EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

sfunglee said:
jrista said:
Lee Jay said:
ekt8750 said:
ajfotofilmagem said:
Canon1 said:
The good news is that if it is a totally new sensor, it may be much better than the 70d and it will have better high ISO noise at 20.2 than 24 mp. Im all for a smaller sensor in aps-c. Truthfully, I wish it was closer to 12 or 16. We'd have a killer crop camera!
I'd be happier with a 16 megapixel sensor without dual pixel AF. Do not get me wrong. For the intended use of 7D Mark II (mini 1DX) the most important thing is a big improvement in noise above ISO 1600.

Same here if it means larger pixels that let more light in. Just look at Canon's prosumer camcorders which work on that very concept.

Saying bigger pixels let more light in is like saying cutting a 15 inch pizza into 6 slices instead of 8 gets you more pizza.

HAHA! That's a PERFECT analogy! :D Sweet. Gotta use that one in the future.

By logically 15" pizza are larger by 6 slices, but the 15" pizza thicker pizza into 8 slices will be different...
In another word, weight per pizza of 1/8 is heavier than 1/6... hrmmm it mean a possible for crop 24mp excel FF 21mp in term of more fine pixel? Sorry i'm no too good into pixel stuffs

I'm not really sure what your trying to say. A pizza is a pizza. If it's 15" in diameter, it's ~177" in area. If you slice it up into six slices, each slice is 29.5" in area. If you slice it up into eight slices, each slice is 22" in area. However, if you eat all six larger slices, or eat all eight smaller slices, you still ate 177" total area worth of "pizza." Larger slices don't mean you get more pizza...it's still the same total amount of food regardless of how small you slice it! :P
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

jrista said:
NancyP said:
Hey, I am going on a unicorn photo expedition in January, I need that slightly-better-than-70D high-ISO noise performance. 8)

Bigger pixels give more electron capacity per pixel (say, 4 micron pixel has 30,000 maximum capacity, 7 micro pixel has 100,000 maximum capacity). So, say you have 14-bit ADC, that's roughly 16,000 levels of electrons, or about 2 electrons per level for the 4 micron pixel and 6 electrons per level for the 7 micron pixel. Say you have 30 electrons worth of noise. Noise takes up the first 15 levels for the 4 micron pixel and the first 5 levels for the 7 micron pixel. That's why bigger pixels, all other things being equal, result in less perceptible noise.

This is still wrong. Bigger pixels mean more charge per pixel...but it's still the same TOTAL CHARGE for the WHOLE SENSOR! :P As Lee Jay said, slicing up a pizza into smaller slices doesn't mean you have more pizza, or more pepperoni on that pizza. It's still the same amount of food.

Same for sensors. You can have two APS-C sensors with 10µm and 5µm pixels. One has four times as many pixels as the other. The sensors are 22.3x14.9mm in size. The big pixel sensor is 2230x1490 pixels, the small pixel sensor is 4460x2980 pixels. One has pixels with four times the area as the other. The 10µm pixels gather 100ke- charge FWC, the 5µm pixels gather 25ke- charge FWC. The bigger pixels are better, right? They gather more light than smaller pixels. They mean less noise, right? Nope. Let's calculate the total charge in the sensor for a fully saturated sensor

(2230*1490) * 100000 = 332,270,000,000e-
(4460*2980) * 25000 = 332,270,000,000e-

Hmm. Something MUST be wrong, because these two sensors gathered the same amount of light! If your subject fills the same absolute area of the sensor, then either sensor is going to gather the same total amount of light. The only difference is that one divides the subject into smaller buckets. Each bucket gets less light, but the subject as a whole is resolved at the sensor with the exact same amount of light in total.

Oh, but I purposely used pixels that had a nice, neat little ratio between them. It doesn't work that way in real life, right? Let's prove the point. Let's take the 5D III and 6D, both full frame sensors. Their total charge capacities are:

5D III: (5760px*3840px) * 67531e-/px = 1,493,677,670,400e-
6D: (5472px*3648px) * 76606e-/px = 1,529,197,940,736e-

The 5D III has 49% Q.E., the 6D has 50% Q.E. Dividing the above by 49% and 50% respectively gives us:

1,493,677,670,400/49 = 30,483,217,763.27
1,529,197,940,736/50 = 30,583,958,814.72

Dividing those numbers gives us:

30,483,217,763.27/30,583,958,814.72 = 0.99670608203273169699921873489352

The 5D III and 6D are within 99.7% of each other as far as total charge goes. That means the difference in light gathering capacity is 0.3%...well within margin of error. Differences in technology, cherry picking the best sensors (as in the 1D X/D4 lines), using better companion electronics (again as in 1D X/D4), etc. can create larger discrepancies, but in general, differences in pixel size, until were talking about very small pixels where fill factor becomes an issue, are largely meaningless. It's sensor area that matters first and foremost, then quantum efficiency...then pixel size/fill factor.

The 7D II could employ some new technology to improve Q.E. They could use better materials (i.e. black silicon), control current better, maybe even switch from using a standard RGGB CFA to using something like color splitting, etc. and maybe double Q.E. That would allow them to realize a REAL one-stop improvement in noise performance at high ISO. I think it's doubtful that's happened...if the 20.2mp sensor rumor is true. In all likelihood, Canon has made some minor evolutionary improvements, maybe improved Q.E. a few percent, maybe found a way to recover some die area for photodiodes, improved the efficiency of their circuitry, etc. I don't expect the differences to be huge.

The 70D has 45% Q.E. The 7D II might have around 49% Q.E., and they may better utilize the sensor die area for photodiodes. We might see a boost from ~26ke- FWC to maybe ~30ke- FWC. That is not going to change things much...and accounting for the differences in quantum efficiency, the two sensors are still going to come within a fraction of a percent of each other as far as total light gathering capacity goes.
Hi,
Err... I think you forget to consider the noise factor... if the noise for every pixel is the same, the larger pixel (more signal) will have better Signal-to-Noise ratio... that's mean more pixels equal more noise and since the total signal for the both sensor is the same, the sensor with less pixels will have better Signal-to-Noise ratio. Also, since smaller pixels hold less charge, the chance of blowing highlights is higher than a larger pixel sensor.

As a result, sensors with larger pixel have better dynamic range than sensors with smaller pixel even if the total sensor size is the same.

Have a nice day.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

weixing said:
Hi,
Err... I think you forget to consider the noise factor... if the noise for every pixel is the same, the larger pixel (more signal) will have better Signal-to-Noise ratio... that's mean more pixels equal more noise and since the total signal for the both sensor is the same, the sensor with less pixels will have better Signal-to-Noise ratio. Also, since smaller pixels hold less charge, the chance of blowing highlights is higher than a larger pixel sensor, so larger pixel sensor will have a better dynamic range.

Have a nice day.

Nope. I haven't forgotten noise or SNR. The 5µm pixels will have twice the noise. However, a 2x2 matrix of 5µm pixels equal one 10µm pixel in terms of area. Average those four pixels together, and you reduce noise by SQRT(4), which is? Yup. A factor of two. The 10µm pixels have four times the area, which again, reduces noise by SQRT(4), or a factor of two. There is more noise per pixel, however the noise per absolute area of the subject is the same. The sensor with smaller pixels has twice the image dimensions. Downsample the 4460x2980 pixel image to 2230x1490...and there will be no difference in noise.

The only difference you WILL see? The downsampled image is SHARPER! 8)

Have a nice day.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Jaydeep said:
When was the last time that we had two sensors having the exact same MP resolution but were "different " ?
I'm afraid it looks like the 7D II will have the 70D sensor . The 70D sensor is pretty good though, its just that we are expecting two sensor revolutions in two years ..which is incredibly rare.

I realize if it has the 70D sensor that this will disappoint many. But if they keep the price down I'm fine with it. The 70D is a clear improvement in noise/DR over the original 7D, and 65 cross AF points at 10 fps is awesome. I don't think they can coast 5 years on this sensor, but as long as they don't price it into the stratosphere there is nothing that can touch it for action and sports right now outside of the top end 1DX / D4.

Now if they try to charge an arm and a leg for it, I'll just stick to my current 7D for sports/action. If they want to charge more then $2k (street price...we all know MRP is artificially high) then they have to have something "revolutionary" IMHO. Those rumors have been squashed. So we'll see what the price ends up being.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

weixing said:
Also, since smaller pixels hold less charge, the chance of blowing highlights is higher than a larger pixel sensor.

But for the same focal plane exposure, the smaller pixels also receive less light because, well, they're smaller. So total sensor DR does not necessarily have to suffer for higher resolution sensors.

weixing said:
As a result, sensors with larger pixel have better dynamic range than sensors with smaller pixel even if the total sensor size is the same.

If all else is held the same, yes. In reality, this doesn't generally always turn out to be true. For one, sometimes manufacturers are able to decrease per-pixel read noise with the smaller pixels of the higher resolution (but same size) sensor. For a sensor of n times higher resolution, all you have to do is decrease per-pixel read noise by a factor of sqrt(n) to achieve equivalent normalized noise performance.

This may be why the Sony A7R has just as much DR as the A7S, and normalized noise performance is similar. But, admittedly, I'm just guessing here.

The point is, there are a number of variables here one must consider. It's not always straightforward. For example, the A7S with its 12MP has demonstrably lower DR in RAW than the A7R with 3x as many pixels. Probably resulting from increased downstream read noise of the architecture.

jrista said:
Nope. I haven't forgotten noise or SNR. The 5µm pixels will have twice the noise. However, a 2x2 matrix of 5µm pixels equal one 10µm pixel in terms of area. Average those four pixels together, and you reduce noise by SQRT(4), which is? Yup. A factor of two. The 10µm pixels have four times the area, which again, reduces noise by SQRT(4), or a factor of two. There is more noise per pixel, however the noise per absolute area of the subject is the same. The sensor with smaller pixels has twice the image dimensions. Downsample the 4460x2980 pixel image to 2230x1490...and there will be no difference in noise.

The only difference you WILL see? The downsampled image is SHARPER! 8)

Have a nice day.

No, jrista, the noise per absolute area is not the same. It's pretty close, but it's still worse. It'll only be the same if the n-times higher resolution sensor has its pixel-level read noise reduced by a factor of sqrt(n) compared to the lower resolution sensor. Let's take the case of a 10µm x 10µm pixel, vs. this pixel divided up into four 5µm x 5µm pixels. Let's do some math:

For a 10µm pixel that receives 200 photons, QE=50%:
  • Signal = 100 (50% of 200 = 100 electrons)
  • Read noise=2
  • Shot noise = sqrt(100) = 10
  • Total noise = sqrt (10^2 + 2^2) = 10.198 [yes, this is an approximation, but it'll suffice]
  • Per-pixel SNR = 100/10.198 = 9.806

For the four 5µm pixels that also receive a total of 200 photons, or 50 photons each, QE=50%:
  • Signal = 25 (50% of 50 = 25 electrons)
  • Read noise = 2
  • Shot noise = sqrt(25) = 5
  • Total noise = sqrt (5^2 + 2^2) = 5.385
  • Per-pixel SNR = 25/5.385 = 4.6424
  • After averaging those 4 pixels, SNR increases by sqrt(4)=2, so SNR for that area is now 9.285
  • Another way of determining the SNR of the four averaged pixels is to calculate out the noise: total noise after averaging will be sqrt(4*sqrt(29)^2) = sqrt(116) which you can already tell is going to be more than sqrt(104), the total noise of the 10µm pixel. But let's continue: sqrt(116) = 10.77. Adding together the signal of the 4 pixels gives you a signal of 100. So SNR = 100/10.77 = 9.285.

Point is, SNR of 9.8 > SNR of 9.3. This is generally a bit academic of a difference, which is why high resolution sensors generally do so well. But for extremely high ISOs, where you have so little signal to begin with, it can make a difference. Or when the higher resolution sensor has many, many more pixels.

The take-home point is that when you average the smaller pixels of a n-times higher resolution sensor, you completely equalize shot-noise performance per-area. But not read noise performance. Why? Simply b/c you have n times as many read events.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Canon1 said:
The good news is that if it is a totally new sensor, it may be much better than the 70d and it will have better high ISO noise at 20.2 than 24 mp. Im all for a smaller sensor in aps-c. Truthfully, I wish it was closer to 12 or 16. We'd have a killer crop camera!

How? If it is 12MP then it's getting to be not the ton more reach than a 5D3 is. It's not the crop factor that matters, it's the photosite density. All teh crop factor does is limit your FOV with each lens.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

raptor3x said:
ajfotofilmagem said:
Canon1 said:
The good news is that if it is a totally new sensor, it may be much better than the 70d and it will have better high ISO noise at 20.2 than 24 mp. Im all for a smaller sensor in aps-c. Truthfully, I wish it was closer to 12 or 16. We'd have a killer crop camera!
I'd be happier with a 16 megapixel sensor without dual pixel AF. Do not get me wrong. For the intended use of 7D Mark II (mini 1DX) the most important thing is a big improvement in noise above ISO 1600.

I don't know, I think dual pixel is really attractive if Canon implements that patent where dual pixel works in conjuction with the regular AF system. The most interesting thing about dual pixel AF (DPAF) is that it's precision scales with the maximum aperture of the lens whereas the regular phase detect system only offers a fixed precision based on the type of AF point used, though for a given aperture size traditional AF is supposedly more precise. This combined with the new feedback loop from the newer Canon lenses along with the ITR metering system from the 1DX propagating down to lesser bodies and I think AF is going be insanely good for the next generation of Canon bodies.

If they really did manage to pull of one the rumors where they claim it does DPAF so quickly that it after phase AF it can do quick final DPAF check and adjustment so fast that it wouldn't hurt reaction time (which seems hard to believe), but if they could, man it would have the best AF bar none and it would be an AF revolution.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Maui5150 said:
and improved ISO (5d MKIII or better) than I will be fairly happy

That is really asking a lot, to do that it would basically have to be very nearly the 100% ideal sensor to simply match the 5D3 for SNR. It's a totally unrealistic ask. If you mean for DR then sure, it could do 3 stops better low ISO and 1.5 high ISO than the 5D3 for sure, but for SNR you are just not asking something it is remotely realistic.

You have to understand how crazy good the SNR of the current top cams are at high iso already. There isn't all that much room left to improve without breaking very basic laws of physics.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Lee Jay said:
ekt8750 said:
ajfotofilmagem said:
Canon1 said:
The good news is that if it is a totally new sensor, it may be much better than the 70d and it will have better high ISO noise at 20.2 than 24 mp. Im all for a smaller sensor in aps-c. Truthfully, I wish it was closer to 12 or 16. We'd have a killer crop camera!
I'd be happier with a 16 megapixel sensor without dual pixel AF. Do not get me wrong. For the intended use of 7D Mark II (mini 1DX) the most important thing is a big improvement in noise above ISO 1600.

Same here if it means larger pixels that let more light in. Just look at Canon's prosumer camcorders which work on that very concept.

Saying bigger pixels let more light in is like saying cutting a 15 inch pizza into 6 slices instead of 8 gets you more pizza.

It does if you were told "don't eat more than two slices!!!!" ;D.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Keith_Reeder said:
neuroanatomist said:
In a fight between physics and fantasy, my money is on physics. 8)

Which ignores the fact that newer crop sensors are waaay better in the high ISO noise stakes than old FF cameras.

There's more to this than "just" physics...

Really, so these new APS-C cams are doing like like say capturing more photons than exist in a scene???
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Keith_Reeder said:
NancyP said:
That's why bigger pixels, all other things being equal, result in less perceptible noise.

At the pixel level - which is irrelevant at the image level, because of the averaging effect of lots of smaller pixels - and their noise - across the image.

Again: even DxO gets this:
http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/More-pixels-offset-noise

At extremes of pixel size it can matter a bit for SNR. For lots of tech if you go wayyyyyyy high and compare to vastly lower you can get a bit of an actual penalty with the tech Canon is using now, but for anything like say 12MP vs 24MP I mean it's not even worth thinking about (and the more MP can even maybe help the DR a trace, plus the more MP the tighter the 'grain' which pleases the eye more which would make up for more than any little difference). So you might get a bit better DR and a bit worse SNR for typical modern tech and the way it works out, but for it to matter to the point you'd really care, especially for SNR you need quite a difference.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

roguewave said:
neuroanatomist said:
I do believe in Santa Claus. I do I do I do. And flying reindeer. And rainbow-pooping unicorns. Any of those are more likely to be real than an APS-C sensor that's as good or better than the 5DIII at high ISO.

In a fight between physics and fantasy, my money is on physics. 8)

I don't disagree with you about sensors, but still, be careful betting all your money on it :)...

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

"The resistance of air increases as the square of the speed and works as the cube [of speed].... It is clear that with our present devices there is no hope of aircraft competing for racing speed with either our locomotives or automobiles."
-- William H. Pickering, Director, Harvard College Observatory, 1910

"Even considering the improvements possible...the gas turbine could hardly be considered a feasible application to airplanes because of the difficulties of complying with the stringent weight requirements."
-- U. S. National Academy Of Science, 1940

"Professor Goddard...does not know the relation of action to re-action, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react....he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
-- 1920 New York Times editorial on Robert Goddard's rocket work.

"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is talking moonshine."
-- Ernest Rutherford, 1930

"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists. To escape the Earth's gravitation a projectile needs a velocity of 7 miles per second. The thermal energy at this speed is 15,180 calories [per gram]. Hence the proposition appears to be basically impossible"
-- A. W. Bickerton, 1926

"Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever."
-- Thomas Edison

so?

lots of those of those quotes are simply about not imagining better tech, which is far different than going up against limits of basic physics and some are ridiculously flat out misinterpretations of basic physics that were well known by anyone who actually knew physics then
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

digitalride said:
Lee Jay said:
Quantum efficiency isn't the only driver. Read noise can be a major factor as well. In some cases (some sensors, some ISO settings) driving read noise to zero could provide better than a 1-stop improvement. While QE at 100% is not possible, read noise at essentially zero is possible.

Yes, I hadn't considered lowering the read noise. Anyone know how many stops of noise improvement is practically and theoretically possible there? I don't know enough to make sense of the info at http://www.sensorgen.info . I want to get a number so I can spout off and say "noise performance cannot ever improve more than X stops from what we have today" every time someone expects a 2x improvement in the next model.

I think the 6D is already something like at leat 2 stops better DR at high ISO than the 7D and Exmor is like 3 stops so certainly at least 3 stops low ISO and 2 stops high ISO without even having to do anything revolutionary.
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

neuroanatomist said:
Keith_Reeder said:
neuroanatomist said:
In a fight between physics and fantasy, my money is on physics. 8)

Which ignores the fact that newer crop sensors are waaay better in the high ISO noise stakes than old FF cameras.

There's more to this than "just" physics...

Keith_Reeder said:
even DxO gets this:

Yes, even DxO gets how far we've come, that a new APS-C sensor like that in the 70D is waaay better in terms of high ISO noise than an old FF sensor like that in the original 5D.

::) ::) ::)

you really should compare using the normalized chart:
http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Canon-EOS-70D-versus-Canon-EOS-5D___895_176

that said it still doesn't quite match the 5D, much less outdo it
 
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Re: EOS 7D Mark II & Photokina

Add me to the list of people hoping it's a 24MP - not because I want that number (though it would be a nice bump!) but because of 20.2 indicating it's a derivative of the 70D sensor. I really like using my 70D but it's the big jump in sensor tech I want Canon to do and even if you aren't directly interested in the 7D II at least it shows what they have done will feature in future bodies.
 
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