The Canon EOS R7 Mark II is Getting Closer

[Quack]

...

The subject is a beaten horse. A lot of people feel provoked that I prefer APS-C, and want to convince me that I should go fullframe. And I'm probably also going to stop with this post, because the discussion will continue forever, but not change my mind. Maybe I'm in a niche group, maybe I represent a lot of other R7/APS-C shooters? I don't know... But I know what I want.

I have had FF, Canon crop and Micro Four thirds cameras since 2014. I use FF maybe 10% of the time (probably less...). The idea that FF is significantly better is stupid, but, frankly, what else would you expect from the internet and social media. If I was a pro portrait shooter, yeah, I would choose FF. Otherwise, my camera of choice is the OM System OM-1. If people try to convince you to go FF, ignore them. You will be far better off choosing what you want and what works best for you.

 

[EverydayPhotographer]

Well, that’s going to be fun to use at 500mm with the RF 100-500MM F4.5-7.1 L IS USM.

The several studies that I have read with relation to higher resolution sensors have generally concluded that, all other things being equal, the loss of detail due to diffraction is less than the loss of detail due to decreased resolution, ie. the final image of a 31/32mpx APS-C sensor will show more detail over a similar physical space than the same portion of the image at 24mpx even if one is reaching the diffraction limit while the other is not. I wouldn't consider that to be the end-all final statement, as there are always plenty of other factors at play as well. But it does suggest that it's less of a fatal condition than it is typically presented as being.

 

[SvO2]

The several studies that I have read with relation to higher resolution sensors have generally concluded that, all other things being equal, the loss of detail due to diffraction is less than the loss of detail due to decreased resolution, ie. the final image of a 31/32mpx APS-C sensor will show more detail over a similar physical space than the same portion of the image at 24mpx even if one is reaching the diffraction limit while the other is not. I wouldn't consider that to be the end-all final statement, as there are always plenty of other factors at play as well. But it does suggest that it's less of a fatal condition than it is typically presented as being.

I imagine the real limit where there's no extra detail is considerably higher- for reasons similar to why things like IBIS high resolution work.

 

[AlanF]

The several studies that I have read with relation to higher resolution sensors have generally concluded that, all other things being equal, the loss of detail due to diffraction is less than the loss of detail due to decreased resolution, ie. the final image of a 31/32mpx APS-C sensor will show more detail over a similar physical space than the same portion of the image at 24mpx even if one is reaching the diffraction limit while the other is not. I wouldn't consider that to be the end-all final statement, as there are always plenty of other factors at play as well. But it does suggest that it's less of a fatal condition than it is typically presented as being.

The reason for your first statement is that the overall MTF of the lens and sensor combined is usually given by MTF(lens) x MTF(sensor) so any increase in either results in an increase in overall MTF. But, there are limits.
For diffraction, there is a limiting cutoff (f(c)) frequency which is the spatial frequency at which contrast reaches zero at f(c) = 2NA/λ ~ 1/fλ (where NA = the numerical aperture, f the usual f-number, and λ is the wavelength of the light).
For the sensor, it is the Nyquist frequency, = pixel density/2 = (px/mm)/2.

I once did a geek thread about this.

Thread 'Effects of diffraction and R5/R6 sensor on resolution of f/5.6, f/7.1 and f/11 lenses and TCs'

Aug 14, 2020

Another of my geek articles, which does have some implications for actual use. What I do here is to calculate the contributions of diffraction and sensor Mpx size (R5 vs R6) to the resolving power of the 400mm f/5.6 and 500mm f/7.1 zooms and the 600mm and 800mm f/11 primes and how resolution is affected by 1.4x and 2x teleconverters.

The summary based on just the effects of diffraction and sensor Mpx, and ignoring optical aberrations is:

• On an unrealistically high-resolution sensor, the f5.6, f/7.1 zooms and the 800mm f/11 would all have the same resolution and outresolve the 600mm...

• AlanF
• diffraction eos r5 eos r6 f/11 mtf resolution
• Replies: 37
• Forum: Canon Lenses

• 
• 

 

[justaCanonuser]

Sounds great. Hope that most of this comes to fruition.

Three main things for me is I hope Canon start to standardise the layout rather than every camera having different ergonomics. Be nice to pick up cameras in a similar pro line and muscle memory to be retained like it used to be with the 5D and 7D line.

Secondly I hope that they can make the AF like the R5II, its so good that it rarely misses and the R7 is more hit and miss and the specs on paper dont really translate into the real world.

Third, I hope we have a quicker sensor to reduce rolling shutter, maybe not stacked like the R5II. Readout speeds of the R6II would be great.

I am with you, these are the main changes for the R7 II on my personal wish list, too.

 

[justaCanonuser]

I've never personally understood the 7 lineup. If you exclusively shoot crop, seems you'd typically have less expensive lenses (most of the crop lenses are lower end). If you're using full frame lenses, surely you'd want a full frame camera?

It depends on what you want to shoot. I use my crop R7 mostly for wildlife, with a focus on birding, attached to my EF 600mm III full frame lens. Looks a bit ridiculous to have that tiny camera on such a big lens, but I simply get with that combo the highest resolution currently possible to catch most details of small/ more far away - shy - animals. The pixel pitch of the R7 would make a roughly 80 MP FF camera which I would then switch to a crop mode anyway - why waste card space for image parts I would later throw away by cropping on the computer?

So, basically it really depends on what you want to shoot with your camera. Not understanding the 7 lineup simply means that it doesn't fit into your personal approach to photography, what is okay, no question, but for other photographers like me such crop cameras make a lot of sense. For portrait, street, landscape btw I use a FF camera. Another nice application of the 7 lineup was - and is - macro photography, for the same technical reason than its use in supertele photography.

 

[justaCanonuser]

The reason for your first statement is that the overall MTF of the lens and sensor combined is usually given by MTF(lens) x MTF(sensor) so any increase in either results in an increase in overall MTF. But, there are limits.
For diffraction, there is a limiting cutoff (f(c)) frequency which is the spatial frequency at which contrast reaches zero at f(c) = 2NA/λ ~ 1/fλ (where NA = the numerical aperture, f the usual f-number, and λ is the frequency of the light).
For the sensor, it is the Nyquist frequency, = pixel density/2 = (px/mm)/2.

I once did a geek thread about this.

Thread 'Effects of diffraction and R5/R6 sensor on resolution of f/5.6, f/7.1 and f/11 lenses and TCs'

Aug 14, 2020

Another of my geek articles, which does have some implications for actual use. What I do here is to calculate the contributions of diffraction and sensor Mpx size (R5 vs R6) to the resolving power of the 400mm f/5.6 and 500mm f/7.1 zooms and the 600mm and 800mm f/11 primes and how resolution is affected by 1.4x and 2x teleconverters.

The summary based on just the effects of diffraction and sensor Mpx, and ignoring optical aberrations is:

• On an unrealistically high-resolution sensor, the f5.6, f/7.1 zooms and the 800mm f/11 would all have the same resolution and outresolve the 600mm...

• AlanF
• diffraction eos r5 eos r6 f/11 mtf resolution
• Replies: 37
• Forum: Canon Lenses

• 
• 

Great explanation, I only have one little correction: λ is the wavelength, not the frequency, of light here.

 

[AlanF]

Great explanation, I only have one little correction: λ is the wavelength, not the frequency, of light here.

Thanks. I’ll correct it.

 

[Del Paso]

It depends on what you want to shoot. I use my crop R7 mostly for wildlife, with a focus on birding, attached to my EF 600mm III full frame lens. Looks a bit ridiculous to have that tiny camera on such a big lens, but I simply get with that combo the highest resolution currently possible to catch most details of small/ more far away - shy - animals. The pixel pitch of the R7 would make a roughly 80 MP FF camera which I would then switch to a crop mode anyway - why waste card space for image parts I would later throw away by cropping on the computer?

So, basically it really depends on what you want to shoot with your camera. Not understanding the 7 lineup simply means that it doesn't fit into your personal approach to photography, what is okay, no question, but for other photographers like me such crop cameras make a lot of sense. For portrait, street, landscape btw I use a FF camera. Another nice application of the 7 lineup was - and is - macro photography, for the same technical reason than its use in supertele photography.

Macro is indeed a very good reason for an APS/C camera.
Very tempting, provided the R7 II uses the same body size and ergonomics as the R5 II.

 

[Del Paso]

Sounds great. Hope that most of this comes to fruition.

Three main things for me is I hope Canon start to standardise the layout rather than every camera having different ergonomics. Be nice to pick up cameras in a similar pro line and muscle memory to be retained like it used to be with the 5D and 7D line.

Secondly I hope that they can make the AF like the R5II, its so good that it rarely misses and the R7 is more hit and miss and the specs on paper dont really translate into the real world.

Third, I hope we have a quicker sensor to reduce rolling shutter, maybe not stacked like the R5II. Readout speeds of the R6II would be great.

It seems to be the case with ergonomics, Canon have standardised the layout of controls on their latest cameras, like R8, R6 II, R5 II.
Despite a very low price for a new R5, I preferred for this reason to have a second R5 II. Muscle memory matters!

 

[RobbieHat]

I wonder if Canon will have any testers using the set up of a R7II and the new 400mm RF lens (or other new telephoto lenses) for any sporting events in advance of the Olympics. If they want to go up-market with the R7, what better way than to prove it can hang with the big boys (R1, R5II) at a major sporting event/venue.

 

[Midge]

Agreed. Just want it to be a worthy 7DII successor. Lots of my stuff is fast flying aircraft, and the R7 loses focus way more than my 7DII. Also like the idea of an RF 15-85. Its my go to lens for static shots.

Couldn't agree more. My 7DmkII still serves better than my R7 in all respects despite all the attention it has has from Canon services. I still get focus lock for no reason and the eye focus feature does not work. Its fast - when it works but still needs improvement. Hopefully the R7mk II will really be the natural successor to the 7DmkII, like it should have been in the first instance. Canon could have and should have taken more time to iron out the bugs before releasing the R7 to begin with. A race to the bottom serves no one. My 7Dmk II has always been brilliant so maybe a mark III of that should have occurred as well way back in the day. Mirrorless is fine but EVF isn't. You cannot and will not beat an optical viewfinder ; don't care what anybody says. I have looked through all the high spec mirrorless cameras and still think optical is sharper, clearer and more accurate. The shutter changes I can appreciate as the mechanical shutter is atrocious and noisy. Whose daft idea was that to make it so loud? You would hope that by now Canon will have got the message about the myriad shortcomings of the Mk I and respond with a truly excellent R7MkII that IS a natural successor to the 7DMkII. We can dream eh?

 

[neonlight]

> On the surface, it looks like the rumored EOS R7 Mark II will be an APS-C equipped EOS R5 Mark II.

What does that even mean?

45 megapixels in FF is 20 megapixels in APS-C. So the sensor is not the same, obviously...

Is it the button layout? The number of buttons? R7's are usually smaller so how would that work.

The EOS 7D was very similar in size and layout to the EOS 5D, and meant that pro's could use the 7D interchangeably with the 5D, almost.
The R7 was more of an EOS90D upgrade, not a 7DIII.
So perhaps the R7II would be a "proper" update to the 7DII.

 

[neonlight]

It depends on what you want to shoot. I use my crop R7 mostly for wildlife, with a focus on birding, attached to my EF 600mm III full frame lens. Looks a bit ridiculous to have that tiny camera on such a big lens, but I simply get with that combo the highest resolution currently possible to catch most details of small/ more far away - shy - animals. The pixel pitch of the R7 would make a roughly 80 MP FF camera which I would then switch to a crop mode anyway - why waste card space for image parts I would later throw away by cropping on the computer?

So, basically it really depends on what you want to shoot with your camera. Not understanding the 7 lineup simply means that it doesn't fit into your personal approach to photography, what is okay, no question, but for other photographers like me such crop cameras make a lot of sense. For portrait, street, landscape btw I use a FF camera. Another nice application of the 7 lineup was - and is - macro photography, for the same technical reason than its use in supertele photography.

I agree. For birding and macro I use my 7DII with FF lenses as they give excellent images. e.g. 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L, 100mm 2.8L (and my old 600f/4 when birds are tiny and/or far away), but that's also a weightlifting exercise which is getting heavier, or something...

 

[justaCanonuser]

Macro is indeed a very good reason for an APS/C camera.

In fact, the original EOS 7D really changed my approach to macro photography. Paired with the EF 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM, I could for the first time shoot freehand macros in settings in which I never dreamed before that I will ever be able to do that. With birding, the AF system of the 7 series was always a bit tricky and not overly reliable, but for macro it was always great. I think this was caused because macro motivs are naturally more frame filling than a sometimes quite small bird far away, so they were more easily recognizable for the AF system.

 

[justaCanonuser]

Agreed. Just want it to be a worthy 7DII successor. Lots of my stuff is fast flying aircraft, and the R7 loses focus way more than my 7DII. Also like the idea of an RF 15-85. Its my go to lens for static shots.

Interesting to read, John. I am in birding, not aircraft photography, and what I realized is that the R7 with activated object recognition (animals) does a really good job in many settings, but birds in flight against a blue or some sort of overcast skies in the background is troublesome. In fact, there is even a warning covered in the handbook regarding overcast skies. I think - and hope - that Canon solves this annoying problem with the R7 II.

 

[Quack]

Interesting to read, John. I am in birding, not aircraft photography, and what I realized is that the R7 with activated object recognition (animals) does a really good job in many settings, but birds in flight against a blue or some sort of overcast skies in the background is troublesome. In fact, there is even a warning covered in the handbook regarding overcast skies. I think - and hope - that Canon solves this annoying problem with the R7 II.

I always find it odd when people mention this...Against a sky with no trees or other objects in the background, or on the sides or bottom of the screen, I find the R7, like every other camera with subject detection, does a great job. It's when other objects get into the AF zone that the camera struggles and AF jumps around, in which case smaller AF zone works better for me. One hint that may be useful is to hold the shutter down for only a second or two at a time, then release and repeat. Holding the shutter down longer seems to encourage the subject detection to start looking around on Canon cameras, according to Jan Wegener's video on the subject. I assume you are also following Canon's advice to shoot at no more than 15 fps.

 

[AlanF]

I always find it odd when people mention this...Against a sky with no trees or other objects in the background, or on the sides or bottom of the screen, I find the R7, like every other camera with subject detection, does a great job. It's when other objects get into the AF zone that the camera struggles and AF jumps around, in which case smaller AF zone works better for me. One hint that may be useful is to hold the shutter down for only a second or two at a time, then release and repeat. Holding the shutter down longer seems to encourage the subject detection to start looking around on Canon cameras, according to Jan Wegener's video on the subject. I assume you are also following Canon's advice to shoot at no more than 15 fps.

Do you recall anything in the manual warning about birds against blue or overcast skies? Maybe I have missed it.

 

[P-visie]

Do you recall anything in the manual warning about birds against blue or overcast skies? Maybe I have missed it.

The R7 manual has a paragraph “Shooting Conditions That Make Focusing Difficult” that contains: “Subject with low-contrast such as the blue sky, solid-color flat surfaces or when highlight or shadow details are clipped” and “Extremely small subjects” that might apply, but that is not explicit about photographing birds in flight. Depending on the size of the bird in the image, one would expect the AF to focus on the bird.

See: https://cam.start.canon/en/C005/manual/html/UG-05_AF-Drive_0070.html

 

[AlanF]

The R7 manual has a paragraph “Shooting Conditions That Make Focusing Difficult” that contains: “Subject with low-contrast such as the blue sky, solid-color flat surfaces or when highlight or shadow details are clipped” and “Extremely small subjects” that might apply, but that is not explicit about photographing birds in flight. Depending on the size of the bird in the image, one would expect the AF to focus on the bird.

See: https://cam.start.canon/en/C005/manual/html/UG-05_AF-Drive_0070.html

Like @Quack I was surprised as I find with all my mirrorless, including the R7, that birds or dragonflies in flights against blue sky is the very best for AF.