Canon 7D Mark II Noise comparisons from TDP are now available

[Loswr]

It's not the distance that is important in determining sharpness in those TDP tests, it is the sharpness of the sensors.

If so, then the lack of sharpness of older sensors in their test shots is misleading. With a 60d which appears blurry as hell on tdp, I can get shots I couldn't imagine to be sharper with a 100L lens. Or am I missing something here?

Perhaps the fact that TDP's ISO 12233 crops have a very low amount of sharpening applied relative to what is the default for the 60D with major RAW converters? Process the shots you refer to in DPP with Sharpness = 1, Picture Style = Neutral, and everything else OFF, and then compare them to how they look with your standard workflow. Let us know how that turns out...

 

[privatebydesign]

Reach is one reason I got the 7D2. I was just out shooting a little while ago with the 300mm f/2.8L IS II on the 7D2. I'm very happy with that combo. Show me another way to get an effective 480mm F/2.8 lens.

Your 7D MkII makes your 300 f2.8 an effective 480mm f4.5 from a fov, dof and iso point of view, when compared to a 135 format camera.

The light cone produced by the lens is determined by the lens alone and is f/2.8 no matter what camera it is attached to. Similarly, the difference in pixel size and number of electrons a pixel can hold is compensated for by the gain of the electronics so that ISO means the same thing from one camera to the next. And that is independent of lens. FOV of view does scale with crop factor. For a given solid angle, the APS-C puts more pixels in there. Depth of field is slightly reduced with the smaller pixels on the APS-C sensor. The problem I see here with folks throwing numbers around is that they are assuming very different things or performing some assumed scaling in order to match some arbitrary aspect between two different cameras. That was also the case with my original post. From an FOV perspective it appears to be a 480mm lens. DOF is reduced by ~1.6. Any discussion of ISO is irrelevant, but noise will most certainly increase as compared to a 480mm lens on a FF body.

If you want to say that then it is equally true to say the focal length is determined by the focal length of the lens and is the same no matter what camera is attached to it. But that wasn't what you originally said, you said "equivalent" if you are going to start cherry picking parts of the 'equivalent' then don't be surprised when people pull you up on it and point out that one part of 'equivalence' is pointless without using all of it.

 

[Marsu42]

Perhaps the fact that TDP's ISO 12233 crops have a very low amount of sharpening applied relative to what is the default for the 60D with major RAW converters? Process the shots you refer to in DPP with Sharpness = 1, Picture Style = Neutral, and everything else OFF, and then compare them to how they look with your standard workflow.

But the result with dpp would look like a sooc jpeg with the same settings, wouldn't it (excluding raw benefits like wb adjustments, dr, ...)? And that would be about the same as the in-camera preview or preview in a cr2 file?

I admit my motivation to test it myself is limited, but if the real life results of the 7d2 (or 70d, for that matter) are as significantly different to the good ol' 18mp sensors than that's certainly a big step forward.

 

[ahsanford]

Whoops. Didn't mean to wade into the middle of the crop vs FF debate. What was I thinking? Seems like folks already have their clearly staked out positions on this one. Think I'll stay out of it.

Anyway, just ran off a couple hundred frames and I am really beginning to love the handling of this camera. The in-viewfinder level is awesome. Wish my 5D's had that. Its so easy to lose track of the horizon when you are photographing wildlife and then have to do a major crop to square things up. Given that it's already a "crop" sensor you don't want to needlessly be throwing away any precious pixels for that. 10 FPS is waaaaaay faster than 6. Hard to just get one frame off in high speed mode. It really wants to run!

The 5D3 has an in-viewfinder level. No one ever talks about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bIbWPYJo4
(skip to 0:22 in the video for the simulation of the in-viewfinder level)

That said, it lacks fidelity (it's fairly discrete/clumsy) and it effectively takes over the VF when you'd like to be doing other things inside of it. The 7D2 level seems much better located in the VF from what I've seen and read (though I have not tried it myself).

- A

 

[Loswr]

Perhaps the fact that TDP's ISO 12233 crops have a very low amount of sharpening applied relative to what is the default for the 60D with major RAW converters? Process the shots you refer to in DPP with Sharpness = 1, Picture Style = Neutral, and everything else OFF, and then compare them to how they look with your standard workflow.

But the result with dpp would look like a sooc jpeg with the same settings, wouldn't it (excluding raw benefits like wb adjustments, dr, ...)? And that would be about the same as the in-camera preview or preview in a cr2 file?

Do you normally shoot JPG in Neutral or Faithful picture style? Default sharpness for those is zero. It's 2 for portrait, 4 for landscape, and 3 for the others (scale is 0-7).

 

[lintoni]

Whoops. Didn't mean to wade into the middle of the crop vs FF debate. What was I thinking? Seems like folks already have their clearly staked out positions on this one. Think I'll stay out of it.

Anyway, just ran off a couple hundred frames and I am really beginning to love the handling of this camera. The in-viewfinder level is awesome. Wish my 5D's had that. Its so easy to lose track of the horizon when you are photographing wildlife and then have to do a major crop to square things up. Given that it's already a "crop" sensor you don't want to needlessly be throwing away any precious pixels for that. 10 FPS is waaaaaay faster than 6. Hard to just get one frame off in high speed mode. It really wants to run!

The 5D3 has an in-viewfinder level. No one ever talks about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bIbWPYJo4
(skip to 0:22 in the video for the simulation of the in-viewfinder level)

That said, it lacks fidelity (it's fairly discrete/clumsy) and it effectively takes over the VF when you'd like to be doing other things inside of it. The 7D2 level seems much better located in the VF from what I've seen and read (though I have not tried it myself).

- A

The 5D3 does, thanks for pointing that out. But as you say, it can be very distracting since it uses the AF points as indicators which are in the middle of the frame. I never use it for that reason. It's possible that there is a way to make good use of it. I never really tried to be honest.

The level on the rear display works great but that is only really useful on a tripod or in live view. The level in the 7D2 is really super. Its high in the center of the horizontal frame above the AF points. That part of the frame rarely has anything interesting in it. Often just sky. It also seems to update very quickly. Nearly real time by my guess. I wonder if the level data is in the EXIF? It could be good info for small corrections. I'm a big fan so far. But I guess I said that. I'd be shocked if it didn't roll up into any new bodies Canon releases. Maybe it has already. The last body I bought was the 5D3.

That does sound like a much better implementation than the 5D3's - I've tried a couple of times to get along with it, but found it more of a hindrance than a help. Having said that, I'm generally quite good at horizons anyway, framing through the viewfinder, but certainly appreciate the one on the screen for tripod shooting.

 

[JMZawodny]

I just got back from this evening's football game where I shot just under 1000 photos with the 7D2 on the 300mm f/2.8L IS II at ISO 4000. I had all noise reduction turned off and shot RAW + JPEG. Some initial impressions relative to my 5D2 which I was also shooting at ISO 6400: At f/2.8 the AF in the 7D2 is wicked fast and accurate - Very impressive. There are only a small number of shots that are not in focus due to my inability to track with that long lens. At ISO 4000 the jpegs at ~40% size on the computer monitor look very acceptable and I expect the RAWs should clean up nicely. At full res the color noise is comparable to what was shown at the beginning of this thread. I had a tough time squeezing off just a single frame when the drive was set to 10fps. The buffer is plenty deep. The flicker reduction delay was imperceptible. I am very happy with the way the 7D2 handles as well as the AF and IQ. It is a keeper.

 

[wickidwombat]

that´s all fine but fact is overall the 7D MK2 get´s a lot of bad press.

no matter if it´s justified or not this will make an impression on customers.


only three example:

https://fstoppers.com/critiques/dxomark-results-show-canon-eos-7d-mark-ii-test-similar-5-year-old-nikon-bodies-43470#comment-form

http://petapixel.com/2014/11/05/dxomark-disappointed-7d-mark-ii-sensor-lags-behind-mft-cameras-base-iso/

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/a-mount-is-dead-sure-look-at-that/


you can say what you want about DXO but it carrys a lot of weight as you can see.

if canon does not counter that, the reputation is gone. if it´s not already too late.

just a quick question... before digital you know when we used that film stuff
did you just go out and unroll a 36 exp out of the box at the scene?
ya know cause the sensor is the only thing that matters right?

 

[Marsu42]

Perhaps the fact that TDP's ISO 12233 crops have a very low amount of sharpening applied relative to what is the default for the 60D with major RAW converters? Process the shots you refer to in DPP with Sharpness = 1, Picture Style = Neutral, and everything else OFF, and then compare them to how they look with your standard workflow.

But the result with dpp would look like a sooc jpeg with the same settings, wouldn't it (excluding raw benefits like wb adjustments, dr, ...)? And that would be about the same as the in-camera preview or preview in a cr2 file?

Do you normally shoot JPG in Neutral or Faithful picture style? Default sharpness for those is zero. It's 2 for portrait, 4 for landscape, and 3 for the others (scale is 0-7).

I always shoot neutral (for jpeg preview only as I use raw) and use the neutral picstyle camera emulation in Lightroom. I couldn't stand the pimped up sharpness of the other in-camera picture styles, so for me neutral or faithful are the only options even though you can modify the picstyles in the camera.

But not only for preview sharpness, but because of the colors and tonality: neutral has a more "flat" look unless you dial everything to 11 in postprocessing. Some people want their pictures to give more pop, but I like it this way. Seems to be a big difference in taste. I should probably do another of my famous polls so we can find out what people around here use.