EOS 7D mk ii - real life test at ISO 6400

[arnold_shapiro1]

<p><img src=" alt="" /><img src=" alt="" /><img src=" alt="" /><br>

I've got my 7D Mkii yesterday. I was very keen to see how it performed in low light at high ISO. I went to a hockey game (in South Africa its just hockey but I think the USA it would be called field hockey) under floodlights. The lights were quite poor and I had to use a shutter speed of 500 (I prefer to shoot at 1000) in order to get decent exposure at 6400 iso. I was using a Canon 70-200 mark 2 at 2.8.<br>

These are not brilliant photos but are in the spirit of a test of the equipment under difficult conditions.<br>

I uploaded them from Lightroom at a max size of 1meg and I didn't do anything to them in terms of removing noise. Obviously they can be dramatically improved with a bit of post-processing but I wanted to post the "native" jpeg's for evaluation.<br>

I'd be very keen to hear comments on the performance at this ISO because I often have no choice but to shoot in these conditions. I know purists don't like high ISO but for me its essential to get the shots that I want which are often indoor sports.<br>

I've used only Canon equipment (since the Canon D30 with constant upgrades to the best APC camera) and my most recent camera was a 7D, therefore I can't compare to other brands. I loved the 7D particularly in good lighting conditions but in low light it was difficult to get decent shots. The mk ii is similar to the 7D in operation but everything is bit enhanced.<br>

I was a bit disappointed by the performance of the camera at 6400 ISO, maybe my expectations were too high but I was hoping I wouldn't have to spend ages in Lightroom or Photoshop tweaking the photos to get them to look good.<br>

I'd really be grateful for objective comments. <br>

Please let me know if you'd like me to post full resolution jpegs or if these will suffice for an initial evaluation.<br>

Thanks</p>

[Dave410]

<p>I'm very curious to see how the 7DII works in low light, but unfortunately those links don't work. Can you try again?</p>

[arnold_shapiro1]

<p>Here are the photos linked to above, I don't know why the original links do not work:</p>

<p><a title="106A9473.jpg by Shapfam, on Flickr" href=" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5609/15522234560_21c56bc3da_s.jpg" alt="106A9473.jpg" width="75" height="75" /></a> <a title="106A9497.jpg by Shapfam, on Flickr" href=" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3937/15708649392_6659e760f4_s.jpg" alt="106A9497.jpg" width="75" height="75" /></a> <a title="106A9521.jpg by Shapfam, on Flickr" href=" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3947/15683356246_13b62c5313_s.jpg" alt="106A9521.jpg" width="75" height="75" /></a></p>

[Dave410]

<p>They look pretty good to me. Certainly better than I would expect from my 7D and better than I had been led to believe the 7D II could produce. When it came out, the reviewers said the low-light capability was better than the 7D, but not nearly as good as the 5D III. It would be interesting to see what some of the 5D III shooters think. Cheers.</p>

[arnold_shapiro1]

<p>Thanks Dave, I applied a bit of noise reduction and they look very serviceable. I'm looking forward to getting to know the equipment better. My comments so far:<br>

1. The viewfinder is very bright and a huge improvement.<br>

2. The autofocus is noticeably faster and the new joystick thingy is a good addition. I don't claim to understand how the autofocus options work because they are much more complex and varied than the 7D. I know that you are supposed to be able to track a moving object automatically using AI servo but I don't know yet how this achieved. I'll check out some of the canon tutorials and see what I can learn.<br>

3. Something which is under reported is the level of information that you can see while your eye is to the viewfinder. Its vastly improved and you can see virtually everything you need to make decisions.<br>

4. The shutter is surprisingly quiet. The 10fps doesn't sound all that much of a difference from the 8fps of the 7D but it feels like a lot more in practical terms.<br>

5. The build quality feels very good, the camera is similar to the 7D but feels more solid.<br>

6. I used a 600x SD card at 10fps shooting jpegs and I had no issues at all. SD cards are much much cheaper and my Mac has an SD card slot so I'm chuffed about that.<br>

7. All in all its an incremental improvement but it makes the 7D feel pretty ordinary and sluggish by comparison.<br>

8. The low light performance is much better but its not light years ahead, I expected 5 years to make a bigger difference but I'm happy to have the extra stop or two because I can no shoot under floodlights in pretty bad conditions and still get photos that will be fine for web use.</p>

[Dave410]

<p>Thanks, Arnold. Good report. Low light is becoming more and more important to me.</p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>One question Arnold - I'm not sure about the markII but on the 7D you can choose between low and high-speed continuous shutter action. Is that still true? If it is, which were you using for these shots?</p>

[robert100]

trying to judge how any camera's sensor (this one or any other) is at handling noise, is a pointless question if

you're working in jpegs. Jpegs are a processed image, that processing algorithm includes noise

correction/reduction. There is not enough of the original data left in a jpeg image for you to make any judgement

on. Expose in raw, with all your settings at "neutral", then have a look at a "dark" area in the image at

magnification, and you'll be looking at what the camera can do, not what the jpeg algorithm does. Without doing

that, there's nothing to base a judgement on.

[PuppyDigs]

<p>I'm a RAW shooter/tweaker and hardened pixel peeper but many of my friends mainly shoot JPEGs as images go straight from the camera to production. JPEG quality is significant to many shooters and can make or break a camera.</p>

[arnold_shapiro1]

<p>Puppy Face your name reflects your good nature. Yes, I don't shoot RAW (I don't think you can actually shoot RAW so easily now because a lot of the software is not yet updated for the 7Dmkii - I use Lightroom and I don't think the RAW engine has been updated). These photos are destined for a Facebook page or a web site for the sports club so shooting raw is not going to make a discernible difference and is not worth the schlep for me unless I have a specific use for it. BTW with the dual card slot you can set the camera to shoot jpegs on one card and RAW to the other so you can always have a RAW backup if a shot really needs a lot of post-processing or is destined for the cover of Time Magazine.<br>

I'd like to issue a challenge to Robert c Anderson: When the RAW engine is ready I'll post a few processed raw files and a processed jpeg and if you can consistently tell the difference on a computer monitor you are a better man than me (of course I'll remove the EXIF data first and make them the same size!) :)<br>

To answer Dave there are several shutter modes:<br /><br /><br>

<strong>High speed continuous - </strong>This is 10fps and what I was using. Its surprisingly quiet.<br>

<strong>Low speed continuous - </strong>about 3 fps<br>

<strong>Single shooting </strong>- obviously<br>

<strong>Single shooting silent mode </strong>- does what it says<br>

and the <em>piece de resistance:</em><br>

<strong>Silent continues mode </strong>- about 4 fps in silent mode<br>

You also have the following cool features relating to shutter operation:<br>

<strong>Automatic HDR </strong>- not sure how it performs but it sounds great, you get the multiple exposures individually and a composite HDR image as well.<br>

<strong>Interval timer shooting </strong>- this apparently has the same functionality as the specialised piece of equipment you would have to buy on the 7D. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds cool<br>

<strong>Multiple Exposure Mode </strong>- I remember being able to do this on my first Chinon film SLR but now your very much more expensive digital camera can do it too.</p>

<p> </p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>Thanks Arnold. We need to replace a failing 50D, used mostly for action-shooting so that information is helpful. There are some new modes there that sound interesting, but the results at 10fps look great for our purposes.</p>

[jim_auer]

<p>I appreciate the fairly immediate feedback being posted about the 7DMKII- Thank you all.<br>

I am most curious to the real world comparison(s) anyone can share between the 7DMKII and 5DMKII, from not only High ISO performance but reaction speed when used in sport applications. I am a 99% Sports shooter and own/shoot both with a 1DX and 5DMKIII- there's no doubt a difference between these 2 bodies, as expected.<br>

The 1DX does react incredibly fast, regardless of lighting conditions and the results are fairly good....and while I'd prefer a 2nd 1DX to minimize battery differences, chargers, cards, buttons, etc....there is something pretty spectacular to the images produced by a 5DMKIII - I realize they both have a Canon label and are from a similar generation- but the 1DX is not a 5DMKIII , nor visa versa- and again, this is to be expected. "Artistically" the 5DMKIII has a flavor the 1DX does not. <br>

I've heard/read articles/webinars that the 7DMKII's new black box voodoo magic now places it performance closer to that of the 1DX, and you would think that 5 years of design work in conjunction with the innovation of sensors and processing PLUS the already existing power (and R&D) of a body like the 1Dx that a "baby" 1Dx is not out of the question....<br>

I am a believer in Full frame technology. There's always been a significant difference in image quality (especially low light results) but with Full frame pro bodies now claiming 205,000 ISOand higher (really practical?) you would have to believe that a new Crop sensored body SHOULD have no problem at ISO 6400. <br>

So to land this plane....the 1DX is an awesome body- At $+/-6k, it should be.<br>

The 5DMKIII is an awesome body, and @ $+/-3k it too should be.<br>

So you would figure that the new 7DMKII could be close to image performing like the 5DMKIII (now a few years old) and be closer in speed (again, reaction wise- not necessarily shutter FPS to the 1DX)<br>

Anyone with compared experience? <br>

Does one now dump a 5DMKIII for a 7DMKII -as a 2nd body to achieve the speed required for sports shooting or remain driven by the fact and belief that the full sensored 5DMKIII is simply that much better an image producer<br>

Would love to hear your thoughts...<br>

Jim </p>

<p> </p>

[arnold_shapiro1]

<p>I wanted share some more discoveries:<br>

Relevant to sports shooting: The control of iso is much more comprehensive than the 7D, you can set the minimum and maximum iso setting for auto iso (I think the 7D could do this as well) but something which you could not do before is that you can now set a minimum shutter speed when using auto iso - this means that you use Av mode to set your aperture and you can set a high shutter speed as your minimum and auto iso does the rest subject to your acceptable maximum iso. I would use this when shooting sports in the evening and the sun is going down and the floodlights are about to come on, it means you can shoot knowing that you'll have a minimum shutter speed all the time and when it gets too dark the iso will bump up.<br>

General - The custom functions and customization are vastly improved, its impossible to list all that you can do but you can do basically anything you want with any of the buttons.<br>

The viewfinder is also a huge improvement - you can see everything you need in the viewfinder so you can change metering mode, white balance, drive mode etc. etc. on the fly without taking your eye off the viewfinder.</p>

[robert100]

to Arnold Shapiro. You definitely have my attention, because you've told me you can do something that for the

few short years I have been using photo.net I have never been able to find a way to do. You've told me that you

have knowledge of a way to upload a raw image file in photonet so I can look at it here on my own monitor ?

 

Please. Please. Explain to me how you do that. Because nothing would excite me more than to discover I can

upload raw image files to photonet. I have spent hours and hours, having to convert any image i upload here to

be converted to and uploaded in a jpeg file. And most of the forums require even that jpeg to be downsized to

700 pixels on the longest side. I will pee myself with joy when I learn how I am able to upload a raw file here.

[robert100]

To Arnold Shapiro. Incidentally, despite the joking about the fact it would be obviously impossible for me to

differentiate between a jpeg you create by setting your camera's internal button to "convert and save as jpeg"

versus downloading the raw data to your laptop then hitting the "convert and save as jpeg" button on your

keyboard, I do want to express my sincere appreciation for the time and effort you are spending sharing your

hands-on experience with the mkii. That is a camera which is on my own "potentially very interesting" list, and i

am paying close attention to every word you share about it, i assure you.

[janet_garten]

<p>To Arnold Shapiro, I've been reading about this camera and am convinced I need to upgrade to it II now have the Canon 7D). Just before I found this forum and your great review, I'd read about the new anti-flicker option this camera has, especially helpful (it said) when shooting sports and other outdoor lighting events. Have you tried using this option? I'm wondering what difference you notice between normal and with the anti-flicker turned on. Here's a link to the article I read: http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2014/eos7dmkii_antiflicker.shtml</p>