High ISO noise CCD's vs CMOS

Here is a different ISO 1600 comparison from Imaging Resource of the
Canon 30D and the Nikon D50. While the Canon has a little less noise
it is at the cost of substantial smearing of the detail. I much prefer
the D50 image.

Nikon D50
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...D50INI1600.HTM

Canon 30D
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...30DINI1600.HTM

mswlogo wrote:
Ok, I'm in the market for my first DSLR (upgrade from 35 mm SLR and
Nikon 5700).

I've been looking at reviews on the Sony A100, Nikon D80/D200 and Canon
30D.

These are both 1600 ISO (see reviews for more detailed information
about conditions etc).

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_8337.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/DSC_3490.JPG

What a HUGE difference !!!

I see so many people say only if you shoot high ISO is it a concern.
Unless your shooting with lights in a studio can't any one use high ISO
at times?

If you can get 2 (or so) stops lower on every lens and get the same
picture, why not take it? You'll pay a small fortune for 2 stops on a
lens.

Are there other compromises in going higher ISO (even in the low range)
besides noise. Do you lose color accuracy etc.

I really favor Nikon for feel and operation. But this ISO noise has me
leaning towards canon CMOS. I also see numerous comments that Canon IS
is better than Nikon VR. So that to me is worth probably another stop.

So the canon seems to have like a 3 stop advantage over Nikon.

I have no investment in lens (my 35mm was a Pentax and I'd never use
those boat anchor manual focus lens again).

mswlogo wrote:

Are there other compromises in going higher ISO (even in the low range)
besides noise. Do you lose color accuracy etc.

I really favor Nikon for feel and operation. But this ISO noise has me
leaning towards canon CMOS. I also see numerous comments that Canon IS
is better than Nikon VR. So that to me is worth probably another stop.

I used to also be a big believer in Nikon until I saw similar results.
True, the Nikon has 2 more megapixels, but this is a textbook example of
how, at 8 megapixels and above, the resolution alone isn't everything.
I would easily conclude that despite having a lower pixel count, I'm
getting *more* usable image data from the 30D than I would be from the D200.


--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

Here is a comparison at ISO 1600 between the Canon 30D and the Nikon
D200. I think the Nikon wins this one.

Canon 30D
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...30DINI1600.HTM

Nikon D200
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...200INI1600.HTM

mswlogo wrote:
Ok, I'm in the market for my first DSLR (upgrade from 35 mm SLR and
Nikon 5700).

I've been looking at reviews on the Sony A100, Nikon D80/D200 and Canon
30D.

These are both 1600 ISO (see reviews for more detailed information
about conditions etc).

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_8337.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/DSC_3490.JPG

What a HUGE difference !!!

I see so many people say only if you shoot high ISO is it a concern.
Unless your shooting with lights in a studio can't any one use high ISO
at times?

If you can get 2 (or so) stops lower on every lens and get the same
picture, why not take it? You'll pay a small fortune for 2 stops on a
lens.

Are there other compromises in going higher ISO (even in the low range)
besides noise. Do you lose color accuracy etc.

I really favor Nikon for feel and operation. But this ISO noise has me
leaning towards canon CMOS. I also see numerous comments that Canon IS
is better than Nikon VR. So that to me is worth probably another stop.

So the canon seems to have like a 3 stop advantage over Nikon.

I have no investment in lens (my 35mm was a Pentax and I'd never use
those boat anchor manual focus lens again).

ColinD wrote:
mswlogo wrote:
Ok, I'm in the market for my first DSLR (upgrade from 35 mm SLR and
Nikon 5700).

I've been looking at reviews on the Sony A100, Nikon D80/D200 and Canon
30D.

These are both 1600 ISO (see reviews for more detailed information
about conditions etc).

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_8337.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/DSC_3490.JPG

What a HUGE difference !!!

I see so many people say only if you shoot high ISO is it a concern.
Unless your shooting with lights in a studio can't any one use high ISO
at times?

If you can get 2 (or so) stops lower on every lens and get the same
picture, why not take it? You'll pay a small fortune for 2 stops on a
lens.

Are there other compromises in going higher ISO (even in the low range)
besides noise. Do you lose color accuracy etc.

I really favor Nikon for feel and operation. But this ISO noise has me
leaning towards canon CMOS. I also see numerous comments that Canon IS
is better than Nikon VR. So that to me is worth probably another stop.

So the canon seems to have like a 3 stop advantage over Nikon.

I have no investment in lens (my 35mm was a Pentax and I'd never use
those boat anchor manual focus lens again).

You'll get used to the feel of the 30D; you'll never be happy with the
crap images from the Nikon.

No contest. Canon.

Colin D.


Looking at those two images, the little $599 Nikon kicked the $1200
Canon's a--.

wrote:

My conclusion in the end was that the difference is in high ISOs and in
shadows. Probably, from a brief look at your analysis of the D50 (lack
of time, drowning in work), due to higher read noise. By the way, do
you have any idea which factors affect the read noise (ie why would the
D50 have higher read noise than the 1D)? The amplifiers (seems unlikely
to me)? Presumably, this is random (eg thermal), otherwise they'd just
model it and remove it.

Yes, read noise is random. CCDs commonly have the 7-15 electron read
noise, even in professional cooled CCDs used in astronomy.
It was amazing to see Canon improve CMOS so much, which 5+
years ago many said CMOS would never match CCD performance.
I do not know the specifics of how they achieved that.

I've though of taking photographs of printed targets with various kinds
of noise on them just to see what kinds of noise reduction are done on
the raw data. [The Nikons certainly do this, see
http://astrosurf.com/buil/d70v10d/eval.htm
and I can't see how the Canons get their noise so low, but haven't
confirmed anything.]

Do you have any idea if anybody has done this? I could not find
anything on the web.

No, I have not seen that either.
It could be an interesting experiment.

Roger

wrote in message
oups.com...

mswlogo wrote:
Ok, I'm in the market for my first DSLR (upgrade from 35 mm SLR and
Nikon 5700).

I've been looking at reviews on the Sony A100, Nikon D80/D200 and Canon
30D.

These are both 1600 ISO (see reviews for more detailed information
about conditions etc).

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_8337.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/DSC_3490.JPG

What a HUGE difference !!!


Did you look at the exif? The Canon photo is at 1/250s f/2.8 while the
Nikon at 1/100s f/7.1. (There is no ISO in the Nikon's exif data). Also
the sharpness in the Nikon is set to "hard", which seems a less than
intelligent thing to do when shooting at ISO 1600.

There is a difference between the two cameras in terms of noise (I
spent some time trying the 20D and the D200 when I was deciding), but
it's by no means as much as you'd think from these two samples.



I'm reading ISO 3200 with Panda exif reader on the Nikon file, this on top
of the photo being underexposed, so it is not a fair comparison.


Patrick

RichA wrote:
ColinD wrote:
mswlogo wrote:
Ok, I'm in the market for my first DSLR (upgrade from 35 mm SLR and
Nikon 5700).

I've been looking at reviews on the Sony A100, Nikon D80/D200 and Canon
30D.

These are both 1600 ISO (see reviews for more detailed information
about conditions etc).

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_8337.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/DSC_3490.JPG

What a HUGE difference !!!

I see so many people say only if you shoot high ISO is it a concern.
Unless your shooting with lights in a studio can't any one use high ISO
at times?

If you can get 2 (or so) stops lower on every lens and get the same
picture, why not take it? You'll pay a small fortune for 2 stops on a
lens.

Are there other compromises in going higher ISO (even in the low range)
besides noise. Do you lose color accuracy etc.

I really favor Nikon for feel and operation. But this ISO noise has me
leaning towards canon CMOS. I also see numerous comments that Canon IS
is better than Nikon VR. So that to me is worth probably another stop.

So the canon seems to have like a 3 stop advantage over Nikon.

I have no investment in lens (my 35mm was a Pentax and I'd never use
those boat anchor manual focus lens again).

You'll get used to the feel of the 30D; you'll never be happy with the
crap images from the Nikon.

No contest. Canon.

Colin D.


Looking at those two images, the little $599 Nikon kicked the $1200
Canon's a--.

You're talking out of yours ...

Colin D.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)"
wrote in message ...
wrote:
SNIP
I've though of taking photographs of printed targets with various
kinds of noise on them just to see what kinds of noise reduction
are done on the raw data.
SNIP

All it would take is a white noise (all frequencies equally
represented) target (could be made with Photoshop). Outputting it as
an inkjet image or on an LCD might introduce it's own noise spike, but
printing it on photopaper could come a long way. One could also buy
such a target:
http://www.appliedimagegroup.biz/aig%2Dimaging/targets_QA.html#QA-80

It could be an interesting experiment.

Some of he math required for quantification could be derived from:
http://www.sinepatterns.com/docs/Random%20Target%20MTF%20Engineering.pdf

One would have to compare the actual result to that of theoretically
perfect area sampling with a given fill-factor and sampling density,
or to that of another camera for a relative (instead of an absolute)
difference.

A program like Imatest also allows an analysis of the noise spectrum,
e.g. by using a shot of a grayscale steptablet;
http://www.imatest.com/docs/tour_q13.html , or as part of an SFR/MTF
determination.

And for some more background info:
http://www.imatest.com/docs/noise.html

--
Bart

Bart van der Wolf wrote:

All it would take is a white noise (all frequencies equally
represented) target (could be made with Photoshop). Outputting it as
an inkjet image or on an LCD might introduce it's own noise spike, but
printing it on photopaper could come a long way. One could also buy
such a target:
http://www.appliedimagegroup.biz/aig%2Dimaging/targets_QA.html#QA-80


Thanks for the links.

White noise would be sufficient to evaluate what happens assuming the
processing is "dumb" (ie doesn't react differently to the signal). But
what if it's not? If I had means of producing reliably targets and
analyzing the results (well, I suppose Mathematica will be ok for the
analysis) I'd give it a try (with both white noise and noise with
various spectra, to see how it behaves, and from what I find, think
about what to do next).

Do you have any suggestions for how I can reliably produce a target? I
can produce it easily in the computer, my question refers to getting it
to print or displaying it. Sources of extraneous noise? I have zero
experience in practical matters here, but I'm on vacation for two weeks
and this sounds an interesting thing to try.

One would have to compare the actual result to that of theoretically
perfect area sampling with a given fill-factor and sampling density,
or to that of another camera for a relative (instead of an absolute)
difference.

How does the fill factor come into it? Are you referring to the effect
of the sampling density/fill factor combination on the sampled signal,
or something else? I supose also that the actual camera noise will have
to be taken into account. Maybe at low ISOs it can be ignored. And how
about the CFA? This is starting to sound like a serious project...

On 16 Aug 2006 12:51:51 -0700, "Frank B" wrote:

Here is a comparison at ISO 1600 between the Canon 30D and the Nikon
D200. I think the Nikon wins this one.

Canon 30D
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...30DINI1600.HTM

This image looks out of focus. Noise level is much lower than
d200,though.

Nikon D200
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...200INI1600.HTM

Here is an in focus 3200 ISO 30D shot from Steves Digicam. Compare it
to the 1600 ISO D200 image

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_...s/IMG_0623.JPG