7D Real!

[Oren]

LOL no, this is not the 1D mk IV.

[btaylor]

Can't wait for Bryan's review. Looks like a nice piece of kit. I like the sound of the Dual Axis Electronic Level in the viewfinder. Would be great for landscape work. 8 FPS at 18mp is lovely as is the speedlight transmitter.


It's certainly going to be a difficult decision between it and the 5DII once the old 40D dies. High ISO performance is going to be a big decider.


Good work Canon! [Y]

[District_History_Fan]

Daniel,


Aside from the conventional wisdom that increased pixel density decreases DR, increases noise and DLA becomes more of a factor (the D700 seems to be performing well at 12mp FF []), other concerns are things Bryan pointed out in his review of the 50D. Exaggerated camera shake, magnified lens aberrations are two concerns over lower resolution bodies, storage and computer upgrades going from 10mp (40D) to 18mp files might warrant are another area of concern for me personally. I realize that many of these issues are taken care of when downsizing the files... Currently, I have no real problem with printing reasonable size prints at 10mp. Therefore I have no realneed of 18mp.


There seemed to be a general feeling that the 50D was 10# of crap in a 5# bag. Now we have Canon adding another 3mp to the APS-C sensor. I love the improvements they obviously made. Its going to be a nice camera. I'll wait until some objective testing is done before deciding if it is any real IQ improvement in the APS-C world.

[hotsecretary]

Well, I'm in the final stages of hopefully selling my 40D and making the jump to a 5DII and when the price drops on this sucker, I'll probably pickup a 7D as a backup/telephoto lens

[Daniel Browning]

Thanks for the response.

...DLA becomes more of a factor

I kindly disagree. Diffraction is always there. It's always the same, no matter what the pixel size. When the f-number is wider than the DLA, it means that the image is blurred so much by large pixels, that it's impossible to see the diffraction blur. Smaller pixels simply allow you to see the diffraction blur that was always there.

Furthermore, the DLA is the point at which diffraction *starts* to visibly affect the image. It is not the point at which further improvement is impossible. That would be the diffraction cutoff frequency, and it is much, much higher than most people think. For example, the 7D doesn't hit the diffraction cutoff frequency until f/18! That means if you compare the 50D and 7D and f/11, you'll see an improvement in resolution, even though the 50D DLA is f/7.6.

Exaggerated camera shake, magnified lens aberrations are two concerns over lower resolution bodies

High-res bodies (50D) never have worse camera shake than low-res bodies (e.g. 40D). At the very worst, they are only the same. Same with lens aberrations. Along with diffraction, the worst thing that these issues can do is cause diminishing returns.

If you avoid diffraction (stay below DLA), camera shake (tripod), lens aberrations ($$$), and all the other sources of diminishing returns, then you will get the full return: 100% of the increased megapixels.

But if you need the DOF of f/16, or you don't use a tripod (shake), or you use coke bottles instead of good lenses, then you will get 0% of a return from more pixels. The image will not be any worse, but neither will it be better.

...storage and computer upgrades going from 10mp (40D) to 18mp files might warrant are another area of concern for me personally.

Agreed! But the storage and processing speed problems have already been solved in software. There are proven raw compression and demosaic schemes that lose absolutely zero image quality but cut file sizes in half (or more) from what they are now. sRAW is Canon's attempt at compression, but it's much worse than the alternatives.

So instead of asking for less megapixels, ask for more intelligent software, so that more pixels can be added with no negative effects on storage or speed.

There seemed to be a general feeling that the 50D was 10# of crap in a 5# bag.

Those feelings were all based on common misconceptions corrected in the "small pixels myth" link I gave above.

I'll wait until some objective testing is done before deciding if it is any real IQ improvement in the APS-C world.

Agreed. I'm looking forward to Bryan's review.

[District_History_Fan]

Thanks Daniel.


We'll see how the 7D shakes out soon enough. Come on Bryan, aren't you done with that review yet? [] lol

[Alan]

...storage and computer upgrades going from 10mp (40D) to 18mp files might warrant are another area of concern for me personally. I realize that many of these issues are taken care of when downsizing the files... Currently, I have no real problem with printing reasonable size prints at 10mp. Therefore I have no realneed of 18mp.
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You probably can't avoid computer upgrades. They're a necessary (and, desirable) part of life's work with digital photography.


As far as storage, you can buy HD space so cheaply, you shouldn't have an issue with storage. Buy a docking station that operates with both USB and eSATA, get yourself a 1 or 2 TB internal drive, and you'll be able to store 10's of thousands of full sized RAW files, and gobs of TIF and/or JPGs.

[ShutterbugJohan]

Seems like a popular thread. LOL!

[Jon Ruyle]

It's certainly going to be a difficult decision between it and the 5DII once the old 40D dies. High ISO performance is going to be a big decider.

I'd be shocked if the 7D has anywhere near the high iso performance of the 5DII since the 5DII's sensor is 2 1/2 times as large (unless you're talking about comparing at similar dof f/ stops... ie compare the 7D at f/2 with the 5DII at f/3.5, in which case the 7D may have the edge)

[hotsecretary]

As far as storage, you can buy HD space so cheaply, you shouldn't have an issue with storage. Buy a docking station that operates with both USB and eSATA, get yourself a 1 or 2 TB internal drive, and you'll be able to store 10's of thousands of full sized RAW files, and gobs of TIF and/or JPGs.
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Totally agreed... but then again I'm a computer g33k before a ph0t0n3rd
But I work in IT and I'm amazed at how much the price of storage has dropped in the past 10-15 years, I still remember when I made my first big purchase when I went to College and paid $1300 for a 4.3Gb Seagate SCSI drive!?


Now, I have a NAS with 1TB in RAID-1 and the 2x1TB drives would cost me $180 today! But soon time to upgrade the NAS to RAID-5 model


Back to the point... agreed for an average Joe user, pickup a HDD dock that does eSata for ~$20-30 and a couple of 1.5TB drives (good price range these days) and you'll have TONS of space and can easily duplicate your storage and never worry about losing your files unless you're juggling your HDDs!