Canon EOS 7D Mark II studio samples added to first impressions on DPReview.

[Don Haines]

Go back to the DPR compare tool, Select your cameras as 7D2, 6D, 5D3, and 1DX, and look at the images at low ISOs. Go to the spot on the test that has the pages of text and see how far down you can read with images from the various cameras... At ISO100 the 7D2 comes out the best and the 1DX the worst! As you move up in ISO, the 6D and 5D3 emerge as the best, but throughout, the 1Dx remains near the bottom, finally getting ahead of the 7D2 at around ISO3200. That aught to generate a lot of screaming and kicking!

(Remember, this is comparing new tech to old... it just makes me want to see what the next FF cameras can do you can not make any reasonable conclusions with this data. )

EDIT: If you look at a face, you get the exact opposite results... The 1DX the best through the range, 5D3 and 6D in the middle, and 7D2 at the bottom, but at low ISO they are all close.

 

[Loswr]

Go back to the DPR compare tool, Select your cameras as 7D2, 6D, 5D3, and 1DX, and look at the images at low ISOs. Go to the spot on the test that has the pages of text and see how far down you can read with images from the various cameras... At ISO100 the 7D2 comes out the best and the 1DX the worst! As you move up in ISO, the 6D and 5D3 emerge as the best, but throughout, the 1Dx remains near the bottom, finally getting ahead of the 7D2 at around ISO3200. That aught to generate a lot of screaming and kicking!

(Remember, this is comparing new tech to old... it just makes me want to see what the next FF cameras can do you can not make any reasonable conclusions with this data. )

EDIT: If you look at a face, you get the exact opposite results... The 1DX the best through the range, 5D3 and 6D in the middle, and 7D2 at the bottom, but at low ISO they are all close.

I guess I should be happy I take pictures of people and not books!!

 

[Don Haines]

Go back to the DPR compare tool, Select your cameras as 7D2, 6D, 5D3, and 1DX, and look at the images at low ISOs. Go to the spot on the test that has the pages of text and see how far down you can read with images from the various cameras... At ISO100 the 7D2 comes out the best and the 1DX the worst! As you move up in ISO, the 6D and 5D3 emerge as the best, but throughout, the 1Dx remains near the bottom, finally getting ahead of the 7D2 at around ISO3200. That aught to generate a lot of screaming and kicking!

(Remember, this is comparing new tech to old... it just makes me want to see what the next FF cameras can do you can not make any reasonable conclusions with this data. )

EDIT: If you look at a face, you get the exact opposite results... The 1DX the best through the range, 5D3 and 6D in the middle, and 7D2 at the bottom, but at low ISO they are all close.

I guess I should be happy I take pictures of people and not books!!

+1!

My conclusion is that no matter what the test, different people will get different things out of it and come to different conclusions. I just like how you can move from one part of the image to another part and get two different conclusions.

My opinion is that the 7D2 seems to be a good step forward and that all the FF people should be just as pleasantly surprised when the next FF model comes out. It seems like a fine camera and mine should arrive the day AFTER I shoot an event... I can't wait to try it out.

 

[privatebydesign]

The answer is obvious for people who take their photography seriously, you need every camera made on you at all times.

Then, if the scene contains mainly books you can use the appropriate camera and lens, if the scene happens to contain a person, then again, you will have the right tool for the job. Those that take the 'art' particularly seriously can even base their camera use choice on the colours of the books, as clearly (apparently) Nikon's wipe the floor with Canon on yellow, orange, green, and blue, so Canon would be OK for red, pink and mauve spectral scenes.

Simple really.......

 

[Loswr]

My opinion is that the 7D2 seems to be a good step forward and that all the FF people should be just as pleasantly surprised when the next FF model comes out. It seems like a fine camera and mine should arrive the day AFTER I shoot an event... I can't wait to try it out.

Agreed. If I didn't have a 1D X, I'd be quite interested in the 7DII.

 

[Don Haines]

The answer is obvious for people who take their photography seriously, you need every camera made on you at all times.

Then, if the scene contains mainly books you can use the appropriate camera and lens, if the scene happens to contain a person, then again, you will have the right tool for the job. Those that take the 'art' particularly seriously can even base their camera use choice on the colours of the books, as clearly (apparently) Nikon's wipe the floor with Canon on yellow, orange, green, and blue, so Canon would be OK for red, pink and mauve spectral scenes.

Simple really.......

DARN!
I wanted a camera for taking pictures of red canoe against a green background....

 

[DanielW]

It's no quirk of screen, browser, or anything else. It's a matter of characteristic...it's not the amount, it's how the noise presents. I'll produce some direct comparison images and GIFs from DPR data so people can judge on their own screens. Canon sensors are still more blotchy in most instances. Even the a6000 has a better noise characteristic than most Canon crops, with the exception of the reds and brown/tan swatches. It does have more color noise, however it's cleaner, random color noise with more per-pixel frequency and characteristic...it's not blotched.


I use that term very explicitly and specifically...blotched. That refers to characteristic, not amount. Canon color noise has a nasty characteristic. It's one of the things hate bout the 5D III at low ISO...it's the same blotchy characteristic in the shadows. Noise character matters just as much as noise amounts. As far as amounts go, there isn't a full stop difference between any one of the APS-C cameras. At most, on a normalized basis, there may be a third stop difference, but that's to be expected...barring color noise characteristic, the amount of noise overall is ultimately determined by total sensor area, Q.E., and maybe fill factor.

Jrista, could you please post a few examples of "good noise" and "nasty noise"? I am not sure I can tell one from the other.
Cheers
Daniel

 

[privatebydesign]

The answer is obvious for people who take their photography seriously, you need every camera made on you at all times.

Then, if the scene contains mainly books you can use the appropriate camera and lens, if the scene happens to contain a person, then again, you will have the right tool for the job. Those that take the 'art' particularly seriously can even base their camera use choice on the colours of the books, as clearly (apparently) Nikon's wipe the floor with Canon on yellow, orange, green, and blue, so Canon would be OK for red, pink and mauve spectral scenes.

Simple really.......

DARN!
I wanted a camera for taking pictures of red canoe against a green background....

Don, don't be obtuse, the answer is obvious. Shoot the canoe with the Canon and the greenery (and water) with the Nikon, then merge in PS, it is automatic and only takes a few seconds, you can then apply a Nik or whatever effect to get that authentic natural look.

 

[Don Haines]

It's no quirk of screen, browser, or anything else. It's a matter of characteristic...it's not the amount, it's how the noise presents. I'll produce some direct comparison images and GIFs from DPR data so people can judge on their own screens. Canon sensors are still more blotchy in most instances. Even the a6000 has a better noise characteristic than most Canon crops, with the exception of the reds and brown/tan swatches. It does have more color noise, however it's cleaner, random color noise with more per-pixel frequency and characteristic...it's not blotched.


I use that term very explicitly and specifically...blotched. That refers to characteristic, not amount. Canon color noise has a nasty characteristic. It's one of the things hate bout the 5D III at low ISO...it's the same blotchy characteristic in the shadows. Noise character matters just as much as noise amounts. As far as amounts go, there isn't a full stop difference between any one of the APS-C cameras. At most, on a normalized basis, there may be a third stop difference, but that's to be expected...barring color noise characteristic, the amount of noise overall is ultimately determined by total sensor area, Q.E., and maybe fill factor.

Jrista, could you please post a few examples of "good noise" and "nasty noise"? I am not sure I can tell one from the other.
Cheers
Daniel

Good noise is repeatable patterns or uniform noise that can be relatively easily subtracted or averaged to remove from the signal. Bad noise is unpredictable and/or non random and you can't really get rid of it.

In the world of Canadian music, good noise is "The Stampeders", nasty noise is Justin Beiber... unpredictable and we just can't seem to be able to get rid of it.....

 

[dtaylor]

In the world of Canadian music, good noise is "The Stampeders", nasty noise is Justin Beiber... unpredictable and we just can't seem to be able to get rid of it.....

You seemed to do a pretty good job of getting rid of him by sending him to live in America

We owe you for that one btw, and not in a good way

 

[Canon1]

A little off topic, but while reading this dpr article I realized that canon included exposure comp in manual mode with auto ISO. Not sure how i have missed this for the last month, but noteworthy, and a very welcome feature.

 

[sdsr]

On the digital photography review site targeting the jack of hearts, and his "hair" and the text below him, the sony is head and shoulders better than any of the other sensors in raw at least.

You can see the hair and read the text in all samples. The difference in sharpness you observe is probably equal to moving the detail, sharpening, and/or clarity sliders a bit.

In any case, this would be invisible outside of pixel peeping. "Head and shoulders better", in my book, means you can clearly and reliably see the difference at normal, or least large, print sizes.

Isn't the difference in detail viewing it full size largely a resolution issue? There's effectively greater magnification, so it's not surprising that the two 24mp sensors reveal a bit more detail no matter where you look (the Sony looks a bit better to me than the Nikon in that regard, but who knows to what extent that's because of the sensor). But it's not what I would call a head-and-shoulders difference either, and when you view the "print size" option you could go blind trying to spot any but microscopic differences which wouldn't ever be noticeable in real life. Differences among lenses, user competence, lighting, processing, etc. are all going to make a much bigger effect on images created with these cameras than differences among their sensors.

They all seem pretty close regarding noise as well if you choose the print-size option - though the 7DII seems impressive in that regard viewed full-size too. As for the blotchiness issue, this seems to vary from camera to camera, depending on where you look on the test, doesn't it? It seems to me that in some areas one performs better than the others, but in another a different camera does. (To make things more interesting in a different direction, toss into the mix at print size one of the Olympus OM-Ds at 1600 or lower - not much difference there, either.)

I'm not sure how much one can learn from this comparison tool (one could probably assume before seeing it that a slightly higher resolution sensor would reveal a bit more detail on close inspection), but it does seem to support the proposition that the 7DII's impressive-sounding high-tech/pro-level features don't come at the cost of a sensor that's uncompetitive with other APS-C cameras. (Other tests elsewhere may suggest otherwise, I suppose, but I suspect they won't.) If I were interested in an APS-C camera with such features I wouldn't hesitate to buy one.

 

[sdsr]

it's not possible to select the 7D in their new comparison tool on DPR.

? If you click on the OP's link, it's one of the three cameras selected to compare with the 7DII (it's right next to it).

 

[Aglet]

it's not possible to select the 7D in their new comparison tool on DPR.

? If you click on the OP's link, it's one of the three cameras selected to compare with the 7DII (it's right next to it).

sometimes you gotta dump your javascript caches?...
I was getting totally bad data from dxomark a couple years ago, thinking it was real. Made a fool of myself here posting it.
turned out my browser was displaying incorrect data - different computer, same page, same time, was displaying correctly.

 

[Aglet]

I wanted a camera for taking pictures of red canoe against a green background....

pentax will do that for you and provide an indigo sky too

 

[jrista]

it's not possible to select the 7D in their new comparison tool on DPR.

? If you click on the OP's link, it's one of the three cameras selected to compare with the 7DII (it's right next to it).

sometimes you gotta dump your javascript caches?...
I was getting totally bad data from dxomark a couple years ago, thinking it was real. Made a fool of myself here posting it.
turned out my browser was displaying incorrect data - different computer, same page, same time, was displaying correctly.

Odd, I have a similar issue. On my laptop, same browser (Chrome), the 7D is not listed. I cleared the cache and all, doesn't seem to matter what I do, 7D isn't listed. On my desktop system here, also with Chrome, the 7D is listed. Not sure what the deal is. As far as I can tell, both systems are running the same version of Chrome.


On my desktop here, at ISO 6400 RAW, the 7D definitely seems to have more chroma noise than the 7D II. The 7D II still seems to have a less fine-grained, more blotchy distribution of chroma noise, where as the D7100 has a finer-grained, more random and less blotchy chroma noise.


@DanielW: I could take screenshots and post them, but we should all be looking at the same data. My screens are all calibrated, at a brightness of 120mcd. The lower brightness helps reveal detail, where as higher brightness, such as 400mcd or brighter which is often the default on many screens these days, could very likely wash out detail. If you can, reduce your screen brightness, and calibrate your screen.


Then, compare the light blue swatch on the color checker card at say ISO 6400 RAW, the one just above the black swatch in the lower right corner. Also, make sure you are in print mode. I've been comparing the 7D II and the D7100. The difference should be pretty obvious. I have also been comparing the grayscale swatches...on my calibrated screen, the 7D II seems to have more pronounced color noise, and the color noise seems to "clump" into groups of many pixels. The D7100, while it still has color noise, takes on a finer and more random characteristic which, to me at least, is more pleasing. I wouldn't say it has less noise...just a better characteristic in my opinion.


For a more real-world expression of how the characteristic of noise can affect an image, move the zoomed in view box to the picture of the guy in the lower left, and position it such that you can see a bit of the dark background behind the picture, as well as the guys chin and throat. The color noise in the background of the 7D II image takes on a rougher texture, and seems more pronounced. Also, you can see color noise in the guys neck. The D7100 has a finer and more random color noise texture, and I can hardly see any color noise at all in the guys neck.


As far as how readable the text is, that seems to be related to AA filter strength and pixel count. Sensors with more pixels generally have more readable text in the color wheels and in the text blocks in the middle.


I should note that all of these differences are more pronounced and obvious on my laptop screen. That has a 3200x1800 pixel screen, however it still renders everything at the same general scale as my desktop (I set the DPI up on the laptop to render everything using more pixels...so text is roughly the same size in absolute terms as my desktop, but more pixels are used to render it. Same goes for images...more pixels are used to render each image, or pixels are sub-detail on my laptop, which makes it easier to see that detail without seeing RGB subpixel elements.) The differences in text sharpness, color noise, etc. are very easy to pick out on my laptop. Yellow swatches in the color checker card, for example, pop right out as having a more blotchy and rougher characteristic than the D7100. I can still see the same issue on my desktop, but it is not as pronounced.


I was using my laptop when I wrote my prior posts, so just to be fair, I wanted to make sure that context was shared...I was very, very clearly seeing differences in noise characteristic.

 

[ritholtz]

What is the file size of web and print mode in DPR? I compared 7d,7dII, 100d, 70d, 700d and d7100. All are same. I only notice difference when I added 6d to the comparison which is better than all of them at the same ISO.

Thanks

 

[Woody]

What is the file size of web and print mode in DPR? I compared 7d,7dII, 100d, 70d, 700d and d7100. All are same. I only notice difference when I added 6d to the comparison which is better than all of them at the same ISO.
Thanks

Similar observation here. All the APS-C outputs look similar although A6000 appears to be the worst.

6D is definitely 1 stop better than the various APS-C cameras.

 

[sdsr]

....

Then, compare the light blue swatch on the color checker card at say ISO 6400 RAW, the one just above the black swatch in the lower right corner. Also, make sure you are in print mode. I've been comparing the 7D II and the D7100. The difference should be pretty obvious.

....

Noticeable, certainly - but again, it varies with where you look - if you move up and compare the four squares above that the relative slight advantages seem to flip - especially the pale turquoise/cyan square at the top right, which is clearly much noisier on the D7100 than the 7DII, so much so that the noise almost hides the splotchiness. (And there seems to be something seriously wrong with whatever was done to the D7100 file if you look at the fake ferns to the right of there - the olive tint of the top layer of ferns is exaggerated and carries half way down into the emerald green of the finer-textured fake ferns below until there's a clean dividing line, almost as though a square of yellow film had been placed there - odd; it doesn't happen in the patch of fake greenery in the lower left corner.) So it still seems to me that, viewed at print size, the differences among all four cameras in the OP's link, as revealed in this test at least, are trivial and not consistent. (That's not to say, of course, that *you* should find them trivial, but perhaps you could agree that they're small enough not to matter to many/most others....)

 

[jonjt]

The 7DII seems to handle smooth gradients and constant tones WAY better than the 7D did. That was a major issue I had with the 7D.

In any case, the 5DIII definitely shows more detail, and less chroma and luminescence noise at high ISO than the 7DII does. But man, you really have to look for it. I'm questioning if its worthwhile to pay twice as much for a refurbished 5DIII and 24-105, when I can "simply" buy a new 7DII and not have to deal with the transition to FF. I tend to shoot slow moving targets more often but still, the 7DII is compelling.

Now you done it! How dare you suggest full frame might not be worth the investment!

Seriously, even though I switched from 7D I to 5DIII about a year ago, I'd have to say you really do need to think long and hard about whether or not it's worth the price of entry to full frame. I would say it depends in part on what lenses you already own because, as you correctly point out, it's not just the cost of the body, it's the cost of the lenses as well.

Clearly the gap is narrowing and while there always will be a gap, it is moving more and more toward the margins.

Now, expect to see an avalanche of posts from full framers telling you how APS-C can never compete with full frame. But, just remember, we have to justify our investment.

Yeah, I'd have to replace my standard zoom and my wide angle zoom. That's almost 4k dollars. I'd probably get 1500 dollars from selling my 11-16, 17-55 and my 7D. I'm just not sure it's worth it, in comparison to what I can get from the 7DII.

In any case, I'm going to wait until the 5DIV is released, before making a decision.