EOS 7D - Have Canon excelled themselves?

<p> I like it. Less noise and higher ISO at a price lower than a 5DmkII. I don't really care what sensor size it is. It's in my price bracket and it takes better images than my last camera. Lotsa home brew sensor designers here trying to be monday morning quarterbacks. Glad to see there are some voices of reason.<br>

"Take a 100% crop comparison of a high resolution image (e.g. 15 MP) with a low resolution image (e.g. 6 MP) for example. The high resolution image contains details at a very high spatial frequency (fine details), whereas the low-res image is at a lower spatial frequency (larger details). Higher spatial frequencies have higher noise power than low spatial frequencies. But at the *same* spatial frequency, noise too is the same."<br>

Thanks for that link.</p>

<p>How can you <strong>not</strong> care what sensor size it is?</p>

<p>It isn't automatically true that higher-resolution sensors give as low noise when resampled to lower resolution as lower resolution sensors. This would hold <strong>if</strong> photon noise were the only significant contributing factor, but this is very unlikely to be the case. In reality, noise related to the electronics play their part also, and this is dependent on how much space there is available among other factors.</p>

<p>IMO, the imaging-resource test images are not believable. There are obvious focusing errors in the test images (one part is sharper in the images for one image set, another part is clearly sharper for the other set). Test sites that are so incompetent that they do not correct for this kind of errors in their published images add more confusion than actual useful information. Fortunately there are other sites that will have images and data in due time.</p>

<p>speculation ahead:<br>

50D with 18 mpix sensor = 60D<br>

7D with full-frame sensor = 3D<br>

Just wait a little bit more, they'll come.<br>

There will be no cheap full-frame digital camera until Canon is forced to do so by the competition, e.g. if Sony rolls out a sub $1500 full-frame cam. IMO there's no chance Canon's going to take the first step here. Why would they.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>There some very decent examples <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5349830/canon-7d-images-gallery//gallery?selectedImage=1">here</a> - not the biggest in the world, but look at the shadow areas of the "guitar bodies on the wall" shots (12 and 13): they're at 3200 and 6400 ISO, and they're <em>excellent</em> .</p>

<p>(Direct link to <a href="http://cache-foo-05.gawkerassets.com/gawker/assets/images/4/2009/08/IMG_2654.jpg">3200 ISO file</a> and <a href="http://cache-foo-10.gawkerassets.com/gawker/assets/images/4/2009/08/IMG_2655.jpg">6400 ISO file</a> ).</p>

<p>Now save 'em to your hard drive and hammer the Levels/Curves - see if you can provoke any obvious banding or bad noise in the shadows.</p>

<p>Pretty good, huh? And as you can see from the Exif, these are proper "available dark" images.</p>

<p>Obviously I don't know how these were processed - maybe they're jpegs straight out of the camera - but I don't care, they're impressive anyway: they don't look over NRd, they just look <em>natural</em> .</p>

<p>And before anyone says "with images that small you can't really tell anything..." yeah, you <em>really</em> <em>can</em> .</p>

<p>18 MP crop sensor - that's a lot of small pixels. I wonder how many lenses can resolve that fine? I'd be surprised if the new zooms, which appear to be aimed for this camera, can do it. Even with a good lens, only the best technique will get the full potential from that sensor. Seems like the resolution will be wasted on most...</p>

<p>I agree there will be no other more affordable full frame cameras for a while. If the 7D is 1700 and the 5D II is 2600, they aren't going to make a 2100 full frame camera with less features than the 5D II are they?</p>

<p>5D will be as budget as the full frames go IMO. Prices will fall in lne with market forces on the 5D line. Unless they slip in a 5De.... I do believe we will see the 7D FX equivalent in the 3D in time.</p>

<p>I'm super excited about this camaera. The 40/50D was not enough of a departure from my 400D to convince me to upgrade. This camera makes all of my APSC lenses better and the new focusing/pentaprism/flash control features will all prove beneficial. I'm already starting to save. </p>

<p>It is better to wait and see the real tests by more people. I never trust all these techno babble by Canon. They said exactly the same things about 50D but it turned out to be a crappy upgrade and more noise than 40D. 18 MP is too much for a small sensor. This is again a marketing thing. Sorry if I dont sound positive but I d rather to wait.</p>

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<p>18 MP is too much for a small sensor. This is again a marketing thing. Sorry if I dont sound positive but I d rather to wait.</p>

 

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<p>So you're sticking to that cliche despite the excellent 3200 and 6400 ISO examples I post above?</p>

<p>Never let empirical evidence get in the way of a good ol' prejudice, eh..? Maybe if people don't actually look at them, they'll go away...</p>

<p>With the 7D announced, one thing is now almost for certain: the replacement for the 1D mk III will almost definitely be 1.3x rather than FF. Think about it: why else would Canon select an 18MP 1.6x sensor for their 7D (or 1D lite) model? Maybe so that the 7D doesn't compete with the 1D IV. If the 1D III replacement were to be FF, Canon could have more than likely gotten away with putting a larger 1.3x sensor on the 7D wthout worrying about competition. It would have had roughly a stop more sensitivity.</p>

<p>Though it's innapropriate to think about this right now, it is very possible that the 7D successor will be a 1.3x camera.</p>

<p>Personally, I still think a 7D and a 5D II combo would be a killer setup for almost any photographer. Looks like Canon may score a homerun with the new 7D.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I see the silent mode is missing on the 7D.</p>

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<p>Never let empirical evidence get in the way of a good ol' prejudice, eh..? Maybe if people don't actually look at them, they'll go away...</p>

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<p>There are commercial websites that are loaded with reviews that a new upgrade is fantastic and blah blah. They said the same things about 50D. Whether it is better than 40D in terms of noise I don't know, but for sure many of those who upgraded to 50D are not happy because of noise issue. For somebody like me who doesn't upgraded every year it is always better to laggard and wait a few month until there are more reviews. Of course if you are an early adopter you can buy it right now and if doesn't trun out to be good you can buy the next upgrad next year.<br>

Good luck</p>

<p>Looks like a great camera with plenty of useful features. It is a worthy evolutionary next step for cameras in the market position between entry-level ("digital rebels" now rebranded at T1i) and the 5D series.</p>

<p>Without saying anything to dismiss this fine camera, it is basically the 60D with a name chosen to bring additional attention to its updated features - a very smart move by Canon marketing.</p>

<p>7d blows D300 IQ out of the water easily...<br>

You can use the Comparator http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM</p>

 

<p>Like Daniel said, the Canon portrait shot prints beautifully out to 20x30....just did a crop print myself. Basically, here's a camera that does well for my wedding work and has the resolution I like for a lot of landscape....all for $2100CAD. </p>

<p>I'll be getting mine shortly. At first I didn't believe they could hold this much quality on an APS-C sensor....I was wrong!</p>

<p>I wished is was FF... but at the price point, it would kill the 5DII if the 7D was FF.<br>

18MP may seem too much, but we can't stop the improvement in technology. I'm sure a 21MP APS-C sensor is already in the works.<br>

Btw, for those who are interested, here's a link to the <a href="http://canon7drelease.blogspot.com/2009/09/canon-7d-users-manual.html">Canon 7D user manual</a> .</p>

<p>To those looking for the AF tracking samples of the Canon 7D, here you go:<br /> <a href="http://canon7drelease.blogspot.com"> Canon AF Tracking samples</a> .</p>

<p>Finally a DSLR that has some of the weather seal, speed of focusing, and fps that my 1V has at a comparable price. I'm really looking forward to some real life experience to see how this camera performs. I really missed some of the focussing capabilities of my 1v and just don't plan on spending the money for the Pro DSLR equivalent. It seems Canon is doing what they have all along.... trying out their new technology on a lower priced model and then refining it for a pro model. This is exactly what they did with the EOS 3 and then they released the 1V. Still wish they hadn't given up on the eye controlled focussing though. It worked really well when I had the EOS 3.</p>

<p>Now I can't wait to see what the 60 D looks like!<br>

I don't think Canon needs to make any changes any time soon. Maybe they should update the 1D Mk3 to a 1D Mk4 that has a 15 MP sensor and shoots at 12 fps, but other than that, I don't believe Canon needs to do anything else to compete well against their competition. Eventually I imagine a 1Ds Mk4 that would have a 30 MP sensor and shoot at 6 fps, so it will kill the D3x, but I don't believe Canon needs to wage that war. It just does make sense to up the ante eventually though. I'd like to see the 1Ds Mk4 have 16 bit color and some other improved features, like display overlay or some other cool new thing, like higher quality full HD video (maybe a choice of H264 recording modes, such as 16 Mbit, 24 Mbit and 36 Mbit for improved overall video capture quality or a shadow priority that boosts the brightness of shadows based on what is being captured in the raw data before recording, and then recording that "enhanced" image - in future models they could give videographers all sorts of control over such "enhancement" features - god knows it needs to be done, since the color depth of video captured in H264 is pathetic). I still can't imagine myself spending that much money though. I guess I shouldn't even be talking about such things, since I'm not a true buyer of the very high-end equipment and don't know what really matters in such equipment.</p>