Are These The EOS 7D Mark II Specifications?

[Lee Jay]

Just a few thoughts:

With the 70D, Canon introduced a new sensor, which was quite revolutionary with its two photodiode layout.
Do you really, really believe, that they will produce an entirely, completely new sensor for the 7D after having included their new, in some terms ground-breaking, DPAF sensor in...let me count... exactly one body?

They could use the same basic pixel design and use a different readout system like on-chip A-to-D's, one per column. That would provide the same shot noise but improved read noise. Or, maybe the DIGIC 6 has improved readout.

 

[Stu_bert]

Does make you wonder though, if these end up being the final specs, why didn't they bang out a 7D replacement right after the 70D was announced? Why did we have to wait (still waiting) for a 2fps bump from the previous model and what seems like the exact same sensor from the 70D? There is nothing groundbreaking here, which is prob the reason a lot of people are feeling a bit peeved. It's the lowest end of what we expected. The bare minimum. Still, it'll more than likely be an awesome camera for sports and wildlife.

But will it still be awesome in 5 years time?? ???

Maybe the JapaneseCanonfangirlsPost had it right:
"
Information from Japanese Canon fan girls, who are working @Canon:

Information about the successor of the 7D and the 5DIII are under total NDA. And total means total. There is just an small circle of engeneers and managers who know all of these Cameras. Others are just working on fragments of this Cameras to avoid leaks. If anyone says, he knows details on these products, he is not telling the truth.
In earlier times print jobs for tranportation and manuals were given to the printeries weeks before announcement. This time, there ist still just printing time reservated. No files have been sent to them (status from 08/12).


Canon is still thinking that they do not have to produce the best and most innovative products in the low and mid price segments. Sales figures show that the market analysts are right. Canon is still the best power seller on the market. And the analysts know that in future time, the market wil not grow and other brands are coming in. Sony will be very active, maybe an 5DIII and 1DX mirrorless competitor is coming in the near future.
The slow reaction on the D7100 and the still "no reaction" on the excellent D800/810 is well calculated. No need to hurry, Canon products are still sold well. There are not many persons switching to Nikon, because the majority of Canonians will not be able to spend a lot of money on new expensive lenses. The average Canon customer will be satisfied by new Canon products, even if other brands will produce superior products.

And the rumored prices of the 7D successor are just rumors. Some Canon fans in Japan think that there will be an hefty price increase on Canon products on coming products. Analysts say, that customers are willed to pay the increase. The increasing number of tests and scores, where Canon products are often just a few points /percents better than e.g. third party lenses, will prompt the average (and scores fixed) Canon fan to buy this "bettert product".

If you can see that in their pictures? I do not know."

Kind of sad if the once glorious Canon has sunken to such lines of thinking.

Isn't it all about investing your money wisely, especially after the global economic downturn?

Why are mobile phones killing compact cameras? Because you always have them and the quality is good enough for most people.

Canon need to differentiate and show the benefits of an slr - but investing huge amounts if the average punter does not have huge amounts of disposable income, nor appreciates the differences, is fairly silly.

It's about economics, not marketing, and if the analysts conclude Canon are doing it right in terms of keeping their revenues, then that's good for us.

 

[Stu_bert]

Straight from the camera? You want to run lightroom on a 3.2 inch screen?

Most sports togs run everything through a laptop, and most of the software isn't adobe. And laptops have usb ports for cards and wifi chips.

Do they carry their laptops on the sidelines, pull their cards and upload in between plays? Because, personally, I think it would be pretty rad to have the ability to tap a menu item on the display and have that upload a photo/photos to a laptop or straight to the editing desk rather than waiting for a timeout to rush back to the computer, pull the card, copy the files and then upload to the editing desk and risk missing action.

I'd pay less for a good camera that just takes photos thanks.

This is just absurd. How much of the cost of any modern electronic device is tied up in wifi in this The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Fourteen? Please.

No. They either pay extra for the wifi add-on that a lot of folk don't want, or they do it at half time / full time.

I think a lot sports photographers are taking pictures and focusing on the sport. Big agencies have runners who grab the cards, while the photographer flips to the other card and continues. Transferring GB of data over wifi? I doubt this would be quicker for the qty that a Pro photographer shoots....

 

[Stu_bert]

Resolution aside, I think the specs make sense. I find it hard to believe that some would be "meh" about a camera with 65 all cross-type AF system! That is huge!

The 10fps is awesome. Not quite as awesome as the rumoured 12fps, but still superb. I wonder if the dichotomy relates to a latent engineering capability in the camera? It's possible they engineered the thing to achieve 12fps, then firmware limited it to 10. Then if a competitor starts to close in on or exceed it's frame rate, voila--a firmware update brings you to 12fps (or faster).

It's not about marketing, it's about economics. And not alienating those Pro's buying your top end kit.

Ditto 4K...

Sony already dropped a crop camera with 79pt AF system (granted, not all cross-type, but still excellent by all accounts), 12fps burst, and a better sensor earlier this year for less than $1700. There is no reason that Canon should be falling behind Sony of all companies. As others have said, this is basically the bare minimum that Canon could come out with as an update to the 5 year old 7D and its really just iterative and not revolutionary. It will really depend on the asking price whether this is a good camera or not. At $1500 this will be fantastic. At >$2000, not so much.

I was kind of hoping that Canon would have built a 7DII that would make me seriously think about upgrading from my 1DIV but this spec list, if true, isn't really tempting me. Also, I'm pretty amused at all the people on this forum who have said that marketing guys have no sway over the engineering department now sagely acknowledging that they are probably purposefully gimping frame rate purely for marketing reasons.

 

[Stu_bert]

If this turns out to be the same old sensor technology, good luck to Canon, because all other manufacturers aren't setting on their asses or resting on their laurels...

what some people don´t realize is, that the majority of customers does not seem to care about who has the best sensor or how much you can push the shadows.

only the minority of geeks on forums like this care about sensor performance.
there are millions of canon users out there.. how many member has this forum?

otherwise you can´t explain the business numbers of sony, nikon and canon.

http://petapixel.com/2014/05/18/nikons-financial-woes-relentless-prompt-restructuring/

http://nikonrumors.com/2014/08/09/nikon-cuts-yearly-forecasts-after-reporting-lower-sales-and-income-in-first-quarter.aspx/

canons camera sector suffers from the market situation too.
but for nikon it really looks bad. despite all the geek world praises their better sony sensors.

and i bet the 7D MK2 even when it comes with a dissapointing sensor.. will not change that. it will sell well compared to the competition.

from the eight 7D owners i know only 2 use RAW. all other shoot JPG.
and they don´t care much about post processing.

they have jobs and don´t want to spend 80% of their free time on internet forums arguing about nonsense or editing images.

i guess that´s the reality out there....

+1

 

[Stu_bert]

This camera screams "Mini 1DX". And if I was a sports shooter, I'd be very excited about it.

It's fast. Possibly only second to the 1DX in AF. Dual Digic 6. Excellent build quality.

I agree with the keeping shutter speeds above 10fps for premium cameras. That's a total marketing reason. As is the lack of built-in WiFi. The only reason for an SD slot is a WiFi card. And if you can fit an add-on WiFi card into the camera, it's about half the space and less to build it in. Again, it's a marketing reason. If you had dual CF, WiFi and 10fps+, it would seriously eat into 1DX sales....

If I were an aspiring sports photographer, I'd be very excited by this camera. And for sports photography, the absolute latest and greatest sensor shouldn't be highest on your list. Speed, AF THEN super colors. I've done plenty of action photography on my lowly 50D and as long as you have good glass and you have decent light, colors are fantastic.

For wildlife photography, I think the 'Fine Detail' bit was for you folks. The sensor might be tweaked a little to get a bit more detail in your images.

If this camera is in the $2000 - $2500, I think it's going to sell extremely well for years to come.

It's going to be a mini 1DX with extra reach, but not as good high iso quality and not the same frame rate, otherwise it eats too much into the high end range. That for me is sound economics, not so much marketing.

I agree with you, this camera will sell, like the MK III. I think Canon understands it's target market far better than most of the people here...

 

[Loswr]

I think Canon understands it's target market far better than most of the people here...

+1

The 7DII/X looks to be a mini-1D X in many respects. It'll have the best AF of any APS-C camera on the market. 65-pts will push AF point coverage almost to the sides of the frame. 10 fps. Dual cards. The iTR suggests a new RGB metering sensor.

The minuscule number of forum DRones will whine and complain, and say they won't buy it (not that they intended to anyway, in most cases). Meanwhile, the camera will be very popular with buyers.

 

[AmselAdans]

A high AF point count will not automatically lead to an even distribution across the frame. I once read a nice article about why it is not that easy to build an AF with focus points near the edges of the frame.
So one possibility is that the 65 focus points cover nearly the same area as e.g. on the 7D but in a higher density.

 

[deleteme]

oh and my two cents about the ongoing DR debate here:

1) for me it appears to be mainly some swaggering by different sides about who knows most about signal processing or on-chip circuitry. My "blabla indicator" beeps all the time while reading these posts.
2) this debate has nothing to do with the actual discussing of 7D rumors
3) the whining about "I'm not able to get decent photos until the DR finally improves... :'( :'( :'(" sssh! If the professional photographers get to know about the horrific DR issue with canon cameras, they will move to Nikon or Sony! AAAH! (For some reaons, they still stick to Canon despite this horrible horrible low DR...). Go outside, take beautiful pictures, be happy. Don't ever waste a thought about DR. I presume limited DR is not the reason if your pictures look bad for 95% of your pictures...

Hahaha!

 

[Loswr]

A high AF point count will not automatically lead to an even distribution across the frame. I once read a nice article about why it is not that easy to build an AF with focus points near the edges of the frame.
So one possibility is that the 65 focus points cover nearly the same area as e.g. on the 7D but in a higher density.

The limitation is mainly in the vertical dimension. I expect the 65 points means a much wider spread (more columns) without much increase in the vertical spread.

 

[Lee Jay]

oh and my two cents about the ongoing DR debate here:

1) for me it appears to be mainly some swaggering by different sides about who knows most about signal processing or on-chip circuitry. My "blabla indicator" beeps all the time while reading these posts.
2) this debate has nothing to do with the actual discussing of 7D rumors
3) the whining about "I'm not able to get decent photos until the DR finally improves... :'( :'( :'(" sssh! If the professional photographers get to know about the horrific DR issue with canon cameras, they will move to Nikon or Sony! AAAH! (For some reaons, they still stick to Canon despite this horrible horrible low DR...). Go outside, take beautiful pictures, be happy. Don't ever waste a thought about DR. I presume limited DR is not the reason if your pictures look bad for 95% of your pictures...

DR is a huge problem for me, but not at base ISO. Given the choice between getting 15 stops of DR at base ISO and getting 11 stops at ISO 6400, I'd take the later in a heartbeat.

 

[AmselAdans]

A high AF point count will not automatically lead to an even distribution across the frame. I once read a nice article about why it is not that easy to build an AF with focus points near the edges of the frame.
So one possibility is that the 65 focus points cover nearly the same area as e.g. on the 7D but in a higher density.

The limitation is mainly in the vertical dimension. I expect the 65 points means a much wider spread (more columns) without much increase in the vertical spread.

Ah I found the article I mentioned:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Photography-Tips/Canon-EOS-DSLR-Autofocus-Explained.aspx (Scroll down to section "AF Point Coverage")
worth a read.
Hence, I do not expect the AF points to cover a significantly larger area than predecessing AF systems such as the one of the 7D.

 

[Loswr]

Hence, I do not expect the AF points to cover a significantly larger area than predecessing AF systems such as the one of the 7D.

The secondary mirror limitation applies to the vertical dimension, not the horizontal. The vignetting and distortion limitations allow a wider expansion from current width, and the temperature limitation is about overall size, even a larger AF sensor for APS-C is smaller than a FF AF sensor.

I think you'll find that the 65-pt array is noticeably wider.

 

[AmselAdans]

Hence, I do not expect the AF points to cover a significantly larger area than predecessing AF systems such as the one of the 7D.

The secondary mirror limitation applies to the vertical dimension, not the horizontal. The vignetting and distortion limitations allow a wider expansion from current width, and the temperature limitation is about overall size, even a larger AF sensor for APS-C is smaller than a FF AF sensor.

I think you'll find that the 65-pt array is noticeably wider.

I'm the last to complain if you remain correct

 

[transpo1]

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.

I'm curious about these video specs- seems like something's missing.

If Canon really does not include 4K or 1080p RAW this camera is DOA for me. Any 7DII will have to have something really spectacular in order for me to buy it in addition to my 5DIII.

4K or RAW or both, please Canon. Don't you understand how many cameras you could sell?

But of course, I'm just among those lowly 10% of video buyers (which is a statistic that could be doubled or tripled quite easily if 4K was included

 

[Loswr]

Don't you understand how many cameras you could sell?

I'm sure they understand that quite well. I'm not sure why so many people seem to think they know more than Canon...

 

[springle]

Too many replies for me to browse through. I just registered in order to comment.

Very simple: If these are truly the Specs, then this camera should have been released 2 years ago. Why the secrecy for such Specs?

Nowadays I shoot mostly birds and use ONLY the centre focusing point. My main upgrade requirement would be for more pixels to define the tiny subjects. Second upgrade requirement would be faster focusing speed. Subjects are extremely flighty.

I broke my 7D to unrepairable condition and ignored the service department's offer to allow me to purchase a replacement body for a price greater than local stores were charging. Instead I purchased a 70D and it gives me more pixels on the subjects and focuses faster than the 7D. One feature I would like is GPS. If there isn't a built-in GPS, then I shall not purchase an add-on, but instead do a time-synch to a portable GPS and use Lightroom's feature to add GPS data to Exif data.

A camera with these Specs just is insufficient to bother with an "upgrade". Very disappointing. I may pick up a Nikon 7100 and obtain lens conversions for the long lens.

 

[unfocused]

I think Canon understands it's target market far better than most of the people here...

+1

The 7DII/X looks to be a mini-1D X in many respects. It'll have the best AF of any APS-C camera on the market. 65-pts will push AF point coverage almost to the sides of the frame. 10 fps. Dual cards. The iTR suggests a new RGB metering sensor.

The minuscule number of forum DRones will whine and complain, and say they won't buy it (not that they intended to anyway, in most cases). Meanwhile, the camera will be very popular with buyers.

+1+1

Whenever Canon (or Nikon) comes out with a new camera, I enjoy trying to reverse-engineer their market research.

It was clear from the 5DIII that they had done excellent research on what wedding and event photographers wanted and hit the bulls eye (while still offering a camera that would be great all-around for other serious users).

I wondered what their market research showed about the 7D. I figured that it would be targeted at sports, birders and wildlife shooters. But I really thought they would up the pixel count significantly and sacrifice higher ISOs, in part to protect the full frame line.

What's interesting to me with these rumors (and I am fully aware that they are rumors) is that Canon appears to have decided to try to reach a balance between resolution and ISO performance, possibly deciding that a 24 mp sensor was just too noisy at modestly high ISOs (Which, by the way, is also very evident in reviews of Nikon and Sony 24mp APS-C sensors, despite what some people on this forum think.)

People love to talk about Canon "crippling" one camera to protect another more expensive model. That's almost always B.S. and it appears it might be the case here as well. By holding the resolution down to 20 mp, they may be trying to keep the noise level manageable at higher, but reasonable ISOs, like 1600, 3200 and even 6400. Even though there may be some risk that potential 6D or even 5D buyers would go for the 7DII.

These specs show a company that knows what their target audience wants and I suspect it will sell very well when it's released. At a minimum, it will certainly outsell the Nikon D400.

 

[Zv]

Are there really that many indie movie makers that are shooting in 4K nowadays or is this just all baloney? Who here has a 4K monitor or software that can edit 4K video? I have yet to actually watch something in 4K. So why is it all of a sudden we need this in a camera that is primarily designed to shoot sports and wildlife pictures?

We all know that ML will squeeze 4K out of it anyway, so chill out with the 4K already.

 

[Maui5150]

If these specs are close, it is a bit disappointing. If they were going to stay right around 20MB, I would want higher ISO. If they are keeping this size, there needs to be a significant improvement in DR.

The 65 AF could be nice. Will be interesting to see the spread and how well it functions. Was really hoping for 24MP+ and closer to 30.