Earthshatteringly Disappointed With 7D

[awinphoto]

Michael... for almost every website and test and such you give me to point out the noise I can provide websites of people loving the camera... In theory, if you look at tests of gray cards, yes, you could reproduce just about result you wish, just depends on what your agenda is... In theory, the 7d can have more noise than lower MP cameras, it's just a matter of physics, but in practice, it really isn't a problem. In practice when printed, you really wont see noise until ISO 800 or more and even at that, they tend to be quite competitive to any competitors prints... You have made your point that you hate the camera and are "concerned" about it... I have pointed out that I loved that camera when i used it daily and still respect it in it's place in my camera bag... Frankly, i'm not concerned about what some test some person i've never met took and says about a camera, I'm more concerned about my experience and what I can do with my gear... I was trained to be able to shoot any camera whether it's an 8x10 large format camera all the way to SLR/DSLR, to scanning back, P&S, in daylight, middle of the night, snow/sleet/rain or shine... Given that, i dont care as much about negative aspects to a camera because every camera, LF to MF to 1dx to P&S will have it's pros and cons... I just worry about getting the most out of what I have and what I use. It could explain why I'm dismissive of your website reviews tests, but instead of worrying about noise that wont even show up in print, I worry about how I can use the camera to my advantage to get the shot my client wants under budget.

 

[dtaylor]

Here you'll see (on DPreview, no less) that the 7D has much more noise at low ISO than the 50D:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page15.asp

What I see is that the 50D applies more NR in JPEG than the 7D. Even so, "Up to ISO 800 the differences between the competitors are pretty marginal. The only camera that is visibly noisier than the rest is the Pentax K-7." This does not support your claim of "much more".

Now let's look at the RAW graphs where NR is completely off. Across the board the 7D has lower noise, and we read this: "...but it also becomes clear that the 7D produces a cleaner image than the 50D and, at very high ISOs, also than the D300S. This explains to a degree the 50D's slightly softer JPEG output at high ISOs. Its JPEG engine has to apply more chroma noise reduction than on the 7D in order to get noise onto the same level."

NR is a choice that's entirely up to you. If you want cleaner JPEGs out of camera than the 50D, increase the NR.

Here's you'll see the 7D losing out to the 40D at ISO 800, (DP review again):

http://blog.kareldonk.com/canon-eos-7d-review-noisier-than-40d/

No. I see a blog poster who spent too much time writing and not enough time thinking about what he was doing. His comparisons are not presented at the same size. Granted, those little DPReview squares are not size equalized in the first place, and I think they're worthless for that reason. But the graphs are accurate.

Check the DPReview graphs and you'll find, at 800, that the 7D measures about the same for all three types of measurements. Scaled to the same size there should be no visible difference.

If I go to the Imaging Resource samples and compare their ISO 800 studio scenes from the 40D and 7D, they are close but the 7D is cleaner. If I view them at 100% with the 40D scaled to the 7D's dimensions, the 7D is also sharper and clearly has more fine detail. If I sharpen the 40D to the same level the noise difference becomes significant, and of course sharpening can't restore fine detail. The 40D was a fine camera and the image is very good, but there's no question which is better, even on noise.

I'm not going to address cameralabs.com further. Their results are not consistent with DPReview or IR, and I know who I trust.

At post #8 you'll see the 40D defeating the 7D in low ISO noise:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/849338

I see a PopPhoto chart. How about some full size images so I can analyze the test? Without those I'm not impressed.

 

[dtaylor]

I agree with you about the AF. I get much less keepers with my L primes compared t othe 50D and 40D. I also notice I need to keep shutter speeds higher.

The shutter speed comment tells me right there you are viewing the 7D at higher magnification and complaining.

Come on people, this is camera comparison 101: you have to scale the images to the same dimensions

 

[dtaylor]

DPReview noise measurements show the 7D to have less noise across the board. They are also one of the most consistent, reliable, and trust worthy sources.

DPReview relies on ACR's 'black box' conversion.

With the exception of open source software, all RAW converters are 'black boxes.' Are you saying 0 NR in ACR is not 0 NR? Or that another converter should be used? And if so, why?

I use ACR because in tests against DPP I found ACR yielded greater resolution and fine detail, without noticeably more noise.

 

[Canon-F1]

fact is we need more then 30MP (best 40-45MP) on a FF body to have good image quality for landscape pictures ... i learned that here in this "expert" forum.

you can´t crop with a 18MP camera and overall the size is waaaaay to small for landscape prints.. i learned that here too.

and noise will NOT increase with smaller photosites... some "rain in small buckets vs. rain in big bucktes + signal to noise ratio" examples show this... and i really don´t care that real sensors seem to ignore these examples.

ironie off...

 

[jrista]

No one here is "whining".

Hmm, really?

The 7D is a little farting noise pig. Oink Oink. Not good for $1500, IMHO.

;-) Sorry, not really intending to be rude, but it was that comment that required me to investigate your opinion a bit deeper, and verify the objectivity of your references. I won't re-do the superb rebuttle @dtaylor has just provided, however I will state that I entirely agree with him. If you want people to take you seriously, you need to provide a serious, objective argument, and back it up with concrete examples where necessary. When you say things along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "dpreview's own samples show the 50D noise is much better than the 7D", when in the reviewers own words they say the difference is marginal, and the reviews chart demonstrates the difference is at worst a few percent, and at best BETTER, that reduces your credibility. Credibility issues on top of "farting noise pig", and you have a very long way to go before you can claim unbiased objectivity here.

 

[Michael7]

Michael... for almost every website and test and such you give me to point out the noise I can provide websites of people loving the camera...

And I could show you hundreds of posts with people praising the Panasonic Z30. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a noise monkey.

 

[Michael7]

No one here is "whining".

Hmm, really?

The 7D is a little farting noise pig. Oink Oink. Not good for $1500, IMHO.

;-) Sorry, not really intending to be rude, but it was that comment that required me to investigate your opinion a bit deeper, and verify the objectivity of your references. I won't re-do the superb rebuttle @dtaylor has just provided, however I will state that I entirely agree with him. If you want people to take you seriously, you need to provide a serious, objective argument, and back it up with concrete examples where necessary. When you say things along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "dpreview's own samples show the 50D noise is much better than the 7D", when in the reviewers own words they say the difference is marginal, and the reviews chart demonstrates the difference is at worst a few percent, and at best BETTER, that reduces your credibility. Credibility issues on top of "farting noise pig", and you have a very long way to go before you can claim unbiased objectivity here.

Actually I've provided four different sources for my claims and injected some humor into the conversation.

Where are your links to prove that the 7D has superior low ISO RAW noise performance to the 40D and 50D?

This isn't about you loving or not loving a camera. This is about the 7D's low ISO noise performance.

 

[jrista]

fact is we need more then 30MP (best 40-45MP) on a FF body to have good image quality for landscape pictures ... i learned that here in this "expert" forum.

My statements were that a 45mp FF sensor is necessary to achieve the same pixel density as the 7D...not to have good IQ for landscapes. I also stated I would prefer to have a 21.1mp 5D III sensor with better noise than a 30mp sensor with the same noise we have today. Its rather obvious from the work you can find on the web that pretty much any Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, and a whole slough of other cameras from half a dozen manufacturers are more than capable of taking fantastic landscape photos. The desire (lets call it a desire, rather than a concrete need) to have more resolution is that it aids in printing larger...one thing I'll say about a landscape photo, at 36-60" across hanging in a wall, they really do take your breath away! Its certainly not impossible to get a nice 36" print from a 12mp camera, you just have to make trade-offs.

you can´t crop with a 18MP camera and overall the size is waaaaay to small for landscape prints.. i learned that here too.

Again, statement was that for people who use the 5D II's 21.1mp to help give them additional cropping power would LOSE OUT with a 5D III that reduced resolution to 18mp.

and noise will NOT increase with smaller photosites... some "rain in small buckets vs. rain in big bucktes + signal to noise ratio" examples show this... and i really don´t care that real sensors seem to ignore these examples.

Noise per pixel does increase...however when you double the resolution, say from a 40D to a 7D, you have approximately 3 smaller and slightly noisier pixels for every larger and slightly less noisier pixel you used to have. Average the noise from those 3 pixels, and those "smaller buckets" don't look so bad. Thats nothing to say of the considerable advancements in sensor fabrication tech...microlensing, gapless microlensing, smaller readout wiring, higher purity materials, better image processing chips, etc. etc.

 

[Michael7]

Here you'll see (on DPreview, no less) that the 7D has much more noise at low ISO than the 50D:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page15.asp

What I see is that the 50D applies more NR in JPEG than the 7D. Even so, "Up to ISO 800 the differences between the competitors are pretty marginal. The only camera that is visibly noisier than the rest is the Pentax K-7." This does not support your claim of "much more".

If you look at the crops, they seem to mirror the results at Camera Labs. I see a significant difference in IQ at lower ISO's in those clips.

Camera Labs, DP Review, and PopPhoto all show the 40D/50D to have less low ISO noise than the 7D.

I see a PopPhoto chart. How about some full size images so I can analyze the test? Without those I'm not impressed.

That's because you already have a predetermined answer you want to believe, and won't acknowledge clear evidence to the contrary. I guess we'll just take your word over DPreview, Camera Labs, and PopPhoto.

 

[Loswr]

With the exception of open source software, all RAW converters are 'black boxes.' Are you saying 0 NR in ACR is not 0 NR? Or that another converter should be used? And if so, why?

My understanding is that ACR does apply some NR as part of the demosaicing algorithm. That might no longer be the case, though.

 

[jrista]

Actually I've provided four different sources for my claims and injected some humor into the conversation.

Where are your links to prove that the 7D has superior low ISO RAW noise performance to the 40D and 50D?

This isn't about you loving or not loving a camera. This is about the 7D's low ISO noise performance.

Ok, thats fair. I'll reuse one of your own references:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page15.asp

Lets skip JPEG, because we can't really be objective about noise in a JPEG. Different generations and brands of cameras have different algorithms to process jpeg images, different generations of noise reduction algorithms, etc. Not to mention the fact that none of us knows anything about those algorithms... Its impossible to be objective here.

Under the part where it discusses RAW noise. From the monkeys arse (emphasis added):

With noise reduction turned off we get a more accurate idea of how noisy these sensors are and the image looks slightly different to what we've seen above in the JPEG section of this page. The Pentax K-7 is much closer to the pack but it also becomes clear that the 7D produces a cleaner image than the 50D and, at very high ISOs, also than the D300S. This explains to a degree the 50D's slightly softer JPEG output at high ISOs. Its JPEG engine has to apply more chroma noise reduction than on the 7D in order to get noise onto the same level.

Lets assume for the moment that the 7D did have more noise at ISO100 than the 50D. At 100%, even though there may be more pixel-level noise, the chroma sample for the 7D certainly appears clearer and sharper than the 50D. The even lower resolution D300s seems to have better sharpness than the 50D, however if one were to upscale it to the same size as the 50D's sample, the margin would likely shrink. The Pentax, while it certainly has the lowest noise visible in solid flat gray and black samples, appears to be even softer than the 50D! Sadly, this is a subjective comparison, so what I see may not be what you see.

To be more objective, lets take a look at the RAW noise graphs. At Chroma ISO100, the 50D is approaching 3, while the 7D is just above 2.5 as far as I can tell. That means the 7D is BETTER than the 50D...albeit marginally. Follow both cameras through to the end of the graph, and the 7D is better at every tested ISO setting, the 50D is never better! The story is even better with Black ISO100. Only with Gray ISO100 do the 7D and 50D perform THE SAME at the lowest ISO, but again, following the graph through to the end, the 7D ultimately outperforms the 50D.

Just for completeness, comparing the Nikon and Pentax, they have excellent low-ISO performance, however both has a crossover point with both the 50D and 7D, and perform worse at high ISO.

I can't tell, using your own reference, how one could conclude that according to DPReview, the 50D has "much better" ISO performance at low settings than the 7D. Lets see if we can get a better idea of how well the 7D performs against other cameras than just the ones in its own review. Luckily, newer DPReview reviews allow you to select which cameras you wish to compare. The Nikon D7000 review is a good one:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond7000/page12.asp

Again, under RAW noise, you can pick the 7D, the 50D, and lets say the Pentax K-5. The 7D has the highest resolution of all of those cameras, I believe...and while it does appear that it is a bit noisier than the others in solid-color samples, the chroma sample appears to be noticeably sharper. Intriguingly, the K-5 seems to improve in sharpness until ISO800, at which point it seems to be the clear winner from both a noise and sharpness standpoint. Both the D7000 and 50D start losing sharpness immediately (not to mention they both start out softer than the 7D). This is a subjective comparison, as there are no charts that directly compare the D7000, 7D, 50D, and K-5, so I honestly can't say whether you will see the same thing there or not. One thing does seem to be sure, though...if you routinely photograph objects with lots of solid, flat colors, the Pentas K-5 is the camera for you. On the other hand, for anything with fine detail at ISO1600 and below, the 7D seems to be the best bet, although the K-5 is a close second. Neither the Nikon D7000 nor the 50D have the same clarity and sharpness as the 7D at any ISO.

 

[awinphoto]

Michael... for almost every website and test and such you give me to point out the noise I can provide websites of people loving the camera...

And I could show you hundreds of posts with people praising the Panasonic Z30. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a noise monkey.

Dude, I get that you are less than pleased with your camera... I'm sorry that I dont care, but you're not going to make me not like my camera by trying to prove me wrong... Either learn to shoot to the 7D's advantage, trade it in, get it repaired, or move to another camera... I'm not looking to pick a fight but the more and more you go on, the more and more you come off as whiner...

 

[Michael7]

Great conversation, everyone. Like the original poster, I'm selling/returning my 7D and looking at other options. Just too much noise at lower ISO's, and the RAW files are soft. This is not the kind of image quality I was expecting for $1550. Far from it, actually.

I joined the CR forum today specifically because of this thread. Glad I found it, because numerous posts confirmed what I already knew. I have no further time to discuss this, as I have numerous social requirements to attend to, and other activities with a much higher priority.

I'm looking at the 5D II, or possibly switching to Nikon. Not sure yet as I have a heavy lens investment with Canon. I'd probably be better off working into that slowly and keeping my Canon gear for comparisons.

Happy Holidays

 

[wickidwombat]

Great conversation, everyone. Like the original poster, I'm selling/returning my 7D and looking at other options. Just too much noise at lower ISO's, and the RAW files are soft. This is not the kind of image quality I was expecting for $1550. Far from it, actually.

I joined the CR forum today specifically because of this thread. Glad I found it, because numerous posts confirmed what I already knew. I have no further time to discuss this, as I have numerous social requirements to attend to, and other activities with a much higher priority.

I'm looking at the 5D II, or possibly switching to Nikon. Not sure yet as I have a heavy lens investment with Canon. I'd probably be better off working into that slowly and keeping my Canon gear for comparisons.

Happy Holidays

i cant wait to hear what you think of the 5D AF

 

[wockawocka]

Experience of noise in camera bodies I've owned:

40D - Great starter camera, well controlled noise levels for it's ISO range
50D - Very poor high ISO noise compared to the 40D
7D - Unacceptable low ISO noise but decent high iso
5D1 - Beautiful IQ, noise present in High ISO, like a 40D almost
5D2 - Very clean images up to ISO3200
1Ds3 - Cleanest images I've ever seen at ISO 100. Noise clearly present from 1600, but grain like film.
1D4 - Pretty much the same as the 5D2 up to ISO 6400 where it's better.

 

[jrista]

Great conversation, everyone. Like the original poster, I'm selling/returning my 7D and looking at other options. Just too much noise at lower ISO's, and the RAW files are soft. This is not the kind of image quality I was expecting for $1550. Far from it, actually.

I joined the CR forum today specifically because of this thread. Glad I found it, because numerous posts confirmed what I already knew. I have no further time to discuss this, as I have numerous social requirements to attend to, and other activities with a much higher priority.

I'm looking at the 5D II, or possibly switching to Nikon. Not sure yet as I have a heavy lens investment with Canon. I'd probably be better off working into that slowly and keeping my Canon gear for comparisons.

Happy Holidays

Well, I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about the 5D II if you pick one up. From my research about 7D noise, I came across quite a few owners of the 5DII that said the same fundamental issues with noise that affect the 7D also affect it. Granted, it does have better ISO100 noise, however it has the same 1/3 stop push/pull problem for non-base ISO settings. The same extra noise you see in the 7D's ISO 125/250/500/1000 seem to plague the 5D II as well, just to a lesser degree.

 

[RayS2121]

There is a common theme in these threads ... those who want more megapixels in their sensors, blindly, or knowingly, or with misty eyes endorse, support, and build up the pixel denisity champ in the canon line up which is 7D and the like. This is pretty self serving. It could be a complete dog and they would claim it is a first rate runway model and that those who call it a dog need to get their eyes checked.

Comparing 5d2's noise levels to 7D is probably the lamest of comparisons ever because to any unbiased person 5D2 is miles ahead in ISO performance. Most people agree 7D can be a bit noisey (not inviting vitriol or trying to be snarky, but the 5D2 comparison makes me laugh!). Lets give credit where credit's due and talk about where 7D is better than 5D2 in real terms, such as AF just to name one feature. But lets not bring down 5D2 to the level of 7D just so you can champion your higher MP horse.

 

[Cornell]

What was the shutter speed? If you were using a long shutter speed, you will need to enable Long-Exposure Noise Reduction (C.FN II-1).

Cornell

 

[Jettatore]

There is a common theme in these threads ... those who want more megapixels in their sensors, blindly, or knowingly, or with misty eyes endorse, support, and build up the pixel denisity champ in the canon line up which is 7D and the like. This is pretty self serving. It could be a complete dog and they would claim it is a first rate runway model and that those who call it a dog need to get their eyes checked.

Comparing 5d2's noise levels to 7D is probably the lamest of comparisons ever because to any unbiased person 5D2 is miles ahead in ISO performance. Most people agree 7D can be a bit noisey (not inviting vitriol or trying to be snarky, but the 5D2 comparison makes me laugh!). Lets give credit where credit's due and talk about where 7D is better than 5D2 in real terms, such as AF just to name one feature. But lets not bring down 5D2 to the level of 7D just so you can champion your higher MP horse.

Not quite, I'm on the camp that wants better ISO performance (in particular while in low-light situations) on the 5DIII as a priority over more MP. But at low ISO, there is no native noise I can't entirely remove and without perceivable quality loss on my 7D. And because of that, I find this entire discussion fairly ridiculous. It has no effect on my work, and I would need to see actual RAW/work files that aren't completely un-usable images to begin with, from someone claiming the contrary as I suspect I could easily edit my way around their complaints and automate the process to boot.