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4 Dec 2009

Canon 7D vs the 5d2 – What to do?

I thought I was pretty sure I was going to get the 7D as my next camera body.  Right now I shoot with an older Canon 20D which I love, but is starting to show its age.  I was originally decided on the 5D2, but when the 7D came out I was amazed my much of the response it was getting on the forums.  Here are the benefits of the 7D I’ve learned about from all of my hours of research:

- the AF is superior to the 5d2, more focus points, better servo mode than the 5d mkii

- it has pop-up flash (comes in handy once in a great while for fill or to trigger strobes) will mount EF-S lenses (I only own one, the rest in my kit at ED because I was planning on going full frame for a while now).

- it has wireless flash controls built in

- dual digic 4 processors (5d2 only has one)

- shoots video same as the 5d2

- very low noise up to iso 800, where the 5d2 then takes over

- a few more bells and whistles that the 5d2 doesn’t have like on-screen leveling

All of that is fine and dandy, but when it comes down to pixel peeping, I’ve been seeing a lot of softness from the 7D in the samples online.  Not just studio stuff – real world conditions.

This review scares me a little. http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/the-canon-7d/
I think we have to wait until Adobe updates ACR and Lightroom more the handle the Raw conversion a bit better, in order to come to the proper conclusions. Right now the 7D is looking softer than everything, at 100% native resolution. Sure, you can sharpen, but if there’s a little ISO 200 or 400 noise that low noise camera suddenly turns into worse noise than ISO 1600.

The 7D also out-resolves the glass you mount to it, much more than a 5d2.  That means softer images, seeing that the glass can’t provide enough.  There is a great explanation of what that means in this thread http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73591 by my friend David Rehner.

In the end, either camera bodies are a world of a difference over my old 20D.  I’m going to wait and see, at least until Spring of 2010, before I start whipping out my credit card. I’m waiting until I am absolutely 100% sure about this.  I think I just might have to rent one of each for a week to do my own tests.  I’m in the same boat as many other photographers, with the 20D or 30D.  No doubt the 7D is 1000 times better in more than one way, but if I can make my daily photo editing a few steps easier by spending the extra grand on the 5d2 I think it might be worth it.  Downsizing is fine, unless you shoot stock and want to utilize the maximum resolution that you possibly can, in order to make the most money from your images.  If I’m going to drop even $1700 on a camera, it had better produce good enough sharpness and clarity at 100% at the fullest resolution.  If not, I might as well spend the extra cash on the full frame.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 2:25 AM and is filed under Microstock Photography, Photography, Photography Tech, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Canon 7D vs the 5d2 – What to do?”

  2. If it’s not Nikon – it’s wrong!

  4. What to do?

    Get a Nikon…of course :)

  6. Yeah yeah… :D No thanks, just for the hassle that I’d have to ebay all of my glass and start a new collection. Nothing against Nikon, I’ve shot a lot with the older D40x back at my last dayjob.

  8. Boy, that David Rehner reads like a smart individual. ;-)

  10. I’m a huge fan of my 7D. I’ve had a lot of approvals uploading to iStock and haven’t had to do any down-sizing because of quality (none of my 7D images have been rejected due to noise or poor quality … I shoot all of my stuff at ISO 100 for stock, btw). I do agree that ACR and Lightroom could do a better job with the conversions, but it’s still superb quality IMO.

  12. That’s good to hear – Thanks Nicole. I think in time we’ll see that the updates for ACR and Lightroom might improve, after all of the testing and feedback is compiled. For now maybe the in camera sharpening settings have to be tweaked in order to get better results. I’m not positive if it matters, if you’re shooting RAW, but it might read the defaults from those settings. If I can find enough evidence to justify the $1000 savings over going full frame, I would definitely love to do so. Heck, that’s another piece of nice L glass just in the savings over the 5d mark ii.

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