5D Mk II, first test results. Move over Bert Hardy!

EdBray

EdBray

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Edward Bray
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Took some test shots this afternoon of the area underneath the Christmas Tree (trying to be seasonal). The lighting in the front room is not great and is a ring light fluorescent tube about 9ft above the floor and about 11ft from the area under the tree. I wanted to see how the camera performed at high ISO. I used a custom white balance taken from an image of my grey card and also set the exposure manually based on the grey card reading.

I am very impressed and I am sure Bert Hardy would have been equally impressed with the High ISO performance. Okay I realise that there is some visible noise at ISO 25600 and a lack of contrast, but bleddy hell, this sort of speed a few years ago would have been unthinkable let alone have an image good enough to identify the subject matter. From 6400 down they are very usable!

For those of you that have never heard of Bert Hardy, Google him and/or Picture Post.

I am looking forward until tomorrow when I can venture out and take some images in daylight. So far well pleased.

ISO800

ISO800.jpg


ISO1600

ISO1600.jpg


ISO3200

ISO3200.jpg


ISO6400

ISO6400.jpg


ISO25600 (H2)

H2ISO25600.jpg
 
great colours, and image overall, gets nasty at highest iso, dont you agree.
 
melevo said:
great colours, and image overall, gets nasty at highest iso, dont you agree.
Click to expand...

I agree completely, but a visible usable image at these sort of speeds would have been unthinkable with film. Imagine if you were in a situation such as Bert Hardy was during the war when he was taking images in Air Raid shelters and had to leave his film soaking in developer overnight to get a usable image.
 
Try it tripod mounted and with in-camera noise reduction turned on at the highest iso, see what difference it makes.
 
for a good iso tests you really need 100% crops
 
hmmmm noisy... D700 at H2

-0727.jpg
 
crop the image so its about 800px wide instead of resizing it :) then it will be 1:1 on the monitor
 
lol that's cheating! i meant taken as a mono, not converted! :D
 
although from that, oddly enough i do think that some shots would still look nice & passable at the 25.6K ISO...very reminiscent of film around 1600 or so. Maybe with the right contrasts and a hint of noise reduction, could look nice...i'm a fan of grain in mono's.
 
Very Sarah Moon GAF 500 :lol:
 
Mono jpg from camera @ ISO 25600, just resized.

monocamera.jpg
 
Ed, on the Raw processing PS thing that webby has locked, have you tried the Canon's DPP v3.5 that came with the camera? It's supposed to be as good as the best (I've got no personal comparisons to make on that) and check out the unique image correction section. It has instant/automatic corrections of CA, distortion and vignetting for just about every Canon lens ever made. And it works :)

As an aside, I think this is a very significant new software development that third parties like Adobe (let alone Sigma etc) will find hard to follow.

Richard.
 
I didn't realise that there was no noise reduction when I originally converted the raw files so I have had another play today with ISO 25600.

Noisy yes, but better than no image!

Full image:

Full25600.jpg


100%

1002copy.jpg
 
I'm not keen on these sort of tests.

Setting aside the fact for a minute as to why you'd want to use a £3k camera to take a picture of a Christmas tree ( ;)) really the whole point of high ISO is to get shots that you otherwise couldn't due to low shutter speed.

You've used a tripod here, so on that basis, you could have shot ISO100, just as easily as ISO6400.

A better test of high ISO IMHO is in low light situations with moving subjects, where image noise is much more preferable that an image ruined by subject motion.
 
puddleduck said:
I'm not keen on these sort of tests.

Setting aside the fact for a minute as to why you'd want to use a £3k camera to take a picture of a Christmas tree ( ;)) really the whole point of high ISO is to get shots that you otherwise couldn't due to low shutter speed.

You've used a tripod here, so on that basis, you could have shot ISO100, just as easily as ISO6400.

A better test of high ISO IMHO is in low light situations with moving subjects, where image noise is much more preferable that an image ruined by subject motion.
Click to expand...

Shame it's not a real tree, or we could wait for the needles to start falling off (in the dark) and try and snatch a shot of one :D.

Ed, I'm really not "having a go" here, honestly. Just wanted to join in the festive merry-making ;). Actually, I think it's very helpful and public spirited of you to post these pics and let those of us who haven't be fortunate to try out a camera like the 5D mkII, some of what it can do.

Keep up the good work :)!
 
I know this is all about photography, but I have to ask - Have you played around with the video function, what are your impressions if so?
 
pixman said:
I know this is all about photography, but I have to ask - Have you played around with the video function, what are your impressions if so?
Click to expand...

I've had a little play, but not too impressed so far, not really my thing i'm afraid.
 
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