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7DII and landscape photography

tinwhistle
Enthusiast

I'm thinking of updating to the 7DII. In the course of on line research I've seen it mentioned that this camera excells at most everythinmg except landscapes. Anyone out there have this experience?? Thanks for any input...

 

Chris

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Peter
Authority
Authority
The comparsion or not, old 7D has no good noise pattern at low ISO. Especially in a blue sky. The pattern is visible. New 7DII has not this noise pattern. Neither do 40D.

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@tinwhistle wrote:

I hate to confess this, especially since I've been "taking pictures" for about 60 years and even been paid to take some, but I have no idea of what the following statements mean: dual ISO, dynamic range, moire, aliasing.

 

tinwhistle    aka   Chris


Dual ISO isn't really a universally understood term even among hard-core photographers.  It was a trick created by the authors of Magic Lantern who used it in an attempt to reduce the amount of digital "noise" in an image shot at high ISO.

 

Dynamic range:  If you meter a subject and it turns out you realize you can get a good exposure of this subject at (I'll make up something) ISO 100, f/8, and 1/400th second exposure, it turns out that if your subject will still probably be fine even if over-exposed or under-exposed by just 1 stop.  Most cameras would have no problems with up to 3 stops in either driection (even a camera that isn't thought of as being very good).    When you shoot some types of scenes (landscapes are noted for this) you can meter the brightest object in your scene (say... some puffy white clouds in the sky) and also the darkest element in your scene (the tree-trunks in the forest shadows at the end of a meadow).  If you expose for the puffy cloud, the tree-trunks are just black.  If you expose for the tree-trunks in shadow the sky is blown out.     So you try to expose for the middle and HOPE that your camera sensor has enough "dynamic range" that neither the puffy clouds nor the shadowy areas are clipped or blown out.  Some camera sensors do better at this than others.    That's the idea behind "dynamic range" -- how far can you go (under or over) your intended exposure without losing details that get clipped or blown out.

 

Moiré:  If you lay a one piece of screen on top of another piece of screen and then slightly rotate the top piece (so that the rows and columns of wires are not parallel) you'll get an interesting pattern.  That pattern is called "moiré".  See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern

 

This wasn't a problem with film because the film isn't made up of light-sensitive material all in neat little rows and columns.  It was a chemical coating in which each molecure was more or less randomly positioned.    But since digital cameras DO use light-sensitive photo-sites which are neatly aligned in rows and columns, you can get a moiré pattern if your subject has a pattern which is almost-but-not-quite, parallel to the sensor rows and columns.

 

To combat this problem, the camera employs a "low pass filter".  The filter very slightly softens the sharpness of the image and this combats the moiré pattern.  This slight softening is sometimes referred to as anti-aliasing.  

 

Consider that the reason you do NOT see moiré pattern with film is because the surface coating on film is composed of molecures of light-sensitive material which are randomly distributed and not in neat rows and columns... and you only see the pattern when one pattern of rows and columns is placed on another pattern of rows and columns -- but without perfect alignment.   Therefore, if we slightly degrade the perfection of our rows and columns in just one of the layers, we wouldn't see the moiré pattern.  This is basically what the low-pass filter is doing.

 

Aliasing is the notion of getting a jagged edge when, in fact, you know the subject you photographed has a straight edge.  This effect is particularly noticeable at low resolution.  In images it is also known as "spatial aliasing".  See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing

 

The 5Ds r (specifically with the "r" suffix) removes the low-pass (anti-aliasing) filter which allows for a sharper final image... but at the risk that should you photograph something with a neat row/column pattern (anything with parallel or vertical lines close together) you can get the moiré pattern.    Nature and lanscape photographers are less likely to encounter this.  Fasion photographers, on the other hand, probably encounter this problem in fabrics fairly often.  Canon makes the camera both with and without the filter and the photographer can make their own (hopefully informed) decision as to which they prefer.

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da

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31 REPLIES 31

Peter
Authority
Authority
Dual ISO is included in Magic Lantern and if you fail with it Canon guarantee will not help you.


@Peter wrote:
Dual ISO is included in Magic Lantern and if you fail with it Canon guarantee will not help you.

Thanks for the clarification. I can't imagine that I'd ever use Magic Lantern, but out of curiosity: If ML starts causing problems, or if you change your mind, is it possible to restore the Canon firmware? Or is that a one-way street?

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

Peter
Authority
Authority
ML is not a firmware. But it changes the bootflag of the camera. Same as with a computer. You choose if you want to boot with the floppy disk or the hard drive. Change it back and the camera will be normal again if nothing has happend during the ML time.


@Peter wrote:
ML is not a firmware. But it changes the bootflag of the camera. Same as with a computer. You choose if you want to boot with the floppy disk or the hard drive. Change it back and the camera will be normal again if nothing has happend during the ML time.

Ah, so it's similar to that configuration program (I forget its name) that people used to install on P&S cameras a few years ago. From some of the warnings I'd seen, I had concluded that ML was more strongly integrated and actually changed the firmware. Thanks for setting me straight. I still doubt I'll use it, though  Smiley Wink

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

Tim Campbell, again has hit on the most important thing, "Nature and lanscape photographers are less likely to encounter this."  A  landscape photographer is not likely to encounter any of the problems attributed, here, to the 7D and much lees the 7D Mk II.

 

Besides some or even most of any of this seen in a photo can be corrected in post.  Either LR or PS or both.  Still a lot of this is pixel peepers and not from folks interestred in a usable final print.

 

I, personally, never installed ML on any camera.  One reason is the extremely bad outcomes from some who have.  If your firmware is screwed up by ML, or just by a mistake of you installing or uninstalling, it takes Canon to fix it.  You can't!

I guess it is a love it or hate it deal.  IMHO, I prefer post processing. 

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

Peter
Authority
Authority
You mean CHDK? Yes. I used it on my Powershot S3IS. Nice but a little bit work.

For the 300D there was real firmware hack because 300D and 10D had the same hardware inside. Someday I would like to buy the old 300D and install that thing.

jrhoffman75
Legend
Legend
I add this comment not to nitpick but because it is an important feature of the 5DsR. The low pass filter isn't physically removed. The effect of the low pass filter is canceled via firmware programming in the camera. This was supposedly because actually removing the filter would have involved a redesign of camera.
John Hoffman
Conway, NH

1D X Mark III, Many lenses, Pixma PRO-100, Pixma TR8620a, LR Classic


@jrhoffman75 wrote:
I add this comment not to nitpick but because it is an important feature of the 5DsR. The low pass filter isn't physically removed. The effect of the low pass filter is canceled via firmware programming in the camera. This was supposedly because actually removing the filter would have involved a redesign of camera.

OK, I'll ask the obvious question: If it's done in firmware, why couldn't there be just one 5Ds with a menu option to turn IR filtering on or off? (I'm assuming, reasonably enough, that there aren't any actual hardware differences between the 5Ds and the 5DsR.)

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

I stand corrected. It's an optical cancellation effect vs a removal of the filter.

From dpreview.

"There are two versions of the 5Ds with the 5Ds R being the other model. The only difference between the 5Ds and the 5Ds R is that the "R" incorporates an optical low pass filter effect cancellation, essentially negating the effects of the low pass filter. Chuck Westfall (Canon USA) explains the difference: "The EOS 5DS uses a conventional low pass filter design in which a single point of image data entering the filter is first separated into two points and ultimately into four points by the time the data reaches the image sensor. By comparison, the EOS 5DS R uses a different low pass filter design in which the single point entering the filter is first separated into two points and then the two points are merged back into a single point by the time the data reaches the image sensor."

Using the optical cancellation technique (vs. complete filter removal) greatly reduces development and implementation costs. The "R" delivers sharper images, but moiré and aliasing are potential side effects, notably in scenes that include patterns repeating at a specific frequency. Fortunately, Chuck expects this phenomenon to seldom occur and indicated that "If it does, it can usually be mitigated during post processing." I directly compare these two cameras in the Canon EOS 5Ds R review."
John Hoffman
Conway, NH

1D X Mark III, Many lenses, Pixma PRO-100, Pixma TR8620a, LR Classic

"Chuck (and me) expects this phenomenon to seldom occur and indicated that "If it does, it can usually be mitigated during post processing."

 

Smiley Happy Absolutely!  As usual post is where it is at.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!
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