Comments on: 5D mkII and 7D comparison

By: Daniel Valente

Daniel Valente — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:48:29 +0000

Cool test. I agree the 7d does look better. Lots of vignetting on the 5d Mk II. What lens was used? I had a 5d Mk II but returned it because it was corrupting raw files shot in a burst. I replaced it with the 7d. The 7d + 85mm f/1.8 is a low-light champ! I’ve been really happy with ISO 2000 and lower and ISO 3200 is totally useable. The 5d Mk II I had also banded at base ISO, which the 7d doesn’t had.

In my perfect world, the 7d would have used the 1.3 x 10 megapixel sensor from the 1d Mk III + Dual Digic 4s. Wow that would be a sweet camera…

Anyways I did some equally non-scientific but informative test on the 5d Mk II and came up with the same result:
http://danielvalentephotography.com/2010/03/17/canon-5d-mk-ii-noise-in-low-iso-images/

And btw these aren’t inaccurate when I am shooting something I want to be able to set my ISO, shutter, AWB and aperture and take a shot. I’m not going to measure everything, mess around with lighting changes minute by minute etc. I want to know how a camera is going to before in the moment that I need to take the picture…

By: Noah ( San Francisco Wedding Photographer )

Noah ( San Francisco Wedding Photographer ) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:36:37 +0000

I just got a 7D, so I’ll be trying this combo out too. Nice to see that it has such good results at high ISO. I wasn’t expecting performance that good.

By: Zlatko

Zlatko — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:59:53 +0000

Thanks very much for posting this. I appreciate the simple test. The differences are interesting, as are the similarities. I use the 5DII and it appears from this that the 7D is also a very capable high ISO camera. By the way, comparing them at f/16 wouldn’t be useful to me as I never shoot at f/16.

By: Craig Kohlruss

Craig Kohlruss — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:24:16 +0000

Hi William,

Thanks for adding your comment to my blog. This was never meant as a scientific trial of the two cameras but rather a simple test for people to use when considering which one they might like to look into further. I thought the 7D got a bum rap early on with its 1.6 crop sensor and those who insisted the quality of the image couldn’t be as good as the 5dmkII. I think this test shows it’s not all that bad. It might even be slightly better. But this test DOES NOT show that the 5dmkII is an inferior camera in my opinion. It just shows that the 7D isn’t either. I have both cameras and need both for different purposes. Using my 50mm f/1.4 for example would give me a much different image with the 7D than it does the 5DmkII. For me this test shows that I can use the 7D in low light with a tighter frame and a higher fps and not worry about the results. It’s not meant to discount the quality of the 5DmkII because that will still be my main portrait camera.

By: William Bray

William Bray — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:56:14 +0000

Thanks for this test. I have posted a question on photo net http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00V0P4
and I said what I thought that I can’t see where the 5d camera as a whole is a brilliant deal when compared to the 7d.
A lot of people went mad, people who own a 5dMKII will never accept this.
There has been 2 pros who said to me if they could do it again the would choose the 7d over the 5d MKII and they’re not wildlife or sports photographers
Canon got the sensor right but everything else that makes a camera was rushed, I think they were frightened a lot of people would switch to nikon.
I love canon L lenses i’ve shot with canon for years and been happy but untill the 7d arrived I was feeling short changed by canon.