APS-C Image Quality (7d vs nex7)

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dtaylor

Canon 5Ds
Jul 26, 2011
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I tried IR's studio scene at ISO 100. After downloading both samples I:

* Re-sized the 7D sample to the NEX-7 sample size using bicubic sharper.

* Applied Smart Sharpen at 100% / 0.7px.

After that the IQ advantage of the NEX-7 was much smaller then what appears in your samples. It's a 24 MP sensor so I would expect some advantage.

I also tried sharpening the NEX-7 sample a bit and then trying to "catch up" again with the 7D sample. The differences were still small. Basically the largest difference came down to more artifacts on the 7D sample, but on either the artifacts would only be visible while pixel peeping.

That said I expect a 24 MP sensor might yield a better rendition of foliage in landscape shots for larger prints. Not dramatically larger, but another 4-6" for a print which will be critically reviewed. (I consider the 7D to be a 24-30" landscape camera as is. Larger with greater viewing distance, less critical viewers, or less demanding subjects.)

We are reaching the point of diminishing returns in small format sensor resolution, where top notch glass, expert technique, challenging subject matter, and big prints are required to see any difference at all. That said I'm all for more megapixels as long as other characteristics do not suffer as large landscape prints are one of my favorite subjects.

This isn't enough to make me consider jumping ship. But I could end up with a NEX-7 any way because I would like to add a mirrorless system. I would like to see if Fuji releases an interchangeable lens version of the X-100 though. For that matter I would like to see any of the mirrorless systems embrace small, fast, high quality primes. They are too zoom heavy right now, and big slow zooms do not play to the strengths of a compact, mirrorless system.
 
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dr croubie

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papa-razzi said:
EYEONE said:
I have sharpness on my 7D set to 5 or 6, shoot RAW and use L glass. It's tack sharp.

Dumb question, but I'll ask anyway. Are you talking about the sharpness setting you apply in your post processing, or is there a sharpness setting for the JPEG conversion in-camera? Is that part of a picture-style?
Sort of both.
Go to picture-style settings, and (on my 7D at least), pressing the 'info' button brings up all the options for each style. In the list, they're listed as "standard 3,0,0,0" or something. The first number, 3, is the sharpness.
If you shoot JPG, that's the setting the camera uses for conversion. (I presume it uses the same algorithms as when raw-converting using DPP, but just saves as 99% quality jpg, not 100%).
If you shoot RAW, whatever picture style you choose in the camera is set as the *default* when you raw-convert in DPP. You can shoose anything else you want from the raw-file, i've made multiple copies of a shot from the same RAW file, and they all turned out wildly different. But setting the style in-camera is good if you batch-process and don't want to play around too much.
See my examples a few posts back, they were from RAW files, i processed them with sharpness 3 (because that was the default), then processed them again with sharpness 0 and 5. All were using the 'standard' picture style.
 
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willrobb said:
[However, if they made a 7DII sensor too good it would eat into canon FF sensor sales, so I don't expect a massive increase in sensor quality in the 7DII

I hope / think that regardless how good quality the sensor is it would not really cut into FF sales. The 2.5 times larger sensor area in FF will make some difference by itself, higher resolution, and you have other depth of field properties and the field of view you get in the nice focal lengths 24, 50, 85, 70-200 glass is more versatile for many. In sports and wildlife APS-C will probably become more popular though, now when APS-H seems to be phased out.

Canon must keep up with the competition too, concerning sensor quality it may be even more important to be competitive on entry level APS-C cameras than on full-frame. Enthusiast amateurs are often technically interested and wants a sensor that performs well in lab tests, even if a lesser sensor would be perfectly good enough for their needs. It would not be good for Canon if they get the reputation to have the less good sensors compared to Sony and Nikon, it would hurt entry level DSLR sales which is an important market.
 
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briansquibb

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dr croubie said:
See my examples a few posts back, they were from RAW files, i processed them with sharpness 3 (because that was the default), then processed them again with sharpness 0 and 5. All were using the 'standard' picture style.

If you are shooting in RAW then I would recommend sharpness as 7 as this is what the image on the LCD will show. If you shoot with 3 you will think that your shot is coming out soft or blurred. 7 shows much closer to the pp image
 
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willrobb said:
I agree 100%. I think the 7D is a great camera, lots of people get great results with it, I was very happy with mine, but I sold it last weekend as I felt the IQ at high ISO wasn't suited for what I do. Looking at the test results it looks as if the Sony sensor is pretty damn good,

Looking at the results I'v seen the Sony seems significantly worse than the 7D at high ISO and noticbley worse all the way down to 200.
 
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KeithR

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dilbert said:
I disagree with that statement completely.

There are reasons for wanting to use FF cameras that have nothing to do with the difference in sensor IQ.
I'll take that a stage futrther: IQ "superiority" is the least valid reason of all to go FF.

This is something which has been demonstrated time and time again on DPR, Photo.net and other sites: the end result from a modern crop sensor can easily match the end result from a given FF camera to the extent that it's impossible to tell which image came from which camera.
 
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The Sony 24 mpix sensor is way noisier than the 7D. It's noisier than the 50D in raw. Sony does a lot of post processing in JPG obviously. Once you factor in NR, the detail that the Sony sensor *might* have resolved is lost. The Sony 16 mpix sensor is darned good though... about on par with the 7D. If I were interested in a NEX, I'd get the 5n, not the 7.

KeithR's shots, along with those of many working pros, prove without any doubt that the 7D is an amazing camera.

I've looked carefully at many online tests over time, and found many tests that vary important details like where the focus is placed. This is why it is good to read everything you can find on the topic and weigh the results yourself.

If I'd listened to all the naysayers when the 50D came out, for example, I would not have bought it. But I did a lot of careful research and bought it and have made many good images. When something doesn't turn out, I am usually the problem, not the hardware.
 
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KeithR said:
I'll take that a stage futrther: IQ "superiority" is the least valid reason of all to go FF.

Yes, when conditions are good I tend to agree. Using a FF camera with a 1.4x tele converter on a long lens instead of a crop body is probably not going to give you much, might gain some very little resolution and DR, but lose in light sensitivity which is usually of key importance in these cases.

For landscape photography things will change when resolution go up over 30 megapixels. Today the pixels on the FF sensors are way larger than they need to be. FF has a potential to compete with medium format that APS-C has not, and I think and hope we'll see a move in this direction with coming FF cameras. For high ISO applications already today the best FF sensors clearly outperform the best APS-C. It shall be interesting to see if 1DX is even better than the Nikon D3s.
 
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Picsfor

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torger said:
It shall be interesting to see if 1DX is even better than the Nikon D3s.

Having had a play, and seen the images produced - i can comfortably say "without a doubt".
I kid you not - IQ is stunning - even at it's 'working 51k ISO' and i wouldn't be too unhappy at using H2 setting of 204k ISO.

Nikon still have to announce the D4, but the D3s will cease to be the all in one king when the 1DX is finally released.

I'm a 3 year old 5D2 user, and my only gripe with a 5D2 is the focusing - but so good is the IQ, focusing and high ISO that I'm seriously thinking thinking of trading both in for a single 1DX...
 
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torger said:
For landscape photography things will change when resolution go up over 30 megapixels. Today the pixels on the FF sensors are way larger than they need to be. FF has a potential to compete with medium format that APS-C has not, and I think and hope we'll see a move in this direction with coming FF cameras. For high ISO applications already today the best FF sensors clearly outperform the best APS-C. It shall be interesting to see if 1DX is even better than the Nikon D3s.

Yeah that definately the impression I get from the new Sony sensor, perhaps Canon will do better(although they are at a size disadvanatge) but 24 megapixels on a crop really does seem a bridge too far at the moment. If we were talking only high ISO's I could see the point(although neither the NEX 7 nore the A77's featuires seem to be marketed towards landscape/studio users) but even ISO 100 looks like it will lose more detail to noise reduction than the 7D while 200-400 are still going to see alot of use from that market for hand holding.
 
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J

Jettatore

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torger said:
KeithR said:
I'll take that a stage futrther: IQ "superiority" is the least valid reason of all to go FF.

Yes, when conditions are good I tend to agree. Using a FF camera with a 1.4x tele converter on a long lens instead of a crop body is probably not going to give you much, might gain some very little resolution and DR, but lose in light sensitivity which is usually of key importance in these cases.

For landscape photography things will change when resolution go up over 30 megapixels. Today the pixels on the FF sensors are way larger than they need to be. FF has a potential to compete with medium format that APS-C has not, and I think and hope we'll see a move in this direction with coming FF cameras. For high ISO applications already today the best FF sensors clearly outperform the best APS-C. It shall be interesting to see if 1DX is even better than the Nikon D3s.

I'm not fully aware of how the tele-extender effects perspective distortion. I know it has IQ loss, Light Loss/f-stop loss, slower auto-focus speed, etc. etc. However I do realize that a 1.6 crop body is just that, a crop. The 1.6x mathematics only help you determine the smaller area of coverage, it does not change the perspective properties of the lens used. For example. If you put a 16-35 on a fullframe @16mm and get on top of your subject, you will see an extreme amount of perspective distortion, an exaggeration useful in artistic expression. If you put the same lens on a crop, you will get the same amount of distortion, just you won't see the full frame, you it would be just like taking the full frame image into Photoshop and cutting off equal portions of the top and bottom, and then left and right sides. Same picture, but less of it. And not the minimized, but still there distortion of a 25.6mm lens that the 1.6x mathematics would imply.

I was under the assumption, but could be wrong, that a 1.4x or 2.0x extender, actually changes the perspective compression of a telephoto lens, and really and fully changes it's focal length unlike a crop body. Maybe someone can confirm?
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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Jettatore said:
I was under the assumption, but could be wrong, that a 1.4x or 2.0x extender, actually changes the perspective compression of a telephoto lens, and really and fully changes it's focal length unlike a crop body. Maybe someone can confirm?

It only changes perspective if you change the distance from the subject to compensate for the reduced angle of view. Perspective is determined by the distance to the subject, and only by the distance to the subject. We say that wide angle lenses distort perspective and telephoto lenses compress perspective only because of the typical framing distances for such focal lengths.
 
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Jettatore

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neuro Thank you so much. I could have sworn you were dead wrong but I just tested it and paid attention to what you said and indeed, it's the re-framing (even though it's not that extreme of a physical move) that gives the artistic change I love in the 16-35 (going from wide to standard visually). I used a 16-35 and tried without any re-framing, holding the camera stationary, and there was no change in perspective distortion, it was just closer or further away. I was under completely wrong impression. Thank you very much, that will be useful to have a better understanding of what is actually happening. cheers
 
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psycho5

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skitron said:
KeithR said:
Converted in Capture One 6

KeithR said:
what we know is that the 7D needs the user to apply some intelligence and discernment in his choice of conversion software

I have to agree RAW + Capture One 6 is like switching to L lens all over again. Simply amazing the improvement.

Is capture one really that awesome?? im using adobe PS5 and camera raw and loving it, but if there is something im missing in raw conversion please explain. I never understood DPP anyways unless you didnt have photoshop..
 
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unfocused

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Jul 20, 2010
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psycho5 said:
skitron said:
KeithR said:
Converted in Capture One 6

KeithR said:
what we know is that the 7D needs the user to apply some intelligence and discernment in his choice of conversion software

I have to agree RAW + Capture One 6 is like switching to L lens all over again. Simply amazing the improvement.

Is capture one really that awesome?? im using adobe PS5 and camera raw and loving it, but if there is something im missing in raw conversion please explain. I never understood DPP anyways unless you didnt have photoshop..

I'm curious about this as well. I'm not sure I want to pop for another piece of software, especially since I haven't found Lightroom to be all that beneficial over Photoshop (both use the same RAW processing, just different interfaces) Can someone who has used both please quantify what, if any, advantages other RAW processing software might have over Photoshop? (I'm not talking about image editing, I'm talking about RAW processing and some concrete examples would be helpful)

Or, are people just comparing third-party software to Canon's?
 
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