Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

[Les McLean]

I recently attended a family wedding, and have just been perusing some of the jpegs from the day, the exif is intact, so I was interested in the shooting info behind some of the shots. It was a pro-shoot, 2 togs, one with a D3S and one with a 5DII.

It's a bit painful to admit but the Nikon blew the socks off the Canon in respect of noise at high ISO's

The Nikon tog was regularly shooting at 3200 ISO for a number of indoor available light shots, and the images were very/very clean, roughly comparable to the 5DII ISO 2000 shots, couldn't do a direct comparison as the canon shooter never went beyond ISO 2500.

Not saying the 5DII was bad, just the D3S was so much better.


Not enough for me to want to jump ship, but if I was a Wedding Tog , or fast action sports shooter, I think I would seriously need to consider going across to the dark side

[Glenn]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

Very interesting Les. From what I've heard I believe the noise at high ISO's is good enough on the D3S to allow a further 30 minutes shooting beyond what you would consider with a Canon body.

Oh and I have nothing to back that up either

[colin C]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

Yes but .......................... you are getting a true RAW image from the Canon. I understand that you are getting a part processed RAW image from the Nikon. The processing is required to boost the high ISO performance but as with most noise reduction methods, it can lose out on sharpness.

Thankfully, this little revelation came out as I was seriously considering a change to Nikon and before the introduction of the 1D MKIV. I couldn't believe how one of the noisiest cameras available, Nikon D2, could evolve into the least noisy of them all, the D3. There you go, just part process the RAW file.

Personally, I like my RAW files to be RAW and if I ever need to deal with digital noise, I'll do it selectively where it's needed, rather than globally.

Colin

[Woolley]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

Unfortunately, it's a known fact. Canon are chasing resolution and Nikon are chasing noise. I'd be much happier if my 7 D was 12-15mp with twice the ISO capability, but Canon aren't making that and I can't afford to swap my lenses. If I were starting on DSLR now, I'm afraid I would have chosen differently.

[briansquibb]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

Perhaps comparing iso2000 against iso3200 is part of the problem?

[MX5]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

Noink and Canon have always produced top cameras. Sometimes Noink leads in a particular area sometimes Canon. I swapped between them during the film days. Back in the Digital era I've only had Noink Coolpix (a 995 and 8700) and not a DSLR ... the 8700 as a top end job was just too slow in raw and caused me to buy the G10. So I'm nearly all Canon now. I do keep an Olympus u8000 in my backpack as its waterproof, shockproof and not too bad.

As ColinC implies a bit of digital noise is nowt to worry about ... you can attend to it selectively with a bit of care.

Jump ship ... probably not. But I still have respect for Noink (and my days dealing with that nice shop near Victoria).

[paul linton]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

I speak to a few photographers doing my rounds and the big topic is the NikonD3 and its superb noise level,and it saddens me to say that most the guys with EOS1MKIII,Would swap tomorrow if they hadn't invested some much money in lenses. though that might help me if they jump ship as i could offer a small amount to take a EOS1MKIII of there hands.

Paul

[DrJon]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

If I was going to swap my 5DmkII for another camera it wouldn't be a D3S (assuming I could swap all the glass for free and just have to spend the £3.5K for the heavier 12MP Nikon). The 5DmkII high ISO is good enough for me and I like to have some extra resolution to either crop with or make really big prints. If super-high ISO is everything to someone I can see why they'd consider it, but in the real world up to ISO 1600 I think the Canon would probably do (quite a bit) better for non-action stuff. I wouldn't even do it as a straight swap. Plus it's really competing with the 1D series anyway. I'm completely not qualified to compare a 12Mp/1x/9 fps/720p Nikon camera with a 16MP/1.3x/10 fps/1080p Canon. (Though the 1DmkIV wins at the low end and does ISO 50 ;-) Then again it isn't a foregone conclusion http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond3s/page26.asp other than high ISO where I think everyone agrees the Nikon rules (but full-frame and only 12MP it can't miss).

Actually there isn't currently anything I'd swap my 5dmkII for as a straight swap (unless I could flog the 30K exchange, buy another 5DmkII and keep the difference, of course). Um, a D3x might get me thinking though... if they'd swap all the glass too, and maybe come up with improved versions of a couple of their lenses along the way... (not a fair comparison though, vs. something much more expensive)

[Les McLean]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

I speak to a few photographers doing my rounds and the big topic is the NikonD3 and its superb noise level,and it saddens me to say that most the guys with EOS1MKIII,Would swap tomorrow if they hadn't invested some much money in lenses. though that might help me if they jump ship as i could offer a small amount to take a EOS1MKIII of there hands.

Paul

I know what you mean, when I first transferred to digital seriously , when the 10D came out, I left behind a good Nikon film set-up, it was a no brainer at the time, Canon had the game just about sewn up regarding DSLR, there was only one way to go.

If I was just setting out to build a system up today, it would be a difficult choice, although I don't think Canon have been siting on their hands in the mean time, it's just that Nikon have caught up on a number of levels, and it could be argued have taken the lead in some.

[Les McLean]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

. If super-high ISO is everything to someone I can see why they'd consider it, but in the real world up to ISO 1600 I think the Canon would probably do (quite a bit) better for non-action stuff.

Looking through the wedding images, it confirms this, up to around ISO1600 you couldn't get a fag paper between the two cameras, it was only above ISO2000 that the Nikon started to pull away.

I also took a number (informal) shots on the day, and while it's difficult (and no way scientific) to compare shots, + I never went higher than ISO 800, my shots appeared a tad sharper than both the Nikon and Canon, I think mainly because I was shooting primes against their zooms. Also, I'm sure most of their processing was batch processing, with the volume of images a busy wedding tog gets through it's not surprising, while I had the luxury of individually processing each shot.

[DrJon]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

I should have said I meant the Canon would do better due to the improved resolution, not the noise. If you printed where the Nikon could get to 300 DPI or more (which is most wedding shots, but I was more talking about other stuff) I think it's down to the photographer more than the kit.

BTW Les you threw me for a minute with "my shots appeared a tad sharper than both the Nikon and Canon" before I went back and realised you were one of two Canon shooters at the event.

[stormbringer]

Re: Nikon D3S/5DII Noise

I think as you said the lens will make a lot of difference as well.