7D vs 5D Mark II for wildlife advice wanted

[HDNitehawk]

I returned my 7D and bought a used1D MK III for about the same price, I like it much better. As to the 500L f/4, I have read a number of complaints about AF problems with the 7D and 500mm L, I don't know if there is anything to it, or if it was a problem and fixed, but you should make sure ot works for you.

Scaleusa I will check that one out, since the only lens I will be using it on is the 500mm F4L


Thanks

[Daniel Browning]

Glad to help - it was an interesting exercise!

Thanks again, John. Very useful test!

Actually, once I get the 135mm f/2L (next on my list), I'll be able to empirically settle the debate Jon and I previously had, about IQ of 7D+85L vs. 5DII+135L

Oooh, I'm looking forward to that. I think the 135 will trounce it soundly.

; for that test, I'll move the camera rather than crop the images).

Personally, I would be too lazy to move the camera -- I would probably just figure that the angles of view are "close enough". []

Rick and Daniel, I have sent both of you links to the RAW files

Thanks! I processed the first batch. Here are my results:


Full results for 100mm ISO 100


And here are a few crops from there:



100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-sharpened-5DII.png



100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-sharpened-7D.png




In order to make sure the demosaic and post processing was the exact same, I used dcraw and imagemagick. Here is the shell code I used to generate the crops programatically:
<pre>dcraw -v -b 4 -A 2350 2662 32 32 -H 1 -o 1 -q 3 -T 100mm-ISO100-5DII.CR2
dcraw -v -b 2.716 -A 2350 2662 32 32 -H 1 -o 1 -q 3 -T 100mm-ISO100-7D.CR2

convert 100mm-ISO100-5DII.tiff -crop 208x69+3540+2700 100mm-ISO100-crop1-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-7D.tiff -crop 310x102+3516+3070 100mm-ISO100-crop1-7D.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop1-5DII.png -resize 620x204 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop1-7D.png -resize 620x204 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-7D.png

convert 100mm-ISO100-5DII.tiff -crop 269x98+2362+2380 100mm-ISO100-crop2-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-7D.tiff -crop 396x144+1760+2598 100mm-ISO100-crop2-7D.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop2-5DII.png -resize 792x288 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop2-7D.png -resize 792x288 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-7D.png

convert 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-5DII.png -sharpen 0x2 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-sharpened-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-7D.png -sharpen 0x2 100mm-ISO100-crop1-upsized-sharpened-7D.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-5DII.png -sharpen 0x2 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-sharpened-5DII.png
convert 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-7D.png -sharpen 0x2 100mm-ISO100-crop2-upsized-sharpened-7D.png
</pre>


Overall, I think it does show a visible contrast/detail benefit to the 7D, but it's not as large as I would expect when comparing 8 MP vs 18 MP. Perhaps my expectations are too high?

[HDNitehawk]

John and Daniel


Just an FYI for whoever reads this in the future to see the outcome


I just did the final test to see if the 7D would and could produce IQ equal to the 5D Mark II crop image. The test here was to see how my limited post process skills would fit in with the 7D compared to the 5D Mark II


I took the ISO 100 shot that John gave us using the 100-400mm from both cameras. I made an equal size crop of each picture after I had reset to camera settings.


Here is what I found: I had to play with and adjust the 7D picture quit a bit more to get the maximum out of it. The hardest things requiring the most play were contrast, shadows and color. Once I finished I saved the picture as a max JPG.


The 5D required less work, and some sharpening. Once complete I saved the JPG.


Once comparing on the full screen, I could easily see the 7D was still lacking in contrast and color against the 5D version. The 5D version was just not as sharp. I tried resharpening the 5D version and took it as far as I could. I deleted and started over with the 7D version probably 5 times then compared. Finally I felt I had taken both as far as I could.


In the end this is what I decided, much the same as I had found before. The 7D delivered a sharper picture. The 5D was superior in color and contrast, but through much more extensive PP I was able to get the 7D up equal to the 5D. I believe it will take more work in PP with the 7D but in the end it can match and pass the 5D by just a little.


Final test was to print two 13x19 prints off with each camera. The 7D won slightly because of sharpness.


All in all this puts it to rest in my mind. The 7D quality is sufficient, but it is not so much better over the 5D Mark II that it would be the motivating factor to switch. The AF and Frame rate would be the factors as already stated.


Here are the two pics that I generated if any one is interested. They are marked on the pictures 5D and 7D. Thanks again for the help





[View:http://community.the-digital-picture...neric/utility/]





[View:http://community.the-digital-picture...neric/utility/]

[Daniel Browning]

OK, I finished the second batch of analysis, this time using the 100mm ISO 1600 files. Here is one of the crops from the ISO 1600 comparisons:







Please see the rest of the crops here:


http://thebrownings.name/photo/2010/...5d2-7d-part-2/


I looked at the 400mm files but I don't think they're useful for this comparison because they don't contain any fine detail. The fine print on the book is the smallest detail I could find, and those were at least 20 pixels tall. (Ideally, the finest detail would be less than a single pixel, so we can see how much aliasing occurs.)


In order to do this comparison, I did the following:

• Exact same raw conversion / demosaic on each
• Increase brightness to the same level on both
• Crop 5D2 down to same angle of view as 7D
• Upsize both to the same dimension (so both are equally affected by upsizing)
• Use the exact same sharpening on both.

I think it shows that the 7D has more contrast and detail, with far fewer aliasing artifacts. The 7D image looks noisier, especially when both are upsized. Here is an example from the above comparisons where I downsampled the 18 MP 7D image to the 8 MP level of the 5D2:







That makes it more similar, but still a little noisier, I think. Take a look at the rest of the comparisons for yourself:





http://thebrownings.name/photo/2010/2010-11-5d2-7d-part-2/





I definitely prefer the 7D image in this circumstance.

[HDNitehawk]

Daniel


I didn't do anything with the ISO 1600 files John sent us, I went back through a lot of the old files of wildlife when I was shooting with ISO Auto with the 500mm F4L and for most the ISO was never over 800. Only on the rare instance when I did a landscape shot with the 500mm did the ISO ever get that high, and of course with that kind of shot I am going to prefer the 5D.


What your test on ISO 1600 showed though, is exactly what I was expecting it to show at 1600.


Now for the fun part:


I bought the 7D, its mounted on the 500mm F4L and I have it packed away in the backpack ready to go. I will be interested to see how it performs, and to try it with the 1.4 converter. I went ahead and got the MT-24EX Twin Macro Light as well to take advantage of the rebates, to bad it is just a paper weight until I can find someplace with a 72C adapter in stock.

[Daniel Browning]

Exciting! If you use the TC, don't be afraid to bump up the ISO -- the noise is the same or lower than cropping in post. For example:

• 1/320, 500mm f/4, ISO 800, cropped to 9.2 MP
• 1/320, 700mm f/5.6, ISO 1600, uncropped

Both of those shots will have the same angle of view after cropping, but the ISO 1600 will have slightly less noise. (One of the few advantages of using a TC).


Have fun!

[Daniel Browning]

Mr Browning,


Could you please expand on this concept for me please? I'm not familiar with "pattern noise" and "read noise" and how it relates to bit-depth. The technical side of digital photography is new to me and I find it very interesting. Thanks a bunch.


Damian

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, Damian. I wanted to work up some good images that demonstrate how pattern noise and read noise relate to bit depth, but I never found the time. I'm afraid the best I can offer in substitute is just words. I created a new post for it:



<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="content-type" />
http://community.the-digital-picture.com/photography_gear1/f/7/p/5209/45224.aspx

[DLS]

Oh, no worries. I just read and commented on the new post. Thanks again!

[HDNitehawk]

I am three days in to a hunting trip that I have taken the new 7d mounted on my 500mm f4 L.


It felt like the 7d actually hit the af point slower than the 5d.


So I decided to test this today. I set up a test on tripod at just a bit over the minimum focus distance. I then would turn the lens to infinity focus.


What I found is that the 5d would make focus just slightly quicker than the 7d.


With this big lens, and both set to single point focus the average focus time of 1.4 for the 5d and 1.5 for the 7d.


I am going to check the ai servo setting tomorrow, I just tested the 7d on this setting and it would take 2.3 seconds.


One other thing I noticed about the 7d, occasionally, not every time it would make focus, and the red flash of confirmation would be delayed a second. I discarded those times from my result and not real sure why it did it.


In other areas it is obvious the 7d af is superior. It finds contrast much easier. I can

[neuroanatomist]

What I found is that the 5d would make focus just slightly quicker than the 7d.

I wonder...Canon makes the AF slower with a teleconverter attached, perhaps because the longer focal length requires more critical focus. Perhaps Canon intentionally slows the AF slightly for greater accuracy due to the longer apparent focal length?


I dod notice when doing AFMAs that with some lenses (e.g. the 85L), when focusing from MFD to the target (but not the reverse), the 7D would overshoot slightly then come back to focus, whereas the 5DII just went straight there.