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D3 vs D300 Dynamic Range

Greg Seitz

New member
Greg, excellent. Thank you. I see what you mean re: vertical banding on the pushed D3 shot, the D300 has more chroma noise when pushed, but at least it's irregular.

Jono - Aperture does a sweet job against ACR - especially in the pushed shots. Have been considering it as DAM since 2.0 came out and price dropped. Would be curious how the push/pull would compare against NX.
Aperture is very nice. Both ACR and Aperture can manipulate +4 to -4 (actually Aperture can be set to go beyond if needed). NX I believe limits you to +2, -2 on the exposure slider so you can't easily pull out the detail like this.

Greg
 

jonoslack

Active member
Whoops, here's the correct link to the f7.1 shots on the D3 - no wonder no one downloaded them. :ROTFL:

http://www.mediafire.com/?l1gdt0j1ylz

Regarding 10 vs 7.1 I didn't want people to focus on the depth of field differences and cry foul. Being wise to the ways of these tests I took the easy way out and provided both (well at least I thought I did!).


Greg
:ROTFL: I think you're really brave to have posted these - very difficult to avoid getting attacked from all corners (at least, it is if you post them in dpreview too!).

I should say here - I'm not attacking from any corner - I'm surprised at how well the D300 does . . . . but I still don't think it's as good, but it's more to do with how the files look than the dynamic range . . . . I still reckon you've plummed the depths of underexposure, without quite radiating to the height of overexposure!
 

Greg Seitz

New member
:ROTFL: I think you're really brave to have posted these - very difficult to avoid getting attacked from all corners (at least, it is if you post them in dpreview too!).

I should say here - I'm not attacking from any corner - I'm surprised at how well the D300 does . . . . but I still don't think it's as good, but it's more to do with how the files look than the dynamic range . . . . I still reckon you've plummed the depths of underexposure, without quite radiating to the height of overexposure!
Ok Jono,

Radiate the heights! Here are the +3 and +4 shots for the D3 and D300:

http://www.mediafire.com/?cimsuvugnlo

Thanks,

Greg
 
P

Panopeeper

Guest
A different approach

I took advantage of Greg's work; the shots he made are excellent to this purpose. However, I have a different approach of comparing the dynamic ranges.

1. I am comparing the unadultered raw data directly (no demosaicing, no nothing). The question is, what the camera delivers, not how good the raw processor is.

2. I am using only two images from the serie, which are directly comparable.

3. The highlights play no role in this question, for

a. the raw data is linear,

b. what is clipped is not within the dynamic range, therefor "recovery" is nonsensical in this context,

b. what is captured is naturally within the dynamic range limited only by noise.

4. I am comparing in the darkest shadows the standard deviation of pixel values on some smooth, uniform areas and the appearance of fine details.

I selected the f/10, 1/250s shot form the D3 and the f/7.1, 1/500s shot from the D300, because

a. their exposure is virtually identical,

b. both have really dark areas containing smooth, uniform spots as well as fine details.

Here are the raw histograms, first the D300, then the D3; they show, that the difference between their effective exposure is less than 1/6 EV:




I located two spots, which appear uniform in color and smooth (from this distance). I made a selection in those areas and compared the pixel values as well as the standard deviations (which is the indicator of noise). This is easy, because the numerical pixel value range is the same in both cameras, namely 0 to roughly 16300.

The captures are greenish, because there are two green pixels for one red and one blue. Again, this is not demosaiced.

A small orange recangle shows the selection. The average pixel values within that selection are marked with a yellow disk, the standard deviations with a magenta disk. The two other numbers in the groups preceding the average are the minimum and maximum pixel value in the selection. There are separate values for red, green and blue (the two green channels are lumped together).

The first selection, D300 followed by D3. These captures show, that the standard deviation is much lower with the D3; it is obvious from the capture, that the spot is much smoother (well, this has to be so with the lower standard deviation). The values show, that this spot is in the ninth stop downwards, i.e. the D3 has a quite clean 9 stop, while the D300 is too noisy there (the ninth stop is from 64 downwards).





Now, let's goo deeper. The next selection is under the previous one, on the even darker area, which is at the end of the night and the beginning of the tenth stop. The D3 is much cleaner than the D300:





Finally, a more subjective but not less important aspect: the reproduction of fine details. Keep in eyes, that this area requires +4 EV in ACR (with black = 0) to be this bright. This is 4.5 EV (I am not sure if it is known here, that ACR applies +0.5 EV autpmatically to these images, without indicating it).

Again, the D300 followed by the D3:





Anyway, I think it is indisputable, that the D3 is much better.

(I do not own a D3, nor a D300.)

Greg, thanks for the shots.
 

Greg Seitz

New member
Hi Panopeeper,

Very interesting and detailed analysis. What do you make of the slight patterned chroma banding noise being in the D3 -4 shot vs the D300? Obviously at these extremes it's not unexpected but I was curious more in the lack of it coming from the D300 than it's presence in the D3 since the D300 is the only camera I can think of that seems to be free of this artifact that I've seen when pushed this far.

Thanks,

Greg
 
P

Panopeeper

Guest
Greg,

do you mind pointing out, in which image (aperture, shutter) and where exactly you see this effect?

When you are referring to the shot with -4 EV, is that the 1/2000sec with f/10?

I count the exposure from the very right edge; the 1/500sec is 2.8 EV lower, the 1/2000sec is about 4.6 EV lower. I would have expected a 1/1000sec in the serie, but there is none (and, accordingly, there is none with 1/2000sec in the D300 serie of f/7.1).

Another issue: I saw on another threads, that you were doubting the true ISO capabilities of the Sinar back. I have shown that you were right re the eM22 (or is that 45? Brumbear's and eXposure display different model names). I have not seen any other files from the 75, only that one supposed to be ISO 800, but that indicates, that there too the ISO 800 is eye wash, it is simply underexposing and correcting it in raw processing.

Gabor
 

Greg Seitz

New member
Greg,

do you mind pointing out, in which image (aperture, shutter) and where exactly you see this effect?

When you are referring to the shot with -4 EV, is that the 1/2000sec with f/10?

I count the exposure from the very right edge; the 1/500sec is 2.8 EV lower, the 1/2000sec is about 4.6 EV lower. I would have expected a 1/1000sec in the serie, but there is none (and, accordingly, there is none with 1/2000sec in the D300 serie of f/7.1).

Another issue: I saw on another threads, that you were doubting the true ISO capabilities of the Sinar back. I have shown that you were right re the eM22 (or is that 45? Brumbear's and eXposure display different model names). I have not seen any other files from the 75, only that one supposed to be ISO 800, but that indicates, that there too the ISO 800 is eye wash, it is simply underexposing and correcting it in raw processing.

Gabor
Hi Gabor,

I was talking about the crop in post #5. In the D3 shot, it's most visible in the shaded areas of the driveway under and to the right of the color chart. The series that I uploaded didn't include the -3 shot since I had to fit the most relevant shots into a 100MB zip file due to the mediafire limitation. Also thank you confirming my thoughts on the other thread.

Greg
 
P

Panopeeper

Guest
Greg,

that is only in the 1/2000sec shot, which is close to 5 EV from the right. The banding areas are in the 10th stop and below, where true black clipping (zero pixel values) is dominating. The funny colored pixels mark are those with value zero, and see the pixel stats on the selection: red average is 6 (this is the 11th stop), green 11, blue 8. This range is out of anything worth of dealing with. The D3 seems to have a DR of about 9 EV, not 11 (the 0 EV is excellent!).



Gabor
 
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