Are Canon losing their way in the DSLR market?

jonneymendoza said:
whats laughable is teh fact Nikon dont make there own sensors, they just sue sony's.

Canon at least engineer it themselves
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Does that actually matter these days?
 
arad85 said:
Canon crop sensors are not as good as other crop sensors. Canon FF sensors are not as good as other FF sensors. The dynamic range available tails off at lower ISOs on Canon sensors (in fact, the D3200 & CSCs such as the OM-D E-M5 beats the 5D3 on dynamic range below ISO 400).
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As the owner of a D3200, I must point out that this is absolutely true. Obviously, if I owned a Canon, I would point out what total nonsense it is.


Steve.
 
jonneymendoza said:
It does as it shows Canon make more effort in creating things on their own.

A company can easily just buy the best sensor, the best lens tech and call it there own when really it is not.
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Hardly matters provided you get good images from it, thats all I care about; who makes the components inside the body doesnt bother me one bit.
Do Canon only use their own parts inside their cameras? I have no idea but I doubt it. Its like Apple, a lot of their components come from the likes of Samsung, Toshiba, LG, etc.
 
DemiLion said:
They are different cameras for different markets. Where one excels, the other fails and vice-versa. Is that really so difficult to understand?

As for the 5D2½ comment... you clearly haven't used it (properly).
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Owned them both at the same time and used them both, properly, if such a thing exists.

I kept the D800.
 
jonneymendoza said:
It does as it shows Canon make more effort in creating things on their own.
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Which is of absolutely no importance if the thing doesn't perform. It does well enough, but isn't at the same quality level as its competitors. So, yes, they are losing their way (which was the original question raised).
 
Steve Smith said:
As the owner of a D3200, I must point out that this is absolutely true. Obviously, if I owned a Canon, I would point out what total nonsense it is.
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Exactly.

I have no axe to grind at all - I own neither Canon nor Nikon and I don't even own the best sensor in the format I do own (micro 4/3rds). I do understand what the numbers about other cameras tell me though....
 
Lol your right John, they always start off okay though, but inevitably.........
 
I can't tell anything from tiny pictures on the web, from 7x5 holiday shots or large prints on the way 10 ft away. canon sensors are every bit as good as sony's when you get a well exposed image. images from Sony sensors can take more of a bashing when you have to recover your exposure mistakes but other than than that.
 
POAH said:
when you have to recover your exposure mistakes
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A high dynamic range scene (e.g. bright sunshine with shadows) that you want to post process and extract some detail from both the highlights and shadows cleanly is not an "exposure mistake".
 
John Mc said:
Yawn. Another brand bashing thread.
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It was always going to be with a title such as it has.

Interesting that it remains a Nikon versus Canon when really it should be Sony versus Canon especially as the main discussion is around the sensor and we all know Sony's are best :)
 
Talk about throw the ground bait in.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Not real world tests though. lots of other reviewers can hardly tell the difference in DR.

Its like saying that the new 780GTX GPU is 10% slower yet in real world usage you cant tell the difference between a 780GTX and a Titan GPU
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In my own useage I can tell the difference very clearly between my D800 and my old 550D, the extra DR makes a massive difference when it comes to the post processing I can carry out, especially for B&W.

I'd agree that at FF Canon have benefited from Nikons lack of a true successor to the D700 but generally I think Canons weaker sensors have saved Nikon from what could have been a very damaging generational shift.
 
arad85 said:
A high dynamic range scene (e.g. bright sunshine with shadows) that you want to post process and extract some detail from both the highlights and shadows cleanly is not an "exposure mistake".
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you mean a scene that the sensor can't capture. the DR of sensors are pretty similar. extracting shadow detail in PP is rescuing an image beyond the DR of the sensor.

takin the picture in the light that requires so much lifting of shadows is an exposure mistake and poor photography.
 
ernesto said:
Interesting that it remains a Nikon versus Canon when really it should be Sony versus Canon especially as the main discussion is around the sensor and we all know Sony's are best :)
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The best sensors are supplied in multiples on flexible strips and a new one is used for each shot!


Steve.
 
POAH said:
takin the picture in the light that requires so much lifting of shadows is an exposure mistake and poor photography.
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No it isn't - not all of us are prepared to carry around flashes and/or reflectors and a couple of assistants to hold them, or tripods to do long exposure photography in stately homes - for example. A better sensor allows us to get images that we would otherwise find impractical. That is not poor photography, that is using the tools available to their best advantage.
 
arad85 said:
No it isn't - not all of us are prepared to carry around flashes and/or reflectors and a couple of assistants to hold them, or tripods to do long exposure photography in stately homes - for example. A better sensor allows us to get images that we would otherwise find impractical. That is not poor photography, that is using the tools available to their best advantage.
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well it is if you have to rape the raw file
 
Steve Smith said:
The best sensors are supplied in multiples on flexible strips and a new one is used for each shot!


Steve.
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Different debate all together but don't current full frame sensors now outperform 35mm film?
 
POAH said:
well it is if you have to rape the raw file
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The raw from a better sensor will require less manipulation and be able to give you more to help you get what you want - simple as.
 
With regards to 'real-world' DR. Having processed RAW files from the D4, D3s, D700, D800 and 5Dmk2 and mk3 (in LR4) there is a clear winner.

The D800 beats them all for detail that you can recover at base ISO. It is staggering. It really opens up creative avenues for both your shooting style and PP. The D4 is a close second but becomes the winner for DR in higher ISO. The D3s is the worst of my nikons in terms of DR - it isn't as good as the D700 in shadow detail.

The Mk3 is an improvement on the mk2 but to my eyes at least it doesn't offer DR that's any better than the d700.

This is obviously not a scientific comparison before I'm shouted down - it's very much a case of "in my experience." And, as I said earlier, I'm no fan of the d800 because it has too many mp for my needs. The perfect lineup for me would've been a 16mp d800 and a 36mp d800e.
 
arad85 said:
No it isn't - not all of us are prepared to carry around flashes and/or reflectors and a couple of assistants to hold them, or tripods to do long exposure photography in stately homes - for example. A better sensor allows us to get images that we would otherwise find impractical. That is not poor photography, that is using the tools available to their best advantage.
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Not to mention that flash can completely destroy the ambience or not even be allowed at all, in particular with wedding photography.
 
hear hear @arad85.

If you're using a great sensor to make up for an inability to expose properly then fair enough, that is poor photography. For me though, a great sensor with 14 stops of DR allows me to be more creative and push myself as a photographer. The impracticalities and lack of subtlety of flashes and reflectors mean that if you rely on them you can miss moments.
 
POAH said:
takin the picture in the light that requires so much lifting of shadows is an exposure mistake and poor photography.
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What an amazing statement and completely wrong.

arad85 said:
A high dynamic range scene (e.g. bright sunshine with shadows) that you want to post process and extract some detail from both the highlights and shadows cleanly is not an "exposure mistake".
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:thumbs: :D
 
I could see from the beginning this would get everyones hand bags up.
 
I'm quite happy to accept that nikons have the edge in DR over canon but a D800 wouldn't let me pursue my particular interest of wildlife and motorsport. It's just a bit slow. I think that bar using a 1DX I've got the best options when it comes to the canon cameras available. I very rarely need to pull detail from the shadows and I find that the headroom in the highlights holds detail when properly exposed. At the end of the day I'm very happy with the images my cameras produce and whilst I look at nikon images and can appreciate the quality of them they don't make me want to change systems any more.

I've seen photographers such as Andy Rouse go from Canon to Nikon and recently back to Canon. I'm sure that some will say that Canon are giving him his gear or paying him to use it. But he also has to be confident that the work that's he sells outside any sponsorship that he may get satisfies his requirements in terms of quality. The vast majority of us cannot afford to change systems chasing image nirvana and most of us are old enough to realise that that no one manufacturer holds all the trump cards all of the time.
 
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Steve Smith said:
Where do you get a sensor with such a huge range? That would even be pushing the limits of negative film
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Data & graph Copyright DxO (I'd link, but I've not found a way).

D800, D800E and 1DX on the test bench.

nikon-800-canon1DX.png
 
yup. as arad85 says, that was the rating it got from DxO. In terms of real life use, all I know is that I can pull great detail out of the shadows on a D800/D4 - much more so than I could do with a D3s, D700 and the 5Dmk2/3.
 
This is what Techradar think...

Nikon_D800_TIFF_DR-580-100.JPG


Can't understand why the D700 or 5D Mk II are worse at their lowest ISO settings.

Tim Parkin is probably the person I would trust most. This is what he had to say in a reply to a post on Landscape Photography Magazine's website:

Tim Parkin
August 7, 2011 at 12:51
I've done quite a bit of extensive testing on colour negative film and found that the new Kodak Portra has around 19 stops of dynamic range. The film manages this by combining three speeds of film in each colour layer. This isn't possible in a colour transparency film which is generally limited to about 6-7 stops (which works out when you multiply that by three).

Kodak Ektar actually has the smallest dynamic range of available negative films – probably about 12-13 stops. The shadows in Ektar generally shift to deep royal blues quite abruptly and highlights can tend to straw yellow.

Hasselblad medium format digital cameras can supposedly manage 13 stops of dynamic range but the experience of quite a few ex-film photographers has been that you need grads when using a medium format digital back for landscape photography whereas you don't need grads with colour negative film (even when taking shots directly into the sun!).

Shooting negative film can be interesting too. Generally you reverse the general rule of exposing for the highlights (digital and transparency film tend to clip at +2 to +3 stops where as they have more extension in the shadows). Typically you should expose for the shadows so picking the darkest area you want detail in and placing that at -2 to -3 stops (possibly -4 to -5 for new Portra). This means you end up with up to +13 stops in the highlights! This is pretty much impossible to blow out completely.

The small amounts of dynamic range usually reported for negative and transparency film are historic based on printing to cibachrome or RA4 papers. With the possibility of using scanners, the full range of films can now be achieved. What used to be thought of as 4 stops for transparency film is actually more like 7 stops and what was thought of as 9-10 stops for negative film is actually more like 15-19.
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(from here: http://landscapephotographymagazine.com/2011/dynamic-range-of-negative-film/)

It's a bit academic though when you start printing on papers with a lower dynamic range but it's nice to have all the detail there to choose from.


Steve.
 
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Steve Smith said:
This is what Techradar think...

Nikon_D800_TIFF_DR-580-100.JPG


Can't understand why the D700 or 5D Mk II are worse at their lowest ISO settings.

Tim Parkin is probably the person I would trust most. This is what he had to say in a reply to a post on Landscape Photography Magazine's website:



(from here: http://landscapephotographymagazine.com/2011/dynamic-range-of-negative-film/)

It's a bit academic though when you start printing on papers with a lower dynamic range but it's nice to have all the detail there to choose from.


Steve.
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Not sure I believe any of these DR tests. They never seem to stack up and usually have some fairly obvious inconsistencies.

The reason the Lo ISO settings have less DR is because they're artificially created - basically over-exposing (thus losing a stop of hightlights) and darkening in-camera. Same happens at the shadow end at the Hi ISO settings. You can get basically the same result in post processing.

If DR was the Holy Grail, we'd all be shooting neg film that is inherently far more tolerant of over-exposure. Especially colour neg film that has DIR couplers which effectively stop development once a certain density has been reached. It's not a good idea to over-expose too much as IQ and tone separation suffers, but DR is spectacular.
 
Steve Smith said:
This is what Techradar think...

Nikon_D800_TIFF_DR-580-100.JPG
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Yes.....

That'll be the same Techradar that puts the OM-D equal to/ahead of all of them then:

Olympus_EM5_TIFF_DR-580-100.JPG


The OM-D review put TR in the same basket as What Hi Fi (i.e. don't trust a word they write, but it can be entertaining to pick holes in it) for me. At least with DxO, the results are consistent and what you'd expect with sensor size/technology - and the same sensors in different cameras measure the same....

Steve Smith said:
It's a bit academic though when you start printing on papers
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No - that's not the point. The wide dynamic range allows you to have more choice over what you do in post and get onto print cleanly.
 
The autofocus system of a camera is my main priority. Everything else becomes irrelevant and is let down if the AF can't cope.
 
Steve Smith said:
Hence the rest of my sentence!
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Tee hee... Your sentence was quite contradictory.. I just chose carefully :)

My point still stands ;) TR don't seem to know .... when it comes to measurement.
 
Interesting how this has got bogged down into body comparisons. This so much more to a camera system than just the body.
Also, are people just getting bogged down with technology. Surely it's the final image that counts.
 
The technology (sensor) is the major input into the final image.
 
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