Photography News | Issue 36 | absolutephoto.com
Camera test 37
With ISO speeds available now into the millions, the EOS 80D’s top native ISO of 16,000 is decidedly modest and if youwant a DSLRwith a cutting-edge top ISO Canon has other models in its range for you. The EOS 80D’s 16,000 top speed can be boosted slightly further to ISO 25,600 but that is only two thirds of an f/stop more. So super high ISO shooting is not on this camera’s agenda. That said, what’s available is very usable. This set of images taken using a tripod-mounted camera and the 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom was taken during twilight with the Kenro Travel Tripod 2 tested elsewhere in this issue. The base ISO 100 exposure was 5secs at f/8. All noise reduction was switched off for this test and the Raw files were processed in Lightroom with default settings so they can be easily improved further. Performance: ISO
Original image
Images are clean up to ISO 400 and that speed is fine for critical work although there is evidence of colour noise that some work in software should resolve. Noise levels then climb and even by ISO 800 it is evident in areas of mid-tone and shadows. The impact of fine detail looks minimal though despite the higher noise. Personally ISO 2000 is about the limit for me. It is quite coarse at this point but has a filmic feel. Beyond that images look coarse and the blotches of red and green colour noise are off-putting. In summary, the EOS 80D has a respectable ISO performance particularly at the lower settings up to 800 but this no more than you’d expect from a recently introduced DSLR. Once you start to ascend the speed scale, though, its showing is less impressive compared with the best around today.
ISO 100
ISO 800
ISO 1600
ISO 3200
ISO 6400
ISO 12,800
ISO 16,000
ISO 25,600
1600 no NR
6400 no NR
12,800 no NR
Original image
1600 lowNR
6400 lowNR
12,800 lowNR
1600 std NR
6400 std NR
12,800 std NR
The EOS 80D has four high ISO noise reduction settings: low, standard, strong andmulti-shot. In the latter setting, four pictures are taken in rapid succession and the resulting JPEGs are processed, so this process takes a few seconds. The setting is greyed out if any Raw save option is selected. Test shots were taken at ISO 1600, 3200, 6400 and 12,800 in each of the four high ISO NR settings. The images shown here are straight-of- the-camera JPEGs. The high level of colour noise of the no NR and lowNR shots show that if you are going to shoot JPEGs at this ISO normal or strong NR is advised even though the last named does have an impact on ultimate resolution. It is no surprise that the multi-shot (ms) NR gives the most impressive pictures with a good impact on noise levels without impacting greatly on detail rendition. Performance: high ISOnoise reduction
1600 strong NR
6400 strong NR
12,800 strong NR
1600ms NR
6400ms NR
12,800ms NR
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