Canon R5 Higher ISO...I'm surprised and impressed!

[Dave Williams]

Having come from a series of ID bodies, latterly the 1DX2, I was in two minds as to whether I should choose the R6 over the R5 as it supposedly has a better high ISO performance. If it has it must be very impressive because at ISO 16,000 the R5 isn't too shabby either. Taken through the double glazing and in to a fairly poorly lit area ( 20W LED outside right) I couldn't drop the shutter speed any lower than 1/200th because of motion blur. The aperture of my EF 70-200mm f2.8 was wide open. A touch of Topaz and not too much cropping and I thought the result was acceptable given the circumstances.

 

[NickAndersonPhoto]

That is indeed impressive Dave and lucky you for having Badgers that visit your garden. One thing I have always cursed is having to put off a client because the gloomy conditions won't let me shoot fast enough. The 5DIV is good at higher ISOs but, so far, I'm really impressed with my R5. These aren't up to the ISO level of your image but at up to 5000 they give me confidence to shoot on any day.

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[Michał Dudulewicz]

Yesterday I shot a few photos at iso 6400 and 12800, the noise is terrible...What am I doing wrong? Or just it is, what it is. The lighting conditions were terrible, so I bet it was the reason.

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[Dave Williams]

I have just been looking at the shots I was taking yesterday in dull cloudy conditions and straight out of the camera they are not brilliant even at ISO 3200 to be honest but with a bit of PP they can be recovered nicely.At ISO 1600, no problem at all. Just to see what the results were at ISO 10,000 I took a few shots and they are not acceptable looking the way they do.My Topaz trial has just run out so I can't run them through there to see the difference but I have a feeling they would be much improved. Personally I'm going to limit my ISO to 3200 and aim for 1600 wherever I can. Topaz is good but lower ISO is better. Over expose the images, the noise is then less apparent , but if you are trying to freeze action then it's not always easy to do that. Apologies if I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs, you may well be far more qualified than I am, but looking at the shot above you could have reduced the shutter speed and still frozen the action, wound the zoom in to give a larger aperture and cropped larger. If you can and you have already cropped the shot, how about winding back the zoom to 250mm which gives a minimum aperture of f5 and then shooting in 1.6 crop mode that gives the same view as it would at 400mm but still f5?

 

[Michał Dudulewicz]

I have just been looking at the shots I was taking yesterday in dull cloudy conditions and straight out of the camera they are not brilliant even at ISO 3200 to be honest but with a bit of PP they can be recovered nicely.At ISO 1600, no problem at all. Just to see what the results were at ISO 10,000 I took a few shots and they are not acceptable looking the way they do.My Topaz trial has just run out so I can't run them through there to see the difference but I have a feeling they would be much improved. Personally I'm going to limit my ISO to 3200 and aim for 1600 wherever I can. Topaz is good but lower ISO is better. Over expose the images, the noise is then less apparent , but if you are trying to freeze action then it's not always easy to do that. Apologies if I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs, you may well be far more qualified than I am, but looking at the shot above you could have reduced the shutter speed and still frozen the action, wound the zoom in to give a larger aperture and cropped larger. If you can and you have already cropped the shot, how about winding back the zoom to 250mm which gives a minimum aperture of f5 and then shooting in 1.6 crop mode that gives the same view as it would at 400mm but still f5?

That was my initial thoughts when I saw the results in lightroom. It was my first time photoshooting sports, so I hope I learnt something. Next time I will try shooting at 250-300mm with F5.6 and lower iso and just crop the image. Thank you, mt friend.

 

[Shotbycurtin]

This one is at 12800, 1/1000. F7.1 taken a couple of nights ago. As a pro said to me “any shot is better than none at all“ I just accept it for what it is, maybe get creative on the processing, go b&w or smooth it out.

 

[Dcweather]

Something I've learned over the years that often gets missed is high ISO produces more noise in low light than the same high ISO in good light. This is because the signal to noise ratio is higher in good light irrespective of the ISO setting. You can take a shot at ISO 6400 and the same shot when the sun coms out at a faster shutter speed with the same ISO setting and both correctly exposed and the noise will be much less with the sun out. This may seem obvious but it has led to me using high ISO on sunny days to get the fast shutter speed for say BIF without worrying so much about noise.

 

[Archibald]

Something I've learned over the years that often gets missed is high ISO produces more noise in low light than the same high ISO in good light. This is because the signal to noise ratio is higher in good light irrespective of the ISO setting. You can take a shot at ISO 6400 and the same shot when the sun coms out at a faster shutter speed with the same ISO setting and both correctly exposed and the noise will be much less with the sun out. This may seem obvious but it has led to me using high ISO on sunny days to get the fast shutter speed for say BIF without worrying so much about noise.

That suggests a kind of reciprocity failure with digital, and I don't think that effect is significant. With more light, images are often sharper and have more contrast, and such images don't show noise as well.

 

[NickAndersonPhoto]

Having come from a series of ID bodies, latterly the 1DX2, I was in two minds as to whether I should choose the R6 over the R5 as it supposedly has a better high ISO performance. If it has it must be very impressive because at ISO 16,000 the R5 isn't too shabby either. Taken through the double glazing and in to a fairly poorly lit area ( 20W LED outside right) I couldn't drop the shutter speed any lower than 1/200th because of motion blur. The aperture of my EF 70-200mm f2.8 was wide open. A touch of Topaz and not too much cropping and I thought the result was acceptable given the circumstances.

That's very nice Dave, a lovely shot.