1D Mark II

[koffiejunkie]

I have used DxoMark previously simply to look at camera review not to compare them. I understand the general rating system but not too certain about the Low-Light ISO rating and the dynamic range ratings, would someone be so kind as to explain to me what exactly these to mean. I understand low light means you may need to up the ISO level, but don't quite understand a rating like 854 ISO for the 7D. What exactly does that mean.

The 854 is a score, not a measurement. It's meant as a way to compare cameras from different systems.

There are a lot of criticism for the DxO benchmarks on the dpreview forums - a lot of people think it's flawed for reasons that I don't quite understand. To me it's just a reference against a common base-line, and useful to get a rough idea of what to expect. As far as I understand it measures only the sensor (not sure how), not the camera, so it's only one aspect.

 

[Logo]

The 854 is a score, not a measurement. It's meant as a way to compare cameras from different systems.

There are a lot of criticism for the DxO benchmarks on the dpreview forums - a lot of people think it's flawed for reasons that I don't quite understand. To me it's just a reference against a common base-line, and useful to get a rough idea of what to expect. As far as I understand it measures only the sensor (not sure how), not the camera, so it's only one aspect.

Thanks that makes sense, but is a lower or higher score better.

I agree it doesn't really matter how flawed the tests are just as long as the tests are the same for all the cameras.

 

[fvdbergh]

Thanks that makes sense, but is a lower or higher score better.

DxO "Low light score" is an interpolated ISO value that would yield a given image quality. Specifically, they fix the signal-to-noise ratio they want to achieve in an image, and then work out what ISO the camera would have to be set at to achieve that SNR ratio.

This means higher values are better, since you can use a higher ISO value while maintaining the same "acceptable" noise level.

For example, the 7D gets a DxO low light score of 854, and the Nikon D7000 a score of 1167. This makes perfect sense, since the D7000 is generally considered to have very low noise levels. Of course, this does not mean that the D7000 is necessarily a better sports camera than the 7D ...