John McLean wrote:
He should have just punted... his further comments do nothing more than add confusion and possilbly raise doubts where there may be none.
"I am going to punt, and will not be describing in any detail the image quality that I have seen from the Canon 7D.
Frankly, the reason is that I am seeing things which I am not sure are a consequence of the camera's inherent characteristics or are specific to pre-production cameras or even this specific camera. This includes overall image softness and some digital artifacting. Nothing terrible mind you; just enough though that I am aware of it, and therefore don't want to make any undue assumptions."...Show more →
Here's another quote:
"Oh yes – one more thing. Since installing DPP on my 15" Macbook Pro I am experiencing regular crashes of Lightroom, Photoshop and Capture One. Not DPP itself, and not any other software other than raw processors. Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, and I'm only saying......."
As if thousands of other photographers don't use this same mix of software daily without problems...
It's best not to consider MR a responsible journalist, but rather a photographer with opinions, some quite useful and informative and others maybe not so much.
garyvot:
It's best not to consider MR a responsible journalist, but rather a photographer with opinions, some quite useful and informative and others maybe not so much.
Regardless of the reasons behind his comments, I would have preferred to hear nothing but praise about the IQ of this camera.
John McLean wrote:
He should have just punted... his further comments do nothing more than add confusion and possilbly raise doubts where there may be none.
"I am going to punt, and will not be describing in any detail the image quality that I have seen from the Canon 7D.
Frankly, the reason is that I am seeing things which I am not sure are a consequence of the camera's inherent characteristics or are specific to pre-production cameras or even this specific camera. This includes overall image softness and some digital artifacting. Nothing terrible mind you; just enough though that I am aware of it, and therefore don't want to make any undue assumptions."...Show more →
Sounds like effects of NR combined with sharpening. My 500D can do that sort of things by the default settings in DPP. Relaxing NR and sharpening helps.
This is just a general comment, and should not be taken as defence of the 7D, or denial that Reichmann may have seen something.
alundeb wrote:
Sounds like effects of NR combined with sharpening. My 500D can do that sort of things by the default settings in DPP. Relaxing NR and sharpening helps.
This is just a general comment, and should not be taken as defence of the 7D, or denial that Reichmann may have seen something.
Yes, I have seen that from DPP on default settings, quite startling when you see the image pop up for the first time on a camera you just dropped a couple of grand on!
alundeb wrote:
Sounds like effects of NR combined with sharpening. My 500D can do that sort of things by the default settings in DPP. Relaxing NR and sharpening helps.
This is just a general comment, and should not be taken as defence of the 7D, or denial that Reichmann may have seen something.
Good observation. Reichmann complained about DPP and may well not be able to get the best out of it - perhaps like Galbraith.
Partial aside - I think RG is treated too harshly by many. In his article, he did tell us what AF settings he used, and thus gave us enough to come to our own conclusion that perhaps he made bad choices there. Likewise, he gave us at least an outline of his PP workflow for the sample images, allowing us to conclude that he likely didn't do an optimal job there either. Plus he gave us the 5DmkII comparison images, so we could see how they looked when treated to the same/similar workflow.
In comparison, MR has only given us vague statements, leaving us to wonder.
From my own limited experience, soon after getting my 50D I made a comparison between DPP and ACR 4.6 (with CS3). While many have praised DPP's noise reduction over that in ACR, my observation was that ACR did much better at suppressing the scattered bright pixels (what I think RG is referring to as "digital dandruff"), and I felt I lost too much detail when I turned the NR up in DPP. Maybe I just need to learn DPP better, but I certainly wouldn't base my conclusions about a camera's IQ on what I am able to produce with it.
Romy has made it very clear that because the weather during his limited testing was godawful, it would not be fair to comment - but he's keen to get out there in good light with the production body he's waiting for as we speak.
And for all that the images he posted (including plenty of full-sized conversions on his PBase site) were very, very nice in IQ terms.
I find Reichman's field reports very useful: he focuses on real world use rather than feature details. I feel that he was very clear that all the images were from a beta version, and therefore not worth examining in detail. We'll have to wait to see how they are from a production body, but if they are anywhere between very good and great then Canon have a lot to be happy about, especially when someone like Reichman says In terms of handling, built quality and features I think it fair to say that the 7D is Canon's best camera yet.
garyvot wrote:
You can do the same with an ST-E2 of course. However, in either case you loose rear-curtain sync with Canon (an unfortunate limitation of wireless E-TTL). Often I'm dragging the shutter a bit in situations where I'm using a bracket, so the cord is still useful.
I was wondering about that. My flash manual indicates that the slave flash has to be in front of the master and within an 80 degree arc centered on the flash axis, assuming that both are 580EX IIs. Is that not the case when using the ST-E2 as the master?
WillWeb wrote:
I was wondering about that. My flash manual indicates that the slave flash has to be in front of the master and within an 80 degree arc centered on the flash axis, assuming that both are 580EX IIs. Is that not the case when using the ST-E2 as the master?
Has anyone read or know what the range on the 7D flash transmitter is? Just curious.
Although I haven't personally used the Nikon flash commander with a Nikon Speedlite, the flash simply requires some IR light in order to be triggered by the flash commander. It need not be in line-of-sight of each other.
The ST-E2 is not really an option since future Canon models above the 7D will have the flash commander and it is still cheaper to use the OC-E3. The OC-E3 is also still lighter than the ST-E2 and in my opinion the accessory is practically dead.
alundeb wrote:
I don't know why RG uses the words he does.
"A lot like they've come from a 50D" can mean anything from worse to better, and no one knows which direction, and by how much.
Why not check comparisons rather than uncomparable test shots in arbitrary conditions?
One example, the presentation of samples from IR, by thedigitalbean on page 41 in this thread.
Does the improvement from the 50D to 7D seem significant to you or not?
Not significant to me, but I'm coming from a 30D not 50D so it's certainly better. I hate noise and don't yet use a noise specific tool outside of Aperture, so for me I wouldn't go beyond 1600 with the 7D. Today, I don't go past 400, so it's a two stop improvement from these samples.
WillWeb wrote:
I was wondering about that. My flash manual indicates that the slave flash has to be in front of the master and within an 80 degree arc centered on the flash axis, assuming that both are 580EX IIs. Is that not the case when using the ST-E2 as the master?
Not entirely. In most indoor settings, and even outdoors when you are close enough to the subject, the slaves will pick up the trigger signal being reflected off the subject, and so may be positioned behind or to the side of the camera position.
timbop wrote:
I would imagine that the range is the same as visible:17m
As for the st-e2, it will be less valuable going forward. However, I still find the AF assist very handy under poor lighting conditions
Yes. Also, the ST-E2 does not trigger nearly as much eye-blink from preflash signalling as does an on-camera flash. I used this feature on the D300 and given the option I'd still rather use an infrared trigger. It's more elegant if you don't need on-camera flash fill. I still agree it's a nice feature to have though.
Pelao wrote:
I find Reichman's field reports very useful: he focuses on real world use rather than feature details.
<snip>
We have one on order.
I agree with you here, and I should have said something to that effect in my post above. I do like hear about what MR says about how a camera is to use. I don't put too much weight on his work for the nitty-gritty technical stuff, though.
...Reichmann Reichmann...sounds like another Ken Rockwell or Galbraith...