I have been processing in DPP with no noise reduction or sharpening.
then output at 16bit TIF
open in Photoshop CS4 64bit
-- remove noise with Neat Image 64bit v6.1
-- sharpen with "smart sharpen" in CS4
save a PNG or JPG
the skies in the image look good
I think the issue is processing related.
It's certainly clear that DPP is doing something different than particularly Lightroom. I'm hopeful that Lightroom will be able to do the same, because I just can't use DPP routinely.
UCSB wrote:
One thing you should realize is that coming from the 20D to the 7D you are really magnifying the contents of the file ... including the noise when viewing at 100%. Just adjust your processing to the new camera.
On the long shot you are using ARC or LR, just stop ... and wait for official 7D support.
You're quite right about that. I still see more image level noise in some of my 7D photos, however. I can't use DPP!
Fred Tedsen wrote:
You're quite right about that. I still see more image level noise in some of my 7D photos, however. I can't use DPP!
Actually, until I picked up this 7D I really never used DPP much. I sat down the other day and read the manual and I am glad I did. It has some nice features that can come in handy (distortion correction by lens, vignetting correction by lens, etc.) in some conditions. There is much more to the product than meets the eye. I'm not giving up on C1 and ARC, but for some issues in some images it seems nice.
Re darwinwiggett review, it is stated that he did the tests in Live View mode. I wonder what firmware version he was using at that time, because ver. 1.0.9 supposedly corrected for the 'soft focusing' during Live View, right?
angel_d_saint wrote:
Re darwinwiggett review, it is stated that he did the tests in Live View mode. I wonder what firmware version he was using at that time, because ver. 1.0.9 supposedly corrected for the 'soft focusing' during Live View, right?
Blog entry was 11 November, so I assume that he's had the latest firmware update.
I looked at the review, also. It seemed like his big issue was IQ, sharpness specifically. So being stuck here with the flu, I decide to take a quick look at sharpness myself. I don't know what his problem was ... if I had to guess, he didn't AF micro adjust his lens or possibly the explanations I give at the end of this post ... whatever, he got pretty bad results.
Top image in each set is 7D, bottom image is 5DII. Both shot with 135L (f/5.6 on 7D, f/8 on 5DII). Direct flash, high speed sync. HANDHELD. Framed in a similar manner, but not perfect (7D seems to have gotten the short end of the deal). EXIF in full images. Top image set is the full frame, bottom set are 100% crops.
Here is how the images were processed. Processed in C1 PRO v5, standard setting for NR (and virtually everything else). Sharpening standard setting is .8, 180. I used .8, 230 on both images. Not a big deal (scale is 0 to 1000). Full frame images were downsized in Photoshop, same sharpening applied to both ... something like smartsharpen 50 (very mild).
I am not trying to do a review here ... just a reasonable, quick quality check. One thing that was going through my mind was the 135L is a very high quality lens (good for this kind of test), maybe I should also shoot a comparison with a lesser lens.
Of course if you were processing these images, you would apply output sharpening in Photoshop. Here is a smartsharpen of 100 on the 7D file. Nothing special about the value of 100 just wanted to illustrate how the file might take a little sharpening in Photoshop.
For those wondering what you would get if you followed the Darwin Wiggett (author of 7D review) approach to preparing your files. Here it is DPP processed no NR, no sharpening, everything else standard. 7D top, 5DII bottom.
What does it mean? There has been a trend with camera manufacturers where they have begin to rely on the extensive processing power of today's computers to really complete the processing of their images. I first saw this when there was a huge delay in ARC/LR support for my Panasonic LX3. The delay was caused because Adobe had to implement optics corrections, CA corrections and who know what on the RAW file in the converter. Very nice results on LX3. Adobe has added a whole technical capability for processing RAW files and making adjustments. The 7D may be very dependent on the performance of the converter ... where people have optimized settings to pull the images together. Defeat all of those judgments and you may end up with junk. For myself, I would be careful defeating the initial settings in C1 when I start processing an image (when a RAW converter costs $400, you hope you are getting some expertise in processing the images optimally).
One other possible explanation for Darwin's problems is that possibly DPP was not entirely ready when the 7D was released. There may be hope for DPP tuning and ACR/LR will probably be very good when we see it.
Here is what C1 produces with NO NR and NO sharpening (or anything else ... like a little contrast ... the output could be improved from here even with NO NR and sharpening). Obviously took a different approach than DPP.
paulfeng wrote:
Ok, anyone care to compare the 7D shutter/mirror sound to a 10D? Preferably done by someone actually having both cameras... I remember the 10D has a nice, soft shutter sound, but if it's hard to describe a shutter sound in words, I think that remembering such a sound is even harder.
I just picked up a 7D. I also have a 10D and a 40D. The 10D is still the king of softness. It's almost as quiet as releasing the shutter with the mirror locked up.
The 7D is in between the 10D and 40D. It sounds like a muffled 40D. Perhaps the extra bulk and weather sealing help dampen the noise.
The other thing I've noticed is that the 7D shutter button is mushier than the 40D. The 40D has a distinct detent, which is not there on the 7D.
For anyone interested, have at it and tell us what you find. FWIW, this is an OOF image of a color checker that I displayed on my monitor. 1/10s exposure (to eliminate monitor flicker issues) at ISO 100.
I had committed to making this available from my 7D before I had looked for any mazing, G1-G2 issues, etc., so for anyone gathering statistics (ha-ha), this represents an unbiased sample (as long as you believe that I would have followed through w/out question once I committed, without regard to any other factors).
Actually, later this week I will post another, as I am getting a replacement for this body. I just got this one two days ago and discovered that there is a spot of something on the sensor that won't move under serious rocket-blowing; it ain't just dust. Other than that, though, the sensor appears to be pretty spotless from Canon.
IQ questions aside, this camera is fabulous.
Oh, w/regard to the shutter release mentioned by the previous post-er: I agree with the description, and add the note that to my subjective impression, it takes a fair bit of force to get the shutter to release, more than I would prefer. The BG-E7 grip has much more of a hair trigger. I wish I could average the two. I don't know how this compares to 1-series bodies.
Fred Tedsen wrote:
When I got my 7D one of the things I noticed was that skies looked a bit noisy at ISO 200. When I compared it to my 20D, I discovered that it is indeed noisier all the way to ISO 800.
That's a bit of a worry AFAIAC. Did you do a controlled test i.e. all other parameters were kept constant?
UCSB,
Thanks a lot for the comparison!
You have shed some good light on how the files from the 7D and 5DII compare, and how different processing affects the end result.
One concern I would have for the 7D conversions is whether the inherent softness coming out of the converter with all the NR/sharpening turned off is a choice, or the symptom of the compromises the converter has been forced to make to deal with the pattern noise and greens imbalance that has been observed in most of the cameras tested. NR robs resolution, and sharpening increases acutance, not resolution, and brings back up the noise. If the greens were balanced and the line noise absent, could the results be a lot better with no NR/sharpening?
ejmartin wrote:
One concern I would have for the 7D conversions is whether the inherent softness coming out of the converter with all the NR/sharpening turned off is a choice, or the symptom of the compromises the converter has been forced to make to deal with the pattern noise and greens imbalance that has been observed in most of the cameras tested. NR robs resolution, and sharpening increases acutance, not resolution, and brings back up the noise. If the greens were balanced and the line noise absent, could the results be a lot better with no NR/sharpening?
I guess the softness with NR/sharpening off is a compromise the converter does to deal with the greens imbalance. If it is just 1. generation algorithms, or a necessity remains to be seen.
Also, it seems that the resolution is less hurt than the actuance. Also DPreview mentions it, that while the absolute resolution is only 2500 lp/ph (out of ACR), the extinct resolution is at 3800 lp/ph, and this allows for very fine details. (if I remember the numbers correctly)
Whether the results would be better with identical greens is not easy to tell. The benefits from diluted and different greens could be lower photon shot noise and better color accuracy. How big is the gain, and how much is lost again with the sharpening?
gfiksel wrote:
Looks like it's all converter dependent. Open the same file in LR3b, at 200% and sharpness up you will see the same artifact as I had shown a few posts above.
Keep my finger crossed that LR will be updated soon
I think this is all down to the green channel imbalance, and compensating for it in the demosaic process. It's pretty clear that the current ACR demosaic algorithm isn't doing anything about it, while DPP, C1 and the ACR 5.6ß that DPR used are doing something to compensate.
ejmartin wrote:
I think this is all down to the green channel imbalance, and compensating for it in the demosaic process. It's pretty clear that the current ACR demosaic algorithm isn't doing anything about it, while DPP, C1 and the ACR 5.6ß that DPR used are doing something to compensate.
jorkata wrote:
The 50D and now the 7D must be the two cameras with most flawed reviews ... ever .
With the 50D and 500D reviews using aperture f/8, the effect of diffraction started becoming visible. If the reviewers don't recognize that in resolution tests, they will become increasingly irrelevant for high pixel density cameras.
The case with the greens imbalance and it's implications could somewhat be forgiven, because nobody saw this coming.
Now when the knowledge is being developed, it appears that comparing the output with no sharpening can not be considered a fair comparison if the 7D really is a 4 color camera, because detail is preserved and actuance is regained with sharpening much more than for 3-color cameras.
brainiac wrote:
This is what I get at 200% in DPP. It's excellent IMO: http://cyberphotographer.com/7d/unmazing.jpg
For this image DPP is perfect. The same patches in Lightroom 2.5 and 3 beta fall apart with mazing at even modest amounts of sharpening (3 beta worse than 2.5). Artifacts show up in Capture One, but only with extreme sharpening.
I repeated this with my camera, but not so out of focus. The results were similar, with DPP completely free of problems, followed by C1, LR 2.5 and LR 3b. C1 still didn't show mazing but had a lot more artifacts.
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