Canon 6D is the Low Light Winner Over Nikon D600

In high ISO video tests, the Nikon D600 was at least 2-stops behind the Canon 6D. © Michael Andrew

Early reviews were a disappointment to many Canon users: Both cameras are entry-level, full-frame sensor cameras in the $2,000 price range. When the Canon EOS 6D finally came out in December 2012, following the Nikon D600's flashy entry in September 2012, many Canon users were somewhat disappointed. The Canon has fewer mega pixels: 20MP verses the Nikon's 24MP. It has only 11 focusing squares verses the Nikon's 39. The Nikon has a built-in flash, and the Canon does not. The Canon shoots at 4.5 frames per second in burst mode compared to Nikon's 5.5 frames/second. The Nikon can do focus tracking in live view, but the Canon cannot. Nikon has a wireless transmitter and a headphone jack, and the Canon does not. The Nikon's shutter is duty-rated at 150K cycles, whereas the Canon is only rated at 100K cycles. The Canon does have a cool Wi-Fi tethering feature though, that the Nikon does not.

Specs on paper don't always translate to real world shooting experiences: Michael Andrew has recently produced a YouTube video that provides one of the best and most unbiased field reviews of these two cameras I have seen. It's called the, "Nikon D600 vs Canon 6D Epic Shootout Comparison". Michael concludes that the Nikon D600 is still a slightly better all-around full-frame camera than the Canon 6D, but not by as much as some had suspected.

At high ISOs, the Nikon D600 often exhibits excessive noise in the shadow areas. © Michael Andrew

Low Light Leader: What will surprise many is how much better the Canon 6D performs in low light over the Nikon D600. Michael concludes that "…the Canon 6D is outstanding in its low light focusing and its high ISO noise …the Canon 6D is at least 2-stops better than the Nikon D600 [in its handling of high ISO noise for video] …the Nikon D600 peaked out a little before ISO 3200, whereas the Canon looks pretty phenomenal even at ISO 12,800—and in some cases even ISO 25,600."

High ISO JPEGs and RAW images: In still photos, Michael concluded that, "...the Canon 6D is 1-2 stops better in reproducing high ISO images than the Nikon D600, depending on the subject and file type."

The Canon 6D's high ISO JPEG performance was about 1 to 2 stops better than the Nikon D600. © Michael Andrew

How does the Canon 6D compare to the Canon 5D Mark III? The observations of this editor indicate that for still photos, the Canon 6D and 5D Mark III sensors perform very similarly. The $1,500 savings between the two cameras should be quite attractive to the entry-level photographer looking to find a great full-frame camera for high ISO night photography.

However, Michael Andrew points out in his review that there is a reason the Mark III has a very good reputation for professional quality video. His test showed that the Mark III handled aliasing and moire much better than the other two cameras. In his conclusion, the Nikon D600 had the best dynamic range. It's weaknesses were high ISO noise, moire, and aliasing. The Canon 6D had the best quality in high ISO noise (almost identical to the Mark III). Its weaknesses were in aliasing and moire. The Canon 5D Mark III had the least aliasing and moire, and was similar to the 6D in good quality high ISO noise. Its weakness is its high price (about $3,500).

Michael Andrew (aka Michael the Maven) has great "Crash Course" training videos on many camera models at his popular blog.

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POTW: "The Coyote Calls" by Ted Gore

"The Coyote Calls" - Alabama Hills, California Eastern Sierra ~ © Ted Gore (click for a larger view)

"I was shooting this and heard... THIS!" says Ted. "...Scared the bajeezus outta me!

Our Photo of the Week (POTW) was taken by Ted Gore in the Alabama Hills of California's Eastern Sierra. This was taken just around 4:00 AM to catch the rising of the Milky Way just above the rocky mounds. It's this time of year when one can catch the summer constellations low on the horizon, in the early morning. Ted had also planned to be able to catch the rising moon as well. The sunrise came from the same direction, about an hour after that.

"It was quite the party!" says Ted. If you look closely, the moon is actually a crescent moon, but in clear, less light polluted skies, the dark side reflects it's share of light as well. A little bit of glow on the horizon is a combination of the town of Lone Pine, the moon and the soon to rise sun.

Ted photographed this with a Nikon D600 and a 17mm lens. He took three shots, which were blended together in post: one for sky @ ISO 5000, f/2.8, 20 seconds; a second, longer exposure for the foreground; and a third, shorter exposure for the moon, so it wasn't a bright blobby mess.

Ted Gore lives and works in Los Angeles, California as a motion graphic designer, which pays his bills and funds his passion of landscape photography. He takes a slight artistic and fanciful approach to his images, as he likes to present the image in a way that evokes the grandeur and beauty of the moment. More of Ted's work can be seen at his 500px and Facebook pages.

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New Entry-level Full-frame Cameras Lower the Cost for High ISO Night Photography

Delicate Arch by Florian Schultz ~ taken with the Nikon D600 @ ISO 3200

Nikon D600

Canon EOS 6D

Nikon and Canon recently announced two new entry-level, full-frame DSLR cameras that will significantly lower the cost for photographers wanting to enter into the field of doing quality, high ISO night photography. Both the Nikon D600 (released on September 13, 2012) and the Canon EOS 6D (to be released in December 2012) are priced in the U.S.A. at about $2,100. This makes the Nikon D600 about $900 less than the popular D800, and the Canon EOS 6D about $1,400 less than the 5D Mark III. Full-frame image sensors typically produce less image noise than smaller sensors because each pixel in the sensor array is larger and can capture more light, producing a lower signal-to-noise ratio.

Nikon D600 Sensor is Comparable to the D800: The Nikon D600 has a new 24.3-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor. Nikon says the camera's 14-bit A/D conversion and excellent signal-to-noise ratio enable it to produce images with low noise and wide dynamic range even at high ISO sensitivities. The D600 offers an ISO range of 100–6400, extendable up to 25,600. Recent tests by DXO Labs rate the Nikon D600's sensor higher than the Nikon D3X, Nikon D4, Canon EOS 5D Mark III, and only slightly less than the Nikon D800! It will be interesting to see how well the Canon EOS 6D performs in these same tests after its release in December. (I agree with DxO's conclusion about the D600's sensor performing just slightly below the D800, but I'm not sure I agree that both sensors perform better than the Canon 5D Mark III. This leads me to the belief that the Canon 6D sensor may actually perform better than the Nikon D600 when all the tests are in (see below)).

This shows cropped detail of the top photo (click for an enlargement at 100%)

Examine the Results for Yourself: This Nikon D600 photo was taken using a AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lens (zoomed to 15mm). The exposure was for 25 seconds @ f/2.8, ISO 3200, with the white balance color temperature set at 3,030 K. This image was taken in RAW and converted to JPEG with Capture NX 2 (you can download the 11.5 MB JPEG here). Note: the arch may appear soft (lacking in texture and detail), and that's probably because it is slightly out of focus, since the focus is set on infinity for the stars, and the f/2.8 aperture setting allows for very little depth of focus. Still, the sky has relatively little noise for an ISO of 3200! (Click here to see other sample images from the Nikon D600.)

Nikon D600 VIDEO: Photographer, Florian Schultz, and his brother, Salomon, share their experiences of testing the new Nikon D600 in a video called, "Chasing the Light" --shot entirely with the D600. Be sure to also see, "The Making of Chasing the Light" --two brothers on a road trip, in an old pick-up truck! (I was intrigued to learn that the D600 has a built-in intervalometer, and also has the ability to preview time lapse shots as a video sequence!)

Nikon D600 Preview: For the best hands-on preview go to this Digital Photograpy Review.

Canon EOS 6D Preview: Because the 6D will not be released until December, there is little information available about it at the moment. For the best hands-on preview of the Canon EOS 6D, with key specs compared to the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Nikon D600, go to this Digital Photograpy Review.

Lens Compatibility: If you are currently using a Canon camera with an APS-C size sensor and LF-S lenses, you'll also have to upgrade to LF lenses, since the LF-S lenses do not provide full-frame sensor coverage. However, the Nikon D600 FX-format camera does offers support for the complete DX NIKKOR lens lineup (with DX lenses, the camera automatically switches to a 10.5MP DX-format crop mode). One must use FX NIKKOR lenses to take advantage of the camera's full 24.3-million pixels.

My Opinion: Overall, there are several specification on the Nikon side that out-weigh the Canon specs. However, this blog is about night photography and the benefits of low noise at high ISO's.  I think either camera is going to be a smash hit for photographers wanting the higher dynamic range and lower noise of a full-frame sensor. Although the Nikon is the first entry-level full-frame camera out of the gate and with a lot of hype, I think time may show that the image quality of the Canon EOS 6D to be superior at higher ISO's. There are at least two factors that lead me to this belief:

Number One: The default standard ISO range on the Nikon D600 is 100 to 6400, whereas the Canon EOS 6D has a standard ISO range of 100 to 25600, which is two stops greater. This would indicate that the Canon has superior noise control and a higher real life dynamic range.
Number Two: Tests from other sources lead me to believe that the DxOMark Sensor Scores may not be totally reliable (as several others have commented on the DxO website). For instance, they give an overall sensor score of 94 to the Nikon D600, just one point below the Nikon D800's score of 95; and they give the Canon EOS 5D Mark III a dismal score of 81, just two points above the older Mark II's score of 79.

Test pattern at Digital Photography Review (I choose the "BA" area from the bottle of Baileys liquor)

The best comparison test I've found comes from Digital Photography Review. When you take their test chart and compare the original Nikon D600 image file @ ISO 100 with three other images taken at ISO 6400, you'll notice that the Canon EOS 5D Mark III is closer to the ISO 100 image than the other two, followed by the Nikon D800, with the Nikon D600 coming in last. Both the chroma and the luminance noise are higher in the Nikon images, especially in the shadow areas (some would say the D800 chroma noise is worse than the D600). Yet DxO rates both camera sensors considerably higher than the Mark III. It is my opinion that the Canon EOS 6D sensor will be close to the same quality as the Mark III sensor (just as the D600 is close the quality of the D800), and will therefore surpass the sensor quality of the Nikon D600. (Click to enlarge the image below.)

Choose any 3 cameras you want to compare. I chose these and an ISO of 6400 (top left is the ISO 100 control)

Another Indicator To My Above Conclusion: The size of the above JPEG files also indicate the noise quality of the images. We all know that noisier files do not compress as well (lower compression rates). For instance, the Nikon D600 JPEG control image (at ISO 100) is 11.0MB, compared to 14.5MB for the ISO 6400 JPEG file. If you do the numbers below, you can see that the Mark III has the least noise, (because its JPEG file has the highest compression rate), followed by the D800, with the D600 trailing dead last:

   CAMERA FILE        PIXEL SIZE       UNCOMPRESSED / COMPRESSED      COMPRESSION RATIO
   Canon 5D Mk3 file: 5760 x 3840 pixels =  63.28MB /  8.4MB JPEG  =  7.53:1 compression
   Nikon D800 file:   7360 x 4912 pixels = 103.43MB / 18.8MB JPEG  =  5.50:1 compression
   Nikon D600 file:   6016 x 4016 pixels =  69.12MB / 14.5MB JPEG  =  4.77:1 compression