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Technical tests on a Canon 1Ds mark II camera

These tests are similar to those I have done on the Nikon D3 and on my Canon 5D. Please see those pages for the methodology.

Much of the methodology for these tests is based on work by astronomer Christian Buil and space scientist Roger Clark. I am grateful to Roger Clark, Mike Unsold (creator of ImagesPlus software) and Dave Coffin (creator of dcraw software) for useful email correspondence. They are not however responsible for any mistakes I may have made.

I am grateful to George Hollingbery for allowing me to swap my 5D with his 1DsII for a fortnight so I could do these tests. Although it may seem a bit late in the day, given that Canon has already produced a 1DsIII, I say "better late than never".

I took quite a few measurements and it will take time to write them up, so watch this space...

  1. 1DsII read noise and offset signal
  2. 1DsII response to light at ISO 100
  3. 1DsII signal to noise ratio and dynamic range at ISO 100
  4. 1DsII gain and full well capacity at ISO 100
  5. 1DsII response to light at ISO 1600
  6. 1DsII signal to noise ratio at mid-grey, as a function of ISO speed
  7. 1DsII compared to 5D and Nikon D3 using gretagmacbeth ColorChecker™ analysed by Imatest (contains PNG files up to 700KB each)

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© Peter Facey, Winchester, England
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