7D Questions to be answered

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:There's also a thread about the 5DMark 3..........

Not sure I get your point. Just because one thread is stupid speculation or made up crap, that does not mean another one is.

No, it doesn't, but dpreview is full of rumors, speculation and trolls, so IMO, what is posted there has to be taken with a grain of salt as a post like that is as predictable as the sun rising. Not to say it couldn't be true, but when the OP starts speculating that it could have been caused by the scanners at customs, I have to wonder.
Now, if an NSN'er or two start posting comments about AF problems, I would be suspicious.

Yeah that's true but anything negative, even if it's totally legit, that is posted also brings out the fanboys to lambast whoever posts it.

Remember that most of the fanboys still believe that the 1D Mark III has the best AF system ever created because Canon's advertising says so

E.J. Peiker wrote:Yeah that's true but anything negative, even if it's totally legit, that is posted also brings out the fanboys to lambast whoever posts it.

Remember that most of the fanboys still believe that the 1D Mark III has the best AF system ever created because Canon's advertising says so

Seriously- E.J, your Canon / 1d3 bashing is getting old...folks got the point long ago.

Read the beginning of the first post. Disrespectful at best.

The thread has migrated some from the initial and now that the camera is out and some reports are coming in, how can you ignore when somebody who at least claims to be a dealer and has tested three finds a problem with two of them. From there the conversation went to the legitimacy of dpreview and I simply stated an example. As I've told you numerous times, since every negative comment I make about Canon you seem to take personally, that I have nothing against Canon. I was a happy shooter of Canon gear for many years and own a number of Canon products. But Canon has a pretty bad track record of late so they need to be absolutely perfect to regain many people's trust. Don't take it so personally please!

E.J. Peiker wrote:Yeah that's true but anything negative, even if it's totally legit, that is posted also brings out the fanboys to lambast whoever posts it.

Remember that most of the fanboys still believe that the 1D Mark III has the best AF system ever created because Canon's advertising says so

Yes, I hear what you are saying, and I always believe in calling a spade a spade, for better or worse. That's why I posted my earlier comments on what I was seeing, I can't say much about the AF yet, as I haven't had a decent chance to evaluate it yet. But from a couple of hundred frames on the bird feeders yesterday, it seems very good so far, and it is light years ahead of other sub 1D series bodies. I just need to convince myself of the IQ, and while some static tests show a lot of promise, I'm not sold yet.

I don't post much on here for examples given above. Can we get back to the topic at hand? I am very interested in the IQ and autofocus ability of this camera with BIF. I'd love to see some real world posts and opinions.

Thanks,

Alan

AJAY wrote:I don't post much on here for examples given above. Can we get back to the topic at hand? I am very interested in the IQ and autofocus ability of this camera with BIF. I'd love to see some real world posts and opinions.

Thanks,

Alan

I consider this one of the most respectable forums around and if you're using the debates from this thread as an example of why you don't post much, then I suggest you go to some of the other forums that have much more heated and disrespecting discussions than this one to put things into perspective.

AJAY wrote:I don't post much on here for examples given above. Can we get back to the topic at hand? I am very interested in the IQ and autofocus ability of this camera with BIF. I'd love to see some real world posts and opinions.

Thanks,

Alan

I'd be happy to answer any questions as best I can, or post images. Here is an example shot at ISO1600 using flash, on a very primitive setup(stuffed animals are quite helpful at times!). The small image is just to show the full frame image, the cropped image is a fairly highly compressed jpg, but is representative, as I am trying to stay within posting limits. DPP conversion, settings, lighting optimizer at standard, all noise reduction OFF, and sharpness at default setting of "3".

Thanks Scott,

I'm interested in noise levels at lower ISOs such as 400 and/or 800. I have seen some images on other forums taken at ISO 400 that look rather noisy for ISO 400. I'm not sure if it was due to extreme cropping of the image, or IQ is just so-so at lower ISO's. I would be grateful for whatever you can provide.

Also (like most others) I am anxious to learn how the autofocus compares to various other Canon cameras such as the IDM2, 1DM3 and 50D. This is somewhat a tough nut to crack based on various subjects, contrast, etc. Over time I suspect we'll have a pretty fair comparison as wildlife photographers run it through its paces. Maybe close to the 1DM3, but not at the level of a 1DM2?

On other forums, I have seen some BIF images that seem pretty good, but it's still early in the test/review stage.

Thanks again,

Alan

AJAY wrote:Thanks Scott,

I'm interested in noise levels at lower ISOs such as 400 and/or 800. I have seen some images on other forums taken at ISO 400 that look rather noisy for ISO 400. I'm not sure if it was due to extreme cropping of the image, or IQ is just so-so at lower ISO's. I would be grateful for whatever you can provide.

Also (like most others) I am anxious to learn how the autofocus compares to various other Canon cameras such as the IDM2, 1DM3 and 50D. This is somewhat a tough nut to crack based on various subjects, contrast, etc. Over time I suspect we'll have a pretty fair comparison as wildlife photographers run it through its paces. Maybe close to the 1DM3, but not at the level of a 1DM2?

On other forums, I have seen some BIF images that seem pretty good, but it's still early in the test/review stage.

Thanks again,

Alan

Couldn't have said it better. Looking forward to more info as folks get to put their 7Ds to use.

My 7D shipped yesterday so hopefully in the next week or so I can give it a test. I own both a 50D and a 1Ds3 (Focuses great by the way ) and hope to offer some comparo's, insights.

Here is a ISO 400 crop, same DPP settings. Note the difference in the deep blues, and the red nose.

Thank you Scott,

It appears that the 7D is noisier on the lower ISO's (when compared to other 1.6 crop Canon sensors)and status-quo to slightly better on the higher ISO's from what I have seen so far. I find this rather strange.

What do you think?

Alan

Yes, it does appear noisier, however, the higher rez will make the per pixel noise look worse. I will try to post a comparison between , say a 5D or 30D, and uprez the smaller file, and adjust for the different FOV and see what happens then.

I've been going through the images at Imaging Resource and doing side-by-side comparisons with the 7D and the 50D and it appears that the higher level of noise is due to sharpening within the camera. If you downscale a 7D image to the size of a 50D image, it still appears a bit noisier but the resolution is better and the images seem contrastier.

Imaging Resource's images are all jpgs with a preproduction camera, but I've had a chance to view a few RAW images from a production camera and the results seem similar.

All things stated, the ISO noise seems a tad higher compared to the 50D but with higher resolution and sharper images.

Alan

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Yes, it does appear noisier, however, the higher rez will make the per pixel noise look worse. I will try to post a comparison between , say a 5D or 30D, and uprez the smaller file, and adjust for the different FOV and see what happens then.

Scott - Can you also down-size the larger file? That gives a little different perspective since upsizing will just enlarge the noise from the smaller file, and downsizing can actually cancel out the noise from the larger file.

dbostedo wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Yes, it does appear noisier, however, the higher rez will make the per pixel noise look worse. I will try to post a comparison between , say a 5D or 30D, and uprez the smaller file, and adjust for the different FOV and see what happens then.

Scott - Can you also down-size the larger file? That gives a little different perspective since upsizing will just enlarge the noise from the smaller file, and downsizing can actually cancel out the noise from the larger file.

I will try to do both, I was leaning towards uprezzing since I was didn't want to toss out info. I had a chance today to try the camera on chickadees at my feeders. The light direction was wrong, creating a lot of sidelighting(sun in and out of clouds constantly) and contrast against a darker BG. The AF worked very well, however, the files just don't seem very sharp to me. I am going to try some flight and other birds this weekend.

Scott Fairbairn wrote:...I was leaning towards uprezzing since I was didn't want to toss out info.

That makes sense Scott. But one potential advantage of any increase in pixels for a given camera line is the ability to get rid of noise via down-sizing. (Essentially oversampling each pixel to eliminate the outliers.) So in my head higher res sensors are worthwhile if they can pretty much hold serve for noise levels at a given ISO, compared to the previous generation. That way you get larger prints/images with similar noise as previous generations, or the same sized prints with less noise. (Of course, what every one wants is larger prints with less noise, but that usually takes more than a single generation jump.)

dbostedo wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:...I was leaning towards uprezzing since I was didn't want to toss out info.

That makes sense Scott. But one potential advantage of any increase in pixels for a given camera line is the ability to get rid of noise via down-sizing. (Essentially oversampling each pixel to eliminate the outliers.) So in my head higher res sensors are worthwhile if they can pretty much hold serve for noise levels at a given ISO, compared to the previous generation. That way you get larger prints/images with similar noise as previous generations, or the same sized prints with less noise. (Of course, what every one wants is larger prints with less noise, but that usually takes more than a single generation jump.)

I guess my question is then, if we intentionally downrez to get rid of the noise of a higher meg sensor, why not just start out with a lower noise, lower meg camera to begin with? Since , in the end we will be working with the same size final image?
One I have noticed , is that 8 fps with files that are 22megs, really really eats up your flash cards fast!

Scott Fairbairn wrote:I guess my question is then, if we intentionally downrez to get rid of the noise of a higher meg sensor, why not just start out with a lower noise, lower meg camera to begin with? Since , in the end we will be working with the same size final image?

Because if you start with a lower res sensor, you lose even the possibility of getting more detail in your shots. I only mentioned the up/down sizing thing in the previous post because we were specifically talking about noise. The other factor is maximum resolving power.

So in most shots, especially lower ISO shots, the higher res sensor will out-resolve the lower res one, giving you more detail. That's why you can print bigger, per what I mentioned in the last message. As long as noise isn't so bad it swamps the extra detail, that is. This, I'd imagine, is why some newer, higher res sensors are allowed to be a little worse noise-wise than previous generation sensors. There's still an advantage, and you aren't really giving anything up.

Look at the D3 and D3X for example (and ignore the speed differences). Obviously the D3 is less noisy per pixel than the D3X. However, I'd be willing to bet that a D3X image down-sized to match the 12MP of the D3 is pretty darn close, if not just as good, noise-wise. But it doesn't work the other way. You can't upsize a D3 image and get the same detail found with the D3X. That's why I don't really like the idea of people clamoring for companies to stop increasing megapixel counts. Because the per pixel specs and design have been improving enough that you aren't losing anything by going to higher res sensors.