7DII and D400 Specs

[Hobby Shooter]

I just love speculating that the 7D 2 will be APS-H to see the APS-C crowd reactions

it's like a wind up toy that you wind up and let go and they bounce around all over the place make lots of noise then calm down eventually... until you wind them up again!

But seriously, forgive me for my ignorance, I know you like the APS-H, but are there any particular benefits of the 1.3 crop factor compared to the 1.6 or FF? Or is it a connoisseur thing?

APS-H is a nice middle ground; better IQ than 1.6, better reach than FF. On the other hand, its worse IQ than FF and worse reach than crop.

Now FF isn't only a production reality (there were no FF cameras around when Canon introduced the APS-H 1D classic), but it is also capable of very fast frame rates in the shape of the 1D X. And APS-C has an advantage over APS-H other than reach; native lenses.

Ah thanks for explaining. So EF-S lenses don't fit on APS-H Canon cameras?

[insanitybeard]

Ah thanks for explaining. So EF-S lenses don't fit on APS-H Canon cameras?

No, EF-S lenses can only be used with APS-C crop sensors- the image circle they produce isn't large enough to cover the larger sensor formats. That and the fact that there is an extended 'cap' at the rear of EF-S lenses that projects further back into the mirror box than on full frame EF lenses- if used on a full frame or APS-H sensor the mirror would collide with the back of the lens and not be able to flip up fully out of the way. Having said that..... people have modified some EF-S lenses (10-22 springs to mind) and removed the rear 'cap' and possibly made some other modifications and then used the lens on larger sensor format bodies- in the case of the 10-22 I recall reading you could only use it down to about 14mm at the wide end before either severe vignetting occurred or the mirror collided with the rear lens element!

[AprilForever]

There is an interesting letter over on DPReview http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3387936#forum-post-50901841 that purports to be from Nikon Europe that unequivocally states that the D7100 will not be Nikon's flagship APS-C format camera.

On paper, the D7100 is impressive. If Canon responds with something close in the 70D, it makes me wonder what they'll put in the 7DII.  I'm not sure the current rumored spec list for the 7DII would be sufficient to justify an $800 difference in cost.

On the other hand, I keep wondering if the 70D and 7DII will share the same sensors (Or for that matter, if the D7100 and D400 will as well). There is a part of me that thinks Canon may differentiate the two by offering slightly fewer megapixels but better low-light performance in the 7D, as they have done with the ID-X.

Hard to say. I just thought the letter was interesting and worth starting a thread for people to consider what it might mean for the 70D and 7DII.

I think it is very obvious from the specs of the D7000 and D7100 that neither are contenders for the D300/D300s line of cameras. Saying that they are makes about as much sense as calling the 70D the successor to the 7DII if the 70D comes out before the 7DII.

But whats weird is that I saw an official Nikon description of it calling it the new DX flagship. Simply poor communication on the part of marketing, or are they trying to nuke  the D300 thang?

[CarlTN]

Didn't the D300 go out of production a while ago?  I assumed Nikon had moved its Dx sensor camera nomenclature to Dxxxx to differentiate them from the full frame line.  D400 and D600 aren't numerically that far apart.  When the D300 came to market, there was no Dxxxx nomenclature, there was only the D40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.

[Rienzphotoz]

Didn't the D300 go out of production a while ago?  I assumed Nikon had moved its Dx sensor camera nomenclature to Dxxxx to differentiate them from the full frame line.  D400 and D600 aren't numerically that far apart.  When the D300 came to market, there was no Dxxxx nomenclature, there was only the D40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.

Good point

[rs]

Didn't the D300 go out of production a while ago?  I assumed Nikon had moved its Dx sensor camera nomenclature to Dxxxx to differentiate them from the full frame line.  D400 and D600 aren't numerically that far apart.  When the D300 came to market, there was no Dxxxx nomenclature, there was only the D40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.

Good point

The D300s took over in mid 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nikon_DSLR_cameras

[awinphoto]

What's the point in pondering the 7d2 and D400 pthhhh I hold it in good authority the D500 will absolutely rock but fall just short of the 7d3!  Of course, the 5d4 and D900 will beat them both soundly, but to each their own. 

[Rienzphotoz]

Didn't the D300 go out of production a while ago?  I assumed Nikon had moved its Dx sensor camera nomenclature to Dxxxx to differentiate them from the full frame line.  D400 and D600 aren't numerically that far apart.  When the D300 came to market, there was no Dxxxx nomenclature, there was only the D40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.

Good point

The D300s took over in mid 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nikon_DSLR_cameras

We know ... but looks like you did not understand the point CarlTN was making

[CarlTN]

Didn't the D300 go out of production a while ago?  I assumed Nikon had moved its Dx sensor camera nomenclature to Dxxxx to differentiate them from the full frame line.  D400 and D600 aren't numerically that far apart.  When the D300 came to market, there was no Dxxxx nomenclature, there was only the D40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.

Good point

Rienz, I thank you very much for the compliment!  I have found it difficult to ever make a good point on this website!  There are too many highly informed people here!
The D300s took over in mid 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nikon_DSLR_cameras

We know ... but looks like you did not understand the point CarlTN was making

[jrista]

Ps - I really hope Canon resist the temptation to take their 1.6x crop sensor up to 24mp. It'll suffer from softness due to diffraction from f6.0 onwards - mount an f5.6 lens on there and you've got little in the way of options. Even the legendary 300/2.8 II with a 2x TC III will underperform, and leave you with just one aperture option if you want to attempt to utilise all of those megapixels. Leave the MP lower, and let those lower processing overheads allow them to push the hardware of the small mirror and shutter to its limits.

Once again, this rhetoric keeps cropping up and it is completely incorrect! NEVER, in ANY CASE, is more megapixels bad because of diffraction!  That is so frequently quoted, and it is so frequently wrong. To quote myself:

This camera would have a pixel density equal to a 61mp full frame camera, that is far beyond the resolving power of most lenses.

Grrrrr....would people quit saying entirely wrong stuff like that please?  First of all resolving power doesn't work like that.  Second, even if it did the better lenses can already resolve up into the many hundreds of megapixels on full frame.

Yes, but diffraction softness at this pixel density starts to become a problem, get up to f/5.6 or higher and you start loosing sharpness.

Diffraction is the most misunderstood concept in photography. The notion that diffraction is ever a "problem" is just flat out wrong. Just because diffraction starts earlier with smaller pixels does NOT mean you are resolving less detail. The amount of detail resolved by the lens is fixed, and independent of the sensor. Assuming a 24mp sensor outresolves the lens while an 18mp sensor does not, no matter how you slice it, even when diffraction blur starts, the 24mp is and always will be resolving more detail than the 18mp. If you scale the 24mp sensor image down to 18mp image size without any additional processing, the 24mp will always be sharper (assuming focus, aperture, etc. were all configured identically between the two cameras.)

Diffraction is the fault of the lens, not the sensor...both the 24mp and 18mp sensors are experiencing the exact same amount of softening due to diffraction...it is simply that the 18mp is PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of actually demonstrating that fact, while the 24mp IS CAPABLE. A 22mp sensor would be somewhat capable of showing you that diffraction, however it would not be as good as the 24mp, and still, no matter how you slice it, the 24mp sensor (all other factors being equal) would STILL be resolving more detail, even if its slightly softer than the 22mp. Even if that additional detail just means the circumference of the blur circle is better defined.

I really have to emphasize this: In no way, ever, can diffraction produce worse results on a higher resolution sensor than a lower resolution sensor. EVER. Even if, at 100% crop, the detail looks a little soft on the higher resolution image, it will in the worst case be just as good as the lower resolution sensor on a size-normal basis, and in the majority case normalizing size will always make the higher resolution image look better than one taken with a lower resolution sensor.

The 7D has frequently been the target of the mythical diffraction softening problem and the outresolves all lenses possible problem on internet forums. I never specifically understood why my 7D was soft until I got my hands on some rental EF 300mm f/2.8 L II, 500mm f/2.8 L II, and 600mm f/2.8 L II lenses. I've used the 300 with 1.4x and 2x TC III's, and the 500 with the 1.4x TC III. IS in all cases was stellar, very sharp and clear, with the one exception being a little bit of visible CA with the 300+2x III. Despite the CA, here is an example (full "crop" and 1:1 pixel peeper on the head) of the 7D with the EF 300mm f/2.8 L II + EF 2x TC III. The aperture used was f/9, so diffraction has definitely "set in" and is visible given the 7D's f/6.9 DLA. The subject, in this case a Juvenile Baird's Sandpiper, comprised only the center 25% of the frame, and the 300 f/2.8 II w/ 2x TC STILL did a superb job resolving a LOT of detail:

Final crop (Center 25% of frame):


100% Zoom (1:1 pixel peeping):


The difference between the 7D with my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L and the Mark II generation telephoto lenses was night and day. It was completely clear to me that the "softness" was purely the ancient lens design (which, at this point, is over a decade for the 100-400), and that Canon's newest generation of lenses thoroughly outperform the 7D's already high-density sensor. In the case of the 100-400mm lens, the softness was not actually due to diffraction...wide open, it was due to optical aberrations, as at f/5.6 an ideal 100-400 should outresolve the sensor. The 100-400mm is just not a super-sharp lens wide open, and it only reaches ideal performance at f/7.1 (at the cost of additional noise and deeper DOF).

I have further examples of the resolving power of Canon's newest Mark II generation of lenses, at least the telephoto lengths. Given my experience with the 500mm @ 700mm with the 1.4x TC, I have no doubt that a 24mp APS-C 7D with any current-generation lens (such as the forthcoming EF 200-400mm, the new EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L, or a potential EF 100-400mm f/4-5.6 L replacement for the current 100-400) they will handily resolve enough detail for a 24mp sensor at apertures wider than f/6. A modernized 100-400 at f/5.6 that sports an MTF around 0.9 should be capable of very sharply resolving detail, even on a 24mp APS-C.

[jrista]

Ps - I really hope Canon resist the temptation to take their 1.6x crop sensor up to 24mp. It'll suffer from softness due to diffraction from f6.0 onwards - mount an f5.6 lens on there and you've got little in the way of options. Even the legendary 300/2.8 II with a 2x TC III will underperform, and leave you with just one aperture option if you want to attempt to utilise all of those megapixels. Leave the MP lower, and let those lower processing overheads allow them to push the hardware of the small mirror and shutter to its limits.

To quote myself again, simply to show a visual comparison between the 500mm f/4 L II and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L on the 7D:

Regarding the use of teleconverters on APS-C. I use them. Hell, I've used teleconverters with both the EF 300mm f/2.8 L II and the EF 500mm f/4 L II on my 7D. I use both the 1.4x and 2x, and if Canon made a 1.7x, I'd use that too. Primes frequently have far more to offer from an IQ standpoint than sensors do. A lot of people complain about how "soft" the 7D is...that is true, sometimes...when using older lenses. Slap on pretty much ANY Mark II lens on a 7D, and that "soft" disappears, replaced by some of the sharpest detail you've ever seen. The Canon 18.1mp APS-C sensor is a good sensor...however it is a very, very high density sensor. If you use inferior glass with it, all the flaws OF THE GLASS are revealed. The only real drawback of the 7D is noise, and then, only at ISO settings above 2500 (and even then, with the increasing availability of advanced noise removal tools, such as Topaz DeNoise 5 (which has stellar random noise removal AND debanding!), high ISO noise is becoming less and less of a problem.)

To put some images behind my claims. Below are two photos of House Finches. One is the normal red morph, the other an orange morph. Same bird, otherwise, same size (maybe a slight size benefit to the orange morph) with the same amount of base detail...feathers, beak, eye. Both of these were shot at pretty much the same distance (around 7 feet...red morph maybe a few inches farther), ISO, and aperture, although the red one was up in a tree so my focal plane was shifted a bit, thus slightly blurring the top of its head and the back of its right wing. The body feathers and beaks are in focus on both birds. Both birds were positioned within the same rough area of the lens...slightly off center towards the upper left corner. Both full-scene images below are cropped to roughly the same area (few pixels difference in width and height).

Both photos shot with my 7D, ISO 400, f/6.3, in my backyard. The red morph was shot with my EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS lens with a full stop of additional light at twice the shutter speed (1/1600s, which should be an IQ advantage!) The orange morph was shot with a rented EF 500mm f/4 L IS II. Both lenses had AFMA adjustments for this body.

Here are the full images, scaled down to 900 pixels. Even at this level, you can see the difference in quality between the two photos can be seen. The orange morph is sharper and clearer (probably thanks to better microcontrast.)




At 100% crop (1:1 zoom, PIXEL PEEPING for all you pixel peepers!), the difference in IQ is beyond clear. The 100-400mm lens produces far softer results (even ignoring the slightly out of focus crest on the red morph). This kind of softness is what I've come to expect from the 100-400mm lens at less than f/8, and beyond f/8 diffraction again softens the image. (There is roughly the same amount of noise in both photos. It is more apparent in the red morph due to the increased lens softness, which blurs detail but does NOT blur noise. Clear, sharp detail tends to trump noise. The background in the red morph also provides a greater area of <= 18% gray tone, where noise becomes most apparent...the orange morph has a greater area of pixels > 18% tone.)




Scaled down to web size, the red morph photo is good enough. Most people won't notice the slight softness. From a print standpoint, I probably would not print the red morph photo, however the orange morph photo is definitely printable. It is not only printable, it could also easily be blown up two, maybe three times larger, and still be high quality, even higher quality than the red morph photo printed at original size!

I think the visual evidence speaks to itself regarding the sharpness and quality of, say, the EF 300mm f/2.8 L II lens (or any Mark II telephoto lens from Canon.) Canon is not releasing new lenses for the bulk of their lens lineup just for the heck of it. They are releasing new lenses to support their DSLR business for the next decade or two! The addition of IS or throwing in a Fluorite element here and there in the past were only minor updates on decades-old lens designs, and the impact to MTF charts was always minor. This is the first time since Canon introduced the EF mount that they are radically redesigning their L-series lenses to not only be lighter and more ergonomically ideal, but to significantly improve the MTF (resolving power/IQ) of each, as well as improve the AF circuitry to support much more advanced AF units that have found their way into the 1D X and 5D III (and, hopefully, the 7D II). In the past, even some of Canon's best lenses were still only in the range of 0.7 to 0.8 at best, and a bare few ever approached the vaunted 1.0 (the original EF 300mm f/2.8 L  comes to mind as the prime example). The lenses released over the last few years, as well as those yet to be released or updated, all produce or will most likely produce MTFs well above 0.9 at best, and the Mark II telephoto lenses all approach 1.0 from center to nearly the edge.

I have no doubt in my mind that Canon is paving the way for 24mp+ APS-C sensors and 60-70mp FF sensors down the road. An extensive lens-lineup upgrade like they are doing is not just on a whim...they NEED the improvements to support the future DSLR, and a 24mp 7D II is probably only the beginning. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to a 24mp APS-C pro-grade camera from Canon. If they manage to achieve similar ISO gains as the 1D X has, it will be an astonishing camera indeed. At 10fps w/ a 61pt AF system on the 7D II, Nikon...who as of yet has not shown much interest in updating the bulk of their lens lineup to support their 24mp APS-C sensors or 36mp FF sensors, won't have anything that will solidly compete with it!

[dtaylor]

If you have an aperture so small that both a high MP body and a low MP body have diffraction, the high MP body will have no advantage. It doesn't matter how finely the sensor can resolve the blur projected by the lens, its still just blur.

Once again, resolution does not work like this. First, diffraction is not a hard limit. Second, even at extreme apertures where diffraction approximates a hard limit, a higher resolution sensor will still yield superior results. Why? Because the resolution of a system is not the weakest link in the chain. It is computed from a formula using all the links and is always less than the weakest one. Increasing any link results in a higher final resolution, but the final resolution is always less than the weakest component.

Practically speaking the increase may not matter outside of a lab. And for 18 vs. 24 MP I'm guessing it won't matter much outside of a lab test even at f/2.8. But putting a higher resolution component in the chain will never result in worse performance.

I hate the term DLA because it's inaccurate and it conveys the idea of a "hard limit" that goes down as the sensor resolution goes up. It is not at all consistent with the science of optics. And it plays off another issue in general conversation: the portrayal of resolution as a single number. It's not a single number. It's an MTF curve. Your comment "it's sill just blur" illustrates the problem. The 7D is "diffraction limited" at f/6.9. The way you describe this, f/8 produces "blur." The reality is that detail with X contrast at f/6.9 has some value <X contrast at f/8, and can be restored to X contrast with sharpening. I can make f/6.9, f/8, and f/11 24" prints all day long and you won't be able to tell me which is which.

At some point detail is truly lost, i.e. contrast of 0%. But the point is not immediately past the DLA.

While a 24MP sensor with DLA setting in at f6.0 will allow for some lenses to shine at larger apertures, where will this marketing machine stop? If the next round of crop cameras hit 40mp, and then after that 60, will you still be arguing for it to carry on?

I've seen convincing arguments for 100-200 MP FF sensors, assuming technology allows you to hold the line on noise/DR. Why? Because of another point that's not reflected in simple DLA numbers tossed around on the web: the impact of diffraction is different for different wavelengths of light. And if your sensor design + RAW software takes this into consideration, it can maximize the detail recovered. We will eventually see that point in digital camera design.

There comes a point where making EF-S glass good enough to resolve such detail at the large apertures needed to avoid diffraction becomes unaffordable. We're already at the point where the 17-40L and 24-105L cost less than their EF-S counterparts.

Which counterparts are you thinking of?

But for those than want the extra MP so they can resolve more detail, in all but very select circumstances and with all but the very best glass, they'll be very dissapointed.

I'll agree that 18 vs. 24 MP is not a very big deal and is driven by marketing. But sensor resolution is not limited by diffraction in the way you think it is. And we will see even higher resolutions in the future. If a jump could be made today to 35 or 40 MP while holding the line on noise/DR, it would produce observably better prints.

[Rienzphotoz]

Ps - I really hope Canon resist the temptation to take their 1.6x crop sensor up to 24mp. It'll suffer from softness due to diffraction from f6.0 onwards - mount an f5.6 lens on there and you've got little in the way of options. Even the legendary 300/2.8 II with a 2x TC III will underperform, and leave you with just one aperture option if you want to attempt to utilise all of those megapixels. Leave the MP lower, and let those lower processing overheads allow them to push the hardware of the small mirror and shutter to its limits.

To quote myself again, simply to show a visual comparison between the 500mm f/4 L II and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L on the 7D:

Regarding the use of teleconverters on APS-C. I use them. Hell, I've used teleconverters with both the EF 300mm f/2.8 L II and the EF 500mm f/4 L II on my 7D. I use both the 1.4x and 2x, and if Canon made a 1.7x, I'd use that too. Primes frequently have far more to offer from an IQ standpoint than sensors do. A lot of people complain about how "soft" the 7D is...that is true, sometimes...when using older lenses. Slap on pretty much ANY Mark II lens on a 7D, and that "soft" disappears, replaced by some of the sharpest detail you've ever seen. The Canon 18.1mp APS-C sensor is a good sensor...however it is a very, very high density sensor. If you use inferior glass with it, all the flaws OF THE GLASS are revealed. The only real drawback of the 7D is noise, and then, only at ISO settings above 2500 (and even then, with the increasing availability of advanced noise removal tools, such as Topaz DeNoise 5 (which has stellar random noise removal AND debanding!), high ISO noise is becoming less and less of a problem.)

To put some images behind my claims. Below are two photos of House Finches. One is the normal red morph, the other an orange morph. Same bird, otherwise, same size (maybe a slight size benefit to the orange morph) with the same amount of base detail...feathers, beak, eye. Both of these were shot at pretty much the same distance (around 7 feet...red morph maybe a few inches farther), ISO, and aperture, although the red one was up in a tree so my focal plane was shifted a bit, thus slightly blurring the top of its head and the back of its right wing. The body feathers and beaks are in focus on both birds. Both birds were positioned within the same rough area of the lens...slightly off center towards the upper left corner. Both full-scene images below are cropped to roughly the same area (few pixels difference in width and height).

Both photos shot with my 7D, ISO 400, f/6.3, in my backyard. The red morph was shot with my EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS lens with a full stop of additional light at twice the shutter speed (1/1600s, which should be an IQ advantage!) The orange morph was shot with a rented EF 500mm f/4 L IS II. Both lenses had AFMA adjustments for this body.

Here are the full images, scaled down to 900 pixels. Even at this level, you can see the difference in quality between the two photos can be seen. The orange morph is sharper and clearer (probably thanks to better microcontrast.)




At 100% crop (1:1 zoom, PIXEL PEEPING for all you pixel peepers!), the difference in IQ is beyond clear. The 100-400mm lens produces far softer results (even ignoring the slightly out of focus crest on the red morph). This kind of softness is what I've come to expect from the 100-400mm lens at less than f/8, and beyond f/8 diffraction again softens the image. (There is roughly the same amount of noise in both photos. It is more apparent in the red morph due to the increased lens softness, which blurs detail but does NOT blur noise. Clear, sharp detail tends to trump noise. The background in the red morph also provides a greater area of <= 18% gray tone, where noise becomes most apparent...the orange morph has a greater area of pixels > 18% tone.)




Scaled down to web size, the red morph photo is good enough. Most people won't notice the slight softness. From a print standpoint, I probably would not print the red morph photo, however the orange morph photo is definitely printable. It is not only printable, it could also easily be blown up two, maybe three times larger, and still be high quality, even higher quality than the red morph photo printed at original size!

I think the visual evidence speaks to itself regarding the sharpness and quality of, say, the EF 300mm f/2.8 L II lens (or any Mark II telephoto lens from Canon.) Canon is not releasing new lenses for the bulk of their lens lineup just for the heck of it. They are releasing new lenses to support their DSLR business for the next decade or two! The addition of IS or throwing in a Fluorite element here and there in the past were only minor updates on decades-old lens designs, and the impact to MTF charts was always minor. This is the first time since Canon introduced the EF mount that they are radically redesigning their L-series lenses to not only be lighter and more ergonomically ideal, but to significantly improve the MTF (resolving power/IQ) of each, as well as improve the AF circuitry to support much more advanced AF units that have found their way into the 1D X and 5D III (and, hopefully, the 7D II). In the past, even some of Canon's best lenses were still only in the range of 0.7 to 0.8 at best, and a bare few ever approached the vaunted 1.0 (the original EF 300mm f/2.8 L  comes to mind as the prime example). The lenses released over the last few years, as well as those yet to be released or updated, all produce or will most likely produce MTFs well above 0.9 at best, and the Mark II telephoto lenses all approach 1.0 from center to nearly the edge.

I have no doubt in my mind that Canon is paving the way for 24mp+ APS-C sensors and 60-70mp FF sensors down the road. An extensive lens-lineup upgrade like they are doing is not just on a whim...they NEED the improvements to support the future DSLR, and a 24mp 7D II is probably only the beginning. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to a 24mp APS-C pro-grade camera from Canon. If they manage to achieve similar ISO gains as the 1D X has, it will be an astonishing camera indeed. At 10fps w/ a 61pt AF system on the 7D II, Nikon...who as of yet has not shown much interest in updating the bulk of their lens lineup to support their 24mp APS-C sensors or 36mp FF sensors, won't have anything that will solidly compete with it!

Nice pics and you made some very compelling/interesting points ... thanks for sharing.

[CarlTN]

Nice to see those pics again Jrista, though not sure why they wound up in this thread.

[dtaylor]

jrista - point well proven with some great shots!