Canon 50D 1.0.6 ISO noise performance comparison

[David Selby]

http://www.learnslr.com/canon-50d-106-iso-improvement-comparison ("http://www.learnslr.com/canon-50d-106-iso-improvement-comparison)


I just put together a comparison of the image IQ with various ISO noise attributed to the new firmware upgrade.

[Jon Ruyle]

Wow.


The difference is noticeable.


Thanks, David.

[DavidEccleston]

Nice ISO comparison, even ignoring the firmware revision testing.


I'm one of "them". You know, one of those looking to upgrade to DSLR without breaking the bank. Your page is making it a little bit easier to part with the money, as your ISO 3200, 6400, and 12800 shots look like my Sony H1's ISO 100, 200, and 400 shots, noise wise. While some of that is going to be due to image scaling (unless these are 100% crops), that alone won't account for the amazing 32x improvement.

[David Selby]

Thanks for checking those out. I find the Canon 50D to be an amazing camera, of course the ISO performance on the 5D is superior but the 50D has so many performance features and is a great camera all around.





The ISO performance is more than adequate, its great and helps achieve higher frame rates with usable photos

[Mark Elberson]

I just updated mine. Thanks David!

[David Selby]

Thanks! updates are always good as long as they dont break anything.

[samoksner]

i don't understand, what are we comparing these shots too? Are you claiming that firmware 1.0.6 has increased high ISO perforance? I don't mean to sound facetious, but what am I missing, did i misread this?

[Wes]

Check out the 1.0.3 compairison. Yes this upgrade is supposed to reduce the vertical banding noise.

[Ragingblues]

Thanks for posting the noise comparisons between both versions. I love my 50D as it is (1.0.3) and was heavily considering not risking something going wrong by updating. Your experience and test results have pursuaded me to go ahead and update the firmware.


Thanks,





Ken

[Oren]

I updated the firmware without any problems.


Yesterday I did my own testing at ISO 3200 and 800 to tell what I should put the High ISO noise reduction setting on - Standard, Low, Strong or Disable. I could clearly see that Low and Strong are too soft for me and therefore my real dilemma was between Standard and Disable. My conclusion is that both Standard and Disable are similar in sharpness, but when set to Standard, the colors are better since it removes some red dots of noise which we see when using high ISO.


So to sum it up, I chose to go with it set to Standard.