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Scott Fairbairn wrote:Review. Summary, no difference in IQ to 7D and 70D. 
http://kennewcombe.com/7DII_review.html

How can you look at that and say there is no difference? the 7d has less noise.  

Agree with Corey, on his example the 7DII is a fraction of a stop better than 70D, so probably even better compared to 7D mk I.

So, Corey, did micro AF adjustment solve your sharpness issue or not ?


BTW, here are a couple nice images from flick'r :

iso 3200 https://www.flickr.com/photos/httpwwwpb ... 2/sizes/o/

iso 1000, shot with 400/5.6 L + 1.4x extender https://www.flickr.com/photos/mkfsh/15516953730/

Coreyhkh wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Review. Summary, no difference in IQ to 7D and 70D. 
http://kennewcombe.com/7DII_review.html

How can you look at that and say there is no difference? the 7d has less noise.  

I was going by his conclusions since he had access to the original files.

Vertigo wrote:Agree with Corey, on his example the 7DII is a fraction of a stop better than 70D, so probably even better compared to 7D mk I.

So, Corey, did micro AF adjustment solve your sharpness issue or not ?


BTW, here are a couple nice images from flick'r :

iso 3200 https://www.flickr.com/photos/httpwwwpb ... 2/sizes/o/

iso 1000, shot with 400/5.6 L + 1.4x extender https://www.flickr.com/photos/mkfsh/15516953730/

I did it but I have not been able to test it yet, hopefully tomorrow. 

your shots look good to my eyes, better than I was able to get last week.

rnclark wrote: -----------While pattern noise is better at low ISO, I'm am not impressed with the pattern noise at ISO1600 and above--seems more than it should be and more apparent than at lower isos when the image intensity is stretched.  But this too might be because overall random noise is less so remaining pattern noise shows more even though it may be less than i8n previous cameras.  Finding out which is the case will again have to wait for calibration to photos/pixel.--------

Roger

Will wait impatiently 

Though I am leaning heavily towards waiting till next year for other Canon offers. Or buy a 2nd 5DIII and weld a 2X on it

fredcor wrote:

rnclark wrote: -----------While pattern noise is better at low ISO, I'm am not impressed with the pattern noise at ISO1600 and above--seems more than it should be and more apparent than at lower isos when the image intensity is stretched.  But this too might be because overall random noise is less so remaining pattern noise shows more even though it may be less than i8n previous cameras.  Finding out which is the case will again have to wait for calibration to photos/pixel.--------

Roger

Will wait impatiently 

Though I am leaning heavily towards waiting till next year for other Canon offers. Or buy a 2nd 5DIII and weld a 2X on it

OK, I got a new raw converter (rawdigger -- but have to learn that and how to export what i need for my custom programs I wrote for sensor analysis), I am now encouraged again.  Being able to extract real raw data is showing the real sensor capabilities, the few I've looked at are impressive so far.  But I have a lot of work to do to put it on an absolute scale to compare to other cameras.

Fred, adding a 2X to a camera with larger pixels doesn't really improve the situation over a camera with smaller pixels and the same lens without a TC.  In fact it hurts!  It reduces AF, and adding optical elements does not help.  It is better in my opinion to add reach by reducing pixel size than adding TCs, as you add no additional optics to degrade the image quality, and you don't hur the AF system.  Just expose the small pixel camera like you would the large pixel camera with its TC and you'll get great images.


Roger

Free Cam Ranger now included with the 7DII
http://www.adorama.com/ICA7DM2KD.html?u ... flaid67918

Well, I just did my own tests comparing the OLD 7D and the 7Dmark2. ISO range from 400-6400. NR turned off in camera and in DPP. Loaded into DPP and converted to 16bit Tiffs at defaults(except NR which was turned off). Evaluated in CaptureOne after conversion. I used flash and equalized exposures between the two cameras. Manual focus using LV at 10x for both.
My observations were that the 7DMark2 is better by nearly a stop. I wasn't specifically testing for detail retention, but it seemed the 7Dmark2 might be a touch softer, so I added in some sharpening to equalize them, and the 7DMark2 was still better.
I stretched the images heavily and thought there seemed to be a little more chrominance noise in the 7DMark2 at lower ISO's(didn't check all ISO's), but the test wasn't really for that purpose.
Just my observations. 

edit. for Karl

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Well, I just did my own tests comparing the original 7D and the 7Dmark2. ISO range from 400-6400. NR turned off in camera and in DPP. Loaded into DPP and converted to 16bit Tiffs at defaults(except NR which was turned off). Evaluated in CaptureOne after conversion. I used flash and equalized exposures between the two cameras. Manual focus using LV at 10x for both.
My observations were that the new 7D is better by nearly a stop. I wasn't specifically testing for detail retention, but it seemed the 7Dmark2 might be a touch softer, so I added in some sharpening to equalize them, and the new 7D was still better.
I stretched the images heavily and thought there seemed to be a little more chrominance noise in the new 7D at lower ISO's(didn't check all ISO's), but the test wasn't really for that purpose.
Just my observations. 

Hi Scott,

It is a little bit confusing. It seems that you compare the old and the new 7D ( 7D Mark II) to each other but sometimes you refer to as 7D and sometimes new 7D.
Could you correct it please so it would be easier to follow.
Thanks.

Just a wee change from the topic sensors (there is more to a camera than sensors isn't there?)

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/11 ... -the-7d-ii

It's starting to get interesting - might replace my 30D.

Cheers all

G

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Well, I just did my own tests comparing the original 7D and the 7Dmark2. ISO range from 400-6400. NR turned off in camera and in DPP. Loaded into DPP and converted to 16bit Tiffs at defaults(except NR which was turned off). Evaluated in CaptureOne after conversion. I used flash and equalized exposures between the two cameras. Manual focus using LV at 10x for both.
My observations were that the new 7D is better by nearly a stop. I wasn't specifically testing for detail retention, but it seemed the 7Dmark2 might be a touch softer, so I added in some sharpening to equalize them, and the new 7D was still better.
I stretched the images heavily and thought there seemed to be a little more chrominance noise in the new 7D at lower ISO's(didn't check all ISO's), but the test wasn't really for that purpose.
Just my observations. 

that reflects my preliminary findings, too, after I had compared some of my files in DPP/ C1
 
Wolfgang

Karl Egressy wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Well, I just did my own tests comparing the original 7D and the 7Dmark2. ISO range from 400-6400. NR turned off in camera and in DPP. Loaded into DPP and converted to 16bit Tiffs at defaults(except NR which was turned off). Evaluated in CaptureOne after conversion. I used flash and equalized exposures between the two cameras. Manual focus using LV at 10x for both.
My observations were that the new 7D is better by nearly a stop. I wasn't specifically testing for detail retention, but it seemed the 7Dmark2 might be a touch softer, so I added in some sharpening to equalize them, and the new 7D was still better.
I stretched the images heavily and thought there seemed to be a little more chrominance noise in the new 7D at lower ISO's(didn't check all ISO's), but the test wasn't really for that purpose.
Just my observations. 

Hi Scott,

It is a little bit confusing. It seems that you compare the old and the new 7D ( 7D Mark II) to each other but sometimes you refer to as 7D and sometimes new 7D.
Could you correct it please so it would be easier to follow.
Thanks.

I edited the post.

My sensor analysis of the 7D2 is showing the improvements and reasons for some of the posted results by others.
I'll have a full report written up in a few days.  A few advanced findings, though should be regarded as preliminary until I do a full writeup.

Full well capacity is slightly higher, but actual photon sensitivity is only 14% higher (0.2 stop in actual sensitivity) than the 7d1.

The noise floor is pushed down and pattern noise is a non issue at pretty much all ISOs and is lower than any other canon camera I have tested.  Apparent read noise is an impressive low of 1.6 electrons at ISO 12800, raising to 2.4 electrons at ISO 1600.  Image S/N in high signal regions will look similar to the 7D, but as brightness drops, the 7D2 images will look much better, and with the low apparent read noise and very low pattern noise, shadow areas can be lifted quite nicely.  All this evidence comes from the sensor data with no raw conversion.  The lack of pattern noise and clean low level noise means it should clean up nicely with filtering (unlike many earlier canon cameras).

Overall, I am very impressed.  A note on DXO numbers.  It appears that DXO is not correcting Nikons truncating of the raw data, which artificially improves dynamic range by about a stop.  Also Nikon filters the raw data, improving noise and dynamic range further.  I believe, based on some experiments, that if the canon data were treated similarly, it would result it numbers at least as good.

Previous to the 7D2 and 6D, pattern noise was a real limitation in Canon cameras (the 1D4 and 1DX are also pretty good, but not a good as the 7D2 and 6D).  That pattern noise produced poor shadow areas compared to what could be extracted from Nikon sensors, especially at some ISOs (like 200 and 400 on many canon cameras).  But Nikon's raw files look "wormy" in the shadow areas from the in camera filtering of the raw data.  The Canon 7D2 raw data looks much more random, as it should be.

The 7D2 sensor dynamic range should be capable of 14.3 stops.  Downstream electronics are still limiting that, so the per pixel dynamic range maxes at 11.2 stops at ISO 200.  Note the DXO dynamic range is a pixel averaged 20x30 inch print dynamic range.  I compute the DXO normalized dynamic range at 12.4 stops at ISO 200, 12.3 at ISO100, though I see DXO is now reporting 11.8 for the 7D2.  I'm not sure why their numbers are low compared to mine.

I've also done some preliminary tests of the AF speed of the 7D2 compared to my 1DIV with a 300 f/2.8 version II.  Results look very encouraging with similar performance.  However, in some restricted cases, like focus moving from very close to very far, the 7D2 +300(vII) +2x (vIII)a is much slower and fails to find focus without hunting whereas the 1DIV nails it most of the time, but sometimes reacts as slow as the 7D2 (maybe 10% of the tries).  If the focus range is limited, the 7D2 performs much better.  AF from near to far is usually slow compared to far to near so if you prefocus, prefocus on the far side, so when you acquire the subject, the camera uses its fast rate direction.

Other sensors I have reviewed are here:  http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/ind ... #reviews_1

Roger

Roger, are you saying that Canon is purposely skewing the dxo numbers so that Nikon looks better?

Roger, a couple of comments. One, how does truncating the data improve the dynamic range? I would think tossing out information would reduce the DR??
Also, how is it a camera like the G7x, scores higher than most, if not all of Canon's other cameras in regards to DR? Are the downstream electronics better in the G7X or what's going on??
thanks

Great info Roger, I love the technical stuff its very interesting.

firstly Glenn did a review 7d review

 I ended up taking the day off work and went out looking for stuff to shoot, and I also calibrated my 500mm. The results today are far better based on two things first is my lens needed some minor adjustment but mostly it was me not have good enough technique, I forgot how much harder it is to handhold 700mm on a 1.6 crop, I cant imagine how hard 600mm with a 1.4 or even 2x must be to hold.

I tested the AF on flying geese in low light and its superior to my 1dmkiv, also I said it before but the shutter sound is amazing! I was shooting feeder birds today and I am used to them taking flight when I take a picture, today that didn't happen at all!

today I shot mostly around 640 - 2000ISO and I am very happy, I will post pictures later after DPP finishes batch processing the Raws to Tiffs...... its going very slow

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Roger, a couple of comments. One, how does truncating the data improve the dynamic range? I would think tossing out information would reduce the DR??
Also, how is it a camera like the G7x, scores higher than most, if not all of Canon's other cameras in regards to DR? Are the downstream electronics better in the G7X or what's going on??
thanks

Hi Scott,
The truncation is at the low end.  Think about a bell curve noise distribution.  Those values that are below zero volts get set to zero.  Now when one averages, there are about half the values that are the exact same value (zero).  This skews the statistics for the low end noise by about 1 stop.  Then do a median filter on the data and the noise reduces more.  Dynamic range = max signal / noise floor, so when the noise floor is artificially reduced, the answers are wrong, indicating more dynamic range than reality and lower noise floor than reality.  If comparing different systems, they should be processed the same way to put them on an equal footing.  I've been working on a D800e sensor review and am getting it close to completion and it will show these issues.  The bottom line is it appears the Nikons (sony sensors) and canons are much closer than are indicated by the statistics.  It seemd reasonable because canon cameras from a couple of years ago had so much banding noise it clouded the real story and canon looked really bad (it was).  Now that canon cameras have less banding noise, we can/will see similar performance I predict.  For example, I did a star test of a Nikon D800e and canon 7D (mark 1) and the two cameras showed about the same faintest star.  The 7d2 might pull ahead in such a head to head comparison.

Roger

Mike in O wrote:Roger, are you saying that Canon is purposely skewing the dxo numbers so that Nikon looks better?

Ha Ha!  Nikon, whether they realize it or not, is modifying the raw data that significantly makes their results look better from image metrics like those in dxo.  Now to be fair, their results are actually pretty impressive from a visual impact of the images out of the camera.  It seems to me if we had the same algorithms, we should be able to improve the canon results just as much.  Indeed, I have experimented with some filtering of the raw data and I can reproduce similar patterns of improved noise patterns with similar wormy looking artifacts.  While I say wormy looking artifacts, these are still visually pleasing, unlike Canon's banding noise.  For lifting shadows, I would rather have those wormy artifacts than banding artifacts.  But now with the 7D2, and the banding problems small enough to ignore, I think in a head to head comparison, people will see the detail in images between nikon and canon are pretty similar.  Maybe we can now concentrate on the subject rather than the pixel.

Roger

I have been shooting with the 7D2 for a couple of days and the feature that stands out most to me is that you can set the exposure compensation while shooting in Manual with auto ISO. (Nothing new to you 1D shooters). It's great to be able to set SS and Aperture, set a Maximum ISO and then let the camera set ISO. I also set the AF-ON button to lock AF and AE for re-composing and retaining these settings for the subject. As many people have mentioned... the shutter is VERY quiet... a huge plus. Jury is still out on Image Quality. So far I'm getting quite good results through ISO 1600 but I am waiting for Adobe to start supporting the RAW file....

Here is a shot I took today just to give an idea of cropping ability.