7DII and D400 Specs

[dtaylor]

jrista - point well proven with some great shots!

[Apop]

Hi, nice comparison!,

Have you also tested the 500 f4 IS?

I wonder how those would perform vs a 500 IS II

[rs]

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.

I'm not saying its worse, its just the extra MP don't make any difference to the resolving power once diffraction has set in. Take another example - scan a photo which was a bit blurry - if a 600dpi scan looks blurry on screen at 100%, you wouldn't then think 'let's find out if anyone makes a 10,000dpi scanner so I can make this look sharper?' You'd know it would offer no advantages - at that point you're resolving more detail than is available - weakest link in the chain and all that...

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:

You've got some great shots there, very impressive  - and it clearly does show the difference between good glass and great glass. But the f9 300 II + 2x shot isn't 100% pixel sharp like your native 500/4 shot is. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the shot - it's great, and the detail there is still great. Its just not 18MP of perfection great. A 15MP sensor wouldn't have resolved any less detail behind that lens, but that wouldn't have made a 15MP shot any better. This thread is clearly going off on a tangent here, as pixel peeping is rarely anything to do with what makes a great photo - its just we are debating whether the extra MP are worth it. And just to re-iterate, great shots jrista 

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.

While sharpening has the potential to be OK in moderation, just don't take it too far. Its all down to personal taste of course, but I can't stand the output of compact cameras which are way beyond their diffraction limits and have the sharpness cranked all the way up to 11 to try to retain something, but instead they just create ugly halos around edges. Sharpening isn't perfect for recovering detail which isn't there. Something like this offers a glimpse of what might be possible in the future.

However, back to the meaning of my original point, do we really need all these MP? Do you need 24MP from your crop camera? Its not like the early days of digital photography when there were real advantages of increasing the MP - going from the Canon D30 to the Canon D60 represented a very real improvement in quality - going from 3 to 6MP is a very real difference. Going from 18 to 36 MP isn't. We're at the point of diminishing returns now - especially as lenses and physics are now becoming limiting factors, and virtually no-one needs to print anything that big and that detailed. If you really do, a larger format than APS-C will yield more real life improvements at such high MP counts. Marketing is leading this drive into the unneeded.

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?

10-22 and 17-55. Admittedly, the 10-22 does have the 17-40 beaten when it comes to detail at larger apertures in the corners, so to call the cheaper L lens comparable is debatable. But the 17-55/24-105 comparison is a good one. The 24-105 when used on FF goes wider, longer, offers more detail, is brighter (f2.8 on crop = f4.5 on FF), and (at least in the UK) cheaper. OK, its vaguely bigger and heavier, but you can't have everything...

[CarlTN]

Again, not sure why this is going on in this thread now

[dtaylor]

I'm not saying its worse, its just the extra MP don't make any difference to the resolving power once diffraction has set in.

I've pointed out twice now that it actually does. This is not opinion, it's science that was worked out a long time ago. Optical resolution does not work the way the majority of people assume it works, with the weakest link "capping" or "limiting" the entire system to its resolution. The resolution of the total system is always lower than the weakest link. And increasing any component in the chain...not just the weakest...will increase total resolution. Whether the increase is practical and observable is another question entirely, but to wrap your mind around some questions in photography you have to understand how resolution actually works.

Take another example - scan a photo which was a bit blurry -

False analogy. Here you are changing the target resolution rather than the resolution of a component in the optical system.

However, back to the meaning of my original point, do we really need all these MP? Do you need 24MP from your crop camera?

I don't "need" it. But it's not going to hurt anything, and it's a step towards higher resolutions that will show noticeable improvements in the large prints I make. Under the best conditions, it might just improve my prints today.

going from 3 to 6MP is a very real difference. Going from 18 to 36 MP isn't.

Go ahead and compare 36" landscape prints from the 7D (or 5D2/3) and the D800 and say that.

We're at the point of diminishing returns now - especially as lenses and physics are now becoming limiting factors, and virtually no-one needs to print anything that big and that detailed. If you really do, a larger format than APS-C will yield more real life improvements at such high MP counts. Marketing is leading this drive into the unneeded.

As jrista points out, Canon is revamping their entire lens line because they know where this is heading. Moore's Law isn't going to stop because a few people claim they don't "need" higher resolutions. Granted there are ultimate physical limits, but the end of this road is probably 200 MP FF sensors and the equivalent APS-C sensors. The camera may pre process these images to smaller pixel dimensions for better file sizes, but it will use every pixel in doing so, and the resulting output will be stellar, a match for today's MFDBs.

Back when I bought my first DSLR, a 10D, you could have said a larger format would serve me better then incremental DSLR improvements. Except that those incremental improvements added up to a 7D that produces 24" prints to rival anything I've ever made or seen with 645 film. I say keep the improvements coming.

10-22 and 17-55. Admittedly, the 10-22 does have the 17-40 beaten when it comes to detail at larger apertures in the corners, so to call the cheaper L lens comparable is debatable.

The Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 really has the 17-40L beat, and is cheaper.

But the 17-55/24-105 comparison is a good one. The 24-105 when used on FF goes wider, longer, offers more detail, is brighter (f2.8 on crop = f4.5 on FF), and (at least in the UK) cheaper. OK, its vaguely bigger and heavier, but you can't have everything...

f/2.8 != f/4.5 on FF. I cannot shoot a crop body at f/2.8 and a FF body at f/4.5 and hold the same shutter and ISO. I realize what you're getting at (i.e. FF noise or shallow DoF), but it's still not the same. And I would argue the detail claim as well.

That said, they're basically the same price at B&H.

[jrista]

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.

I'm not saying its worse, its just the extra MP don't make any difference to the resolving power once diffraction has set in. Take another example - scan a photo which was a bit blurry - if a 600dpi scan looks blurry on screen at 100%, you wouldn't then think 'let's find out if anyone makes a 10,000dpi scanner so I can make this look sharper?' You'd know it would offer no advantages - at that point you're resolving more detail than is available - weakest link in the chain and all that...

I'm not saying its worse, its just the extra MP don't make any difference to the resolving power once diffraction has set in.

I've pointed out twice now that it actually does. This is not opinion, it's science that was worked out a long time ago. Optical resolution does not work the way the majority of people assume it works, with the weakest link "capping" or "limiting" the entire system to its resolution. The resolution of the total system is always lower than the weakest link. And increasing any component in the chain...not just the weakest...will increase total resolution. Whether the increase is practical and observable is another question entirely, but to wrap your mind around some questions in photography you have to understand how resolution actually works.

I've explained with some math why what dtaylor is saying is correct. In order to avoid derailing this topic off the 7D vs. D400 specs discussion, lets move the discussion on diffraction and resolution in cameras like the 7D and 7D II to this thread (just follow the link for the quote):

I'm starting this thread to continue a tangent from another. Rather than derail the other thread, but in order not to lose the discussion, I thought we could continue it in its own thread. I think there is important information to be gleaned from the discussion, which started when I responded to a comment by @rs:

[CarlTN]

Regarding crop camera wide angle zooms, as I have said in other threads...the Canon 10-22 lens I rented was terrible in the outer 2/3 of the image at the wider end.  No doubt there's a lot of sample variation.

I currently own the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 (generation 1).  It seems to have more CA than the one I rented in 2011.  Again, sample variation.

As I have said before, they may be able to achieve supreme sharpness with $13,000 super telephoto lenses (although that puts an exponentially higher burden on the already compromised autofocus accuracy of a crop camera, in order to make use full use of that higher sharpness...for extreme cropped bird pics, etc.).  But when it comes time to shoot a wide angle image with a 24 MP or higher crop sensor, good luck ever getting sharpness on the level that you could from the same pixel count via a full frame sensor and lens, taking in the same angle of view   Never going to happen...not ever.  If it did, the lens would cost more than full frame wide angle lenses, and yet not be designed for them.  Again, never going to happen.  We'll never see a wide angle zoom rectilinear lens, that goes to 10mm for a crop sensor camera, that will be sharp to the corners wide open, with no CA, and zero "decentering"...and somehow rival the best 14 or 15 mm wide angle full frame zoom.  Not going to happen.  If it did, it would cost $3500 or more.  Who would pay that when it wouldn't even work on a full frame camera?  Not many.  Maybe some of the same people who buy high end micro 4/3 gear, or compact Panasonic cameras that get branded "Leica". 

[dtaylor]

As I have said before, they may be able to achieve supreme sharpness with $13,000 super telephoto lenses

Oh please. jrista's point about Canon updating their lenses is well taken. But there are plenty of lenses which can produce tack sharp results on crop without a $13k price tag. Canon is updating cheaper lenses as well. As sharp as I thought my 70-200 f/4L was, the 70-200 f/4L IS takes it up a notch, just like jrista's experience with mark II L super telephotos. And it's not $13k.

But when it comes time to shoot a wide angle image with a 24 MP or higher crop sensor, good luck ever getting sharpness on the level that you could from the same pixel count via a full frame sensor and lens, taking in the same angle of view Never going to happen...not ever.

Except that it already happens with Sony/Nikon 24 MP sensors, top notch glass, and a little USM.

We'll never see a wide angle zoom rectilinear lens, that goes to 10mm for a crop sensor camera, that will be sharp to the corners wide open, with no CA, and zero "decentering"...and somehow rival the best 14 or 15 mm wide angle full frame zoom.  Not going to happen.

I'll gladly pit a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 (good sample) against a Canon 16-35 f/2.8 (good sample).

You keep using that word 'never'. I don't think it means what you think it means 

For people who think crop will 'never' do this or 'never' do that, you better spend some time looking at the world of biology. Because eyeballs, both human and animal, routinely do things that you say much larger crop sensors should 'never' be able to do. If our eyes do it, then it's physically possible, and you're a fool to bet against the march of technology and Moore's Law when it comes to the physically possible.

When DSLRs first hit the scene I heard repeatedly that a DSLR would 'never' out resolve 35mm film (happened at 12-15 MP); 'never' produce large prints that could rival MF film (happened with the 5D2, and then the 16/18 MP generation of crop sensors); and 'never' have DR like neg film (today's FF has more DR then all but a couple emulsions). When the 5D was popular I heard that crop would 'never' out resolve it or have better noise (again, happened with the 16/18 crop generation).

Unless a manufacturing break through renders crop obsolete by making FF just as cheap to build (doubtful, but never say never), we will see crop bodies in the future that out perform today's D800. And we will see even smaller sensors in P&S super zooms that rival today's DSLRs. Not if. When. I guarantee you that designers will exploit every advantage they can get as time goes on, including lenses that change shape, liquid lenses that can alter their characteristics like an LCD can alter its display, super dense sensors, custom in camera processors that put today's best graphics cards to shame, etc, etc. We may even see biologically grown sensors, at which point MF might be as cheap as today's Rebels, shattering another 'never'.

So tell me again what's 'never' going to happen. It amuses me.

[CarlTN]

As I have said before, they may be able to achieve supreme sharpness with $13,000 super telephoto lenses

Oh please. jrista's point about Canon updating their lenses is well taken. But there are plenty of lenses which can produce tack sharp results on crop without a $13k price tag. Canon is updating cheaper lenses as well. As sharp as I thought my 70-200 f/4L was, the 70-200 f/4L IS takes it up a notch, just like jrista's experience with mark II L super telephotos. And it's not $13k.

But when it comes time to shoot a wide angle image with a 24 MP or higher crop sensor, good luck ever getting sharpness on the level that you could from the same pixel count via a full frame sensor and lens, taking in the same angle of view Never going to happen...not ever.

Except that it already happens with Sony/Nikon 24 MP sensors, top notch glass, and a little USM.

We'll never see a wide angle zoom rectilinear lens, that goes to 10mm for a crop sensor camera, that will be sharp to the corners wide open, with no CA, and zero "decentering"...and somehow rival the best 14 or 15 mm wide angle full frame zoom.  Not going to happen.

I'll gladly pit a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 (good sample) against a Canon 16-35 f/2.8 (good sample).

You keep using that word 'never'. I don't think it means what you think it means 

For people who think crop will 'never' do this or 'never' do that, you better spend some time looking at the world of biology. Because eyeballs, both human and animal, routinely do things that you say much larger crop sensors should 'never' be able to do. If our eyes do it, then it's physically possible, and you're a fool to bet against the march of technology and Moore's Law when it comes to the physically possible.

When DSLRs first hit the scene I heard repeatedly that a DSLR would 'never' out resolve 35mm film (happened at 12-15 MP); 'never' produce large prints that could rival MF film (happened with the 5D2, and then the 16/18 MP generation of crop sensors); and 'never' have DR like neg film (today's FF has more DR then all but a couple emulsions). When the 5D was popular I heard that crop would 'never' out resolve it or have better noise (again, happened with the 16/18 crop generation).

Unless a manufacturing break through renders crop obsolete by making FF just as cheap to build (doubtful, but never say never), we will see crop bodies in the future that out perform today's D800. And we will see even smaller sensors in P&S super zooms that rival today's DSLRs. Not if. When. I guarantee you that designers will exploit every advantage they can get as time goes on, including lenses that change shape, liquid lenses that can alter their characteristics like an LCD can alter its display, super dense sensors, custom in camera processors that put today's best graphics cards to shame, etc, etc. We may even see biologically grown sensors, at which point MF might be as cheap as today's Rebels, shattering another 'never'.

So tell me again what's 'never' going to happen. It amuses me.

What amuses me is people who shoot their mouth off but offer no proof.  Put up pics you've shot with both lenses, and with a Sony Nex, or whatever you're using...that "proves" it's as sharp as say, a 15mm Zeiss f/2.8 on a D600.

As for the 70-200 IS being sharper than the non IS, I have the non-IS, and it's awfully sharp.  I'll put mine up against yours any day of the week young lad.  Whoever's lens loses, has to buy the winner a chess set made of all the Nikon and Canon supertelephoto lenses...oh, and we exchange wives and/or girlfriends...and mistresses, for a month...yours won't be coming home after they've played chess with me!  If I lose...well...I keep my harem chained in an underground lair out in the woods...they aren't really allowed to leave...but I'll send you my neighbor's wife.

[jrista]

As for the 70-200 IS being sharper than the non IS, I have the non-IS, and it's awfully sharp.  I'll put mine up against yours any day of the week young lad.  Whoever's lens loses, has to buy the winner a chess set made of all the Nikon and Canon supertelephoto lenses...oh, and we exchange wives and/or girlfriends...and mistresses, for a month...yours won't be coming home after they've played chess with me!  If I lose...well...I keep my harem chained in an underground lair out in the woods...they aren't really allowed to leave...but I'll send you my neighbor's wife.

Um...what?!?        

[rs]

As for the 70-200 IS being sharper than the non IS, I have the non-IS, and it's awfully sharp.  I'll put mine up against yours any day of the week young lad.  Whoever's lens loses, has to buy the winner a chess set made of all the Nikon and Canon supertelephoto lenses...oh, and we exchange wives and/or girlfriends...and mistresses, for a month...yours won't be coming home after they've played chess with me!  If I lose...well...I keep my harem chained in an underground lair out in the woods...they aren't really allowed to leave...but I'll send you my neighbor's wife.

Um...what?!?        

I'm glad I've been keeping out of this for the last few hours 

[dtaylor]

What amuses me is people who shoot their mouth off but offer no proof.

I'm sorry...what proof did you offer while chanting "never never never"?

Put up pics you've shot with both lenses, and with a Sony Nex, or whatever you're using...that "proves" it's as sharp as say, a 15mm Zeiss f/2.8 on a D600.

Are we testing specific lens pairs, or crop v FF? Because your 'never never' post implied it could 'never' happen because of something intrinsic to the formats.

As for the 70-200 IS being sharper than the non IS, I have the non-IS, and it's awfully sharp.  I'll put mine up against yours any day of the week young lad.  Whoever's lens loses, has to buy the winner a chess set made of all the Nikon and Canon supertelephoto lenses...oh, and we exchange wives and/or girlfriends...and mistresses, for a month...yours won't be coming home after they've played chess with me!  If I lose...well...I keep my harem chained in an underground lair out in the woods...they aren't really allowed to leave...but I'll send you my neighbor's wife.

See hjulenissen's link. The IS is sharper once you leave center. And...well...I'm not even going to comment on the rest 

[CarlTN]

Hahaha, sorry you all didn't appreciate my humor!!  And haven't you seen the lens chess set?

All I can say is, the digital picture had a bad sample, and I have a good sample.  I've seen other tests that showed a lot of CA on the non-IS version, as well.  Mine doesn't have that either.  Go figure.  The CA is extremely low throughout the range on mine...basically non-existent.  There are a couple of narrow ranges in the focal length where it turns soft-ish wide open at the borders, but overall mine is very sharp...especially from 120-200mm.  The problem range is from about 90-110mm.  It's not a big deal, and certainly still usable there.  So the only real difference is, yours has IS and costs twice as much, and weighs a pound more.  That was my point.  The IS version is way overpriced for what you get.  In that price range, there are a lot of other larger, faster lenses that are more capable, such as for lower light, stronger bokeh, etc.  Then there's the 70-300L...which is a far better lens overall, than the 70-200 f/4 IS...and weighs about the same.  Costs barely any more...

[jrista]

Hahaha, sorry you all didn't appreciate my humor!!

Well....that is the kind of humor you expect from psychopaths, or maybe a sociopath...or someone with seriously questionable morality...

Either way...I personally, quite honestly, don't know a soul who would have found that funny...

[CarlTN]

Hahaha, sorry you all didn't appreciate my humor!!

Well....that is the kind of humor you expect from psychopaths, or maybe a sociopath...or someone with seriously questionable morality...

Either way...I personally, quite honestly, don't know a soul who would have found that funny...

Gee whiz, I'm perfectly sane...sheesh!!  I was taking extreme satire to the situation, because I thought it was called for.  No need to get overly harsh on me personally! 

And if you know a soul who's ever seen and liked one episode of "family guy" (not that I don't also find much of those episodes disturbing!)...then you do know a soul who might indeed find that funny!  Besides, the idea came to me from a horror suspense movie, "kiss the girls"...perhaps it came out before you were born...But anyway, get over it though, and lighten up a bit, ok?  Let's not be pronouncing people as immoral sociopaths and psychos, mr. armchair thought policeman (that's a reference to something even older, sorry if that also gets lost on any of you...)