Canon EOS 50D - Field Report | Have Camera Will Travel | Gary Gray

More Images and Some Final Thoughts on the EOS 50D

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:47:43 -0700

Real World 50D Shots

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:07:13 -0700

Canon Ef 24-105 f/4 L IS USM

1/30 sec

f/7.1

24mm

ISO 640

Adobe Camera Raw vs Digital Photo Professional

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:16:35 -0700

There has been some debate concerning the ability of Adobe Camera Raw to extract the highest image quality from the 50D raw files. Many users are reporting that Canon's Digital Photo Professional, which is supplied with the camera, is doing a better job.

I'll explore this claim by comparing unaltered images converted directly from Adobe Lightroom and DPP. I'll be using the cabin image I used to compare noise and resolution detail with noise reduction.

Again, these are straight conversions without any alterations, except for conversion to JPG. I'm using Adobe Camera Raw version 4.6

Click on the magnifying glass beneath each image to get a full 100% crop view.

Conclusions.

It is obvious to me that Adobe Camera Raw ver 4.6 is not creating as detailed and sharp an image as Digital Photo Professional ver 3.5.0.1. I've played with both files in 16 Bit Tiff format as well and DPP is doing a better job of converting the raw image no matter how I slice it.

Features Tested

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:56:05 -0700

A few notes on camera features and settings.

Autofocus:

I've made several hundred test shots using the AI servo mode of the 50D on several different lenses. I've tested primes and zooms. My mainstay lenses are the 24-105L IS and the 70-200L IS, and with these two lenses I'm seeing between a 70-85% in focus rate using my dog Hans as a moving target. The 70-200L seems to be a better performer than the 24-105. This isn't bad. About the same keeper rate I've seen with the D300. One thing I noticed when testing the Sigma 105mm Macro Prime in AI servo mode, the camera wouldn't burst frames at 6 fps. I checked the configurations to make sure the Highlight Tone Priority, Lighting Optimizer, High ISO noise reduction and Auto ISO were disabled, and they were. The camera did fine with 6fps bursts using the 70-200. I'll be exploring this a little more, not quite sure what is going on here.

Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Lighting Optimizer:

Both of these features seem to work as advertised. Most notably, with both enabled, I'm very seldom seeing images that are over/under exposed. The histogram on the raw files is almost always coming up in a close to optimal exposure and it is more likely to overexpose by a 1/3 of a stop than underexpose, which is actually a good thing. No problems making minor exposure compensations to reduce and this actually seems to give an optimal noise performance as well.

Auto ISO:

When enabled, this function is working very well. The camera's program seems to be recognizing the focal length of the lens and not making an ISO adjustment unless the shutter speed/focal length appears to be a poor combination. The camera tries for the lowest usable ISO with optimal shutter speed and I'm fairly pleased with how it handles this. This feature isn't user adjustable as with the Nikon bodies, but I think it is doing a better job of allowing me to turn it on and forget about it. I am always concerned with the D300 as to rather or not it was making a good decision on when to switch ISO and how much. The Nikon seems to want to bump the ISO too high too quickly.

When coupling the Auto ISO/Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Lighting Optimizer, I'm finding that the camera producing very reliable results. This bodes well for wedding and event photography in changing conditions. It takes my mind off of what needs to be changed and makes these changes for me and is doing a good job of it.

Canon EOS 50D Sample High ISO Images

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:56:58 -0600

For your examination, on the left I've placed a photograph taken at my cabin in Red Feather Lakes. This shot was made at dawn, in very low light as the morning sun was poking through the trees. The original image was shot in raw at ISO 1600. I converted it to 16 bit tiff, processed it with Noise Ninja and did a little post processing on the noise reduced file for comparison. What you'll see here is that the noise level of the 50D at ISO 1600 on what is a very dynamic light condition with a lot of shadow and very bright light in spots. Noise reduction via Noise Ninja was set for defaults. I did some sharpening and detail enhancment to the final tiff file. Everything was then converted to jpg for the web. Personally, I think you can pretty much not worry about noise up to ISO1600 on this body and even a properly exposed ISO 3200 shot will clean up to make a usable 11 x 14 print.

Exif: Canon EOS 50D

ISO 1600

1/320 sec

f/4.5

100mm focal length

EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM

Resolution Comparisons

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:59:34 -0600

Now, I'll give you a quick look at the resolution of the 50D. What I've done here is photograph my world class test setup using the same lens on three different camera bodies. The comparisons are the EOS 5D, EOS 1DsMK II and the EOS 50D.

The lens is a Canon EF 70-200 L IS (very sharp lens) with the IS turned off. I'm using autofocus on each camera, shooting at f8 with exactly the same manual exposure on each body. .6 sec exposure time, ISO-200 and the zoom set to give the same field of view on all cameras (as close as I can get it.) The only adjustments made were to equalize the white balance (using the white card in the center of the frame), exposure highlights and shadows set to no clipping in Lightroom. There is no sharpening or any other adjustment to any image other than the conversion to jpg for web viewing. The conversion was done using Adobe Lightroom 2.1.

Here is the master image. I'm cropping on the Quick Reference card in the lower center of the frame to compare the resolution of each camera.

Master Scene (EOS 50D version of the shot)

EOS 5D

EOS 1DsMK II

EOS 50D

The crops are different sizes due to being cropped to 100%, the main image files are different resolutions. The 5D being a 12 mpix camera will have the smallest crop, the 1DsMKII will be the largest and the 50D will fall somewhere in between.

If you look closely at the large dial on the quick reference card, this area is where the absolute resolution of each camera can be observed. I set this up to the 1DsMKII (at 16.7 mpix) will give me a good solid view of the detail in this area. What is happening is the MKII is doing great, lots of detail in the rim around the outside of the dial, and other small text printed on the card. Next, comparing the 5D and 50D, you'll see that both are very close in absolute resolution. The 50D is pulling just a tad more detail though, enough to see the open space in the circles and the finer text is slightly more readable.

Another note. You'll hear tell of pixel level sharpness on the internet forums. Don't get too worked up over this term, because what it means is how much contrast the image has at the pixel-pixel level and is a function of how much high frequency and low frequency image information is contained in each pixel. In the end, shooting with a raw file, none of this makes any real difference, mainly because you have control of the contrast, and detail in post-processing. You can adjust the sharpness of these images to your taste. No matter how much you adjust any image, you can't extract more detail than was recorded and based on what I'm seeing, the 50D is recording more image detail than the 5D by a noticeable amount. In the real world, you won't see this difference on any print up to 16x20 inches, with the exception of the MkII, as the detail is definitely more defined and will show up at that print size and possibly even smaller. Out of the camera, raw files from the 50D will look a little softer than their full frame counterparts. The detail is there, post processing will equalize anything. In fact, I'm finding the 50D files have a great deal of latitude in post processing. Just don't expect to be using the same adjustment settings as you will on other cameras. It's a different beast and will require a different sharpening setting.

The bottom line is this. Canon has created a APS-C crop sensor that can deliver more detail than their 12 Mpix full frame sensor, with noise levels that are within 1/3 of a stop at ISO 1600 and above. When you think about it, it is amazing how far things have come in just 3 years. I'm very interested in seeing what more can actually be done with the APS-C sensor. They may have come very close to if not reached the limit of the technology here. I don't know that anything short of better lenses is going to pull more detail out of these sensors in the future.

High ISO Comparison to EOS 5D and EOS 50D

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:58:05 -0600

10/30/08

I have a few high ISO Noise shots to share with you. None of these crops have been post-processed for noise or contrast or color or saturation. The only adjustment is to lower the exposure by 1/3 of a stop in Adobe Lightroom to show how a properly or slightly over exposed image will reveal noise. The lesson here is keep your exposure to the right to minimize noise in your image. Any of these shots will take noise reduction and be totally usable images.

Here is a shot from the EOS 5D, ISO 1600, over-exposed by 1/3 a stop and adjusted down in Lightroom, no sharpening. 100% Crop.

Below is a shot from the 50D, ISO 1600, over-exposed by 1/3 stop adjusted down in Lightroom, no sharpening. 100% Crop

50D at ISO 3200, 1/3 stop over-exposed, adjusted down in Lightroom. No Sharpening, 100% crop.

What I'm seeing with the 50D is that at ISO 1600, a properly exposed shot contains about 1/3 of a stop more noise than the 5D. I'm talking RAW, out of the camera. The 50D seems a little more sensitive to underexposure though. A 1 stop underexposure on the 50D will give a higher rise in noise than a 1 stop underexposure on the 5D. At correct exposure they are very close.

What I've noticed also is the 50D files behave very nicely with post-processing noise reduction. I can clean a 50D image, virtually removing noise at this ISO and still have a result that provides more resolution than the 5D or D300. The D300 can't come close to either of these cameras with detail at ISO 1600. I'm very impressed with this new crop sensor body. It's shaping up to be a D300 killer.