70D or 7D MK II

[Lee Jay]

At 60 fps the eye can no longer tell the difference, which is ~17 ms refresh. As a practical matter your ability to tell a difference will have a threshold a lot higher than that. In other words modern EFVs are more than adequate. Stop looking at EFVs from 10 years ago, and stop looking at the word "EFV" to form you judgment.

This is all simply untrue, and comes from an ignorance of how closed loop feedback systems work.

Your "dark adaption" of your eyes allows you to see in the dark?

Yes. Very dark. The equivalent of ISO 500,000 1/10th.

Don't make me laugh. Please. A modern camera sensor on the other hand is quite capable of seeing
in the dark, and certainly a lot better than any human eye.

Only with long exposures.

Plus, you are still ignoring the fundamental advantage EFVs have over optical, which is the ability to see at the pixel level what the camera actually is seeing (which is fundamentally important because the CAMERA (bolded because you are ignoring this fundamental fact) is recording the image, not your eye). Optical viewfinders are simply incapable of doing that.

Manual focus magnification is the only advantage of EVFs for stills.

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

And the 7D2 is any different??

All we have for both cameras are the specs, and as far as the specs are concerned the NX1 blows the 7D2 out of the water.

Like I said, the NX1 is the camera the 7D2 should have been.
[/quote]

The OP is comparing between the 7D mk II and 70D. Nx1 is irrelevant.

PS: where did we get the information about the absence if the 3x crop mode from the 7D mk III? That's a shame. It's a way better video camera than the 70D (image quality, lowlight, aliasing, 60p slowmotion, headphone jack, audio metering, improved DPAF, clean HDMI out with audio and timecode, more codec options (mov and mp4 and a lite version for smaller files) therefore it seems strange they would take it away.

Canon always done strange things with this specific feature however for some reason, for example it's in the 600D, yet absent from the 650D and 700D and 100D. It was featured in the original EOS m in the preproduction firmware yet it was taken away in the final released firmware. It's not in the 5D mk III or 1DX. Only the 600D and 70D (and 1Dc has similar various crop modes). I hope it's in the 7D mk II. It's a very very useful feature and gives you effectively the option of selecting a different sensor size for each shot.

 

[mb66energy]

If I use two cameras together I would always be interested in (very) similar ergonomics between both. Usually I have 600D and EOS M with me - both have very different ergonomics but just 40D and 600D are separated by a lightyear or so.

If missing wifi, tiltable screen, 3x digital zoom and weight (+ price) is a non-issue the 7D ii might be the right choice.

I am thinking myself about an upgrade
IQ-wise AND
AF-performance wise
and I am shure the 7D ii will win (70D is no option for me because I like the joystick controller of my 40D so much) - and I like compact solid bodies ...
Much better AF is needed for outdoor macro with AI servo to let the focus adapt permanently - it is always a little bit windy. The widespread AF fields and the cross type sensors might help a lot.

 

[Tugela]

At 60 fps the eye can no longer tell the difference, which is ~17 ms refresh. As a practical matter your ability to tell a difference will have a threshold a lot higher than that. In other words modern EFVs are more than adequate. Stop looking at EFVs from 10 years ago, and stop looking at the word "EFV" to form you judgment.

This is all simply untrue, and comes from an ignorance of how closed loop feedback systems work.

Your "dark adaption" of your eyes allows you to see in the dark?

Yes. Very dark. The equivalent of ISO 500,000 1/10th.

Don't make me laugh. Please. A modern camera sensor on the other hand is quite capable of seeing
in the dark, and certainly a lot better than any human eye.

Only with long exposures.

Plus, you are still ignoring the fundamental advantage EFVs have over optical, which is the ability to see at the pixel level what the camera actually is seeing (which is fundamentally important because the CAMERA (bolded because you are ignoring this fundamental fact) is recording the image, not your eye). Optical viewfinders are simply incapable of doing that.

Manual focus magnification is the only advantage of EVFs for stills.

.

Maybe you are some sort of freak then.

"closed loop feedback", what ever that means, is irrelevant. The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

I can look at a scene visually and look at the same scene through an EVF, and the EFV will win 100% of the time simply because the gain on an EFV can be adjusted whereas the gain on the eyeball cannot.

An EVF can focus in on subject matter for accurate focus (impossible with an optical viewfinder), AND it can accurately represent overexposure (impossible with an optical viewfinder). What are the advantages of an optical viewfinder other than a historical attachment to pre-digital cameras? The answer is simple - none.

Let me repeat - the EFV sees exactly what you camera is seeing (correct me if I am wrong, but that is the whole purpose of the viewfinder), and since you are interested in what your camera is seeing (not what you are seeing), the EFV is superior to the human eye in all situations bar none.

 

[Lee Jay]

PS: where did we get the information about the absence if the 3x crop mode from the 7D mk III?

We don't know for sure. All I know for sure is that the feature is not in the same menu location on the 7DII beta cameras that have been shown in video as it is in the 70D. This leads me to believe that the feature was removed.

As I said, the fact that it's single-shot focusing in that feature means it's useless to me for most applications I had planned for it.

 

[Lee Jay]

"closed loop feedback", what ever that means, is irrelevant.

The fact that you don't know what it means also means that you don't understand its relevance.

The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

Then tell me why I could not do, with a 25ms lag EVF, what I could do easily with a 0ms OVF.

I know why, but you don't.

What are the advantages of an optical viewfinder other than a historical attachment to pre-digital cameras?

Zero lag.
Zero power usage.
Infinite dynamic range.
Infinite color gamut.
Automatic match between viewfinder illumination and scene illumination.
A total dynamic range (bright sun to night scenes) equal to the scene, which can be about 10-12 stops more than an EVF can manage.

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

EVFs have advantages and disadvantages, OVFs have advantages and disadvantages, read about them on the hundreds of articles online, or go to a local camera shop try them out and decide which one you prefer. Much easier and way more productive than having a "-my-preference-is-better-than-yours-and-you-are-an-ignorant-for-having-a-different one, stupid-" fight with a random guy online...

 

[Don Haines]

Zero lag.
Zero power usage.
Infinite dynamic range.
Infinite color gamut.
Automatic match between viewfinder illumination and scene illumination.
A total dynamic range (bright sun to night scenes) equal to the scene, which can be about 10-12 stops more than an EVF can manage.

Not to be picky.... but.....

Zero Lag.... not quite... it's about .5 microseconds for the light to travel through the prism.... but that's about a 30 thousandth the time of the best EVF's... for the stuff I deal with at work, .5 microseconds is freakin' slow!

Infinite dynamic range and color gamut? That would require travelling through a vacuum... you loose some of each passing through glass and through atmosphere.. It is certainly far superior, but it is not infinite....

 

[Lee Jay]

Zero lag.
Zero power usage.
Infinite dynamic range.
Infinite color gamut.
Automatic match between viewfinder illumination and scene illumination.
A total dynamic range (bright sun to night scenes) equal to the scene, which can be about 10-12 stops more than an EVF can manage.

Not to be picky.... but.....

Zero Lag.... not quite... it's about .5 microseconds for the light to travel through the prism.... but that's about a 30 thousandth the time of the best EVF's... for the stuff I deal with at work, .5 microseconds is freakin' slow!

Infinite dynamic range and color gamut? That would require travelling through a vacuum... you loose some of each passing through glass and through atmosphere.. It is certainly far superior, but it is not infinite....

Light can go 500 feet in .5 microseconds. Did you mean .5 nanoseconds?

 

[bdunbar79]

Not to be picky Don, but you obviously have no concept of the speed of light.

 

[Don Haines]

Zero lag.
Zero power usage.
Infinite dynamic range.
Infinite color gamut.
Automatic match between viewfinder illumination and scene illumination.
A total dynamic range (bright sun to night scenes) equal to the scene, which can be about 10-12 stops more than an EVF can manage.

Not to be picky.... but.....

Zero Lag.... not quite... it's about .5 microseconds for the light to travel through the prism.... but that's about a 30 thousandth the time of the best EVF's... for the stuff I deal with at work, .5 microseconds is freakin' slow!

Infinite dynamic range and color gamut? That would require travelling through a vacuum... you loose some of each passing through glass and through atmosphere.. It is certainly far superior, but it is not infinite....

Light can go 500 feet in .5 microseconds. Did you mean .5 nanoseconds?

repeat after me....

I love autocorrect.... I love autocorrect..... I love autocorrect......

autocorrect changed it on me! .5 nanoseconds is the correct answer....

By the way.... the local coffee shop chain around here is called "Tim Hortens". Autocorrect changes it to "Tim Horrendous"...

 

[bdunbar79]

No excuses. This is the internet Don. ;D

 

[DominoDude]

Any light worth catching is allowed to bounce around 1000 times - in a strict and well behaved manner - inside a Canon camera before it decides to exit through the viewfinder, Don.

 

[Don Haines]

No excuses. This is the internet Don. ;D

Best comment I have read in ages!

 

[GmwDarkroom]

The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

Not quite. Cinema film shot at 24fps appears fluid to the human eye because it's projected at 48fps with each image shown twice -- as distinct from 48fps like Peter Jackson uses with a full 48 images. If it was actually run at 24fps, you'd have a splitting headache. Some projectors run at 72 images per second.

Carry on.

 

[Lee Jay]

The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

Not quite. Cinema film shot at 24fps appears fluid to the human eye because it's projected at 48fps with each image shown twice -- as distinct from 48fps like Peter Jackson uses with a full 48 images. If it was actually run at 24fps, you'd have a splitting headache. Some projectors run at 72 images per second.

Carry on.

Regardless, your ability to see flicker isn't really related to your ability to track high speed subjects in the presence of lag.

 

[MagnumJoe]

As exciting as I was about the 7D MK II I'm probably going to pass on it for now as well as the 70D.
I rented a canon 1.4x III extender this weekend and I was amazed of the performance with my 5D MK III and 70-200 f/2.8 II.
I'm still interested in something for video and use the glass I currently own. Time will tell what I choose. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

 

[GmwDarkroom]

The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

Not quite. Cinema film shot at 24fps appears fluid to the human eye because it's projected at 48fps with each image shown twice -- as distinct from 48fps like Peter Jackson uses with a full 48 images. If it was actually run at 24fps, you'd have a splitting headache. Some projectors run at 72 images per second.

Carry on.

Regardless, your ability to see flicker isn't really related to your ability to track high speed subjects in the presence of lag.

No argument. The effectiveness of a display is affected by refresh rate, input lag, and change response time. The last is where an OLED EFV would have no issues. The first two can cause problems. The likely issue with any EFV would be input lag, if it's not sufficiently low. Given that the data has to be encoded, moved, and redisplayed, the electronics would need to be very, very fast.

 

[Lee Jay]

The human eye cannot tell the difference above about 24 fps, so a refresh threshold of about 42 ms is enough.

Not quite. Cinema film shot at 24fps appears fluid to the human eye because it's projected at 48fps with each image shown twice -- as distinct from 48fps like Peter Jackson uses with a full 48 images. If it was actually run at 24fps, you'd have a splitting headache. Some projectors run at 72 images per second.

Carry on.

Regardless, your ability to see flicker isn't really related to your ability to track high speed subjects in the presence of lag.

No argument. The effectiveness of a display is affected by refresh rate, input lag, and change response time. The last is where an OLED EFV would have no issues. The first two can cause problems. The likely issue with any EFV would be input lag, if it's not sufficiently low. Given that the data has to be encoded, moved, and redisplayed, the electronics would need to be very, very fast.

The sensor too. The theoretical minimum on lag is the shutter period. In good light this can be very short, but then the frame rate and thus processing pipeline has to keep up.

In low light, the shutter speed can be a major problem. When you need 1/15th to get an image for the EVF, your lag is going to be that plus any processing overhead.

 

[Hjalmarg1]

I’m interested in a second body to compliment my 5D MK III. I mostly shoot candids, portraits, my grandson in the park and his T-ball and soccer games. The 5D MK III has done really well and I rented a canon 1.4 III extender and will try out this weekend.

The reason I’m interested in the 70D or 7D MK II for my second body are.
The extra reach and video auto focus.

70D advantages
Touch Screen
Articulated Screen
Price

7D MK II advantages
Ergonomics (similar to 5D MK III)
65 Focus Points
10 FPS
Weather Proof
Headphone Port
Viewfinder coverage, 100%

I’m leaning towards the 7D MK II, but I’d like to hear your feedback and suggestions.

Which one would/will you buy or would you buy?

Hi Magnun,

You said you need a second body? You also have the 6D in your bag.
I would wait and see how different is the performance (particularly noise and ISO) of the new 7D2 over the 70D.
Particularly I'll wait to see real reviews of the 7D2 to see if the premiun over the 70D is worth it.