Canon EOS 50D Noise Test

[gldiana]

On my way to Salt Lake City to catch my flight to Boston (where I am now) I stopped at Best Buy and they had one Canon EOS 50D (they didn't even know they had it) so... I picked it up ... 18 months/no interests, might as well replace the 30D hehe
I have not played with it, really. I read the manual on the plane today and checked the setting, I love love love the new screen.
So I was talking to Pat and he wanted me to take some photos at high ISO to check the level of the noise, so when I got to my friends' house I did just that. I took 3 photos in very (very) low light conditions: dark room with one lamp.
These photos are straight jpegs Lowest Resolution, Highest Quality resized to 1000 X 667 and saved in Photoshop quality 10 (scale 1-12). All photos taken with EF 24-105 L @ 24mm. In-Camera noise reduction set to OFF. No software NR either.



ISO 1600
f/5, 1/15"



ISO 3200
f/5, 1/50"



ISO 6400
f/5, 1/50"




ISO 12800
f/5, 1/100

[gldiana]

A few more images here. I went to shoot outside a little bit this afternoon to test the camera, which I like more and more.
The photo of the parrots was what made me decide that I cannot use the 30D anymore. Apart from the image quality, I first took the foto with the 40D and when I shot the same with the 30D (ISO 3200 on the 40D and 1600 on the 30D) I found the 30D to be sluggish. The 40D focused right away in the dark (I used only little natural light) and transferred the photo to the memory card immediately, regardless of the file being much bigger: 15.1MP versus 8.2MP of the 30D. The 40D's shutter is also much quieter and the camera can also shoot noiseless (without the mirror's clap), great for wildlife.

Church, ISO 3200. (I'll post the same one shot at ISO100 later)




Parrots. First one shot with the 30D at 1600 ISO, second one with the 50D same ISO.

[Bonish Photo]

Thanks Luca!! At 12,800, that is less grain than I have at 1600 with either my 30D or 5D!!!

I think I'm gonna call Best Buy to see if they have one in my area. With me shooting so much concert footage, this body alone could pay itself off in a few months. I just sent one of our photographers with the magazine to shoot a show for me and sent her with the 30D. It was sort of a waste because of the 900 images she took, I could only use about 20 because of the blur factor.

Once she pumped the ISO up to 1600, the grain is so pronounced, I could only use the images for thumbnails on the web because of how bad they are Sort of sucks because we were one of the only magazines in our area to get photo passes to this show. I've spent all afternoon editing her owrk to try and fix what a 12,800 ISO could have solved with a simple turn of a wheel.

Thanks man. Cant wait to see some shots of the puffins with the new lens-body combo! Enjoy Maine and Italy and be safe!

[gldiana]

You're welcome, Pat. I'll do more shooting in various conditions to let you guys see. Only prolem is that my laptop is a little limited in terms of software and screen size (I'm used to work on a 22" screen and this one is 13.3"), plus it's one of those ultra bright screens (never again) and It's really hard to see the quality of an image. The screen on my 50D is better can you believe it?
Oh, by the way, people have been using a 10% off coupon for buying the 50D on Best Buy, I didn't know about that or I would have saved $160. That sucks but, oh well... They were talking about it in the 50D forum at DPReview.

[gldiana]

This is something new. The 50D has an option to compare the light zones and the dark zone of the image that's going to be exposed and will reduce that contrast so not to blow highlights. I haven't read the manual about it so I'm not quite knowledgeable yet on this topic, but I played with the menu a little and this is what I got. This image was taken with ISO 800, f/11, 1/50" no retouching whatsoever. Straight conversion from RAW on Canon DPP. Although this is not the be-all and end-all of the overexposure problems it does show something interesting. The tip of the trees were directly hit by the sun and the sky would have normally be completely washed-out, well... look what happens:




This is the same image retouched, it was a bit of curve correction, my beta software of Adobe Camera Raw does not allow for highlight retouch so I couldn't do any real specific retouching, but even with a bit of curve change I could bring all the details of the sky back, the sky is still blue, no blown-out highlights.
I can't wait to see how this feature works on the 5D Mark II with its full size sensor. The end of split-ND filters? Not yet, but give this technology one or two more generations and it might as well be:

[Bonish Photo]

Great stuff Luca. Thanks for posting!

That looks like a beautiful spot you're in right now. When ya going to start posting shots of Puffins.

Ok, I have a confession to make, every time I hear the word Puffin, I have to say it in my head like Hugh Hefners girlfriend in "Girls Next Door" That is her nick name for Hugh, and everytime she sees him, she yells out in this shrill voice "Puffin!" I know, I'm going a bit crazy, but it's pretty funny!

[gldiana]

Yes, I have no idea what you're talking about. HAHAHA

[bob_r]

Luca,

On one of my other hobby forums, whenever someone gets a new toy, the best compliment they can get is "You Suck!". So bearing this in mind, you deserve a great big "YOU SUCK!!!". Congrats on the new toy and I'm surprised you were able to find one. Bestbuy doesn't even have it listed on their web site.

The pics look good. When you were shooting the shots with the higher ISO settings, did you have the "High ISO noise reduction" on and if so, did you try the various settings? The images look great and nothing like they would on the 30D.

I know these are static subjects, but be sure to let us know how the AF and shutter speed work once you get an opportunity to shoot the puffins (or anything else moving). I'm curious how the AF tracks now that they've made all the sensors cross-type.

Thanks for posting the pics and keep them coming if you can. It sounds like you're going to get to enjoy your trip even more now that you have some new gear to use.

[gldiana]

Hi Bob,
thanks for the compliments
Except for the photo of the trees/lake used for comparison and to show how the highlight works, no retouching was done in or off-camera. I did not use any noise reduction since I wanted to see what the camera would give me. Later on I'll take some shots with ISO NR on. I'm trying to do one thing at the time so not to get overwhelmed with the new functions. The camera feels really fast, as I said in comparison the 30D now feels sluggish as if it needs to think before shooting (and I always thought it was a fast camera). Tuesday I'm going to Maine to Acadia National Park and I hope to get some great shots there, never photographed puffins before so looking forward.

This morning my friend, who plays the organ, dragged me to his church. Fortunately the roof didn't fall on my head and I didn't get hit by any lightning either, so I could come out with a few shots (both taken with EF-S 10-22mm at 10mm):

ISO 1000, f/10, 1/6" handheld, no IS




ISO 6400, f/10, 1/50" handheld, no IS

[gldiana]

Just taken. ISO 400. Some color and lighting correction on ACDSee Pro 2.5

[Bonish Photo]

Luca, that first shot of the church is very cool. I bet the church would be honored to hang it up!

I was reading some comparrisons on the POTN forum and read where one guy was having all sorts of trouble once he updated his Photochop RAW Viewer with it not allowing him to see the older RAW Files? DId you notice anything when you updated? Or did you even do that yet?

Just wondering because when I got the 5D, I had to update my CS2 in order to view my RAW Thumbnails. I guess I had to do it when I got the 30D also now that I think about it. But I never had any problems seeing the older files. Only thing I ever noticed was the original 1D raw iles showed thumbnails for both the RAW and the Jpegs, where all the new ones just show a numbered thumbnail in RAW, but show the actual thumbnail that I can see beside it?

Might be my lack o knowledge in updating everything. I never use the CD's that come with the camera, just cut and past the files to my harddrive and view in my CS3 or Photoviewer that came stock with cpu if I'm just quickly looking for a file.

[gldiana]

Hi Pat. Thanks!
I did update Camera RAW with the new beta and it works fine with the 50D (not all functions are implemented, plus I never liked it since I use Lightroom). I haven't upgraded LR yet. After you said that I went to PS and tried to upload old 30D RAW files and they work fine. Didn't notice any problem.
I've been meaning to ask you for a long time... do you really call it Photochop or are you joking?

[gldiana]

Una mas:

ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/15 handheld

800 is the new 100

[stephaniekscott]

I agree Luca, you suck.

Nice shots, looking forward to what else you come up with.

[hw771230]

Great shots with the new camera Luca. Congrats. It looks like Santa made the rounds early this year.

As for PS and Bridge. I don't really use them for RAW conversion since I got Light Room. I mostly use PS for final workup on the ones that need it after LR. The workflow is much better for me.

Caleb