Canon 70D - Impressions, Discussion, etc.

[GTXJackBauer]

Thanks for the clarification hokie! Sorry to bug you in the middle of your thread but this time I took note to everything you said.

Can you possibly give us examples of the opposite effect of what you're doing here? Meaning start with High ISO and go down in the right environment like you did here with low ISO and went up to show the difference. Would that involve night shots at high ISO and go down from there? Not sure if what I am asking makes sense but giving it a shot. lol

 

[hokiealumnus]

Sorry, I've read that three times and can't figure out what it is you're asking. Please don't take offense, but my mind can't wrap itself around it. You could look at the bottom photo with the highest ISO and scroll up to get the opposite order, no?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Sorry, I've read that three times and can't figure out what it is you're asking. Please don't take offense, but my mind can't wrap itself around it. You could look at the bottom photo with the highest ISO and scroll up to get the opposite order, no?

See, I even confused you! Yes, I could look at the highest and look up but I was thinking along the lines of an example of less lighting and outside at night time giving us examples of the ISO etc like you did with this example. That's what I meant when I look back at my horrid post. lol

 

[hokiealumnus]

OH, ok, sure, I'll be happy to. No promises WHEN I can get out and do it, but I'll do that for you.

 

[neonblingbling]

a single AF point (which is in the middle of the metering spot). The lens was the kit lens (18-55mm STM) at f/4.5 & 35mm.

Did you refocus after each shot? I would recommend using MF (after your first AF acquisition) or using live view to focus. I think the focus changed on ISO 3200, making 'Burruss Hall' sharper than 1600.

The ISO 25,600 is pretty noisy, but I'd still take it over a blurry photo! The in-camera noise reduction looks pretty good.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Yes, that is a good point about focus changing on 3200, you're correct. I have no idea why it did that, and you're right I should have switched it to MF.

The in-camera noise reduction has impressed me so far. If you could see the lighting in here, it's very (very) far from ideal. It doesn't look like it, but that shelf is a challenging subject to photograph.

I'll tell you one thing, I took some RAW photos (which I just plain don't do, ever) and the camera is a heck of a lot better a NR than I am!

 

[hokiealumnus]

Ok, as promised, here is a 100% crop of probably the most challenging portion of the image - a fabric book binding.

Once you start pixel peeping, the loss of detail becomes pretty obvious. Luminance noise is there and gets worse as the ISO goes up, obviously. Chroma isn't too bad up to 1600, but gets more noticeable at 3200 and is obvious at 6400. At 12800 things are ugly and it just gets unusable at 25600.

Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to use anything up to 3200. If I needed to stop motion (or couldn't hold the camera still long enough) in low light, 6400 is usable in a pinch. I'd only use 12800 in an emergency and 25600 will remain disabled on the camera.

Frankly, for an APS-C sensor, 12800 isn't all that bad. That looks like my T3 looked like at 3200. All in all, I'm happy with the performance. Hoping to have the chance to get out and use the camera tomorrow.

 

[hokiealumnus]

I was finally able to set out and actually use the 70D and the experience did not disappoint. To use the cliche, it just got out of the way and let me shoot. That's really the job of any good camera, and upgraded models like this with their glorious, easy-to-access multitude of external controls give you that very experience.

These were all taken RAW + JPEG as well. I have done nothing to these images, they are the JPEG SOOC (straight out of camera) shots with some cropping on a couple of the butterflies. The cropped shots will be noted. I'm going to take the plunge and see if I can do anything better with the RAW files. Chances are I can't, but I'll play with them anyway.

If anyone who IS experienced with RAW wants to take a crack vs. my in-camera settings with any of these, you're more than welcome to; just PM your email address asking for one and I'll send it right over.

Now on to the real-world use photos. Comments & (contstructive) criticism are always welcome. I'll split this into two posts. The lens used for the whole day was the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (non-STM).

This one was pretty heavily cropped.

Moderate crop on the one below.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Pretty heavy crop on this next one.

So far, based on rather limited use, my interim verdict on the Canon 70D is that it is a superb camera. The only thing at this point that I could possibly want (heh, besides more and better lenses) that the 70D doesn't have is a full frame sensor. That said, for most people - myself included - full frame is completely out of the question. The jump is just too far, not to mention unnecessary, for the vast majority of amateur-to-budding-prosumer users on the market. Thus, for most people, that makes the 70D the perfect camera. It has pro-level controls, superb APS-C performance and handles like a dream.

One thing is for sure - there is absolutely no comparison with my previous T3 (1100D). The 70D runs laps around it, and then some. From that perspective, I couldn't be happier.

 

[neonblingbling]

Glad to hear you're having a positive experience! Once I have some disposable income, I'm interested in checking out either the 70D or 7D... Yes, going back to crop (mostly for reach and FPS).

If you don't mind, I'd like to take a shot at the first butterfly picture. PM incoming.

 

[hokiealumnus]

PM received and RAW emailed.

The reach is definitely nice...getting the equivalent of 216mm out of my 135mm lens is helpful. The speed is incredible. 7(ish, depending on your settings) FPS feels crazy fast.

Honestly, the 70D's leaps forward in handling (touch screen is not just a gimmick, I assure you), video focusing and JPEG processing (Digic 5+ processor, with its accompanying algorithms) make the it the better choice. You also get the same autofocus system through the viewfinder, and a vastly improved live view system.

The 7D is built tougher (with the accompanying weight), and has about a 1FPS advantage, plus a bigger buffer. Aside from that, the 70D is superior in all other ways.

If you need those couple things, I'd wait for the 7D Mark II, if that is indeed going to happen...but nobody knows when.

 

[neonblingbling]

From my understanding, the 7D does have a different AF setting that is a bit smarter with hard targets (birds in trees). If the 7D is truly 1 FPS faster (14%), I would prefer it for my 'spray and pray' shots. Plus having a 25 RAW vs 16 RAW buffer capacity would help with the fast shooting (alternatively, I could try shooting JPG). On the other hand, the 70D high ISO shots look very good, plus the convenience/cost of SD cards is a big plus. Also wouldn't mind a touch and articulating screen. I think if I can find a deal and have the cash, I'd jump on either that comes up first...

Here's my attempt at the RAW file. My main goal was to bring out a little more detail in the butterfly, and reduce the noise a little in the back. Cant say it wasn't possible with the JPG but I didn't try. I'm still trying to figure out a good preset to automate the process; I try not to shoot RAW + JPG due to filling the camera buffer too quickly.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Good points on the additions of the 7D that I missed. Those aren't things that I would need and the fact that the body costs more than the 70D for older technology (even if better in some areas) really sealed the deal for me. If I needed those things in the 7D, I'd probably hold off for the 7D Mark II. That said, it's only supposed to be announced in 2014, so whether it will even be out this year is a big question mark.

Thanks for giving that a whirl, it was indeed much better than the in-camera result for that shot. It was also the most heavily cropped, which is probably one of the reasons the jpg was not so great. I definitely appreciate those skilled with PS like you. Perhaps I'll get there some day.

If you happen to remember (and have time) could you outline what you did to it? Something along the lines of "I used [this] control to do [this]." or "...selected [this] area to do [this] using [this]. That kind of thing. It may be too much, but if it's not, that would help those of us who have no idea what we're doing.

 

[neonblingbling]

I actually used Lightroom for all the adjustments.

First, I since I haven't updated to LR 5 yet, I needed to download the latest Adobe DNG converter to read the 70D CR2 file.
I enabled lens profile correction. This actually has minimal effect for this heavily cropped image, but on wider shots, it helps reduce the vignetting around the edges, and makes the center of the image 'flatter', reducing the distortion.
I bumped the shadows (think of it as increasing the exposure, but of only the shadows in the image), increased the contrast, increase the exposure by a quarter stop, reduced the highlights. This overall gives it the feeling of the same exposure as the original, but brought out the darker areas.
From there I played with the colors a little. Increase saturation and vibrance a little, and also warmed it up by 200k. Use Luminance Smoothing to reduce the noise a little, but at the same time trying to save some details (leaf hairs were a strong indicator). At this point, I felt like the flowers were too bright, so I reduced the purple and magenta saturation a little.

I think that covers most of the edits. I cant recommend Lightroom enough, even if it's just for organization... Eventually you might find yourself tweaking pictures here and there.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Awesome, thank you for sharing. That's a great description. I'll file it away in my 'need to remember this' section of the brain.

 

[neonblingbling]

So I got the chance to play with a 70D yesterday. I am amazed by the AF performance in live view. I am looking forward to renting one so I can fully test it (I didn't want to burst too many frames on my friend's 'baby'). I forgot the files, so I cant play with them to see how they did side-by-side with my 6D. But overall, I would have to agree that the newer technologies of the 70D make it more appealing than the 7D... Might have to wait for the 7D2.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Glad you enjoyed it, and definitely agreed about how much live view has improved.

Except for crazy high ISO shots and a shallower DoF on the 6D, they should be very close to each other for IQ.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Nikons rule, Canons drool

Seriously nice camera you have. Makes me jealous. I'm hoping to eventually get a good used T3i and have it full spectrum moded for IR and astro photography and normal light too with the proper IR/UV cutoff filters.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Sounds interesting Audio; what would that sort of mod cost...and would it work with regular photos afterward?

(Didn't want to respond in the same post as putting more review stuff, hence the double-post. Sorry in advance.)

 

[hokiealumnus]

Kingston is sending what they call their "Fastest SDHC/SDXC UHS-I Speed Class 3 (U3) Card for 4K and Ultra-HD Video Capture" (link to page) for me to have a look at since I have this camera. I'll of course post file transfer speed numbers but more importantly for photography purposes, we'll get to see how much, if any, effect it has on the 70D's ability to shoot more RAW and RAW+JPEG without filling the buffer. As such, I needed to have some comparison numbers!

These were run with a 16GB Transcend Class 6 SDHC card. Class 6 is rated for a minimum 6MB/s transfer speed, making it just on the edge of acceptable for 1080p video, or so Wikipedia tells me. As this camera uses ALL-I format, that may or may not be a problem. So far it hasn't, but I haven't recorded much ALL-I and have the camera set to IPB to save hard drive space. Regardless of video stuff, this is a DSLR, not a video camera, despite its great abilities when shooting video. So what concerns us for the purposes of this thread is a) FPS and b) buffer performance. I'll save info about the new card for when it gets here, but here is the 70D's FPS and buffer performance with a far less than top of the line SDHC card.

You can see the shooting info in the graph, but for reference f/3.5 is wide open aperture on the EF-S 18-135mm IS at 18mm, so that aperture wouldn't slow it down. Obviously all of these numbers will be reduced somewhat in real-world use, but setting the camera like this and shooting with the lens cap on ensures repeatable performance so that you can obtain proper comparison numbers. I didn't note it in the graph, but the lens was set to manual focus.

As you can see, if you shoot in JPEG only mode, the camera does over its rated 7 FPS even with this kind of card. After 15 seconds of shooting, the camera took a total of 108 JPEG shots. As such, I consider the buffer to be not-fill-able when shooting JPEGs. The chances of anyone actually shooting 15 seconds at 7 FPS seem to be slim, so I didn't feel the need to go further and will consider that conclusive.

Once you get to RAW and especially RAW+JPEG, card speed will matter, potentially a lot. The interface can only transfer so fast of course, and after a certain point card speed will be greater than what the camera can transfer, but with a Class 6 card you're seeing just how limited things can get. At the end of the buffer-fill period, it had taken 18 RAW shots and 9 RAW+JPEG shots. After 15 seconds, those numbers were 25 and 17, respectively. Once the buffer fills, you're looking at RAW FPS of .57 FPS and RAW+JPEG of .44 FPS.

When shooting JPEG only, you can get a Class 6 card and be happy. When shooting RAW even, 18 shots before filling the buffer really isn't that bad. It will catch most of anything for any purpose for most people other than maybe dedicated sports or air show shooters. RAW+JPEG? Not so much.

I'm not sure when the Kingston card will arrive nor when I'll get it done, but these numbers should increase with that card. You'll just have to wait and see how much when the time comes.