Are These The EOS 7D Mark II Specifications?

[MichaelHodges]

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.

Any soft image can be sharpened. But the images that are sharpest in RAW without sharpening are going to take post processing much better.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see someone on a camera forum advocating soft images.

The 7D was the softest Canon DSLR I've owned (and I've owned a bunch). So any move away from that buttery, waxy look is progress.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

From what I've read about DIGIC 6, a lot of the processing power is dedicated to image processing, not just your basic readout and write to RAW. I would be willing to bet that any IQ improvement in the 7D II comes from the pair of DIGIC 6 chips. As for frame rate, as I mentioned in my original post, Canon probably wants to reserve frame rates greater than 10fps for their premium 1D line, which is understandable IMO.

Still it seems like a single DIGIC 6 would do the job for the specs we've been given. Maybe the second one is for faster focusing, faster dual-pixel focusing, or something we haven't been told like dual ISO sampling.

Or, maybe the rumor is wrong.

maybe with two digic 6 it has the power to handle reading the entire sensor for video and produce video without aliasing and mush?

 

[Yosemite]

If there will be no GPS - I'll keep my money in my pocket and have to shoot longer with my old 400D :'( I'm now for two years waiting to spend my money on a crop camera from Canon with GPS and a good screen... But if that should be true - I have to wait once again two years

 

[jrista]

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.

 

[Lightmaster]

If Canon doubled Q.E., then high ISO would be better for sure...but I would be surprised if Q.E. on this thing is over 50%.

sensors reach 90%+ QE... i would be suprised when the 70D does not.

LOL. Extremely high grade sensors that cost a TON of money reach 90% Q.E. The DSLR camera with the highest Q.E. on the market right now has 60% Q.E. The 70D has 45% Q.E. There is absolutely NO WAY that Canon sensors will suddenly hit 90% Q.E. You have to spend at least $5000 on a thermally regulated CCD camera to get over 90% Q.E., and then, it IS a CCD, and those sensors are usually non-anti-blooming CCDs (so charge from each pixel spills over into neighboring pixels when they reach their capacity).

Getting that much quantum efficiency is not easy. It requires very high grade materials and careful construction. Canon has apparently not changed their manufacturing process, so seeing a 5% increase in Q.E. over the 70D sensor in the 7D II would be about as much as I could expect.

the latest sony sensor has a reported QE of 67%.

http://www.sensorgen.info/

i have edited my post while you were writing. i mixed this up with the ruby sensors we use. they are CMOS not CCD. i kind of had that impressive number in mind.

that's an A7S - not an APS-C .. the best APS-C sensor rolls in at 55%.

i know.... but what has QE to do with sensor size when the G10 has a reported QE of 57% ?

http://www.sensorgen.info/CanonPowershot_G10.html

or the G15 with QE 59%

 

[bchernicoff]

DPAF in the 70D has two photosites for each pixel. I'm really surprised that no one has suggested that "fine detail" is a selectable mode that reads each photosite separately to produce a 40mp image.

 

[PureClassA]

I keep going back to the question of price in relationship to upgrade. 70D streets around $1100. Would 3 more FPS and 61pt AF really justify another $1000 or more? If the sensor is the same with a slightly upgraded DPAF system, I'm not so sure.

On the flip side, if it comes out closer to the 70D in price (say $1700) maybe it works. I dunno. Not enough info yet even with what we have. In the previous chain about the 7DX specs better DR, IQ, and less noise are the overwhelming drivers for interest here.

I think if it falls short on 2 outta those 3 then they have missed the mark badly. But I'm not convinced Canon could make such a miscalculation.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

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.

Any soft image can be sharpened. But the images that are sharpest in RAW without sharpening are going to take post processing much better.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see someone on a camera forum advocating soft images.

I'm not. He is advocating against messed up aliased images, not for soft images.

I hope Canon just get suckered into the Nikon/SONY fake hype over AA-less sensors.

 

[Lee Jay]

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.

Any soft image can be sharpened. But the images that are sharpest in RAW without sharpening are going to take post processing much better.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see someone on a camera forum advocating soft images.

The 7D was the softest Canon DSLR I've owned (and I've owned a bunch). So any move away from that buttery, waxy look is progress.

Do you think camera makers put in those horribly expensive AA filters because they want to increase their expenses and reduce image quality? They're there for a reason - to reduce aliasing, which is a totally impossible to remove artifact once it has been sampled into the raw data.

 

[Lightmaster]

DPAF in the 70D has two photosites for each pixel. I'm really surprised that no one has suggested that "fine detail" is a selectable mode that reads each photosite separately to produce a 40mp image.

someone kind of has.... just the other way around. to eliminate the AA filter.

 

[MichaelHodges]

I keep going back to the question of price in relationship to upgrade. 70D streets around $1100. Would 3 more FPS and 61pt AF really justify another $1000 or more?

Nope.

 

[Lightmaster]

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.

Any soft image can be sharpened. But the images that are sharpest in RAW without sharpening are going to take post processing much better.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see someone on a camera forum advocating soft images.

I'm not. He is advocating against messed up aliased images, not for soft images.

I hope Canon just get suckered into the Nikon/SONY fake hype over AA-less sensors.

i have to say the 810 images look not bad.
im not a nikon expert but i read the camera has no AA filter.

 

[MichaelHodges]

Do you think camera makers put in those horribly expensive AA filters because they want to increase their expenses and reduce image quality? They're there for a reason - to reduce aliasing, which is a totally impossible to remove artifact once it has been sampled into the raw data.

It's about finding a balance between preventing aliasing and preserving fine detail. The 7D I owned for years delivered waxy images. My 70D is a significant upgrade in this regard.

This "fine detail" sensor looks like an acknowledgement of the mushy 7D files. That's good news.

 

[unfocused]

To be honest this is still much closer to what I was expecting - 7D build/ergo, 70D sensor and a couple of genuinely impressive head-liner specs (fps/af), price probably just north of the original 7D price I'd imagine.
Still a heck of a camera

Agreed.

It's time for the real to replace the fantasy and of course that means much whining on this forum about how Canon is failing -- meanwhile it will be a big seller in the real world.

My two cents:
Agree with others that I hope there will be f8 autofocus;

I actually like the CF and SD card options. In my 5D I mostly use the CF slot, but I like having the SD as a backup and, honestly, when I'm traveling knowing that I can pick up an extra SD card almost anywhere is great for peace of mind. This is one of those features that forum participants may not like, but consumers do;

I'll still be surprised if there is no touch screen. Especially if they are introducing new STM lenses. The STM lenses would indicate video, but why optimize a camera for video and then not provide touch screen controls?

A little surprised at the sensor, I really thought Canon would go for 24 mp. Not a huge deal to me, just a bit of a surprise;

If Electronic MF really means micro-focus adjustment that would be huge.

Overall impression: If correct, this seems to me that Canon is keeping the 7D II targeted to the same audience as the original 7D -- enthusiasts who want a feature-rich camera, rather than focusing on pixel-peepers and DR fanatics.

In the previous chain about the 7DX specs better DR, IQ, and less noise are the overwhelming drivers for interest here...But I'm not convinced Canon could make such a miscalculation.

No miscalculation. What people on gearhead forums want and what the bulk of customers who will actually buy the product want are two entirely different things.

 

[kirispupis]

This is a tough one for me. I would really like something with more range. I currently shoot with a 5D3 and a 200-400/1.4x and picking up a 600/4 II is really not an option for me. The thing is my #1 priority is high ISO. I can trust my 5D3 to shoot at ISO 3200 with a decent amount of cropping available (keep in mind I do a lot of 30" x 20" prints) but I strongly prefer to shoot at ISO 1600.

Given the lighting conditions in the PNW anything with worse high ISO perf than the 5D3 would probably be a no go. From these specs it looks like the 7D2 is one stop worse than the 5D3, so I would probably pass unless Canon has something new up their sleeves.

Overall if these are the specs, then it is looking like another big disappointment. I was really hoping that Canon would step up in terms of sensors, but perhaps they are waiting for the 5D4 or 1DX2 for that.

 

[Lee Jay]

DPAF in the 70D has two photosites for each pixel. I'm really surprised that no one has suggested that "fine detail" is a selectable mode that reads each photosite separately to produce a 40mp image.

If they're both under the same microlens (which is how DPAF works), you wouldn't get any more detail that way.

 

[jrista]

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.

Any soft image can be sharpened. But the images that are sharpest in RAW without sharpening are going to take post processing much better.

I'm actually kind of shocked to see someone on a camera forum advocating soft images.

The 7D was the softest Canon DSLR I've owned (and I've owned a bunch). So any move away from that buttery, waxy look is progress.

LOL, I'm not advocating soft images. People just plain and simply don't understand resolution. I want OVERSAMPLING, not soft images. An oversampled image is only a problem if you pixel peep. However, nicely oversampled image (say 2-3x the diffraction spot size) is never going to need any upsampling for printing large. You don't have "sharp" detail when upsampling ANYWAY, so I'd much rather start out with an image that has as much detail as possible, even if it looks "soft" at 100%...it's going to be less soft than a lower resolution image that's been upsampled to the same size.

Going in the other direction, you can always downsample an oversampled image and gain sharpness. An image oversampled 2x relative to an image that was not oversampled at all (1x) will look better when downsampled to 1/4 it's original size to match the 1x image. Additionally, the oversampled image won't have any aliasing of any kind whatsoever, where as the image sampled at 1x WILL most definitely have aliasing and possibly moire.

Removal of an AA filter also means that signal frequencies that match the sensor frequency, and those just above and just below, the frequencies that get aliased most, just end up becoming noise. But it's a harsh, sharp noise, so it's very obvious.

There are no real benefits to removal of AA filters. With the right kind of scene, say a landscape packed with non-patterned information, MIGHT benefit from it. However there are plenty of very undesirable things that absolutely do occur with the removal of AA filters...proven things, most of which have no real solution for correcting in post. I'm advocating against Canon following the uneducated trend of niche companies like Nikon and photographers who don't know what they are talking about, and forcing the introduction of a crap ton of artifacts and aliasing into our images that were perfectly fine before.

 

[jrista]

DPAF in the 70D has two photosites for each pixel. I'm really surprised that no one has suggested that "fine detail" is a selectable mode that reads each photosite separately to produce a 40mp image.

If they're both under the same microlens (which is how DPAF works), you wouldn't get any more detail that way.

Totally agree. There is no benefit to splitting the photodiode underneath the same microlens and color filter.

 

[jrista]

i know.... but what has QE to do with sensor size when the G10 has a reported QE of 57% ?

http://www.sensorgen.info/CanonPowershot_G10.html

or the G15 with QE 59%

It doesn't have anything to do with sensor size. Canon's smaller sensors are manufactured on their newer fabs, which do use a 180nm process and apparently better materials. It's the larger sensors that are still manufactured at their older fabs.

 

[Lee Jay]

From these specs it looks like the 7D2 is one stop worse than the 5D3...

At the same framing (when you are focal length limited and cropping anyway), this sensor is likely better than the 5D3.