Are These The EOS 7D Mark II Specifications?

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I think the IR tests are the nonsense. Unless they were normalizing to 5MP or something.
Even for their regular tests there scenes and lighting have changed again and again.

Oh boy here we go...

* The Imatest DR test is performed using a step chart. It has nothing to do with Imaging Resource's scene tests.

* "Normalizing" has nothing to do with photographic DR and does not change it in the least.

* You, I, or anyone else can personally verify Imatest results by simply looking at a transmission step wedge shot.

* DxO measures SNR which does NOT directly translate to photographic dynamic range.

* We cannot verify DxO's results because they are run through a 'black box' algorithm.

* DxO's results generally do not correspond to results obtained using a transmission step wedge. Put another way: you can see with your own two eyes that a 70D yields more DR then they claim, and that an Exmor sensor yields less.

Put another way the 1/3 stops difference between 70D and aps-c exmor sure doesn't match what ones sees with their own eyes when out taking photos or the huge difference between D810 and 5D3....

 

[dtaylor]

* DxO measures SNR which does NOT directly translate to photographic dynamic range.

DxO measures, but does not directly report, well capacity and SnR.

The method of determining DR from that is shown here:

http://sensorgen.info/Calculations.html

Great. That tells me what I already know. That they are not measuring or reporting photographic DR. And that there are formulas I would have to hunt down or reconstruct in order to verify their results. (Though I suppose that would be possible to do for anyone so inclined.)

Again, DxO DR measurements are nonsense.

 

[Marauder]

Interesting. Surprised the sensor isn't going to be a 24MP as that rumour has been quite consistent. It was the original rumoured resolution and I disbelieved it when the rumours began to indicate 20.2 MP shortly after the 70D release. When the rumours moved back towards the 24MP, I thought the 20.2 thing was just an aberrant stray rumour. Mind you, just because it's the same megapixel as the 70D, doesn't mean it's the same sensor. Still, I'd have thought they'd want to differentiate the 7DII more by giving it a very distinctive sensor, with it's own resolution. I figured the 7D2 would get a new sensor, while the 70D sensor "trickled down" to the Rebels. Using the same resolution as the 70D might be a somewhat risky move, given that people will "perceive" it as being derivative "warmed over" sensor in a premium product. And make no mistake about it, the sensor will be under intense (if not always logical) scrutiny. Only time will tell if it's substantially different from the 70D's sensor, regardless of the resolution--and I suspect it will have some interesting tricks.

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! Bonus if they give f8 capability to some degree--probably with the centre point. Time will also tell if the DPAF and the viewfinder AF are capable of working together to improve AF speed and accuracy, as suggested in the patent rumour. And if it auto calibrates lenses--well that also could be 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).

Time will tell of course. CR sounds very confident, but a few days ago and for some time previous, they've been very confident it would have a 1D top plate, have 24MP and shoot 12fps or faster! Sounds like there are a lot of "wed hewwings" being foisted onto us Elmer Fudds waiting for info! LOL

 

[dtaylor]

Put another way the 1/3 stops difference between 70D and aps-c exmor sure doesn't match what ones sees with their own eyes when out taking photos or the huge difference between D810 and 5D3....

So we're going to draw conclusions from an entirely different format???

The "huge difference" you are referring to in 5D3 vs. D8x0 online tests is not DR per se (the 5D3 clips to black about the same time as the D810) but latitude: the ability to push shadows without image destroying noise.

And it's a "huge difference" which can only be seen by turning all NR completely off for the Canon sensor :

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

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.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Put another way the 1/3 stops difference between 70D and aps-c exmor sure doesn't match what ones sees with their own eyes when out taking photos or the huge difference between D810 and 5D3....

So we're going to draw conclusions from an entirely different format???

The "huge difference" you are referring to in 5D3 vs. D8x0 online tests is not DR per se (the 5D3 clips to black about the same time as the D810) but latitude: the ability to push shadows without image destroying noise.

which is also DR

and mostly importantly regardless of how you feel like defining terms, what matters in the end

And it's a "huge difference" which can only be seen by turning all NR completely off for the Canon sensor :

yeah whatever sure

 

[pablo]

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.

 

[Steve]

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).

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.

 

[Steve]

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.

Right, so wifi is indeed useful and would be a welcome addition to a pro/prosumer level camera

 

[pwp]

The 10fps is awesome. Not quite as awesome as the rumoured 12fps, but still superb.

Right, 65 cross type AF points and 10 FPS indicates a strong action-sports performer. Just hoping the buffer depth is there to make the frame rate truly useful.

-pw

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

So long as they don't gimp the buffer and the AF sensor is 5D3/1D series class and not 7D class (IMO the 7D sensor, yeah it had lots of points and speed but it was more like xxD precise and nothing like 1 series for most scenarios) then it should at least be quite the AF sports beast though.

 

[pablo]

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.

Right, so wifi is indeed useful and would be a welcome addition to a pro/prosumer level camera

Define prosumer? Quantify extra cost..

 

[Don Haines]

Canon seems to just no get it. ??? It's not 2004 any more. Many Pro Editorial and Advertising Photographers, don't just want WiFi, in many cases they Can'T Do Their Job without WiFi.

With so much Professional Photography going direct-to-web-site, speed isn't the main thing, it's the only thing.-

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.

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

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the workflow at the World Cup was photographer takes picture, transferred to network where someone else edits the picture and posts it. Photos got posted minutes after being taken.

 

[c.d.embrey]

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

Yes, straight from the camera. Many Pros are using custom functions to make their straight-from-the-camera-jpeg look like they had been post-processed. They brew a secret-sauce for each their various shoots styles.

 

[Marauder]

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).

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.

"Interesting" response.

Firstly, I've never said one way or another on whether Canon's marketing team impacts design. Perhaps you're thinking of another poster??

Secondly, "79 AF points, granted not all cross type..." That in itself speaks volumes. The D7100 has 51 AF points vs the 70D's 19. But only 15 of the D7100's are cross type. There is a HUGE difference between a big number of AF points, vs their type. Also, take a look at the Servo AF comparison between the D7100 and the 70D here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOM4r1gxsbs
Note the 70D's buffer is substantially better as well, which is a factor when shooting action. Unfortunately, the tester only shot both cameras in JPEG and RAW+JPEG, and not in RAW only. The 70D not only outperforms the buffer of the D7100 in JPEG by a large margin, it also does so in RAW only. Neither is stellar RAW+JPEG (original 7D after fw update beats them both handily there) but the 70D is still better in buffer depth.

The above just emphasizes the point that just comparing paper specs is NOT the same as performance and you are automatically assuming that the 7D2 won't have superior AF. I can't say for sure yet, and neither can you, since we don't have a camera yet! The AF system would appear to have been a huge point for the 7D2, so I suspect it will be very potent.

Hmm. You seem to be implying that I support deliberately minimizing the frame rate? I don't recall making any such assertions! This is just a speculation on my part. I don't support it---I'm merely speculating that it MIGHT be the case.

Any further aspects of my post you might like to misconstrue???

 

[Steve]

Define prosumer? Quantify extra cost..

Cost is negligible to the point of being non-existent to the consumer. They put wifi in $200 point and shoots. The reason I mentioned pro and prosumer levels is because Canon already puts wifi in the bottom end, cheapest cameras they make and for some reason don't in the top level, most expensive cameras despite it being an incredibly useful feature for lots of working, professional photographers. I can't even begin to imagine why anybody would be opposed to features, even if you think you wouldn't use them, especially when they have no measurable cost to the end user.

 

[Marauder]

The 10fps is awesome. Not quite as awesome as the rumoured 12fps, but still superb.

Right, 65 cross type AF points and 10 FPS indicates a strong action-sports performer. Just hoping the buffer depth is there to make the frame rate truly useful.

-pw

I concur. We haven't heard anything about buffer. I suspect it will be deep. The current 7D outperforms both the 70D and, to an even greater degree the D7100, in terms of buffer depth. As a matter of fact, even shooting RAW+JPEG (with 17 in a burst) the 7D will massively outperform the D7100 doing JPEGS! I'd say the shallow buffer of the D7100 is probably the biggest single weakness in what is an otherwise impressive camera.

 

[c.d.embrey]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the workflow at the World Cup was photographer takes picture, transferred to network where someone else edits the picture and posts it. Photos got posted minutes after being taken.

Sounds about right to me. Many things need rapid turn-around, Breaking News is a biggie.

 

[Dylan777]

My prediction, this thread will go beyong 30 pages. I haven't seen the exciment like this for long time ;D

 

[Lee Jay]

* DxO measures SNR which does NOT directly translate to photographic dynamic range.

DxO measures, but does not directly report, well capacity and SnR.

The method of determining DR from that is shown here:

http://sensorgen.info/Calculations.html

Great. That tells me what I already know. That they are not measuring or reporting photographic DR. And that there are formulas I would have to hunt down or reconstruct in order to verify their results. (Though I suppose that would be possible to do for anyone so inclined.)

Again, DxO DR measurements are nonsense.

"Photographic DR" would likely be less than DR measured this way, for a simple reason - we don't usually tolerate image detail that's near or at the noise floor.

This is measured to the noise floor.