Are These The EOS 7D Mark II Specifications?

[vscd]

I don't understand what the pictures should show... most camerasensors have lenses attached that aren't able to resolve at least 16MP. Look at DXO and compare which lense gives the full resolution on a APS-C or FF-Cam. Mostly only a *few* L-primes can even cover 18MP on a Canon 7D.

APS-C Cams need better lenses if you have the same amount of pixels on a FF and on an APS-C sensor.

 

[Sporgon]

OK, well here is 100%. The fact is there is just no difference.

Your methodology is horribly flawed. You need to test using the real world techniques that anyone who cares about image quality understands and uses for all of their shooting.

[list type=decimal]
[*]Put the camera* on a massive tripod.
[*]Weigh the tripod down with a load of bricks or cement.
[*]Manually focus with 10x live view.
[*]Engage mirror lockup.
[*]Shoot 8-10 shots of the same scene so you can pick the sharpest.
[/list]
* Camera must be a D810 for best results.

Follow those steps, and the differences will be obvious.

</sarcasm>

I got one right, so 20%. Is that a 'U' - unclassified ;D

The centre taken from 85/1.8 @ f4 , hand held but at 1/1250 so I'm guessing pretty high res - according to DxO.

The thing is I expected to see some extra res from the extra pixels on target, particularly because when moving from an 8 mp APS camera to 12 mp APS I'm pretty certain I could see the difference.

 

[unfocused]

OK, well here is 100%. The fact is there is just no difference.

Sporgon, I'm a little confused by what you are trying to show here. If you are saying that you can crop a full frame sensor image to the same effective focal length of an uncropped APS-C camera and not lose any significant detail, I don't think most people disagree with that.

When you have to do extensive cropping, sooner or later, the full frame image taken from the same spot with a sensor of equal megapixels is going to deteriorate, simply because the final image has less resolution.

I think this is the point of contention.

Yeah, sure if you don't have to crop severely, the "reach" advantage of a crop sensor may not be significant. But, if you must do some significant cropping of the image, the greater pixel density of the APS-C sensor will hold up longer.

Your experiment is a little unfair, because you are using a 12 mp APS-C sensor. A more fair comparison would be to take a 70 D and a 6 D, which are fairly close in the number of megapixels. Shoot the same scene with both from the same spot. Crop the 6D image to match the framing of the 70 D and then keep cropping away until one image deteriorates to the point where it becomes unusable.

Logic would suggest that the 6D image will fall apart sooner, because you are starting with less resolution. But, it would be interesting to see if that is really the case.

Of course, it if turns out the the fall apart equally, despite the difference in resolution, then all those people clamoring for a high-resolution Canon full frame camera would have to rethink their demands.

Frankly, I'm okay with either result. I would just suggest a more fair comparison.

 

[Sporgon]

OK, well here is 100%. The fact is there is just no difference.

Sporgon, I'm a little confused by what you are trying to show here. If you are saying that you can crop a full frame sensor image to the same effective focal length of an uncropped APS-C camera and not lose any significant detail, I don't think most people disagree with that.

When you have to do extensive cropping, sooner or later, the full frame image taken from the same spot with a sensor of equal megapixels is going to deteriorate, simply because the final image has less resolution.

I think this is the point of contention.

Yeah, sure if you don't have to crop severely, the "reach" advantage of a crop sensor may not be significant. But, if you must do some significant cropping of the image, the greater pixel density of the APS-C sensor will hold up longer.

Your experiment is a little unfair, because you are using a 12 mp APS-C sensor. A more fair comparison would be to take a 70 D and a 6 D, which are fairly close in the number of megapixels. Shoot the same scene with both from the same spot. Crop the 6D image to match the framing of the 70 D and then keep cropping away until one image deteriorates to the point where it becomes unusable.

Logic would suggest that the 6D image will fall apart sooner, because you are starting with less resolution. But, it would be interesting to see if that is really the case.

Of course, it if turns out the the fall apart equally, despite the difference in resolution, then all those people clamoring for a high-resolution Canon full frame camera would have to rethink their demands.

Frankly, I'm okay with either result. I would just suggest a more fair comparison.

I am one of those people who thought " I want a little more reach - I'll use my (daughter's) APS camera. As you can see there is no difference in this scenario, even when (unfairly) I up sampled the 8.5 mp of the 5D.

What puzzles me is that I could see the difference between an 8 mp camera and a 12 mp of the same format.

I'll borrow a 7D off a pal and see what happens with 18 mp.

 

[unfocused]

I am one of those people who thought " I want a little more reach - I'll use my (daughter's) APS camera. As you can see there is no difference in this scenario, even when (unfairly) I up sampled the 8.5 mp of the 5D.

What puzzles me is that I could see the difference between an 8 mp camera and a 12 mp of the same format.

I'll borrow a 7D off a pal and see what happens with 18 mp.

I admire your patience and willingness to experiment. As you can tell, I tend to believe there is a difference, but only in cases of extreme cropping, when you reach the point where there simply aren't enough pixels to get a sharp image.

That's one reason why, now that I own a 5DIII, I'm still interested in a 7DII but don't feel the urgency I once did. I see it being useful for bird and wildlife photography, when I simply can't get close enough with existing lenses and need to crop significantly.

But, as I don't have the time to do as much of that type of photography as I would like, I'm inclined to wait until the reviews are in and the price settles down before considering it.

 

[plam_1980]

Regarding the sensor...very disappointing. Sounds like a re-purposed 70D sensor with a DPAF improvement. I was REALLY, REALLY hoping Canon would really show something impressive on the sensor front with the 7D II. If the camera really does hit the streets with a 20mp sensor, I fully expect it to have the same DR limitations as all of Canon's previous sensors. Extremely disappointing. :'( Guess we'll have to wait for the 5D IV to see if Canon can actually step up their sensor IQ game or not...which is just...so far down the road...Bleh.

Also worried about the "fine detail"...I really don't want them to start removing AA filters. That is just a dumb trend that photographers like simply because they do not understand the value of an AA filter, or the ease by which AA softening can be sharpened.

+1

it sorta almost leads one to believe that Japanese Canon Fangirls post here where they were claiming that Canon feels they have Canon users trapped enough that it won't matter if the bodies they push out can't keep up as per sensors and even other features at times (still not a hint that they are actually moving any DSLR sensors to new fabs and the panny gets 4k and yet the super new 7D2 which was promised to have revolutionary video and this and that is still 1080p)

and yeah the AA filter-less stuff I am not a big fan of, maybe when we get to 180MP FF or 60MP APS-C or something.

Yeah, we really need sensors to significantly oversample the lens before we can legitimately start dropping AA filters. Otherwise we just end up WITH aliasing, and that's never good.

I was not really interested in the 7D II being a big video DSLR anyway...I don't really know that anyone truly was, you just don't get that cinematic look with a smaller sensor...not without having very wide apertures anyway (like a lot of expensive cinema lenses do).

The thing that I think Canon really needed to nail, and which increasingly appears as they will not, is producing a truly new sensor with a fundamentally new design on a smaller fabrication process size. It just isn't happening. If this thing is still a 500nm transistor part...I mean...WOW. That technology is about fifteen years old!! What is Canon doing? It's one thing to be conservative, but now it's just getting ludicrous...

I have always wondered about this, and you may be the guy to answer. Intel's next series of chips is what, 14nm process? I understand that Intel is purely in the microprocessor business, and Canon has to do a lot more than just optimize processes for sensors, but is there any practical reason why sensor transistors are / should be / need to be on such a different scale? Or is it just a matter of business and not wanting to make the necessary investment to keep shrinking? The fact that intel shrinks every other year has just made me wonder... because clearly there's an advantage to a smaller process.

cost.
no one creates large sensors using the latest technology - the A7R / D810E sensor for instance is on 180nm. which is speculated to the be the same as the 70D sensor. D700, D4, etc were even on larger than that (350nm to 250nm)

the toshiba sensor uses 65nm and sony was looking at and just starting to use 90nm for it's APS-C sensors, but unless you're talking the smart phone / compact sensors - there's just no benefit to the smaller geometries over the cost of production with the pixel granularity where it is.

canon's current line of lithography systems can produce chips under 90nm - far exceeding even really what is required by sensors - so it's not as if canon can't if they feel they have to. also to add to that, canon now has the equipment to product down to under 10nm geometries.

To be honest, people are humping on this as the core reason - not really. and most of them don't have a freaking clue, but all of a sudden turn into electronic and chip designers (not to mention camera designers too). canon certainly has a problem "downlevel" from the pixel - but their QE from their current 70D isn't that much off than the D5100's QE and even cutting the pixels in half they improved the QE by 10% over the 7D sensor level spec.

Your partly right, but your largely missing the point. A 500nm transistor is actually HUGE by todays standards. Think about it, that is half a micron. For a pixel that is surrounded by half-micron transistors, that is a FULL micron off all side of the pixel. A 4µm pixel is then only capable of, at most, a 3µm photodiode. The full size of the pixel itself is 1.78x larger in area than the photodiode. However, if you move to a 180nm process, your losing less than half a micron in total. That means the photodiode can be 3.6µm in size. The pixel is only 1.2x larger in area than the photodiode. Your photodiode area has increased by a factor of 1.5x, which reduces noise by 1.2x. That is significant. It's a stop gained in noise performance.

However, the REAL point about moving to a smaller transistor size is the ability to put more logic on the sensor die. At 500nm, Canon would have to make the sensor die itself quite a lot larger in order to move all the ADC logic onto the sensor itself, and make it column-parallel. At 180nm or better 90nm, they could move the ADCs on-die and need less than half, maybe less than one quarter, of the die space that would be necessary to do that with a 500nm process. Yield would remain high, so the cost of moving ADC onto the sensor would be much lower in the long run. THAT is the real point of moving to a smaller process. To allow more logic to be placed on the sensor die itself. The biggest gain there would be allowing full blown, high performance CP-ADC (and, maybe, also employ some of the other patents Canon has, such as dual scale ADC, power decoupling, etc.)

There is also a significantly greater per-pixel transistor requirement for stacked pixel designs. Canon recently released a patent for a five-layer sensor design. I honestly don't know how they would pull that off with a 500nm process. Not without a very low fill factor which would push noise levels sky high. However, with a 90nm fabrication process, creating a five layer sensor would be much, much easier, without running into serious problems with noise.

To add about 500nm vs 14 nm, I have read elsewhere (an article on Intel processors), that anything beyond 65nm is extremely difficult to produce and the yield is about 70% (which means 30% scrap in production, which in turn means very costly production, imagine if Canon had to scrap 30% of their sensors). The main obstacles are due to van der Waals forces - the force necessary to break the particle is larger than the force to clean it from a contamination for example (i.e. it is easier to break it than to clean it) and also the lytography is made with ultra-violet light and not with normal light, because the wave-length of the white light is comparable with the geometry of the particle at 14nm. The conclusion was that the efforts and costs to go down from 150nm to 90nm to 65nm to 25nm etc. is not a linear but geometrical progression and only 2-3 companies in the world can produce technology at 14nm. For example Intel is the only producer of processors at 14nm, their competitors are far behind.

 

[jrista]

To add about 500nm vs 14 nm, I have read elsewhere (an article on Intel processors), that anything beyond 65nm is extremely difficult to produce and the yield is about 70% (which means 30% scrap in production, which in turn means very costly production, imagine if Canon had to scrap 30% of their sensors). The main obstacles are due to van der Waals forces - the force necessary to break the particle is larger than the force to clean it from a contamination for example (i.e. it is easier to break it than to clean it) and also the lytography is made with ultra-violet light and not with normal light, because the wave-length of the white light is comparable with the geometry of the particle at 14nm. The conclusion was that the efforts and costs to go down from 150nm to 90nm to 65nm to 25nm etc. is not a linear but geometrical progression and only 2-3 companies in the world can produce technology at 14nm. For example Intel is the only producer of processors at 14nm, their competitors are far behind.

I totally agree that the costs of doing photolithography at EUV or smaller wavelengths (or sub-wavelengths, as I believe is pretty much the case these days) does get considerably more expensive.

I don't think that 14nm transistors bring any value for sensors either. Even for the really tiny sensors with 1.1 micron pixels, I don't think that 14nm transistors bring any real value. Since all the logic is on the opposite side of the photodiodes...there is still enough space. For larger sensors, FSI or BSI, I don't think ultra tiny transistors are necessary. They are required for CPUs and GPUs and other logic circuits because of the need to pack ever more transistors, memory cells, and wiring into smaller and smaller spaces.

 

[Loswr]

CR still not clarified what electronic MF means, is it manual focus or micro focus adjustment?

I can clarify...

It refers to manual focus. People would love an automated AFMA like FoCal provides, IIRC Canon had a patent of that sort, but who knows if it'll ever see the light of day given that Canon sort of recommends against doing AFMA in their manual, possibly becuase of the implication that it corrects a 'problem'.

In this case, "Lens Electronic MF" is merely a setting that allows you to enable or disable the electronic manual focus of lenses which utilize electronic MF (aka focus-by-wire) – the 85L I and II, some of the old non-IS supertele lenses, a couple of others with USM, and I suppose the new STM lenses as well. I'm not even sure why CR Guy called it out with a bullet point. It's a 'feature' that both the 5DIII and 1D X have, as well.

 

[Gantz]

Beside all the Tech talk you people seem to love so much.
When was the last time a Canon camera impressed you?

The 1DX for me.

Nikon and Sony, with all their faults, have released cameras that impressed me one way or the other.

You can laught at Nikon for the DF.
But at least this Company is taking risks.

They may make mistakes sure, but i would rather see Canon risk something and make mistakes than their boring and unimaginative updates.

Now sure some smartypants here will ask why i don´t switch.
The usual dopey response to critizism here. :

Two reasons:

1) i still have hope for Canon to be innovativ again.

2) i am not a Pro but i have too much Canon gear. I can´t afford to sell it all.

 

[Old Sarge]

Nikon and Sony, with all their faults, have released cameras that impressed me one way or the other.

You can laugh at Nikon for the DF.
But at least this Company is taking risks.

I didn't laugh at the DF. It reminded me of my youth, much of it spent working in a camera store. Too bad it wasn't a better camera. If canon did something retro like that I might be tempted to buy it. Last night my wife was watching a Hallmark movie and I swear that camera appeared in one scene.

 

[Loswr]

Nikon and Sony, with all their faults, have released cameras that impressed me one way or the other.

Yes, but they didn't impress you enough to entice you to actually but them.

You can laught at Nikon for the DF.
But at least this Company is taking risks.

Many more risks like that, Nikon's stock will drop even further than it has recently. Oh, and a "pure photography" camera with a non-changeable focus screen that is no good for manual focus with fast lenses? Yeah, that's innovation…

 

[Gantz]

Nikon and Sony, with all their faults, have released cameras that impressed me one way or the other.

Yes, but they didn't impress you enough to entice you to actually but them.

Right. Because i already have a ton of Canon gear collected.
And this is not about switching brands.

You may lose the love for your wife when you are getting older but you won´t divorce when you are 60 or 70 years old.

Many more risks like that, Nikon's stock will drop even further than it has recently.

Oh please... you sound like a broken record. ;D
Are you at least Canon shareholder so it makes sense to repeat this a thousand times?

I don´t care how much money Canon makes!!
I don´t buy a VW only because they sell more cars than Porsche.

And even the years when Porsche was in financial trouble they made great cars.

Canon makes a profit so all users have to be happy with Canons decisions.
It´s not as simple as that.

And no, i don´t have to switch because i have something to critizise.
Just as you don´t have to divorce when you have an argument with your wife.
You divorce when the relationship is totaly ruined.

 

[Loswr]

Oh please... you sound like a broken record. ;D
I don´t care how much money Canon makes!!

I keep saying it because people continue failing to grasp the relevant concept. Canon is not in business to make products that please you. Canon is not in the business of creating innovations based on your criteria for what that means.

So when people wine on the Internet, "Why isn't Canon innovating?," "Why hasn't Canon made product X, Y, or Z?," that's the answer. If you're not happy about it, there are other brands out there. If you are unwilling to switch, well… Canon already has your money, and odds are they'll get more of it in the future.

 

[Gantz]

Oh please... you sound like a broken record. ;D
I don´t care how much money Canon makes!!

I keep saying it because people continue failing to grasp the relevant concept. Canon is not in business to make products that please you. Canon is not in the business of creating innovations based on your criteria for what that means.

People complaint for years about Nokia, im sure some Nokia fans had the same arguments.

Or we could say you don´t grasp that i, as customer, don´t have to care about Canons profit. Nor do i have to defend their product strategy.

Of course i want what´s best for me.
Im not a Fanboy who fights for his brand all day, i am only a customer who says what he thinks.

And i sure don´t stop saying it only because the marketing from Canons thinks i am the minority (Nokia made that mistake too).

 

[Loswr]

Or we could say you don´t grasp that i, as customer, don´t have to care about Canons profit. Nor do i have to defend their product strategy.

I understand that perfectly. I'm a customer too, I have wants and needs, some of which are meant by Canon and others of which are not.

The difference is that I can see the situation from points of you other than my own personal one. It seems a lot of people have difficulty doing that.

You keep bringing up divorce, are you bitter about something? :

 

[Gantz]

Or we could say you don´t grasp that i, as customer, don´t have to care about Canons profit. Nor do i have to defend their product strategy.

I understand that perfectly. I'm a customer too, I have wants and needs, some of which are meant by Canon and others of which are not.

The difference is that I can see the situation from points of you other than my own personal one. It seems a lot of people have difficulty doing that.

You keep bringing up divorce, are you bitter about something? :

Im not even married, don´t worry. 8)
Why are you interested, you need a lawyer?

And i see both points, believe me. You are less unique than you think.
But as im not a Fanboy i don´t have to defend the side im not on.

I can be completely biased.

 

[PJSOFT]

I'm not even sure why CR Guy called it out with a bullet point. It's a 'feature' that both the 5DIII and 1D X have, as well.

To my understanding, this is an improvement from the old 7D. If that's correct, then it's interesting enough I guess.

 

[East Wind Photography]

CR still not clarified what electronic MF means, is it manual focus or micro focus adjustment?

I can clarify...

It refers to manual focus. People would love an automated AFMA like FoCal provides, IIRC Canon had a patent of that sort, but who knows if it'll ever see the light of day given that Canon sort of recommends against doing AFMA in their manual, possibly becuase of the implication that it corrects a 'problem'.

In this case, "Lens Electronic MF" is merely a setting that allows you to enable or disable the electronic manual focus of lenses which utilize electronic MF (aka focus-by-wire) – the 85L I and II, some of the old non-IS supertele lenses, a couple of others with USM, and I suppose the new STM lenses as well. I'm not even sure why CR Guy called it out with a bullet point. It's a 'feature' that both the 5DIII and 1D X have, as well.

Seeing that they are likely trying suit something here for video users, is it possible they are adding a mode by which you can manually adjust focus by way of a couple of buttons or perhaps even a fw trap focus option? I.e. Focus between 10' and 20' over a span of 20 seconds?

 

[Loswr]

CR still not clarified what electronic MF means, is it manual focus or micro focus adjustment?

I can clarify...

It refers to manual focus. People would love an automated AFMA like FoCal provides, IIRC Canon had a patent of that sort, but who knows if it'll ever see the light of day given that Canon sort of recommends against doing AFMA in their manual, possibly becuase of the implication that it corrects a 'problem'.

In this case, "Lens Electronic MF" is merely a setting that allows you to enable or disable the electronic manual focus of lenses which utilize electronic MF (aka focus-by-wire) – the 85L I and II, some of the old non-IS supertele lenses, a couple of others with USM, and I suppose the new STM lenses as well. I'm not even sure why CR Guy called it out with a bullet point. It's a 'feature' that both the 5DIII and 1D X have, as well.

Seeing that they are likely trying suit something here for video users, is it possible they are adding a mode by which you can manually adjust focus by way of a couple of buttons or perhaps even a fw trap focus option? I.e. Focus between 10' and 20' over a span of 20 seconds?

Those features would be nice and useful for some, and might be in there, but assuming the rumor is correct, this isn't those. The feature name "lens electronic MF" is already in use, Canon would keep naming consistent.

 

[vscd]

For me it would be more interesting to fix some annoying bugs on all those new cameras, instead of inventing some (often useless) new functions.

For example, why do we have a 30 seconds limit on the bulb-mode? There is no reason for this, but it's a pain in the ass in the field while taking longexposureshots. Why don't we get the fancy A-DEP Mode back? What's with the eye-controlled AF? Worked great in the EOS-5.

Why is there no small light on the bayonett for nighttime-lenschange (and no on the buttons eighter, but there are some cams with it like the D4S).

Why is there no stacking modus with all those lenses? STM would be perfect for it. This list could go on and on. Sometimes if i grab an old camera like a Contax or a Zenza, I find features I miss after a while.