Comments on: Canon 7D #4 Image Quality

By: Joel Owen

Joel Owen — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:32:26 +0000

i own several Canon L Lenses and they have the best quality. even better than Nikon.;’”

By: Col

Col — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:59:38 +0000

Very interested in all this discussion, as I am currently a 40D user (since 2007) and looking to upgrade this year… but… I am soooooo tempted by the IQ and low light/ high ISO noise levels of the 5D mkII… but, I do plenty action photography (mostly fishing) and I’m soooooo tempted by the 7D’s improvements in speed and autofocus…. What to do, what to do??? What’s coming from Canon this autumn, I wonder????

Regards,
Col

By: troy

troy — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 23:45:56 +0000

i ADORE my 7d, especially since i had a 50d before, which, in good light was magnificent! in low light… well… thats why i sold it.

the 7d has constantly flustered me with its focus points and im still struggling to get the idea with it?

its low light, and high speed performance are nothing short of amazing! i have recently upped the sharpness in the settings and im yet to test it out, maybe today, im excited to see how much better it will be.

wont swap it for anything…. well anything short of a 5d

By: Hans Schipper

Hans Schipper — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:12:20 +0000

I own a 7D since a couple of months and just returned from a skitrip into Rondane.
We got lots of beautiful weather with very clear skies so very good circumstances to test my camera. I’m not a professional so my standards a probably somewhat lower, but I am very impressed about the image quality of the camera, especially the sharpness of the images and the dynamic range (I used the camera in combination with the kitlens 15-85mm). The limitation of the images has been my quality as photographer and not the equipment.
So I’m very satisfied with this camera and know that the quality of my images will improve as my knowledge as a photographer improves. Therefor I’m very interested in you’re “how to” book on nature photography.

Regards,
Hans

By: Richard Winn

Richard Winn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:46:53 +0000

Gary, the microadjustment adjusts for either front of back focusing of the camera/lens combination. With any electronic system, there is slight variation, due to manufacturing tolerances. Laws of average suggest that when two or more systems are joined together, any variations cancel out, but it isn’t always the case. My 100-400 in particular front focuses quite badly when coupled with the 7D (I think it also does with my 40D to a lesser degree also), with slight front or back focusing with other lenses. With the microadjustment, those slight focusing errors can be adjusted. Generally, the errors are very slight and not noticeable, until you adjust to get it spot on and even then, there is alway slight variation between shots if you look closely enough, but eventually you start to imagine things, at which time, it’s best to take a break and give your eyes a rest or give up completely.
Felice, from experience, my 7D is about a stop better than my 40D at controlling noise. Up to ISO 400, there isn’t any noticeable difference between the two cameras, but from ISO 800 it is more noticeable, to the point, that at ISO 1600, there really isn’t any comparison, with the 40D showing noticeable noise and softening and if there are alot of shadow areas, it can even start to show some banding. Even at extreme ISO settings, the 7D doesn’t show any banding, even at the highest setting, which is a big improvement, although I would only use ISO 3200 as an emergency and probably wouldn’t bother with ISO 6400, except for my own use. The 40D is pretty much unuseable at ISO 3200, for anything but personal record shots.
While the RAW images are softer than I would expect when using LR, they can take much more sharpening before they start to look unnatural.

By: Felice De Falco

Felice De Falco — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:18:18 +0000

Ole,

thanks for being so picky with this article. I too, like most everyone else here, believe the 7D is the best piece of technology in the APS-C universe period.

And agree also with whom say you can’t beat noise with this 18mp sensor. My 40d shows probably less noise up to 1600 ISO.

Needless to say I purchased my copy of the 7D and shall be receiving it tomorrow.
Can’t wait to get my long lasting test.

Thanks again,

Felice,

ITALY

By: Rock

Rock — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:31:24 +0000

Ole — I’ve enjoyed reading your reviews. I’ve found similar results with my 7D. Here’s a tip: Aperture 3 gives visibly better results processing the RAW files. Better than DPP or LR3beta or Adobe CR. I was surprised, but the noise is about a 1/2 to 1 stop better in A3 than the others. Better detail, too. Give it a try.

By: Gary Ross

Gary Ross — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:16:00 +0000

Thanks for your review,I want and plan to purchase the 7D in the next few months. However,I have concerns about I.Q., can you explain and elaborate on the lens MA (micro ajustment) to improve image quality. Thanks.

By: jens wende

jens wende — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:20:58 +0000

Dear Ole, thank you very much for your review. I own my 7D since thursday last week and I am testing it with my EF 70-300 f/4,5-5,6 DO IS. My lens isn´t easy to handle, but when I consider the old rule “focal length to shutter speed” my pictures will be better and better. I shoot in RAW and try to qualify them in DPP.

By: Richard Winn

Richard Winn — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:31:36 +0000

You’ve done a good series of reviews Ole. I did a mini-review back in October, based on first impressions and did an update a few weeks ago, after more use. I have pretty much found the same as you. I don’t have the opportunity to do a direct comparison to the 5d Mk II and 1Ds Mk III like you have done, but I do have some impressions compared to the 40D. As you might expect, the detail level is much higher. Like you, I find that LR does tend towards soft images, but I am able to apply moderate sharpening to give an image as sharp as the 40D (albeit at a higher resolution). I tend not to sharpen much for stock purposes though, so there should be a fair amount of headroom. Also, the 3.0 beta indications from some brief trials I did suggest it will handle RAW files from the 7D better than 2.6 (noise and sharpening). I have also found it is pretty much a full stop better at controlling noise than the 40D (not bad considering the extra 8MP), but it does depend very much on getting the exposure spot on and too many shadow areas can cause problems of course. I recently took some photos of water rails in the snow and ice at ISO 1600, with very minimal noise and loss of detail, something that would have caused significant noise levels in the 40D (which seems to have less noise than the 50D from the few images I’ve seen from that camera).
The one area I have encountered some problems, is when photographing wildlife against a bright background in low light, such as silhouettes against ice or reflected sunsets, where the contrast areas lack sharpness. Of course, in these situations, the ISO has to be increased, due to the low lighting, so that is probably a factor too, as is autofocus in low lighting potentially.