What's going on ? M8/EOS5D

[jaapv]

[snip]
I have gone away from cropcams because I can't see the use of owning 35L and 135L glass and other WA primes and using only the central 66pc of the lens. On full frame those L primes are a very nice experience and other MF glass is wonderful too. The 5D is also fantastic value for money, now selling used for around USD2000 in excl cond. [/quoute]

Well, those 65 percent are by far the most corrected part of the image. I have no moral objection to using 100% or 10% as long as the job gets done...

[snip]
I don't get why Leica went to DNG or CCD...

A great many of us are very happy about that. The digital look of CMos and other suchlike sensors is hard to photoshop away; one of the reasons Nikon is holding its own against Canon.
For me personally a sensor of that kind would have made me think twice about the M8.
DNG - well, one does want to be able to use the file into the future. The RAW world is replete with all kinds of mutually incompatible and doomed formats. Standarisation is the only way to go.

 

[John Mikes]

You mean these kinds?

http://jessicaclaire.net/index.cfm?catID=4

Your experience with the 5D looks like a classic case of operator deficiency

I would have to agree. I don't have a 5D, but I have essentially a cropped version of the same sensor in my 1DII and 1DIIn. And if you're not getting images that are at least equal in quality to those from the fairy-dusted M8, then I'd bet the camera wasn't setup properly.

 

[John Mikes]

[snip]

A great many of us are very happy about that. The digital look of CMos and other suchlike sensors is hard to photoshop away; one of the reasons Nikon is holding its own against Canon.
For me personally a sensor of that kind would have made me think twice about the M8.
DNG - well, one does want to be able to use the file into the future. The RAW world is replete with all kinds of mutually incompatible and doomed formats. Standarisation is the only way to go.

Can you describe this "CMOS look" you dislike?

 

[aizan]

this thread loses so bad.

 

[gavinlg]

Can you describe this "CMOS look" you dislike?

The CMOS look so regularly talking about by people is supposedly very plastic and artificial, the images too smoothed and lacking texture. I used to believe this as well a little while ago until I learned what it's really about.

Canon CMOS sensors and processing have a very low contrast raw file. The idea is that because the file is therefor retaining more info being low contrast, you can work the file to how you want it, and have more headroom.

CMOS is the new CCD, and this is now confirmed with the new nikon D3 and D300 using CMOS sensors. Reason being that CMOS runs much much cooler due to a number things. This is why the d200, M8 etc are much noisier at high ISOs than the canon gear. The 5d is quite exceptional with retaining excellent detail at high ISOs, part of the thing is learning to exploit it.


The main thing about the 5d vs m8 debate is the 5ds have proven to be rock solid performers with about the best image quality that you can buy in a digital camera (especially for the price! - 2100 at B&H!!), when the m8 is also excellent in image quality, but has not proven to be as reliable as the 5d.

 

[jaapv]

I think the answer to this is that we should not assume that the two cameras have the same pixel density. Work it the other way, and the M8 would come out with fewer than 10.3MP. The density is simply greater in the M8, compared to the Canon. The Canon's lower density should, at least in theory, allow the use of larger individual pixel receptor sites. And in theory, that should permit lower noise at the higher ISO settings.

No- A CMos sensor has more on-sensor circuitry than a CCD sensor, giving a smaller photo-receptor size per pixel. That in turn gives the CMos higher noise, which needs more correcting on the sensor, giving the Canon smoooooth noiseless files..... and less apparent noise than a lower-denoised CCD. But see what higher noise correction can do in the newest Nikon CCD sensors.