7d grabs

[morgan_moore]

I am not a 'tester' - but have been shocked by my bad perceptions of the 7d after shooting with EX1 and 5d for the last 9 months

If it is wooly then it is no good IMO, the 5d can make pretty colors we know that

S

 

[Bryce O]

my worst experiences (not repeatable tests) seem to be showing the 7 looking horrid with a wide lens at deep DOF in a complex envionment (steadicam through a room)

S

Yea, definitely, those situations will destroy the picture. Ex1 or Xh-a1 is way better for Doc-style or run and gun where everything needs to be handheld and sharp. 7D is for in controlled situations with fast primes where you're going to be shooting "cinematically" i.e. slow controlled motion, close-ups, soft backgrounds, ect...

 

[Roberto B]

The sign is made of corroguated plastic

I think the 5 shows this and begins to alaise it too

me was kidding.. that is not aliasing.. just corrugated plastic detail you don't find with your 7d test

 

[Eddy Robinson]

Well you can actually see chroma noise on the blue part in the 5d picture, though I agree that this is because it is a bit sharper!

 

[Bryce O]

I've been doing some tests and found that shooting with the sharpness all the way down gets rid of almost all of the aliasing. It can still appear, but you have to try hard. I'll have to shoot in more conditions tomorrow and post some video.

 

[morgan_moore]

My conclusion (for the next three days) is..

Having tested against the 5d they are the same

the 5d is 5% better but for a PAL shooter that 5% is not worth the retiming hassles

IMO the 5d does amazing 'smoke and mirrors' of fooling the eye that the subject is sharp by pinging it off the background

By changing ones lens, framing and aperture choices one can perform the same trick with the 7d

The trick is hard to perform with a non cine wide lens

I have always masked the limit of resolution of my 5 by adding 'film grain' to my footage

Given extra sharpening in post, different lense framing choices and the same addition of noise one can create equally pleasant footage, footage that I would describe as great 720p

additionally the 7d is harder to focus (short throws) and really needs a great monitoring solution which I have not found yet

S

 

[Joel Kaye]

Having tested against the 5d they are the same

So the 7D and 5D are about the same now? And how is the Gh1 vs. the 5D?

additionally the 7d is harder to focus (short throws) and really needs a great monitoring solution which I have not found yet

I'm not sure why the 7D would be tougher to focus. Most of the guys around here have been worrying that full frame cameras will be tougher to focus due to shallower DOF given the same composition as compared with a smaller sensor camera. Makes sense to me. 16mm is a lot easier to focus than 35mm is. Seems 7D and 5D should behave the same.

The Lilliput 619GL with HDMI input is working pretty well for me. Brightness and Colors seem to beat the RED LCD. Not sure about the true resolution but it's usable for focus. Stick a small battery on the back of it and you're in business. I think Canon needs to add an edge focus assist like RED has to be super usable though.

 

[morgan_moore]

I am beginning (subject to more testing ) to feel that the 5 and 7 are the same, the 5 maringally better but not strong enough to outwiegh the retiming to PAL headaches

The 5 pulls an amazing trick IMO of fooling the brain to perceive sharpness because of the shallow DOF in many scenes make the subject pop off the background

Pulling focus

Im talking about DSLR lenses which have very short barrel throws

If you compose your scene to create shallow DOF you will be further back with the 7 and therefore closer to infinity meaning smaller adjustments of the lens are required to track moves of a given distance

Given cine lenses or some form of FF with appropriate downgearing that issue would go away

Possbily a reason why Red users moan about the throw of DSLR lenses and 5d users dont,

The same would be true of a 16mm user using 35mm cine lenses and recomposing or opening up to attempt to make thier 16mm look like 35, I assum 16mm lenses have appropriate gearing for thier format whereas stills primes have appropriate gearing for shooting stills on 35FF, many smaller newer DSLR lenses (wide zooms) have gearing appropriate to nothing because they are really deigned for AF use

Now im on a red size chip im moaning too

S

 

[Joel Kaye]

If you compose your scene to create shallow DOF you will be further back with the 7

That idea doesn't make any sense to me at all. A s35mm sensor is not like a video camera where you need to back up and zoom in to get shallow DOF. F2 or F2.8 is plenty shallow on almost any lens.

I'd argue that you need to be shooting the 5D at F5.6 or F8 before it stops looking TOO shallow. I see super shallow DOF on a lot of 5D footage and I don't prefer that look. I've also seen it on many lens adapter cameras. Now I realize what was going on. Many of the lens adapters can be set up to be Full Frame... their DOF was too shallow, people shoot wide open because they need the light and it looks weird (to me). In the 5D's case you might be able to ISO up to 3200 and shoot at smaller apertures. Not sure.

 

[morgan_moore]

That depends on the look you are after which is entirely subjective

I agree that the 5 can look too isolating, and therefore tended to shoot in th 4-5.6 region rather than being a prime obsesive

This was a boon because it made cheap light lenses work (24-105F4 and 70-200F4 L glass - the whole gammut for $3k and 1.5 KG amazing)

Very practical lenses - you could virtually shoot a feature with that coverage and the set up times because of less lens changes was a winner

(Ive got my 70-200 on it own FF and tripod mount - so never have to re allign a FF rig)

Ive swapped the 24-105 for a 16-50 2.8 for wide coverage for use with the 7

THis 'slow is OK' does not work so well on the 7 - im going to be back at F2 on my 50 more often than I was on the 5

In fact given the lens implications I may be thinking 5 again !

S