EOS 60D or wait for the 70D

I am looking to purchase an APSc body mostly for shooting urban wildlife, some macro or closeup of larger insects and outdoor pets. I already have two 5DII and plan to order the 1.4x III TC within the next few days but I still believe that even with the TC my 200 IS lens is just not long enough on a FF body. Up until last summer I had been shooting with a 50D and I was very satisfied with it except for the amount of shadow noise it's sensor seem to produce even at low ISO settings so I am wondering if the 60D is any better in that aspect or should I just save my money and wait for the long awaited release of the 70D? I have been thinking about getting a T4i but I am just not a fan of the penta mirror viewfinder in the Rebels and the lack of the back control wheel and I dont need the higher fps and 19 point af of the 7D either.

Never wait for something we have idea of when it will be here.
Besides, if it's anything like the last 4 years, the 70D will be a 60D and little else.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15936087
Never wait for something we have idea of when it will be here.
Besides, if it's anything like the last 4 years, the 70D will be a 60D and little else.

Well I was hoping that Canon may will release an improved version of the 18 mpixel sensor used in the 60D/7D/t2i/t3i maybe with less shadow noise and wider dynamic range but maybe I am just wishing for the impossible.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15936087
Never wait for something we have idea of when it will be here.
Besides, if it's anything like the last 4 years, the 70D will be a 60D and little else.

LOL! Ain't that the truth.

OP: your question really shouldn't be whether there's something better around the corner. There almost always is.

It should be whether or not the 60D will be sufficient for your needs. If it will be, then you should just get it and that's that. If it won't be, then you should get something that will, or wait until you can afford something that will.

But don't wait just because something New and Improved is coming out, because you'll just be waiting forever and, worse, you'll find yourself always craving the latest and greatest. Much better to figure out what's really going to make you happy and go directly for that, or for whatever is as close to that as you can get.

kcbrown wrote in post #15936104
LOL! Ain't that the truth.

OP: your question really shouldn't be whether there's something better around the corner. There almost always is.

It should be whether or not the 60D will be sufficient for your needs. If it will be, then you should just get it and that's that. If it won't be, then you should get something that will, or wait until you can afford something that will.

But don't wait just because something New and Improved is coming out, because you'll just be waiting forever and, worse, you'll find yourself always craving the latest and greatest. Much better to figure out what's really going to make you happy and go directly for that, or for whatever is as close to that as you can get.

I guess I should have used a better title
Looking at the specs the 60D should be enough for what I need but I really dont want another body that produce the similar amount of shadow noise as I have seen in the images from my 50D

If you tell me what you want, I 'll see whether I can get it to you...

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Thank you for posting the images
most of my images do have the similar dark green background and if no noise reduction was used in your images then I am impressed by the relatively clean images from the 60D.

SOOC

The Exif is intact. I have never seen noise at ISO 400.

I have standard High ISO NR but I don't think it does anything much until 3200...

Here is a ISO6400 with whatever NR the camera did

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I am at work right now using a crappy laptop and MS iExplorer so I cant see any exif info but I will check those images again when I get home. So I assume that those are in camera processed jpegs and not post processed RAW? I have heard that the newer bodies do produce very clean jpeg files but I still prefer shooting RAW and do the post processing myself. Also from what I have seen and heard that shadow noise is a bit different than high ISO noise which means even a camera that have excellent high iso noise performance can produce large amount of shadow noise even at the lowest iso settings.

Indeed the 60D produces very good high ISO jpegs. I am reasonably well versed in NR, but I have to try really hard to surpass from RAW what comes out of the camera in jpeg.

I know I am in the minority, but I shoot RAW only when I know that I might need it. I have yet to have a problem with my jpegs unless I screw it up, in which case RAW probably wouldn't help either.

As far as shadow noise goes, it is evident that I don't know what it is...

I don't use Lightroom, so I am not one of those who 'lift' the shadows. My Linux programs don't do this. Well, I have a method or two if I really need them, but I normally don't do this kind of thing.

If I can help in anyway regarding the 60D, it will be my pleasure.

Here is the previous crop derived from RAW with no NR (I occasionally shoot RAW+JPEG...).

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I decided to not wait for the 70D or 7Dii and just dropped some money on the 60D. It didn't hurt that in the time since I bought my 6D they dropped the price on it so I could put the difference against the 60D. I am quite happy with it as a crop body. It has a very similar layout as the 6D and uses the same battery. The AF system is certainly superior to my Rebels which are consigned to UW use only now and the 6D. If and when they announce a new crop sensor it will have to really be interesting to get me to jump. I have so much EF and EF-S glass that I am not switching to Nikon, but if I didn't the D7100 and D800 would be an awesome pair.

FuturamaJSP wrote in post #15936225
Thank you for posting the images
most of my images do have the similar dark green background and if no noise reduction was used in your images then I am impressed by the relatively clean images from the 60D.

The shadow noise that is reported is generally deep shadow noise, and often can't really be seen unless one pushes the shadows, which can happen through a number of means (e.g., reducing contrast).

Most people actually crush their blacks a bit in order to make the image look more interesting, and that will cause the shadow noise to disappear.


The bottom line here is that the shadow noise you're concerned about isn't going to be an issue unless you postprocess your images in such a way as to make it visible. The shadow noise out of the 7D (and, hence, the 60D) is a bit better overall than what you get out of the 50D, but the 18 megapixel sensor will show some vertical banding in the deep shadows that you don't get with the 50D. This may or may not affect you, depending on how you postprocess your images.

As far as I recall, the "70D" hasn't been officially announced by Canon, so I would not bother waiting. I've had my 60D for about 4 months now after upgrading from a Nikon D3000 and it really is both a blast to use and a great piece of equipment. If I can be of service with any image samples, feel free to ask!

MakisM1 wrote in post #15936440
Indeed the 60D produces very good high ISO jpegs. I am reasonably well versed in NR, but I have to try really hard to surpass from RAW what comes out of the camera in jpeg.

I know I am in the minority, but I shoot RAW only when I know that I might need it. I have yet to have a problem with my jpegs unless I screw it up, in which case RAW probably wouldn't help either.

As far as shadow noise goes, it is evident that I don't know what it is...

I don't use Lightroom, so I am not one of those who 'lift' the shadows. My Linux programs don't do this. Well, I have a method or two if I really need them, but I normally don't do this kind of thing.

If I can help in anyway regarding the 60D, it will be my pleasure.

Here is the previous crop derived from RAW with no NR (I occasionally shoot RAW+JPEG...).

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So, there is a bit of noise... nothing I can't eliminate with very light NR... keep in mind this is 100% crop, so you are pixel peeping obscenely...

You know I was actually about to buy a 60D right after Christmas because it was on sale for like 600 bucks at my local camera store but I was stupid and had to ask the salesman how much they wanted for a brand new 5Dmk2 and after hearing that it was also on sale for 1800 bucks with tax and everything I foolishly decided to get another 5D instead so now I am trying to correct my mistake here by buying what I should have bought

kcbrown wrote in post #15936658
The shadow noise that is reported is generally deep shadow noise, and often can't really be seen unless one pushes the shadows, which can happen through a number of means (e.g., reducing contrast).

Most people actually crush their blacks a bit in order to make the image look more interesting, and that will cause the shadow noise to disappear.


The bottom line here is that the shadow noise you're concerned about isn't going to be an issue unless you postprocess your images in such a way as to make it visible. The shadow noise out of the 7D (and, hence, the 60D) is a bit better overall than what you get out of the 50D, but the 18 megapixel sensor will show some vertical banding in the deep shadows that you don't get with the 50D. This may or may not affect you, depending on how you postprocess your images.

I do push shadows in some of my shots especially landscapes but with closeup and macro images I normally only increase contrast a bit. I assume what you meant by "crushing blacks" (just to be clear I am absolutely not a racist) is to make shadow areas darker which is something I rarely do so I will keep it in mind and try it out. Well the 50D does produce quite a lot of vertical banding in the deep shadows so I do hope the 60D is worse than it's predecessor.
Like this one:

ravenseal wrote in post #15936719
As far as I recall, the "70D" hasn't been officially announced by Canon, so I would not bother waiting. I've had my 60D for about 4 months now after upgrading from a Nikon D3000 and it really is both a blast to use and a great piece of equipment. If I can be of service with any image samples, feel free to ask!

I know the 70D is still a ghost camera but they have to announce a successor pretty soon now that Nikon has released the D7100. I just hope Canon wont follow Nikon by introducing a 20+ mpixel apsc sensor and instead choose to improve the current sensor by giving it wider DR and lower high ISO noise. May I ask why you chose to switch to Canon when Nikon has the excellent 16mpixel D7000?

FuturamaJSP wrote in post #15936950
I do push shadows in some of my shots especially landscapes but with closeup and macro images I normally only increase contrast a bit. I assume what you meant by "crushing blacks" (just to be clear I am absolutely not a racist) is to make shadow areas darker which is something I rarely do so I will keep it in mind and try it out. Well the 50D does produce quite a lot of vertical banding in the deep shadows so I do hope the 60D is worse than it's predecessor.
Like this one:

I've got a 50D, and went back to look at some of the images I've taken with an eye towards examining shadow noise.

The noise it generates is actually a crosshatch pattern. That's going to be very annoying and difficult to eliminate.

I can tell you that the 60D won't have that problem. What it may have is straight-up vertical banding in the very deep shadows. It's not a crosshatch pattern, just vertical banding. It is relatively easy to get rid of with Nik DFine.

Now, the 7D has that problem somewhat prominently, but it tends not to be an issue in the general case. My understanding, and it's confirmed in the few raw files I've played with, is that the vertical banding from the 60D is much less than what is produced by the 7D.

I think the bottom line is that for shadow noise, the 60D will be a notable improvement over the 50D.


You should get online and find some raw files generated by the 60D at ISO 100, and play with them a bit to see what you can see.

I will say this: none of Canon's current cameras are free of pattern noise in the deep shadows at low ISOs. Not even the 1DX. But some have it more than others. The 7D is the worst, and it's not horrible by any stretch. In fact, aside from the banding itself, the 7D's shadows are noticeably less noisy than the 50D's from what I can see.

I think you'll be fine with a 60D, but again, you're best off playing with a few raw files from it first if you can.