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cameron12x wrote:
RE: using an incompatible raw converter. Is DPP the only converter we should judge images by? What about the JPEG output straight from the camera? Should we dismiss the on-board converter as irrelevant, or as a legitimate part of the overall analysis? I will state that even without full-resolution pixel peeping that my old 20D shows far less noise up to ISO 800 than my new 7D when looking at JPEG images straight from the camera.
There's a difference between stating it and demonstrating it. If you want to demonstrate it, I'm sure people here will be grateful, but please please please be sure to uprez your 20D file to the same pixel dimensions as the 7D file before making the comparison. You did remember to compare them that way didn't you?
>There is also a subjective "harshness" to many images I see posted here. What happened to the "silky smooth" Canon images that many of us had previously grown accustomed to? That might be part of the problem.
It might be all of the problem. Do you see that harshness in prints, or is it merely a result of doing false comparisons at 100% without first uprezzing your previous 'silky smooth' files?
>With regard to expectations, I'm not sure how to define unrealistic. I expected more detail and IQ than I'm getting with my copy. I expected less noise at LOW ISO settings (<= 800) with my copy.
Are you talking about more detail in your prints, or in your 100% views of files? Can you show us the shortfall of detail in your 7D files next to a similar file from your 20D, uprezzed of course, to 18 Mpixels?
Design compromises likely made with this sensor may be a contributing factor to this discussion, as well as potential QA/QC issues. Individual expectations and results may vary, as we've seen with different copies and different workflows.
What design compromises? Do you have actual information about those compromises, or is this speculation provoked by 100% comparisons with much lower resolution files?
>So far, the 7D seems to require much more time spent with workflow.
...that is again, I'm afraid, speculation. It seems as though people are spending more time on their files to make their pixels look as good, not to make their files look as good.
That's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but I think we'd all agree that time is usually better spent shooting than fixing.
Presumably you mean shooting beer.
>I'm going to put you on the spot now. Even if you may not own one (I'm not sure if you do), does the 7D meet your expectations, and why? If not, why not? Were you expecting "more" or "less?"
I do not yet own one but I have used one, and I have seen a hell of a lot of uploaded material which shows it to be an excellent camera, and a few uploaded examples which show only that badly processing files and viewing them at 200% can reveal a certain level of noise. I have seen the effect of moving from 13 to 21 Mpixels, and it takes getting used to. The noise gets finer in the image, but more noticeable in crops. That's expected.
The reason that I don't own a 7D is that I have two 5D2's and I prefer full-frame cameras. If the 7D were a full-frame camera and had a manual focus screen option, then I would own two or three of them, and no 5D2's.
I tried really hard to generate mazing in the the kindly uploaded colour chart file. I found that I could spot it at 200% in mustard yellows if I set all contrast sliders to maximum and pumped DPP sharpening up maximum, at which level you might expect it to wreak havoc. Considering the magnification, the very modest sharpening artefacts (maze?) are a triumph and a credit to the 7D:

The morals of this story are:
(1) don't believe everything you read on the internet - use a camera to make a print.
(2) don't apply extreme sharpening in DPP before making enormous prints, but I thought everyone knew that.
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