Canon 80D Exposure

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Realistic saturation levels with very good hue accuracy.

Saturation. The Canon 80D produces images with saturation levels that are slightly less pumped than most cameras at default settings. Dark reds are boosted the most, with orange, dark greens and dark blues pushed a little, while cyans, yellow and light green are slightly muted. The mean saturation of 106.7% (6.7% oversaturated) at base ISO is a little lower than average these days. Mean saturation is fairly stable across the ISO range, though, varying from a maximum of 106.8% at ISOs 400 and 800 to a minimum of 103.1% at ISO 16,000. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. The Canon 80D produces fairly pleasing, natural-looking Caucasian skin tones in our tests when using auto white balance. Darker skin tones show a small nudge toward orange, but lighter tones are more pinkish. Good results overall, but a little warm. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. As we've come to expect from Canon, the 80D's hue accuracy is very good when manual white balance is used (as it always is for these results), and is much better than average. There are the usual shifts in cyan toward blue (though actually quite small), red toward orange, orange toward yellow and yellow to green, but all are fairly minor. Average "delta-C" color error at base ISO is 3.8 which is better than average. Delta-C color error increases with sensitivity, but remains better than average even at the highest ISOs. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Auto and Incandescent settings both struggled with household incandescent lighting, though Manual white balance worked well. Slightly higher than average exposure compensation required.

Indoors, under incandescent lighting, the Canon 80D's default Auto and Incandescent white balance settings struggled, producing very warm reddish or orange/yellow color casts. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon among cameras we've tested, but disappointing nonetheless. The Canon 80D does however have a White Priority option for Auto white balance that should result in more neutral color balance, however we did not test that mode in the lab. The Manual setting produced accurate results, though. The Canon 80D required +0.7 EV exposure compensation for this shot, which is slightly higher than the +0.3 EV average among the cameras we've tested. (Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.)

Outdoors, daylight
Good color, though with somewhat high contrast under harsh lighting. Average exposure accuracy.

Outdoors, the Canon 80D tended toward a slightly warm color balance with Auto WB, though overall color is generally good. The Canon 80D required +0.7 EV exposure compensation to keep the mannequin's face bright, about average for our"Sunlit" portrait shot. The Canon 80D's default contrast is a little high, producing some washed-out highlights and dark shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of the shot above left, though the camera's Auto Lighting Optimizer and Highlight Tone Priority settings help with high contrast scenes like these. See below for examples of this. The Far-field shot (above right) is a bit cool, but exposure is quite good with the camera only blowing out a few highlights, though there are some deep shadows which are fairly clean but discolored.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
~2,700 lines of strong detail from JPEGs a bit more from RAW.

Our laboratory resolution chart showed sharp, distinct line patterns up to just over 2,700 lines per picture height horizontally and to about 2,700 lines vertically. Some may argue for higher numbers, but lines begin to merge at this resolution, and some aliasing artifacts in the form of moiré patterns can be seen as low as 2,300 lines. Extinction of the pattern occurred at just over 3,400 lines. An Adobe Camera Raw converted .CR2 file shows similar resolution as the in-camera JPEG, just a bit more, though complete extinction of the pattern was extended to just over 3,600 lines. While ACR was able to extract a bit more detail, it also produced more moiré and false colors. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Slightly soft images with default sharpening, but with noticeable sharpening artifacts. Minor to moderate detail loss due to noise reduction processing even at low ISOs.

Sharpness. The Canon 80D's 24-megapixel sensor captures very good image detail when coupled with a sharp lens, though default JPEG images are a bit soft. (Keep in mind Canon has decided to keep an optical low-pass filter in the 80D to reduce aliasing artifacts at the cost of slightly reduced sharpness, unlike most competing models which have gone the other way.) Despite the somewhat soft images, the 80D's default sharpening setting generates visible edge-enhancement artifacts in the form of obvious sharpening halos around high-contrast edges, as shown in the crop above left. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows some detail loss due to noise suppression in darker areas and in areas with low contrast, perhaps just a little more than we're accustomed to seeing from a digital SLR at base ISO. Still, not a bad performance for a 24-megapixel APS-C model, with very low chroma noise. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

In-Camera JPEGs: Standard vs Fine Detail Picture Style setting
The Canon 80D is the third EOS DSLR to offer the new Fine Detail Picture Style first seen on the Canon 5DS R and 5DS. Below is a comparison with the default Standard Picture Style.

In the table above, we compare the Canon 80D's default Standard Picture Style setting (left) to its new Fine Detail preset at base ISO. Like the 5DS/R, the Canon 80D offers users much more flexibility in sharpening than other EOS models, allowing you to adjust not only the "Strength" (from 0 to 7) but also the "Fineness" (1 to 5) and "Threshold" (1 to 5) operators. We believe these parameters correlate to unsharp mask options for strength, radius and threshold available in photo editing software such as Photoshop, although we don't know what the equivalent units might be.

The Fine Detail Picture Style preset boosts the Sharpness Strength operator one notch (to 4 out of 7) while dialing down the Fineness (1/5) and Threshold (1/5) operators to their minimum compared to Standard which defaults to Sharpness: 3/7, Fineness: 4/5 and Threshold: 4/5. The result is improved, more natural-looking rendering of fine detail along with less obvious sharpening halos than the default Standard setting. However, noise is more visible in flatter areas, and contrast is lower, making the Fine Detail image appear to have less "pop". There also appear to be minor differences in color, even though Color Tone, Saturation and Contrast settings are identical between these two Picture Styles presets. Given the flexibility in settings, though, you may be able to find a better combination than the defaults compared above.

RAW vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above the Canon 80D produces JPEG images with very good detail, but that are somewhat soft with visible sharpening halos. With a good RAW converter, additional detail can often be extracted with fewer sharpening artifacts. See below:

In the table above, we compare a best quality in-camera JPEG taken at base ISO using default noise reduction and sharpening (on the left) to the matching RAW file converted with Adobe Camera Raw 9.1 via DNG Converter 9.6 using default noise reduction with some strong but tight unsharp masking applied in Photoshop (300%, radius of 0.3 pixels, and a threshold of 0).

Looking closely at the images, we can see ACR extracts additional detail that isn't present in the default JPEG from the camera, particularly in the red-leaf and pink swatches where the fine thread pattern is likely treated as noise by the JPEG engine. Fine detail in the mosaic crop is also improved, but as is often the case, the conversion isn't as clean and smooth looking, with more noise that can be seen for instance in the flatter areas of the bottle crop. You can of course apply stronger noise reduction (default ACR NR used here) to arrive at your ideal noise versus detail tradeoff. And, as expected, sharpening halos aren't nearly as strong as the default camera output. Still, not bad in-camera default JPEG processing, but as usual you can do noticeably better by shooting in RAW mode and using a good RAW converter.

ISO & Noise Performance
Good high ISO performance for a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor.

Images are clean and detailed up to ISO 800, with a only a minor loss in image quality as ISO rises within this range, though signs of noise reduction are visible even at base ISO. At ISO 1600 luminance noise and blurring become noticeably stronger resulting in a more evident drop in image quality, though fine detail is still pretty good and chroma noise is well-controlled. ISO 3200 is quite a bit grainier with only minor chroma noise, but there is still some fine detail left. ISO 6400 is quite grainy, but the grain is still fairly tight and not too obtrusive, and chroma noise remains under control. Noise and the effects of noise reduction working hard to keep it under control really become apparent at ISOs 12,800 and above, with heavier luminance noise, stronger blurring and more visible chroma noise. Chroma noise is better controlled than its predecessor, the 70D, however a slight reduction in fine detail is a consequence.

See the Print Quality section below (when available) for our evaluation of maximum print sizes at each ISO setting.

A note about focus for this shot: We used to shoot this image at f/4, however depth of field became so shallow with larger, high-resolution sensors that it was difficult to keep important areas of this shot in focus, so we have since started shooting at f/8, the best compromise between depth of field and sharpness.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range and low light tests
Somewhat high default contrast with unremarkable dynamic range in JPEGs, however HTP and ALO options do a great job of dealing with tough lighting. Very good low-light performance, though conventional autofocus didn't work in as low light as we'd hoped.

The Canon 80D produces images with moderately high contrast with some washed-out highlights and deep shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of the test shots above. The mannequin's face was too dim at the default and +0.3 EV settings and too many highlights were blown with +1.0 EV, so we preferred the image with +0.7 EV exposure compensation. This resulted in some clipped highlights in the shirt and flowers, a bit more than we're used to seeing from an APS-C sensor lately, indicating mediocre use of available dynamic range compared to the best of recent competitors. Shadow detail is however very good, with noticeably lower noise levels compared to its predecessor. Bottom line: While the Canon 80D's default tone curve still results is more clipped highlights than we'd like to see in this shot, its improved sensor delivers lower noise in the shadows, which results in better usable dynamic range when working with RAW files.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here. In actual shooting conditions, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown here; it's better to shoot in open shade whenever possible.)

Face Detection
Just like most point & shoot cameras these days, the Canon 80D has the ability to detect faces in Live View mode, and adjust exposure and focus accordingly.

As you can see from the examples above, face detection helped with exposure, as the center image with face detection enabled is better exposed for the face than the left image where face detection was not employed, though results are still a bit dim. Full Auto mode (right) was a slight improvement, selecting a larger aperture than we normally use for this shot (f/2.8 vs f/8) and applying Auto Lighting Optimization (see below), though the mannequin's face is still a bit too dim.

Highlight Tone Priority
The Canon 80D's Highlight Tone Priority (HTP) option did an excellent job of preserving highlight detail, though shadows were also affected, as shown below. (Mouse over the Off and On links to load the corresponding thumbnail, histogram and crops.)

Both shots above were captured at the same exposure, the only difference being that HTP was enabled for the second shot which necessarily increases the ISO to 200; part of how HTP works. Although not many highlights were blown at default exposure, the result is still evident in the histograms and thumbnails above, clearly showing the superior highlight preservation when HTP is enabled, though shadow brightness is also affected somewhat. If you look closely at shadows (the levels in shadow crops above are heavily boosted to reveal noise that would be difficult to see otherwise), you'll notice an increase in noise is the price you pay when ISO is boosted from 100 to 200, though as mentioned previously, noise in the shadows has improved over the 70D.

Above you can see Highlight Tone Priority at work in our Far-field shot. As expected, highlights are toned-down preserving the few that were lost without HTP enabled, but interestingly, midtones and lighter shadows were boosted.

Automatic Lighting Optimization
Like previous Canon EOS models, the 80D offers three selectable levels of Automatic Lighting Optimization (ALO), plus Off. In fully automatic (Scene Intelligent Auto) ALO is automatically enabled and it's available in P, Tv and Av exposure modes. Mouse over the links below to load the associated thumbnail and histogram, and click on the links to load full resolution images.

As you can see above, ALO has the effect of shifting shadows and mid-tones in the histograms to the right, brightening them while leaving highlights pretty much as is, though even the High setting still produced an underexposed image. ISO is not boosted for ALO so increased noise is not an issue, though it may be slightly more visible in shadows that have been boosted significantly.

Above is the effect of ALO on our Far-field shot. As you can see, it operates mainly on the shadows and midtones, leaving highlights pretty much intact, though a few additional highlights were blown.

HDR Backlight Control
The Canon 80D's HDR feature takes three continuous shots at different exposures and merges them together to create an image with wider tonal range than would be possible with a single exposure. There are three strength settings available (+/-1EV, +/-2EV,+/-3EV), plus Auto. The source images captured are not saved, and RAW mode is not supported. (Mouse over the links below to load the corresponding thumbnail.)

Unfortunately, this isn't a good example because of the dim default exposure, but you can still see the HDR shots have improved dynamic range with compressed highlights and shadows. Do however note that a significant part of the image has been cropped away in the alignment process, and that the resulting images aren't quite as detailed overall, because the cropped image is resampled to full resolution.

And here are the results with our Far-field scene, which makes a much better example. Be aware that ghosting can occur when elements of the scene move during the sequence capture, as can be seen with the moving flag, leaves and people in some of these shots.

Dynamic Range Analysis (RAW mode)
While we once performed our own dynamic range measurements based on in-camera JPEGs as well as converted RAW images (when the camera was supported by Adobe Camera Raw), we've switched to using DxO Labs' results from their DxOMark website. As technology advanced, the dynamic range of modern high-end cameras in some cases exceeded the range of the Stouffer T4110 density scale that we used for our own measurements. DxO's approach based on RAW data before demosaicing is also more revealing, because it measures the fundamental dynamic range of the sensor, irrespective of whatever processing is applied to JPEGs, or to RAW data by off-the-shelf conversion software.

In the following, we use DxO's "Print" dynamic range results, which are scaled based on camera resolution. As the name suggests, this scaling corresponds to the situation in which you print at a given size, regardless of how many megapixels the camera might have. (In other words, if you've decided to make a 13x19 inch print, that's the size you're printing, whether the camera's resolution is 16 or 300 megapixels.) For the technically-minded, you can find a discussion of the reasoning behind this here on the DxOMark website. Also note that DxO Labs uses a signal-to-noise (SNR) threshold of 1 when defining the lower boundary of acceptable luminance noise in their dynamic range measurements, which corresponds to the "Low Quality" threshold of the Imatest software we used to use for this measurement.

Here, we decided to compare the Canon 80D's dynamic range to its predecessor, the 70D, and also to its closest competitor, the Nikon D7200. You can always compare other models on DxOMark.com.

As you can see from the above graph (click for a larger version), the Canon 80D's dynamic range is markedly improved over the 70D at low ISOs, with a peak of about 13.2 EV versus 11.6 at base ISO, but notice that ISO 100 measured significantly lower on the 80D (ISO 64 vs 93) which likely results in lower noise. Dynamic range is however almost identical to its predecessor at about ISO 800 and above. Still, it's a welcomed improvement at lower ISOs.

The Canon 80D's dynamic range still lags behind the class-leading Nikon D7200 significantly, though, except at the top ISO where they are essentially matched at about 6.5 EV. At base ISO, the D7200's advantage is a remarkable 1.4 EV, however the Nikon's advantage gradually drops to under 1 EV as sensitivity rises, though that's still significant.

Click here to visit the DxOMark page for the Canon 80D for more of their test results and additional comparisons.

Low Light
The Canon 80D performed well in our low-light tests, capturing bright images at the lowest light level (1/16 foot-candle), even with the lowest sensitivity setting (ISO 100). As expected, noise increases as ISO goes up and light levels go down, but luminance noise remains fairly low and fine-grained at ISO 3200, and chroma noise is well-controlled by default noise reduction. As you'd expect, noise is high at the maximum ISO of 25,600, particularly when noise reduction is minimized (extreme right column in the table above).

We didn't notice any hot pixels except when long-exposure noise reduction was disabled, where you'd expect to see them. We didn't see any signs of heat blooming. and banding (fixed pattern noise) as well as random noise appear to be very low in very deep shadows, a welcome improvement over the 70D, though noise in the shadows is still not as low as some competing models.

Color balance was fairly neutral with Canon 80D's Auto white balance setting, just a touch cool at the higher light level, but warming up at lower.

AF low-light limit: In-spec but disappointing
When using the optical viewfinder with dedicated phase-detect AF (center point), the Canon 80D's autofocus system was able to focus on our test target down to just above 1/8 foot-candle (-0.9 EV) unassisted with an f/2.8 lens. This is a little disappointing, but we got very similar results when we tested the 7D Mark II which uses a similar AF system. The Canon 80D was however able to focus in complete darkness with AF assist enabled. In Live View mode with Dual-Pixel AF, the Canon 80D was actually able to autofocus in a bit lower light, to below the 1/8 foot-candle light level (-1.4 EV) with an f/2.8 lens. That's very good for a DSLR in Live View mode.

We decided to dig deeper to confirm our findings and check whether the 80D's dedicated phase-detect AF system was actually in-spec, but first a little background info: To make our AF tests more relevant to real-world conditions, we've always used a pattern of grey cross-hatched lines against a white background rather than a target with full black/white transitions in it. Whether phase-detect or contrast-detect, higher-contrast objects are easy for cameras to focus on, so we felt that using a lower-contrast target would give a better representation of how cameras would perform outside of the lab. We also test using an f/2.8 lens, feeling that's a happy medium between very fast primes and slower variable-aperture zoom lenses.

Like we found with the 7D Mark II not being able to focus as low as its predecessor despite identical low-light AF spec improvements, we were a little surprised when we initially tested the 80D's low-light autofocus limit and found that it was a good bit worse than we measured for the 70D. The 70D's AF is rated down to -0.5 EV, while that of the 80D is specified to work down to a level of -3.0 EV, which is very dark indeed. Instead, across a number of tests with three different lenses, we found that the 80D was only able to focus down to about -0.8 to -0.9 EV, far short of its -3.0 EV spec. In comparison, the 70D focused down to -1.3 EV, even though it's only specified as being able to focus to -0.5 EV.

We didn't have the 70D in-house any more, but did have our samples of the T6s and T6i on hand, and their AF system is rated to -0.5 EV, the same as the 70D's. Earlier testing had showed these bodies low-light AF performance as fairly similar to that of the 70D, actually running a few tenths of an EV better, at -1.5 EV or so.

Wanting to triple-check our numbers, we tested the T6s and T6i at the same time and with the same setup as the 80D, using both the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lenses on all three bodies. While the AF system in the T6s and T6i is rated down to -0.5 EV, we found both cameras could focus with the 16-35mm down to -1.5 to -1.6 EV, and with the 24-70mm down to -1.7 or -1.8 EV. The best we managed out of the 80D in identical circumstances was -0.9 EV.

Before we called out the 80D as not meeting spec, though, we ran some further tests with a sharp black/white edge instead of the grey crosshatch target, and the increased target contrast did indeed let it focus reliably down to -3.0 EV.

So thus we arrive at the section heading above. The 80D's autofocus can indeed focus down to a light level of -3.0 EV if given a clean, high-contrast black and white target to focus on, but we were nonetheless disappointed that it didn't do as well as some other Canon bodies we've tested (including some much cheaper consumer-grade ones), when faced with a lower-contrast subject.

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Digital SLRs like the Canon 80D do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

Print Quality
High-quality prints up to 30 x 40 inches at ISO 100-400; Nice 13 x 19 inch prints at ISO 3200; and 4 x 6 inch prints at ISO 25,600.

ISO 100-400 images all look practically identical with lots of fine detail and pleasing, vibrant colors. The Canon 80D's new 24-megapixel sensor allows prints in this range of ISOs to climb all the way up to an impressive 30 x 40 inches. At this large print size, we see some extremely minor pixelation upon close inspection, as we're hitting the limit of the sensor's resolution. However, from a normal viewing distance for a print of this size, it looks very good. At these ISOs, you're really only limited by how much you want to push the 24MP sensor's resolution should you wish to print larger sizes.

ISO 800 prints still look good at 30 x 40 inches, however, we can see that a subtle increase in shadow noise has become more apparent at this sensitivity, making a 20 x 30 inch print the largest size we're willing to accept. That said, the colors and detail are still very good, so a 24 x 36 print could do well for less critical applications or with careful post-processing.

ISO 1600 images, as expected, display slightly stronger noise than the previous ISO. However, noise still looks very well controlled and has a more fine-grained appearance, which allows for nice prints up to 16 x 20 inches. At this size, prints show an acceptable noise level and lots of fine detail and pleasing colors.

ISO 3200 prints do nicely up until 13 x 19 inches. Colors are still vibrant and pleasing, but noise is making more of an impact on fine detail. Noise is still, however, mainly visible in the shadows, and high contrast detail still looks great.

ISO 6400 images show a noticeable increase in noise, and for print sizes larger than 8 x 10 inches, the drop in detail and stronger visible noise becomes an issue.

ISO 12,800 and 16,000 prints both look very similar in terms of detail and noise characteristics. Noise does have a noticeable impact on detail with larger print sizes, but at both ISO levels, the 80D produces usable 5 x 7 inch prints.

ISO 25,600 images manage to squeak out a nice 4 x 6 print. Colors still look good, and there's just enough detail to make a decent print at this size.

Making the jump from the 20-megapixel 70D to an all-new 24-megapixel APS-C sensor, the new mid-range Canon 80D produces an impressive performance in the print department. Prints from ISO 100 - 400 look virtually identical with lots of fine detail and pleasing colors, which allow for very large prints up to 30 x 40 inches -- or however large you're willing to push the resolving power of the sensor. Towards the middle ISO sensitivity levels, the 80D still does very well at controlling noise and striking a good balance between NR processing and fine detail. At ISO 3200, the Canon 80D manages a nice 13 x 19 inch print, and even at the top of the ISO scale, this new enthusiast DSLR achieves a usable 4 x 6 at ISO 25,600.