Ron Martinsen Blasts the 7DII in his review

[9VIII]

i am not a socialist and i believe in free enterprise but i don't agree with price gouging. i think the price of ff cameras has been artificially inflated for a long time. they are free to charge whatever they want as long as they are not involved in collusion and price fixing. afaik that would be illegal in the u.s.

Trust me, I'd love to have the FF prices as low as they can be. But do you honestly think that any manufacturer never tried to undercut the price to gain more market share? FF prices are falling over time and one day, they'll be as cheap as current entry bodies (fool's hope of mine), but I guess you are just upset about the pricing (as many others are). If there was a cartel deal between all FF manufacturers then either one of them would try to undercut the others to grab its market share or somebody would certailny whistleblew it a long time ago.

i have heard the argument about a ff camera costing more due to the sensor, mirror and other parts being bigger but that just doesn't seem rational when the 6d is as cheap as it is. i reckon ff sensors and parts cost a bit more but not enough to double the price. i would guess 20% more. take the 7dii 5diii comparison. they are the same size and the build is as good or better on the 7dii, it has gps and the dpaf sensor. it may well cost more to make a 7dii. i know about economy of scale but i can't see how the 5diii should cost twice as much.

Actually costs go up pretty dramatically as sensor size increases.
Every silicone platter is going to have defects on it, usually caused by dust in the air, and it costs the same to process the platter regardless of what you make out of it.
Just as an example, if every platter has an average of ten defects and you make 100 sensors out of it, you're probably going to lose 10% of your product. If you make ten sensors out of it you have the chance of getting nothing at all.
Basically that's the equation you face with sensors larger than Full Frame right now.
I remember reading that back when Canon was starting FF production they had to move their cleanliness standards to a whole new level.

ok, so how much does the sensor on the 6d cost compared to the one in the 7dii?

A little bit of Google returns a nice article on the subject.

http://www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/the-economics-of-digital-photo-sensors/

 

[Tinky]

I am a socialist (which is different from communist, in this country at least) when others sing 'Oh Christmas tree' I inadvertently lapse into 'The Red Flag'. In the uk you can be socialist and like consumer goods, so long as they aren't made by kids in Cambodia or adults in America. (i jest, a bit)

But this has about as much to do with the thread, bad writing, cameras, shockingly bad car analogies as peanuts have to do with submarines.

 

[candc]

http://www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/the-economics-of-digital-photo-sensors/

i read the article. it is outdated (2006). i don't know if the same percentages apply now? the article concluded that you got 5 ff sensors vs 13 crop sensors from a "silicon wafer". that translated to a cost of $385 vs $38. this conclusion was based on knowledge of semiconductor production and conjecture. not known costs. i don't suppose there is any published information about what the actual manufacturing costs of various sensors are?

 

[Tinky]

The cost of production is not strictly co-related to the cost in the store.

I get the basics that a camera that is more expensive to develop and manufacture should cost more.
I get economies of scale where the more a unit is produced the cheaper the per unit production costs.

But we live in a world where SOME consumer electronic companies would rather put brand new boxed cameras and computers through a mincer than devalue their brand by selling off last years stock cheap.

In the UK most shops never actually 'own' the cameras or lenses, they remain the property of the regional importers, who can then dictate the price or demand unsold stock back.

You might find lots of extra offers such as vouchers or freebies, but unless you buy grey stock you are unlikely to get a camera or lens or tablet computer massively cheaper between high street retailers.

A FF sensor might cost 2x 3x 10x 35x the cost of an APS-C sensor, but in the wash I don't think it will have as much as to do with the price as what the regional market will tolerate.

Not saying there isn't a causal relationship at some level, just that there are many many other levels operating.

 

[kurtj29]

I just wanted to thank Ron for his review. I do a lot of sports shooting - lacrosse, soccer, track and cross country. I remember taking my new 7D out to shoot the Blue Angels (US Fighter Jets) and was absolutely horrified with the blue sky background on a perfectly bright summer day. I had to actually smooth out the sky in PS it was so uneven.

http://kurtklimisch.blogspot.com/2011/08/blue-angel-august-7-2011.html


I sold that camera about 3 weeks after purchase on Craislist. (Got a used 1DM2n and was so much happier) I actually was going to buy the new 7DII but Ron is a great reviewer. So I am not.

You may not agree with Ron and his opinion but seriously, anyone who says "who is Ron" should do a Google search. The guy has done what we would all love to do. While working full time at Microsoft - and to have the success he has had in the field of photography competing against people who do this professionally and full time is pretty amazing. How many of you non-professionals have had your work published in real publications that you actually know? The guy is the real deal. I worked for Microsoft and after too many 50+ straight days of work for whatever release we were working on, I left. I can not even fathom working there and doing all the stuff he did on his blog. The guy is pretty amazing. Read his blog. It is really good.

 

[Tinky]

His writing is not however.

If I wanted to read about bowel movements I would read the Lancet.

He is trying to be a polemicist.

He may be an accomplished man amongst many other things. He is not a writer. He is not an arbitrary reviewer.

He came with a mindset churning away in his stomach and then opened his mouth to vomit it out, all warm and putrid and smelling of bile, the consistency of porridge, of bolognaise sauce, bits of carrot suspended in saliva hanging pendulousy from his chin, the smell making those around heave slightly. Warm sick in the mouth, a regurgitated coffee, not just in ones mouth, but now down ones nose, and unable to breathe without parting your lips, now down ones shirt, warm on the skin. You recognise bits of chewed but undigested breakfast and hope that warm feeling there as you passed wind was actually just a warm feeling thats creeping down your leg, inside your sock and shoe.

You get my point.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

i am not a socialist and i believe in free enterprise but i don't agree with price gouging. i think the price of ff cameras has been artificially inflated for a long time. they are free to charge whatever they want as long as they are not involved in collusion and price fixing. afaik that would be illegal in the u.s.

Try looking over the financial reports for Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung. Then tell them how they can cut the price of products by 50% and still make the 5% profit they now make.

 

[Loswr]

http://www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/the-economics-of-digital-photo-sensors/

i read the article. it is outdated (2006). i don't know if the same percentages apply now? the article concluded that you got 5 ff sensors vs 13 crop sensors from a "silicon wafer". that translated to a cost of $385 vs $38. this conclusion was based on knowledge of semiconductor production and conjecture. not known costs. i don't suppose there is any published information about what the actual manufacturing costs of various sensors are?

Yes, it's outdated. But even though Canon is now using 300mm wafers, two things haven't changed since then. One, the number of rectangles of a given size that can fit within a circle of a given size (actually, that hasn't changed since Euclid described the basic principles of geometry), and two, given a fixed defect rate and random distribution over the wafer, larger sensors will fail QC with a higher frequency than smaller ones. Since the cost to image a wafer isn't affected by the size of the pieces into which it will be cut, those two facts above mean a FF sensor will cost >10x the cost of an APS-C sensor. Then factor in the cost of everything else that has to be bigger because of the bigger sensor.

Try looking over the financial reports for Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung. Then tell them how they can cut the price of products by 50% and still make the 5% profit they now make.

How dare you let facts and reality stand in the way of 'but I don't wanna pay that much *whine–pout–stamp-my-foot*'.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

http://www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/the-economics-of-digital-photo-sensors/

i read the article. it is outdated (2006). i don't know if the same percentages apply now? the article concluded that you got 5 ff sensors vs 13 crop sensors from a "silicon wafer". that translated to a cost of $385 vs $38. this conclusion was based on knowledge of semiconductor production and conjecture. not known costs. i don't suppose there is any published information about what the actual manufacturing costs of various sensors are?

The old article was based on a Canon white paper, and things have changed. They now use 12 in wafers instead of 8 inch wafers, and the process of tooling for 18 inch wafers is under way. There is less waster when using larger wafers, the issue is making one that has few defects.

The cost of wafers has dropped a lot as well.

If a wafer has just a few defects evenly spread around the sensor, it can ruin most of the sensors on that wafer.

This is a old article, but it gives a good explanation of the issues faced in making camera sensors. There are some very sophisticated processes involved in trying to eliminate or reduce defects.

 

[candc]

OK. I still think the retail price of ff cameras is disproportionally high vs crop cameras but it's not as much as I thought. I am generally against spending a lot of money on camera bodies to begin with but the current prices on the 5diii and the1dx don't seem terribly out of line

 

[kurtj29]

His writing is not however.

If I wanted to read about bowel movements I would read the Lancet.

He is trying to be a polemicist.

He may be an accomplished man amongst many other things. He is not a writer. He is not an arbitrary reviewer.

He came with a mindset churning away in his stomach and then opened his mouth to vomit it out, all warm and putrid and smelling of bile, the consistency of porridge, of bolognaise sauce, bits of carrot suspended in saliva hanging pendulousy from his chin, the smell making those around heave slightly. Warm sick in the mouth, a regurgitated coffee, not just in ones mouth, but now down ones nose, and unable to breathe without parting your lips, now down ones shirt, warm on the skin. You recognise bits of chewed but undigested breakfast and hope that warm feeling there as you passed wind was actually just a warm feeling thats creeping down your leg, inside your sock and shoe.

You get my point.

Yes, yes I do...

 

[Marsu42]

The cost of production is not strictly co-related to the cost in the store.

Depends on the level of competition - if the prices are under pressure and more than an oligopoly of manufacturers are out there. I imagine the manufacturers loose the luxury of free pricing sooner or later and have to relate to actual production costs plus some profit.

I am a socialist (which is different from communist, in this country at least)

Yeah, they all say that, don't they ?

In the uk you can be socialist and like consumer goods

Lucky you, or you'd be wrong in an enthusiast dslr forum discussing the newest toys. Quoting a famous German phrase from the early 20th century Weihmar Republic: "Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten"!

That concludes Marsu42's political transmission for this day, thanks for tuning in, back to "your dynamic range is bigger than mine".

 

[Tinky]

The old dichotomy of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft is at work I grant you.

Very occasionally I might sing 'the working class can kiss my @r5e, I've got the gaffer's job at last' when I should be singing 'oh christmas tree'

 

[tphillips63]

I like his blog, especially the printing information. That part is great for me.
On the 7D Mark II, I bought one but have not made up my mind either way yet. I was also thinking of a 1D Mark IV as an alternative but decided to go with the more modern system in the 7D Mark II and refrain from being such a big pixel peeper. Many images I have seen out of the new body are not that bad. I don;t think I agree with Ron, at least so far, but it is his opinion.

 

[Don Haines]

moving back to the point.... the review.

Those pictures were terrible. If I were to consider a camera based on those pictures, I wouldn't touch it. The focus is not there, the lighting isn't there....Has he AFMAd his lenses? Does he have it set in some AF mode where it is focusing somewhere other than where he thinks it is?

 

[raptor3x]

Here´s a short video, where he is demonstrating the fantastic (in his view) autofocus with facial recognition on the D4S:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInuePLiO1k
Even for a totally still, well (over)lit face, it still hunts ...

In his D4S review, which he claim has the best AF system in the world, he is using his kid on a swing, as "the ultimate AF challenge" :

My favorite part of his D4S review is how he spends the entire article talking about how the D4S has the best AF system ever created and is so much improved over the D4 and then in the last paragraph or so admits that the 1DX can do everything the D4S can do but just needs to have the AF options configured correctly.

 

[StudentOfLight]

Why would a photographer shoot in-camera HDR at ISO 6400?

 

[Khalai]

Why would a photographer shoot in-camera HDR at ISO 6400?

You know... For, err, reasons?

 

[Lee Jay]

Why would a photographer shoot in-camera HDR at ISO 6400?

To preserve highlights in a dark but harshly lit environment.

 

[Marsu42]

Why would a photographer shoot in-camera HDR at ISO 6400?

There are more reasons than at iso100 as higher iso have less dynamic range. I use hdr (or at least ML's dual_iso, even though it's way less effective at high iso) for night shooting. Try capturing a scene in full moon and try to get some detail in the shadows w/o clipping the sky...

... however I'd never use in-camera hdr for that, so the crippled hdr of the 6d is no concern to me.