EPIC Dragon Achieves Highest DxOMark Rating Ever

2014.03.03

This morning, DxO unveiled stunning results from an unexpected camera, the EPIC Dragon. This is a high-end video camera which also shoots stills yet is clearly aimed at the video market. DxOMark rated the EPIC Dragon at an unprecedented 101, above the 96 achieved by the Nikon D800E.

This shows that technology already exists to deliver a substantial improvement of performance compared to digital cameras currently on the market. A breakdown of the scores, reveals that the EPIC Dragon leads in terms of Dynamic-Range and bit-depth with the former being almost 1/2 EV more than the Nikon D610 reviewed here and the latter being a full bit-per-pixel more.

Where it does fall to a respectable 10th place is in terms of low-light performance. This puts it being full-frame DSLRs and above APS-C ones. Of course, what this means is that the correlation between low-light performance and sensor-size is most significant. Exactly as expected, the laws of physics still apply!

For the consumer, this implies that large sensor cameras will still be crucial for the foreseeable future. That means that low-light performers will always be larger with correspondingly large optics. We have to hand to Sony though who keep showing that they can miniaturize better than anyone else as seen with the Sony Alpha 7R and Sony Alpha A7 which are the smallest full-frame digital cameras on the market.