I think that there might be some truth to the idea that they are applying more sophisticated algorithms. But I think the fundamental design differences play a part too. In the case of the D300 it is moving to a CMOS sensor which inherently produces less noise. In the case of the D3 it is the larger sensor and micro lenses. Whatever it is I'm happy to have more sensitivity.
The D300 also employs an optional D-lighting function to preserve highlight detail, which is kind of intriguing. Lack of exposure latitude and highlight clipping is one of the things that has always has bugged me about digital camera images. I will have to play with it and see what it does.
Also, today's announcement by Nikon of loadable user settings (available on their site) that match color to the D2X is kind of cool too.
The D300 also employs an optional D-lighting function to preserve highlight detail, which is kind of intriguing. Lack of exposure latitude and highlight clipping is one of the things that has always has bugged me about digital camera images. I will have to play with it and see what it does.
Also, today's announcement by Nikon of loadable user settings (available on their site) that match color to the D2X is kind of cool too.
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A quick example. These are small portions taken from two of the photos I took. These are window blinds in the corner of my office, in shadow. The blinds and wall are white.
D300 at 1600 ISO
D200 at 1600 ISO
Were both images shot in RAW? That is quite a bit more noise on the D200.
I'm excited for you and I hope that first impression is molded into a genuine love for the D300. I'm looking forward to seeing shots this weekend.
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DeaderFan
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The images were shot using mostly default settings and saved as jpegs. I wanted to see what the camera's processing would do with the images. Although now that you mentioned it, I went back and checked the NR settings and the D200 was set to "Low" rather than "Normal" which would have been the default. So maybe the D200 could have done a little better. I set it to low for my normal shooting and do NR in Photoshop later and I forgot to reset it. So this comparison may not be totally fair, but I will say that my experience with the D200 is that auto white balance is a problem at high ISO and the D300 appears to be better at that.
----Update
This is a similar image shot with the D200 at the same exposure with NR set to 'NORM"
D200 - 1600 ISO with "Normal" high ISO NR
It is less grainy but detail is lost. The detail of the vertical lines of the blinds holds up much better with the D300. To me, the D200 NR looks blotchy.Keep in mind that this is a 465 pixel square out of a 3872x2592 image. It also looks like I might have a stuck pixel. Also notice color balance is different from the prior image. It's the consistency of auto white balance that is the problem at high ISO. I sometimes take continuous shots and they are all just a little different--this is under fluorescent of vapor lights at high ISO.
----Update
This is a similar image shot with the D200 at the same exposure with NR set to 'NORM"
D200 - 1600 ISO with "Normal" high ISO NR
It is less grainy but detail is lost. The detail of the vertical lines of the blinds holds up much better with the D300. To me, the D200 NR looks blotchy.Keep in mind that this is a 465 pixel square out of a 3872x2592 image. It also looks like I might have a stuck pixel. Also notice color balance is different from the prior image. It's the consistency of auto white balance that is the problem at high ISO. I sometimes take continuous shots and they are all just a little different--this is under fluorescent of vapor lights at high ISO.
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D200 - 1600 ISO with "Normal" high ISO NR
It is less grainy but detail is lost. The detail of the vertical lines of the blinds holds up much better with the D300. To me, the D200 NR looks blotchy.Keep in mind that this is a 465 pixel square out of a 3872x2592 image. It also looks like I might have a stuck pixel. Also notice color balance is different from the prior image. It's the consistency of auto white balance that is the problem at high ISO. I sometimes take continuous shots and they are all just a little different--this is under fluorescent of vapor lights at high ISO.
Ah, less noise for sure on this one.
I can see the problem the AWB is causing. It's acceptance of what is white sure is taking a lot of the white out of it.
Here is an very technical (so probably not very useful in real world terms) comparison of the D300 and 40D sensors. But what is interesting is the D300 does some processing before the file is written to RAW (it looks like the 1Ds MkIII might do this as well now, which just seems to go against the whole RAW thing). Also I found it interesting that there isn't much difference in dynamic range between the 12 and 14 bit modes for the D300 (or for any camera), about 1/3 of a stop, which means that the overall size of the loaf of bread is about the the same for 12 and 14 bits, but with 14 bits your slices of bread will be thinner, which means the noticeable difference should be better gradations and less posterization.
On a completely unrelated note, it looks like the 1Ds MkIII will release Friday! At 21mp it will be interesting to see if they can keep the noise under control. If it does, it could give some competition to the medium format bodies for studio shooters, but with the distinct advantage of 5fps. You just need to be ready for the 25MB image size.
For 8 large, it better be good
On a completely unrelated note, it looks like the 1Ds MkIII will release Friday! At 21mp it will be interesting to see if they can keep the noise under control. If it does, it could give some competition to the medium format bodies for studio shooters, but with the distinct advantage of 5fps. You just need to be ready for the 25MB image size.
For 8 large, it better be good
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DeaderFan
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Interesting article, thanks. It looks like the D300 is a significant improvement over the D200 but the 40D is still has the edge in IQ. My understanding is that the D300 uses a Sony sensor that does some NR on the chip. Sony has manufactured mostly CCDs in the past and so perhaps they are a little behind Canon in CMOS technology. The article appears to confirm that the D3 is likely a state-of-the-art benchmark camera.
I am also anxious to see what the 1Ds Mark III can do. The density of the photosites would be comparable to a 14MP DX/APS sensor which would lead you to think noise might be a problem. I will be interested to see what kind of technology they employ to address noise and light fall off in the corners of the image. I'm not sure I'm ready for a 21MP image in a 35mm format though. The workflow would consume a lot of resources and you really can only use the very top quality lenses, which is another huge investment. Although it is still probably cheaper than most medium format digitals.
I am also anxious to see what the 1Ds Mark III can do. The density of the photosites would be comparable to a 14MP DX/APS sensor which would lead you to think noise might be a problem. I will be interested to see what kind of technology they employ to address noise and light fall off in the corners of the image. I'm not sure I'm ready for a 21MP image in a 35mm format though. The workflow would consume a lot of resources and you really can only use the very top quality lenses, which is another huge investment. Although it is still probably cheaper than most medium format digitals.
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I'm looking forward to it, as well.
The non-S Mark III got a firmware upgrade today. Did they not recall these in the US?
Canon EOS-1D Mark III Firmware V. 1.1.3 said:
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