Chuck Westfall Talks Canon EOS 7D Mark II

[Canon Rumors Guy]

<p>DPReview had an interview with Chuck Westfall from Canon USA and they talked about the EOS 7D Mark II. This will give you a good rundown of all the features you’ll care about when making a buying decision.</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U07tgCXmJn4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Canon EOS 7D Mark II $1799: <a style="color: #900000;" href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1081808-REG/canon_9128b002_eos_7d_mark_ii.html/bi/2466/kbid/3296" target="_blank">B&H Photo</a> | <a style="color: #900000;" href="http://www.adorama.com/ICA7DM2.html?KBID=64393" target="_blank">Adorama</a> | <a style="color: #900000;" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NEWZDRG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00NEWZDRG&linkCode=as2&tag=canorumo-20&linkId=4IHYPE3ZKJN5VL4X" target="_blank">Amazon</a> | <a style="color: #900000;" href="http://www.cameracanada.com/enet-cart/product.asp?pid=7dmarkii" target="_blank">Camera Canada</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>

 

[Quasimodo]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

This is way out of my expertise, and all though it looked good from a shaddow point of view, I would have liked to see a few more examples. The steel railings (which in the original is quite dark) are somewhat smudgy in the shaddowenhanced picture. I am not sure if that is the way the steelrailing looks inherently, but could also resemble some sort of banding, could it not?

 

[Lee Jay]

I sure wish someone would ask Canon about the 3x movie digital zoom mode from the 70D being in or out of the 7D2. I was really hoping they would expand that to smooth continuous zoom from 1x to 3x, but it appears they went the other way and got rid of it entirely.

It would also be nice to know if it reads the whole sensor or still line skips in video mode.

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

It would also be nice to know if it reads the whole sensor or still line skips in video mode.

Most important question yet I have seen noone speak of it. Does it have moire and aliasing like the 70D or is clean like the 5D mk III?

The only aspect we know is that low light performance in video seems to have had a big upgrade. I would love to know if there's an improvement in detail/resolution too.

No moire/aliasing + great low-light = my next purchase. Better resolution would be even better, but still, aliasing is the deal breaker here.

 

[Woody]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

Looks good. Let's wait for more data.

 

[Keith_Reeder]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

Just like the 70D, as I've been saying for some time.

 

[mackguyver]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

Looks good. Let's wait for more data.

Have any of you zoomed in on the lifted version? It's not so pretty at 100% - lots of block noise and chroma smearing

 

[Drizzt321]

Something I keyed in on, they Dual-Pixel is 2nd gen, while 70D is 1st gen. So it sounds like they have done some additional sensor work for sure. Although it might be other hardware and/or software for 2nd gen.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

The shadows appear, looking at the small pitch black masked off area in the RAW file, to be possibly entirely free of banding, which is a good thing. So they will probably not show vertical or horizontal lines or cross-hatching when pushed a lot, which is nice.

OOH, the read noise is no better than anything they have done since 2006/2007. I only did a quick measurement, and the masked area is small, but it seems to be roughly on the exact same order as with the 7D.

The measured DR will probably register about the same as the 7D at ISO100 (although, since it is probably entirely free of banding issues, the nicely usable DR should be higher than with the 7D).

But the shadows will still be 2-3 stops worse than Exmor. This time though, without the banding, at least you'll be able to use every last bit of what DR it does have. So they should look exceptionally clean from a fixed pattern noise standpoint, but pretty out of date from a random read noise standpoint.

But the AF should be amazing and the fps are good and sensor density pretty high, so it should serve very well as an action/reach cam.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I sure wish someone would ask Canon about the 3x movie digital zoom mode from the 70D being in or out of the 7D2. I was really hoping they would expand that to smooth continuous zoom from 1x to 3x, but it appears they went the other way and got rid of it entirely.

It would also be nice to know if it reads the whole sensor or still line skips in video mode.

Yeah I seriously don't get why they keep leaving out something as basic as the zoomed modes, especially on the "reach/wildlife/sports" line the 7D. With dual digic 6 it should be able to read the entire sensor and give you 1:1 video or 1:2 video or full aps-c frame video (or even 4k). But all it gives is full aps-c frame video. I don't get it.

I think they may get a lot of sales due to the fps and AF (in those regards it does appear to be, hands down, the best APS-C camera ever (yeah some form other brands do have more fps, but not combined with this sort of truly action practicable and likely very top level AF)), but I dont think they will get the video sales out of this that they somehow expected at all (no 1080pRAW, no high bit in cam Cxx-quality 1080p, quite possibly not even 8bit Cxx 1080p quality, no 4k, no zebras, no live focusing aids, no zoom modes, really, other than for the DPAF which is cool, they went about as utterly conservative, short-sighted and boring as they possible thought they could get away with for the video, so Canon of today; other than the DPAF, a 5D3 with ML should be much more usable and be able to put out much higher quality video, granted, the DPAF certainly could be useful to have at times, that is a cool feature certainly, but to then crippled everything else....). Other than the DPAF, the video seems very 2011 (or even very 2008, if it for some reason actually line skips, I can't imagine why it should though).

If the camera is ML hackable, they may be able to get all sorts of zoomed modes out of it. That will probably be a good year away though.

I mean, if by some miracle, it does at least put out 8bit 4:2:2 (it does, with an external recorder) of the same quality as the Cxx (I doubt it), I suppose it would pick up video sales then. Seeing how smeary digic 6 looks for jpg stills and trying to read the tea leaves in the one full res video sample that is out, it seems doubtful though.

 

[justsomedude]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

This is way out of my expertise, and all though it looked good from a shaddow point of view, I would have liked to see a few more examples. The steel railings (which in the original is quite dark) are somewhat smudgy in the shaddowenhanced picture. I am not sure if that is the way the steelrailing looks inherently, but could also resemble some sort of banding, could it not?

I gotta be honest, those railings don't look smudgy at all to me. What I see are weathered railings with different patches of discoloration due to sun/wind/rain. It's pretty common in moist/humid environments. And if that's the case, and that's the detail we're seeing, this sensor is sick!

 

[Steve]

Have any of you zoomed in on the lifted version? It's not so pretty at 100% - lots of block noise and chroma smearing

Yeah, doesn't look good at all if you click through and view large or original size. All of the detail is annihilated.

Also, where are the RAW files? I see some jpgs some person posted to flickr; where did the RAWs come from?

 

[Helevitia]

Elsewhere, someone worked on a 7DII raw file and found rather clean shadows:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?s=5bc5bcfaeb7070a83fe961da98b20dfe&p=17162418&postcount=810

This is way out of my expertise, and all though it looked good from a shaddow point of view, I would have liked to see a few more examples. The steel railings (which in the original is quite dark) are somewhat smudgy in the shaddowenhanced picture. I am not sure if that is the way the steelrailing looks inherently, but could also resemble some sort of banding, could it not?

I gotta be honest, those railings don't look smudgy at all to me. What I see are weathered railings with different patches of discoloration due to sun/wind/rain. It's pretty common in moist/humid environments. And if that's the case, and that's the detail we're seeing, this sensor is sick!

I'm a nobody that has a 7D for fun amateur stuff, but I'll share my thoughts anyway

1. I agree. The rails aren't smudgy at all. I pulled the pic into LR. The rails clearly have bird poop, discoloration, weather worn metal, water spots, sun reflection, etc...

2. Canon knows they need to have much less noise on the 7D2 compared to the 7D. Personally, I was never happy with any image over ISO400 on the 7D because it was too noisy. I'm hoping for usable images at 1600 or 3200 ISO and I think that is good for this APS-C camera.

I suspect it will be somewhere around 75% as good as a 5D3/6D and about 25-50% better than the 70D. If that's the case, I'll buy one. I would love to have the 5D3, but I don't take enough pictures to justify the price.

Anyhoo, let's go back to examining tiny pixels

 

[ashmadux]

Isnt he FULL original file better to judge? the files on flickr are half size or less.

they look good and crip, but without raw files, cant judge it.

 

[AshtonNekolah]

Well at least there are no big body frame like the 1dx from the rumors it kept it original style, I think this is a winner in the crop sensors and finally canon showed they can do away with the remote that attaches to the camera which should of bin there with the born of the 6d and 5d mk3. ML rocks and always does justice, im sure it will come to the 7D mk2 but for now will have to live without it, after all people got the 5d mk3 for the high quality video right. As the camera looks promising and im sure it will do great when the shipping starts.

 

[dmosier]

Sadly, it sounds like moving the 7Dii to video is more important to Canon.
Very disappointed.

I have no idea why one would think this camera suggests "video is more important to Canon." Because honestly I see this camera as living proof that Canon actually couldn't care less about video. The video capabilities of this camera would have been interesting about four years ago. As it is now, for cinematographers, this camera is dead on arrival.

So like you I am disappointed but for entirely different reasons.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Sadly, it sounds like moving the 7Dii to video is more important to Canon.
Very disappointed.

I have no idea why one would think this camera suggests "video is more important to Canon." Because honestly I see this camera as living proof that Canon actually couldn't care less about video. The video capabilities of this camera would have been interesting about four years ago. As it is now, for cinematographers, this camera is dead on arrival.

You're wrong - Canon cares a lot about video. Canon especially cares a lot about the folks in video that have money to spend. And Canon wants as much of that money as they can get (Canon is a corporation afterall.)

So why would Canon sell you a $1800 DSLR to do video when they have a $10000 video camera that they'd rather you buy instead?

Because just keeping your current 5D3 is better than the $1800 7D2 for video (unless you must have DPAF) and $0 is less than $1800 or $10000. Because a GH4 or especially A7S are much better for video (other than DPAF) than the 7D2 and both are less than $10000, even with a Ninja Shogun 4k recorder that plus an A7S is still far less than $10000. A whole lot of people have enough money to manage the Samsung and Panny and Sony and so on, but not the Cxx or 1DC for $10000 (and the A7S+NS is both better and less $$$ than the 1DC anyway).

And SOny is just about to release a serious video cam for 1DC price that will utterly blow it away for video. They are gonna be squeezed on the lower high-end and be left behind on the super upper low end which they had created themselves.

 

[Orangutan]

Sadly, it sounds like moving the 7Dii to video is more important to Canon.
Very disappointed.

I have no idea why one would think this camera suggests "video is more important to Canon." Because honestly I see this camera as living proof that Canon actually couldn't care less about video. The video capabilities of this camera would have been interesting about four years ago. As it is now, for cinematographers, this camera is dead on arrival.

You're wrong - Canon cares a lot about video. Canon especially cares a lot about the folks in video that have money to spend. And Canon wants as much of that money as they can get (Canon is a corporation afterall.)

So why would Canon sell you a $1800 DSLR to do video when they have a $10000 video camera that they'd rather you buy instead?

You're basically on the right track, Dilbert. My guess is the 7D2's video will be optimized for producing excellent amateur video -- something mom & dad would be proud to show their child's grandparents. It should be easy to use, etc. It should have enough features to lure the some fraction into higher-end gear. Under no circumstances should it directly compete with their pro gear.

 

[dmosier]

Sadly, it sounds like moving the 7Dii to video is more important to Canon.
Very disappointed.

I have no idea why one would think this camera suggests "video is more important to Canon." Because honestly I see this camera as living proof that Canon actually couldn't care less about video. The video capabilities of this camera would have been interesting about four years ago. As it is now, for cinematographers, this camera is dead on arrival.

You're wrong - Canon cares a lot about video. Canon especially cares a lot about the folks in video that have money to spend. And Canon wants as much of that money as they can get (Canon is a corporation afterall.)

So why would Canon sell you a $1800 DSLR to do video when they have a $10000 video camera that they'd rather you buy instead?

z

I'm not wrong. If Canon actually cared about video they would make a camera worth buying for video. Because if Canon "cared" so much about that $10,000 camera they would rather I buy, I would suggest making one that isn't outclassed by half a dozen other camera manufacturers that are BETTER than Canon at or near the price point of a DSLR. The market is already there whether Canon wants it to be or not. Ever heard of Kodak? They were also a company that wanted to make as much money as possible. How successful were they?

I don't really care what Canon would rather sell me. I only care about what I want to buy and right now Canon isn't it. Their video tech is stuck in 2010 so I can take my wallet elsewhere and get far more bang for the buck.

 

[dmosier]

Sadly, it sounds like moving the 7Dii to video is more important to Canon.
Very disappointed.

I have no idea why one would think this camera suggests "video is more important to Canon." Because honestly I see this camera as living proof that Canon actually couldn't care less about video. The video capabilities of this camera would have been interesting about four years ago. As it is now, for cinematographers, this camera is dead on arrival.

You're wrong - Canon cares a lot about video. Canon especially cares a lot about the folks in video that have money to spend. And Canon wants as much of that money as they can get (Canon is a corporation afterall.)

So why would Canon sell you a $1800 DSLR to do video when they have a $10000 video camera that they'd rather you buy instead?

You're basically on the right track, Dilbert. My guess is the 7D2's video will be optimized for producing excellent amateur video -- something mom & dad would be proud to show their child's grandparents. It should be easy to use, etc. It should have enough features to lure the some fraction into higher-end gear. Under no circumstances should it directly compete with their pro gear.

That's about right. Amateur video. At a time when I can pay that same dollar amount elsewhere for a camera that allows me to shoot professional looking video.

So why shouldn't they make a camera for less than $5k that competes with their +$10k pro gear? Because everyone else already is.