KlausEnrique wrote:Bob, you are right in that Tom's photo does not require superior dynamic range. It just needed for Tom to not make a mistake. But you know what, we all make mistakes at some point.
On your second point, however, unfortunately, you are incorrect. Low light performance refers to shooting, well, in low light. I am not sure if Tom was shooting in low light, but he probably wasn't. One does not normally shoot birds in flight in the middle of the night. How well does a camera perform in low light generally refers to: can the camera find focus in the dark? How noisy is the camera at high ISO?(which in this case, the 6D Mark II is pretty good). So, no, we are not talking about low light, we are talking about dynamic range, which affects not only photos shot in low light, but in all circumstances. Now, for all practical purposes, Tom was recovering information from the shadows (because he mistakenly underexposed his image). But even in normal conditions one may want to bring out the detail in the shadows, specially if you do not want to have your highlights all blown out! And some times you are hit with banding because of Canon's poor dynamic range.
The photo below was shot in the middle of the day. It is a 16 minute exposure. The highlights on the red channel are already blown out, but the blue and green channels have not even left the sensor's floor, so there is banding in the shadows. Even entry level cameras from Sony, Nikon and Pentax would not have that issue. This was shot with a 5DS which is not a cheap camera and has even better dynamic range than the original 6D and obviously way ahead of the 6D Mark II (although not as good as the 5D Mark IV). I already own the Pentax 645Z, which is even more expensive than the 5DS, but I still want to have a 35mm body with decent dynamic range (by 2017 standards). The 5D Mark IV doesn't cut it, but given that Canon already has advanced on dynamic range technology, even if it still remains the industry's laggard, to not include the meagre best that they can offer in this regard in ALL their models, is a huge disappointment.
Um ... Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but
A) That looks like an IR photo. The reason the blue and the green are pegged at zero is that you're filtering them out, right?
B) What you see in the lower half isn't banding. It's the reflections of the trees in the background.
@RobertTheFat wrote:
@KlausEnrique wrote:Bob, you are right in that Tom's photo does not require superior dynamic range. It just needed for Tom to not make a mistake. But you know what, we all make mistakes at some point.
On your second point, however, unfortunately, you are incorrect. Low light performance refers to shooting, well, in low light. I am not sure if Tom was shooting in low light, but he probably wasn't. One does not normally shoot birds in flight in the middle of the night. How well does a camera perform in low light generally refers to: can the camera find focus in the dark? How noisy is the camera at high ISO?(which in this case, the 6D Mark II is pretty good). So, no, we are not talking about low light, we are talking about dynamic range, which affects not only photos shot in low light, but in all circumstances. Now, for all practical purposes, Tom was recovering information from the shadows (because he mistakenly underexposed his image). But even in normal conditions one may want to bring out the detail in the shadows, specially if you do not want to have your highlights all blown out! And some times you are hit with banding because of Canon's poor dynamic range.
The photo below was shot in the middle of the day. It is a 16 minute exposure. The highlights on the red channel are already blown out, but the blue and green channels have not even left the sensor's floor, so there is banding in the shadows. Even entry level cameras from Sony, Nikon and Pentax would not have that issue. This was shot with a 5DS which is not a cheap camera and has even better dynamic range than the original 6D and obviously way ahead of the 6D Mark II (although not as good as the 5D Mark IV). I already own the Pentax 645Z, which is even more expensive than the 5DS, but I still want to have a 35mm body with decent dynamic range (by 2017 standards). The 5D Mark IV doesn't cut it, but given that Canon already has advanced on dynamic range technology, even if it still remains the industry's laggard, to not include the meagre best that they can offer in this regard in ALL their models, is a huge disappointment.
Um ... Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but
A) That looks like an IR photo. The reason the blue and the green are pegged at zero is that you're filtering them out, right?
B) What you see in the lower half isn't banding. It's the reflections of the trees in the background.
Hi Bob,
A) yes, that is an IR photo, and yes, you are kind of right. In IR photography you filter out visible light. That means the red, green and blue pixels in the Bayer filer of your camera don't receive any visible light, but the red pixels are more sensitive to infrared light than the green and blue ones, hence they blow out before the greens and the blues leave the sensor floor. Anyhow, I just brought up Infrared as one example where Canon's mediocre dynamic range shows up pretty fast. But I could have equally posted an HDR sunset photograph that would show the same. In fact, why don't you just Google "canon banding issue" and then go to images you can see thousands and thousands of photographs showing the banding that I am referring to. To be honest, it is a little surprising to be on a Canon forum and yet people don't seem to have ever heard of this. Every single Canon camera will show this if you don't throw enough light at the sensor to push the sensitivity pass its floor, as you can attest by the photo that you posted. The banding and the poor dynamic range are closely intertwined. Canon does a bad job at reading the data that the sensor is capturing and it keeps it in analog form longer than other brand sensors. I am sure there is an article somewhere where you can read all about this...
B) no, I was not referring to the reflections of the trees. Here is a crop of the image that shows it better. Hopefully you will see it. In this case the banding is very strong in a vertical fashion. And that is just an artifact that Canon cameras have. In the case of the image you posted, the banding is mostly horizontal. If you post a crop of the area without doing any noise reduction I can point it out for you.
@KlausEnrique wrote:
@RobertTheFat wrote:
@KlausEnrique wrote:Bob, you are right in that Tom's photo does not require superior dynamic range. It just needed for Tom to not make a mistake. But you know what, we all make mistakes at some point.
On your second point, however, unfortunately, you are incorrect. Low light performance refers to shooting, well, in low light. I am not sure if Tom was shooting in low light, but he probably wasn't. One does not normally shoot birds in flight in the middle of the night. How well does a camera perform in low light generally refers to: can the camera find focus in the dark? How noisy is the camera at high ISO?(which in this case, the 6D Mark II is pretty good). So, no, we are not talking about low light, we are talking about dynamic range, which affects not only photos shot in low light, but in all circumstances. Now, for all practical purposes, Tom was recovering information from the shadows (because he mistakenly underexposed his image). But even in normal conditions one may want to bring out the detail in the shadows, specially if you do not want to have your highlights all blown out! And some times you are hit with banding because of Canon's poor dynamic range.
The photo below was shot in the middle of the day. It is a 16 minute exposure. The highlights on the red channel are already blown out, but the blue and green channels have not even left the sensor's floor, so there is banding in the shadows. Even entry level cameras from Sony, Nikon and Pentax would not have that issue. This was shot with a 5DS which is not a cheap camera and has even better dynamic range than the original 6D and obviously way ahead of the 6D Mark II (although not as good as the 5D Mark IV). I already own the Pentax 645Z, which is even more expensive than the 5DS, but I still want to have a 35mm body with decent dynamic range (by 2017 standards). The 5D Mark IV doesn't cut it, but given that Canon already has advanced on dynamic range technology, even if it still remains the industry's laggard, to not include the meagre best that they can offer in this regard in ALL their models, is a huge disappointment.
Um ... Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but
A) That looks like an IR photo. The reason the blue and the green are pegged at zero is that you're filtering them out, right?
B) What you see in the lower half isn't banding. It's the reflections of the trees in the background.
Hi Bob,
A) yes, that is an IR photo, and yes, you are kind of right. In IR photography you filter out visible light. That means the red, green and blue pixels in the Bayer filer of your camera don't receive any visible light, but the red pixels are more sensitive to infrared light than the green and blue ones, hence they blow out before the greens and the blues leave the sensor floor. Anyhow, I just brought up Infrared as one example where Canon's mediocre dynamic range shows up pretty fast. But I could have equally posted an HDR sunset photograph that would show the same. In fact, why don't you just Google "canon banding issue" and then go to images you can see thousands and thousands of photographs showing the banding that I am referring to. To be honest, it is a little surprising to be on a Canon forum and yet people don't seem to have ever heard of this. Every single Canon camera will show this if you don't throw enough light at the sensor to push the sensitivity pass its floor, as you can attest by the photo that you posted. The banding and the poor dynamic range are closely intertwined. Canon does a bad job at reading the data that the sensor is capturing and it keeps it in analog form longer than other brand sensors. I am sure there is an article somewhere where you can read all about this...
B) no, I was not referring to the reflections of the trees. Here is a crop of the image that shows it better. Hopefully you will see it. In this case the banding is very strong in a vertical fashion. And that is just an artifact that Canon cameras have. In the case of the image you posted, the banding is mostly horizontal. If you post a crop of the area without doing any noise reduction I can point it out for you.
A) Yes, if you filter out the green and blue channels, the red will blow out first. I sort of thought that was what I had already said, but I guess I didn't make myself clear.
B) I surmise that that crop is from the lower left of the frame, but it's pretty hard to tell. In any case, I still think you're interpreting reflections as banding.
C) I've searched this thread for the image you think I posted, but couldn't find it. Senility must be overtaking me more rapidly than I had imagined.
D) I apologize for the cluelessness of the participants in this forum. Frankly, I had no idea. I guess it's a good thing you came along to enlighten us.
@TTMartin wrote:
@Waddizzle wrote:
I was using 1/500 shutter for most of the night, a f/5.6 aperture, with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM.
You know how much I love my EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II, but, if you are going to continue to do a lot of stadium lit football photography I recommend you consider getting the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8. The extra two stops is significant when shooting under stadium lights. I have the older non-OS non-Sport version and it is fine, by all reports the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 OS Sport is even better. Plan on using a monopod with it as regardless of the version it is a heavy beast.
Oh, I do use a monopod, for sure.
I do not know how much more I will be shooting in years to come. I’m just shooting my nephew, who happens to score a TD every game. The 6D bodies do quite well under the conditions with the 100-400, though. The shots are ISO 12800 are really good, IMHO No doubt, if I used an f/2.8 lens I would probably bet even better photos.
Sample shot at ISO 12800.
