ddrueding
Fixture
Yeah, I have the Pro as well, the one with only one arm seemed too flimsy even from the product pictures. The most I ever hung off of it was the 7DII and 100/2.8 (macro). I never trusted it with the 100-400.
Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses
- Thread starter snowhiker
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Fatwah on Western Digital
For the low, low price of $10,000... Of course that thing plus the 28-70/2 would more or less replace a bag of primes.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
The AI DeNoise in Lightroom does IMO visibly better work than I can get out of Topaz but IMO it also seems like Topaz Photo AI does Denoise better than the dedicated Denoise product.
Unfortunately ToPAz is all over the place and PhotoAI seems to be in a permanent beta mode. It changes every week and there is no redistributable version as with their previous software.
So I tried the latest PhotoAI 1.3.0, and while it is not so weird as a few versions ago, it still only has two controls for DeNoise and the robot in there can alternate between modes randomly.
If I cannot get the same result on the same image a few weeks later, how can I obtain consistent images across weeks or months or years? I suspect the owners are selling this product for gig workers that shoot, process and get the work out the door in a few days to keep their profit up. Studio photographers use proper equipment/lighting and don't need all the image resuscitation of the TOPaZ.
The thought of Adobe is nauseous, but may be inevitable depending on the organs.
So I tried the latest PhotoAI 1.3.0, and while it is not so weird as a few versions ago, it still only has two controls for DeNoise and the robot in there can alternate between modes randomly.
If I cannot get the same result on the same image a few weeks later, how can I obtain consistent images across weeks or months or years? I suspect the owners are selling this product for gig workers that shoot, process and get the work out the door in a few days to keep their profit up. Studio photographers use proper equipment/lighting and don't need all the image resuscitation of the TOPaZ.
The thought of Adobe is nauseous, but may be inevitable depending on the organs.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
I kind of think Topaz Products other than PhotoAI have been abandoned. They don't seem to be getting much in the way of updates any longer.
Adobe products are in my home whether I like it or not, if only because my roommate gets them through school. She does believe that the suite would be worth the $55/month retail cost, but she does use more of it than I would, as Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop and Lightroom are all tools she uses. She's still on a student discount for now at least.
Lightroom was updated earlier this week. Aside from the AI noise reduction that IMO looks better than Topaz, it also added more complex AI masking. It can pick out clothes on an identified subject as well as hair or facial hair now, and it can apply curves to masks without leaving Lightroom, so you can do things like completely change the color of a dress without screwing around with Photoshop now. The tools I use really don't have anything like that.
At least Resolve Studio is still the best call for a video editor.
ddrueding
Fixture
The last version they sold a perpetual license to was CS6. In theory you might be able to buy a copy of that from someone (Adobe no longer sells it). Honestly the right play is paying their subscription and getting the new version all the time. I don't like it either, but it is what it is.
I have that CS, but am trying to deal with the luminance noise incurred due to the MILS (R5). When I tested the camera and denoising of 2021 (TOPaz and DXO) acceptable results from the inherently noisy sensor could be obtained from the TOPaz. Obviously if I had known that the software was being discontinued so soon, I would have developed a different plan. Now I have close to a million images from 10-12 bodies to review, and process some for printing before it is too late. They don't all require luminance denoisly though; nearly half are ISO 100-200.
I have not used the SAAS Adobe, but from what I follow the changes are mainly features being added and developers f'ing round with the UI.
However, with the bogus "AI" software added these days, there are real computational changes being made all the time that will affect the output.
Now I have close to a million images from 10-12 bodies to review, and process some for printing before it is too late. They don't all require luminance denoisly though; nearly half are ISO 100-200.I have not used the SAAS Adobe, but from what I follow the changes are mainly features being added and developers f'ing round with the UI.
However, with the bogus "AI" software added these days, there are real computational changes being made all the time that will affect the output.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
Per my roommate, you don't HAVE to install updates and you can install older versions should you choose to, so long as you're on a paid plan. The software gets new versions approximately quarterly.
I am also under the impression that most of the changes are AI-related.
I am also under the impression that most of the changes are AI-related.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
I had time to mess with it today. Using the R9 5900 with 6650XT in my living room, I'm not sure what in the hell it was doing. The process took about an hour to handle 300 pictures, all images taken under hostile conditions at at ISO 25600, but at no point did my CPU utilization rise above 30%, GPU go over 15% or RAM go over 20GB used. Everything was on a Crucial P5+ (2TB PCIe 4 drive), and THAT wasn't busy, either. I'm not sure why but I did check to make sure that GPU acceleration was enabled and that there aren't any other limiters in place.
300 images in Topaz would take my PC about 20 minutes on the RTX2080. That's not Apples to Apples, but Lightroom is also using only a fraction of what the smaller desktop anyway.
On the other hand, Lightroom absolutely did a better job with both denoise and detail retention. It's something that's immediately obvious without pixel peeping.
LM, just a suggestion, but maybe look and see if your images can work with denoise after a conversion to .DNG?
Edit: Looks like the limiting factor for how much Lightroom is doing is available GPU RAM.
300 images in Topaz would take my PC about 20 minutes on the RTX2080. That's not Apples to Apples, but Lightroom is also using only a fraction of what the smaller desktop anyway.
On the other hand, Lightroom absolutely did a better job with both denoise and detail retention. It's something that's immediately obvious without pixel peeping.
LM, just a suggestion, but maybe look and see if your images can work with denoise after a conversion to .DNG?
Edit: Looks like the limiting factor for how much Lightroom is doing is available GPU RAM.
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It takes ~2.5 sec. for the TOpaz Denoise to output each R6 CR3 as a TIF on my system (n=12). That's not too different from 4 sec. you are getting per image considering I'm using the 7950x and 4070 Ti (nothing is at 100% continuously though I hear some fans). Is your speed a problem? I would think you cull first and denoise later before final output to the client. I'm getting about 4.5 sec, for R5 CR3s and about 5.1 sec. for TIFs.
ToPaz does a crappy job of RAW file conversion so I would always have to create the TIF before using it. I don't have an Adobe account if you mean using their software. Can a TIF be converted to DNG freely?
From what I read, you are better off with the 40 series cards or at least the 30 series cards due to the Tensors (whatever that means) of the past being relatively weaker for Adobe.
ToPaz does a crappy job of RAW file conversion so I would always have to create the TIF before using it. I don't have an Adobe account if you mean using their software. Can a TIF be converted to DNG freely?
From what I read, you are better off with the 40 series cards or at least the 30 series cards due to the Tensors (whatever that means) of the past being relatively weaker for Adobe.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
Minor correction: The 20 minutes on 300 images in Topaz Denoise would be the CPU (on my Threadripper) rather than GPU time. It's in my head that it's around 15 seconds/picture but it's between 3 and 7 seconds if I have the nVidia card do it. I note that the times per image can be VERY uneven.
I usually only mess with DeNoise it's the ISO is somewhere in the 5-digit range and only after I do absolutely all the other editing I want to do. The 300 image set I tried last night was specifically picked to give a decent sample where I already had both the CR3 and a Denoise'd .TIF handy for comparison.
Adobe DNG converter is free. No account required.
I usually only mess with DeNoise it's the ISO is somewhere in the 5-digit range and only after I do absolutely all the other editing I want to do. The 300 image set I tried last night was specifically picked to give a decent sample where I already had both the CR3 and a Denoise'd .TIF handy for comparison.
Adobe DNG converter is free. No account required.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
Do you have GPU set to auto in preferences for Topaz or a specific GPU? I have to mess with the setting kind of often depending on what else I'm doing.
With regard to CR3 -> TIF -> DNG:
Yes, it works, but the free converter won't do it. You have to do it in a paid Adobe application, although it apparently does work in versions as Photoshop CS3. I will note that it is basically instant, so the limitation of not working directly with TIFs seems to be pretty much bullshit. The file formats do different things since a TIF is a bit-mapped format and a DNG should be sensor data. You'd probably want to pixel peep a few conversions to make sure no extra artifacts are being introduced but we're talking about last-stage edits.
Update #2: It still doesn't work with DNGs made from TIFs.
With regard to CR3 -> TIF -> DNG:
Yes, it works, but the free converter won't do it. You have to do it in a paid Adobe application, although it apparently does work in versions as Photoshop CS3. I will note that it is basically instant, so the limitation of not working directly with TIFs seems to be pretty much bullshit. The file formats do different things since a TIF is a bit-mapped format and a DNG should be sensor data. You'd probably want to pixel peep a few conversions to make sure no extra artifacts are being introduced but we're talking about last-stage edits.
Update #2: It still doesn't work with DNGs made from TIFs.
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Bummer on Adobe.
I set the ToPaz preferences for AI processing to "Nvidia GeForce..." and now the R6 CR3 raw files are being denoised to TIF in 1.7 seconds each and R5 files in 3.6 seconds. I'm not sure why the R6 benefitted relatively more. According to Windows the Nvidia GPU is not more than ~25% utilized.
I set the ToPaz preferences for AI processing to "Nvidia GeForce..." and now the R6 CR3 raw files are being denoised to TIF in 1.7 seconds each and R5 files in 3.6 seconds. I'm not sure why the R6 benefitted relatively more. According to Windows the Nvidia GPU is not more than ~25% utilized.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
Is that on the 7950?
What I'm seeing on the 5990 with 6650X is that GPU RAM is climbing up to about 7.5GB usage while overall utilization sits at around 15%. It makes me wonder if there's a bottleneck from having "only" 8GB texture memory.
Adobe does have rules for what the new AI Denoise, Sharpen and Upsample can do, and it boils down to only working on RAW files and files created directly from RAW files.
What I'm seeing on the 5990 with 6650X is that GPU RAM is climbing up to about 7.5GB usage while overall utilization sits at around 15%. It makes me wonder if there's a bottleneck from having "only" 8GB texture memory.
Adobe does have rules for what the new AI Denoise, Sharpen and Upsample can do, and it boils down to only working on RAW files and files created directly from RAW files.
It's the original 7950x, not the new one for game plays.
Windows indicates that I have 64GB of DDR5-6000, but NVidias have 12GB. Maybe 25-33% of that is used by the ToPaz acccording to the Task Manager during operation even though I set the ToPaz Memory Consumption to high.`
Windows indicates that I have 64GB of DDR5-6000, but NVidias have 12GB. Maybe 25-33% of that is used by the ToPaz acccording to the Task Manager during operation even though I set the ToPaz Memory Consumption to high.`
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Fatwah on Western Digital
I tried Lightroom Classic on my 3960X. It's apparent to me that Adobe software is in no way, shape or form optimized for more than maybe four cores. There isn't much subjective difference between doing things on the Threadripper than the R9 5900. Just watching AI masking or DeNoise work, it looks like files are operated-upon in groups of four regardless of what resources the computer has available and not particularly better for running on AMD, Intel or nVidia GPUs, at least with the graphics hardware I have.
The Threadripper DOES blast through JPG exports, for all of the several seconds THAT takes.
The Threadripper DOES blast through JPG exports, for all of the several seconds THAT takes.
ddrueding
Fixture
If you do want to test on different hardware, you can remote into mine. Creative Cloud license is active and hardware in the sig.
It was very obvious to me after building the 3950X system that a bunch of slow cores don't help for many programs.
Unfortunately the pandecimonum developed right after that or else I might have trashed that whole system and replaced it with iNtel. You know the deal, go with the Apple M1/M2 just for the A/V processing if the software has the ARM support. I'm sure you have room to throw it on top of your servers.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
Lots of cores work great with Resolve, which ends up being the biggest consumer of my CPU time. And I like having crap-tons of I/O and RAM on my workstation. Lots of cores is also really handy when I'm both rendering video AND editing photos. But I strongly suspect that Adobe specifically isn't doing much to optimize what it does for systems with heavy threading capabilities. They're probably assuming that targeting four cores is a heavy workload for mainstream computers and people who think their setup isn't running as fast as it could will buy whatever the latest Intel desktop whatever might be, at least on the PC side.
Apple has only a few CPU and zero extra GPU SKUs to target. They can optimize the crap out of it. Last I looked, the M2 Ultra still lags Zen 4 and 12th and 13th Gen Intel for the fastest overall CPUs, but it may be that there are enough specialized hardware codecs and optimizations that Adobe stuff might run better over there regardless.
Apparently, Premier has some of the same issues: in spite of a heavily parallel workload, it benefits more from fast cores than many cores. That may be from decades-old legacy code or design principles, but we've had SMP as a standard for close to two decades now
Apple has only a few CPU and zero extra GPU SKUs to target. They can optimize the crap out of it. Last I looked, the M2 Ultra still lags Zen 4 and 12th and 13th Gen Intel for the fastest overall CPUs, but it may be that there are enough specialized hardware codecs and optimizations that Adobe stuff might run better over there regardless.
Apparently, Premier has some of the same issues: in spite of a heavily parallel workload, it benefits more from fast cores than many cores. That may be from decades-old legacy code or design principles, but we've had SMP as a standard for close to two decades now
sdbardwick
Storage is cool
SMP on desktop is at least 22 years old. I have a dual Athlon MP (actually XPs with pencil lines) board and procs from 2001 sitting in my closet...the Antec TruePower 430W PSU for that system still works, but now relegated to a low-power i3-2100 print server system. SMP itself has been around since the 1960's.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
I had SMP systems on 486, P54C Pentium, Pentium Pro and finally Pentium 2. I went back for the Athlon X2, Core2Q and a succession of i7s. The only generation I really skipped was the dual Thunderbird Athlon platform you had. I'm not going to pretend that anything from the Pentium 2 era or before was exotic, because it was. But the concept of threads and thread-aware software has been around on x86 since at least the late 80s.
Again, I don't know exactly what Adobe Lightroom specifically is doing in this case, but from the image previews, it looks like it's grabbing and operating on a maximum of four images at a time and I don't see any options in the software to tell it to use more than that. It doesn't look to me like it's hitting the GPU for very much at all of what it does, which suggests to me that it might not be tuned well for an abundance of hardware resources
Sure, but I do own a newer desktop platform, the R9 5900x, which is objectively no slouch in overall performance itself. For lightly-threaded workloads, it can be ~20% faster, but it's not more appreciatively productive than the Threadripper because I can do both video and photo editing at the same time, and IMO neither AMD nor Intel's current-gen options are making me leap up and slap together anything newer.
I'd like to see a new enthusiast platform, but Intel has seemingly dropped that option and Zen 4 Threadrippers aren't really available cheap or used yet and IMO ALSO aren't so much faster that I'm willing to consider the investment. So yes, I'm waiting for something newer at this point.
An RF 200-500/4 is in the works. It's rather a bummer because the lens has no internal 1.4x TC and of course there will be no further 500/4 lenses.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
What's the application for that particular range?
I completely understand the 100 - 300/2.8 as a sport lens but 200 is too long for sport and too short for wildlife. Is it entirely meant for the teleconverter?
I completely understand the 100 - 300/2.8 as a sport lens but 200 is too long for sport and too short for wildlife. Is it entirely meant for the teleconverter?
Both 100-300/2.8 and 200-500/4 can be used for multiple purposes, including various sports. The 200-500 is basically the new 200-400/4. You used to see them on TV at sports and other events. It would be nice to have the flip-in 1.4x, but the new zoom at 500mm will probably be nearly as good as 560/5.6 with the TC and cameras have more MP than when the 200-400/4 arrived. Nature/wildlife photos make no money so Canon must be targeting sports/events, and some well-heeled amateurs will buy it.
If 500mm is not enough for most wildlife then you probably are not close enough. And of course a TC may be used if needed. I shot over 80,000 images of wildlife in January with nothing longer than the 100-500. I'm reasonably sure that the 200-500/4 will still be really fine with a 1.4x at 45MP. I don't think it will be as good as the 500/4 IS II with a TC, especially a 2x or when we get to >80MP FF bodies. There is some talk of a new TC with either 1.4x and 2x, or 1x-2x zooming or multi-position, or something else. I'm not seeing the 200-500/4 as being so popular with the bird photographers as a 600/4.
If 500mm is not enough for most wildlife then you probably are not close enough. And of course a TC may be used if needed. I shot over 80,000 images of wildlife in January with nothing longer than the 100-500. I'm reasonably sure that the 200-500/4 will still be really fine with a 1.4x at 45MP. I don't think it will be as good as the 500/4 IS II with a TC, especially a 2x or when we get to >80MP FF bodies. There is some talk of a new TC with either 1.4x and 2x, or 1x-2x zooming or multi-position, or something else. I'm not seeing the 200-500/4 as being so popular with the bird photographers as a 600/4.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
The only thing that's REALLY weird about it is the lack of a touchscreen. The touchscreen has been something that Canon absolutely nailed all along. It's incredibly friendly to new users like, hey, exactly the people who get $500 cameras. I'm glad to see a true low cost RF option at least.
It's daft not to have a touch screen in a consumer body like that, but so is most of everything now related to photography. Mediocrity is an aspiration and everyone is a weakling (especially in Canon). Hardly anyone prioritizes high image quality anymore.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
As a counterpoint, getting 20+ megapixels and fantastic contemporary lens designs mean that many, many people can be very well served with a relatively entry level camera, especially compared to crappy phone cameras. I'm sure that's the proper comparison point for the R100.
I'm pretty sure that Canon's marketing did the research studies a couple of years ago to find the right products.
I also think that having the R100 at $600 w/lens and the R50 at $800 w/lens many will be steered towards the latter.
Now I hope Canon has enough of the croppers and gets to work on replacing the R5 and giving us an R1 or something like that.
I also think that having the R100 at $600 w/lens and the R50 at $800 w/lens many will be steered towards the latter.
Now I hope Canon has enough of the croppers and gets to work on replacing the R5 and giving us an R1 or something like that.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
The thing that gets sold in a Wal-Mart or Best Buy will sell 100x more than the $3000+ bodies that get paired with $2500 RF lenses. Those places only have the kit lenses and MAYBE the RF 50/1.8 as available options, too. I look at the low-cost options as improving the floor of what we see in new cameras, and that's really not a bad thing.
I don't think there is so much of the cheap stuff supporting the good stuff like 10-15 years ago before the Iphone ruined everything.
Each line will have to be profitable by itself.
Going into 2H23 Canon is behind the curve on the good stuff. Nikon and S*ny each have two cameras that are better in significant ways than anything Canon has. This has not been the case over the past 20 years since digital SLRs became a consumer product.
Each line will have to be profitable by itself.
Going into 2H23 Canon is behind the curve on the good stuff. Nikon and S*ny each have two cameras that are better in significant ways than anything Canon has. This has not been the case over the past 20 years since digital SLRs became a consumer product.
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Fatwah on Western Digital
To its credit, Canon also has a full line of pro lenses AND a decent range of long zooms and most of the stuff that's still on its roadmap are pretty niche. Sony doesn't really do long zooms and Nikon doesn't have much in the way of fast primes in Z mount, unless you really want a 50/1.2. Yes, a Nikon Z8 or Z9 is (mostly) a better camera than a Canon R3 or R5, but Nikon isn't there yet with its fast prime game. That R5 is plenty of camera for as a placeholder for whatever flagship device.
I'm not the target market for flagship cameras either way. I'm very happy that the feature sets of the R6 and R7 were well within my price range.
I'm not the target market for flagship cameras either way. I'm very happy that the feature sets of the R6 and R7 were well within my price range.
I'm really debating, but may opt to use the Sony 200-600 in a boat since I cannot easily change lenses. Maybe if the R7 did not have that crappy, slow sensor and shutter shock, I'd have more confidence in it on the 100-500.
There are plenty of really good Nikkor Z primes like the 400/2.8 TC, 600/4 TC, 800/6.3 PF, and 400/4.5 PF.
Meanwhile Canon has no known new tele primes coming. The RF 400/2.8 and 600/4 are the updated EF III lenses with RF mount and minor changes to electronics. IQ is up to contemporary standards as expected with 2018 optics, but older mechanics and lack of internal TCs are drawbacks. The 100-300/2.8 is shipping this week, but too short for me. Who knows when there will be a 200-500/4, but I would like one.
There are plenty of really good Nikkor Z primes like the 400/2.8 TC, 600/4 TC, 800/6.3 PF, and 400/4.5 PF.
Meanwhile Canon has no known new tele primes coming. The RF 400/2.8 and 600/4 are the updated EF III lenses with RF mount and minor changes to electronics. IQ is up to contemporary standards as expected with 2018 optics, but older mechanics and lack of internal TCs are drawbacks. The 100-300/2.8 is shipping this week, but too short for me. Who knows when there will be a 200-500/4, but I would like one.