7D Mk2. Noise?

Dale.

Dale.

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Dale.
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I have a 7DMK1, which I have a love/hate relationship with. It's a brilliant camera, apart from some quite drastic at times, noise issues. The noise is only apparent in digital images, not so much in prints but it's still annoying.

Anyhoo, the time has come to upgrade. I have been thinking of the 7DMK2, which I've heard is a brilliant camera. However, I have heard rumblings that whilst it is an improvement on the MK1, it can still be noisy. For the same kind of money, I could get an older, second hand full frame camera.

Has anybody experienced noise or banding with the MK2?

ta.
 
Depends on what you want to photograph. I don't have my MkII now but when I did I shot wildlife and some motor sport with it. For motor sport I was happy with results at 2500 printed at A3. For wildlife then, for my demands, I tried not to go over 1600 as I felt that detail was lost. Bear in mind that I was judging it on images printed at A3. I eventually came to regard it as a good light camera, and if you have fast lenses,eg f2.8, then that gives it a bit more flexibility in poorer light.

I eventually sold it as I wasn't using it enough. Also I was comparing it's ISO performance with a 5D3 and a 1DX which are comfortably better but of course one of the attractions of the MkII is the crop factor which is what led me to buy one in the first place.

I would buy another one, but would only use it for motor sport. I will stick to FF for wildlife which is the major part of my photography.

I'm sure others will have slightly or even wildly different opinions but I've tried to give a balanced reply. Certainly in the right condition I don't think anyone would complain about the MKII's image quality.

Cheers

Gaz
 
Gaz J said:
Did you mean 'over 1600' Steve as most of the images on the link are taken with ISO below 1600.
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The first 8 or so of those shots are at 1600 ISO, I've shot at 3200 & 6400 with it without issue. Bear in mind that the 150-600 is f6.3 at anything over 400mm, and the shot below, although not remarkable, was with the Canon EX1.4 Mk2 on as well

516A0452 by Steve Jelly, on Flickr

Everything shot after the goose was done before I got the Mk2. Mind you, I used to shoot at 1600 on the Mk 1 and it was OK as long as you had the light.
 
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It depends on your expectations. If you only put them on a PC or the internet at small size then you have more latitiude with your settings. Also pushing ISO in good light to compensate for a slow lens is a bit different from pushing it in poor light.
 
Gaz J said:
It depends on your expectations. If you only put them on a PC or the internet at small size then you have more latitiude with your settings. Also pushing ISO in good light to compensate for a slow lens is a bit different from pushing it in poor light.
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Well yes.... I assume by pushing you mean under exposing the original and then trying to pull it back in PP. In which case that's bound to lead to a noisy image. You will never beat a full frame with a crop when everything else is equal. But if you want to shoot wildlife on a crop then I can't think of a better body to use.
 
Still only getting to grips with my 7D2 but one thing that does look very good is image quality, much better than the old 7D. It's naturally a bit behind my 5d3 and the 6D it is replacing but stil very good. I will have no concerns about taking it to gigs as my second body, such occasions will see it at IS3200 and 6400 regularly.

Jelster said:
Well yes.... I assume by pushing you mean under exposing the original and then trying to pull it back in PP. In which case that's bound to lead to a noisy image. You will never beat a full frame with a crop when everything else is equal. But if you want to shoot wildlife on a crop then I can't think of a better body to use.
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I expect he meant pushing as in using extremely high ISO such as the second link.
 
I recently upgraded a 7d to a 7dmk2 and yes there is noise but it is much better than the mk1 and I find is easier to treat with noise reduction (I use either Capture One or Neat Image). I don’t use full frame so haven’t compared but I have no reason to expect a cropped sensor to compete with FF low light noise performance. Whether the difference is critical for your work I guess is up to you. But I almost exclusively take wildlife and to me noise hasn’t been a problem and the performance of the mk2 means that I’m more likely to capture the shot in the first place.

By the way, I generally find that for the type of light I’m interested in I rarely have to go over ISO 800 – it’s tempting to ramp up the ISO at times to make sure I stop the movement but I’m old school enough to remember having to cope with film speeds, so ISO 800 sounds quite high to me!
 
Thanks for the replies. I think I can live with an improvement on the Mk1 and it all sounds very positive. I am intriqued by that better FF image quality though.

I've not entirely made my mind up as wildlife is one of my things and the crop factor is a big help for that but can work against you with landscapes. Try geting all of That Waterfall in at 17mm. :runaway::LOL:
 
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I have a 7d2 and I would agree with the posts that suggest detail is lost above ISO1600. I set my auto ISO, which is a great implementation on this camera to a maximum of ISO800, but in good light it is a really nice camera under ISO400.

The noise is interesting. It can get pretty noisy but it is all luminance and cleans up really easily. Also whilst my 5D3 is stops better in the noise department in some ways it is not. From a dynamic range point of view you can push the shadows on the 7d2 very cleanly, with the 5D3 some banding and colour noise is apparent when you do this.

From a 7d original I say go for it.
 
I really don't experience the noise some of you guys are mentioning. At 1600 ISO the camera is giving me excellent results.

This was taken last Sunday in overcast weather, it's a 100% crop at 1600 ISO:

RobinCrop by Steve Jelly, on Flickr

Yes, there is some noise in the background, but on a normal sized image it wouldn't show. This is cust from the raw image with no sharpening.
 
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And this is ISO800 100% crop. Of course I could selectively get rid of all of the noise on the flat bg if I wanted, and so could you Steve.

Robin by Craig Hollis, on Flickr
 
The Robin at 1600 has quite a bit of noise but you'd expect that on any camera in those conditions and 100% crop.

The second Robin is very 'clean', certainly better than my Mk1 would be at those settings.

:)
 
Noise can be very background colour dependent. Dark backgrounds seem to exacerbate noise. I hardly ever shoot below 800 and my cameras are set to that as a default. But there is some good noise reduction software on the market.

These are all processed but they show that the image quality from the camera can be excellent

1. ISO 1600
Dunnock

2. ISO 3200
Rally-10
 
Like you I have a MKI 7D and have been thinking of an upgrade but I am hanging on to see how the new 80D performs. Initial reviews seem positive with regards to noise and there are other things on there I would find useful but the AF looks to be a little less sophisticated (especially tracking ability).
 
Really like those Gaz. What NR software do you use? :)

Mike, one of the things I love about my 7 is it's tracking, it's really good at that. I can only imagine the MK2 would be even better and no disrespect to the 80D but I doubt it would be comparable.
 
Dale. said:
Mike, one of the things I love about my 7 is it's tracking, it's really good at that. I can only imagine the MK2 would be even better and no disrespect to the 80D but I doubt it would be comparable.
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I don't remember where but I have read the 80D tracking is better than the MKI 7D, however the MKII is better still.

TBH I have never really been that impressed with my 7D's AF performance, the 50D I had before was much better on single AF point (which is where I mostly use it).
 
Couple of examples at different ISO, varying floodlighting and natural lighting. First 3 are IrelandU21 V Italy U21 , last one Ireland senior team.

ISO 1000 fading natural light about 630PM
Conor%20Wilkinson%20Versus%20Mattia%20Caldara_FB_zpsokkyckfo.jpg


ISO 2500 Fading Natural Light around 645PM
Daniel%20Rogers%20Collects%20Ball%20with%20ease_FB_zpsmbuydmsc.jpg


ISO 4000 Floodlit (very poor , local ground lighting) 730PM
Glen%20Rae%20%204%20Versus%20Gaetano%20Monchello_FB_zpsfvb93ctk.jpg


ISO 1600 Aviva Stadium Proper Floodlighting (excuse the watermark) 820PM
Shane%20Long_zpswn9sszt6.jpg
 
Those are both shot at different ends of the scale ISO wise. the fisrt is ISO100 but the shadows have been lifted a fair bit with minimal noise.

The Squirrel was ISO1250 and again looks fine with some PP.

The files take a bit more work to get the most out of than a 6D file but then its not really fair to comapre them as they are different beasts completely.

I'm very happy with my 7d2, I say go for it.
 
Dale. said:
Really like those Gaz. What NR software do you use? :)

Mike, one of the things I love about my 7 is it's tracking, it's really good at that. I can only imagine the MK2 would be even better and no disrespect to the 80D but I doubt it would be comparable.
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Usually I use the luminance in Lightroom but I sometimes use the noise reduction programme in Nik software package which incidentally is now free from Google and a package that I would highly recommend getting.
 
Thanks for the replies chaps, the Mk2 seems to be a big improvement over the 1.
 
Ive just replaced my mk1 with a mk 2 and to be honest i can see that much change, i think i will have to use it more and have a good look
 
I have had 2 mk1s, the first I sold as noise was an issue when taking dragonflies in flight over ISO 800 so I got a 1Div which does not show much or any noise up to 1600. I recently got another 7D as backup for football and it seems a lot less noisy than my first. I have been using it to shoot owls and I am quite often hitting ISO 3200 and able to remove any noise. Very different to my first one and a pleasant surprise. It does help if you nail focus and exposure so it might be me getting better with a year gap between them.
 
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