7d losing skin texture...quite disappointed.

Julian,

I've been shocked in some of the replies I've gotten in this thread. I still dont think its copy variations but more like nature of the product in the 7D body.

Infact i PM'd someone that uses a 1dmk3 for wedding work. He also expressed "adequate" metering but care and attention is required. Also the exact characteristics of not so reliable metering. Also shooting from one angle direction to the complete opposite the colours can go from one color kelvin of daylight to orange/yellow. Off colors in artificial light too. WOW so I'm not off my rocker. I've so far gotten a handful of identical characteristics that I exhibit in my 1dmk3. Many people wont publicly announce the "bad" in the investement they made in a body. Perhaps I'm more vocal about the copy I have in camera bodies.

I'm trying to get my hands on a 1dmk4. I still prefer the vaporware 5dmk3 regardless of cost..just cant jump to a 1dsmk series $$$. I'm too cheap to jump ship to other brands... I'm appearing to be a complaining...I just think I may potentially be making people aware of things they do not notice or just that they simply accept it.

I'll have to eliminate emotional displeasure in the gear I have. I'll simply take the good from whatever gear I use.

I think your post has been reasonable op.

It seems you have found a limitation for one reason or another with the 7d.

Myself personally, I am now looking to invest in a 5d classic at some point, as I want that "portrait" camera.

Does that mean the 7d is no good?

No.

It just means the 5d is better at what it does best, portraits.

AlanU wrote in post #12297259
Julian,

I've been shocked in some of the replies I've gotten in this thread. I still dont think its copy variations but more like nature of the product in the 7D body.

Infact i PM'd someone that uses a 1dmk3 for wedding work. He also expressed "adequate" metering but care and attention is required. Also the exact characteristics of not so reliable metering. Also shooting from one angle direction to the complete opposite the colours can go from one color kelvin of daylight to orange/yellow. Off colors in artificial light too. WOW so I'm not off my rocker. I've so far gotten a handful of identical characteristics that I exhibit in my 1dmk3. Many people wont publicly announce the "bad" in the investement they made in a body. Perhaps I'm more vocal about the copy I have in camera bodies.

I'm trying to get my hands on a 1dmk4. I still prefer the vaporware 5dmk3 regardless of cost..just cant jump to a 1dsmk series $$$. I'm too cheap to jump ship to other brands... I'm appearing to be a complaining...I just think I may potentially be making people aware of things they do not notice or just that they simply accept it.

I'll have to eliminate emotional displeasure in the gear I have. I'll simply take the good from whatever gear I use.

Alan,

It's possible that some are more emotionally attached/connected to their gear. One's spending hard-earned (insert currency) so one would like think they're getting the best they could afford. It's also possible that some have higher standards from the files they're working with. And it's also possible that some (like me) are working from an ignorance standpoint, as I don't own a FF to be able to compare.

But in my personal case, I don't have any disillusionment that the 7D files are superior than FF or APS-H. I know the limitations and the compromises that come with cramming 18mp onto a APS-C sized sensor. And as you've noted, the 7D can do quite well, but the slack-window is significantly smaller. It's the same as using lower-end glass... where the image at the pixel-peeping level won't look as sharp. This 18mp sensor is a double-edged sword.

It took me awhile to realize and accept the fact that most people actually don't care. And by that I mean non-photography people, the paying general public/clients. As an example, when it comes to my own wife, I could talk myself blue in the face about what gear would generate the best images and it would be in one ear, out the other. All she cares about is whether "the moments" are captured. She doesn't care about bokeh, DoF, doesn't even really care much about smoothness of lighting. All she sees (or at least cares to see) is the facial expressions, the people captured, etc... To her, and I'm sure many others, looking at photographs of personal events jogs her memories, her emotions. It's a trigger, not the end all. While the photos (whether digitally viewed or physically held in hand) are nice to have and look at... the photos themselves aren't important, but it's the memories/emotions that are awakened of the event.

So while the photographers (wannabes like me) and gearheads in us want to strive for the best possible IQ/presentation... we need to keep in mind that what we think is important may not be important to someone else.

And just because a 7D is a disappointment to you (and I'm sure a few others), that doesn't make it any better/worse of a camera. It simply means that the camera didn't meet your expectations, meet your needs/requirements for what you shoot. I wouldn't tell you to shoot Nikon because I don't know if Nikon would do any better/worse. But in terms of overall IQ, 7D is not going to stand toe-to-toe to FF nor APS-H. But the fact that its even part of the conversation shows how far APS-C has come (despite it's limitations).

OP, sorry if my response offended you. I suppose it is just me getting more fed up than usual reading post after post whinning or arm waving about something that doesn't seem warranted.

Is every picture I take great or even good? Far from it, but the problem is always between my ears or with something else I have done. I've been through a number of bodies and lenses and when something isn't right it has always been with me, never the tool. Don't beleive me? Search my user name and find one post complaining or arm waving over body or lens issues. If I have a problem, I figure out what is wrong and correct as appropriate, that is part of the fun. If you think you have it all figured out, I'm here to tell you, regardless of your experience level, you don't.

Back to the topic......I like the post processing angle for resolving your concerns. I would do as Teamspeed suggests and start using DPP as your post processing engine to rule out funky or inconsistent output from other sources. There is a history of processors messing up JPG output or having less than stellar performance from release to release.

HKGuns wrote in post #12297752
I would do as Teamspeed suggests

And post a CR2 file, just to ensure that it's nothing to do with post processing?

HKguns, thank you for chiming back in. Its all good when we brainstorm about techniques and gear. I think we all get somewhat enthusiastic about photography and we love what we get out of it. I can see your point and my thread title is somewhat like a whiner (i think I will define myself close to that to be honest)

Julian your words are very logical and expressed very well. I wish I had the capabilities of some of the member here. We must start somewhere. I dont think gear is the end all be all. My limitation is myself not the gear. I'm so desperately eager in achieving goals for improvement.

I must figure out how ot post raw files. I'm so use to putting websize jpgs online.

I'm still testing and so eager to play more with the raw files.....

TeamSpeed wrote in post #12295830
It would be an interesting poll to see how many use DPP vs a 3rd party Raw rendering tool and whether they were happy or not with their JPG results. I always use DPP, since I feel that if I purchase a Canon camera, they would have tuned their software to match their camera output, so they go together as a package. I understand the allure to use Adobe products as well as their workflow engines, etc. but I have no such need, and have been generally very happy with the output of my cameras using DPP.

Why, specifically, would you expect different outcomes? The raw conversion is actually rather primitive and straightforward. And even the most primitive tool (ufraw probably qualifies) reads the camera's original idea of what white balance was supposed to be,

Any curves applied are, in any of these tools, a human's idea, and not right out of the camera settings done on the computer.

uOpt wrote in post #12298944
Why, specifically, would you expect different outcomes? The raw conversion is actually rather primitive and straightforward. And even the most primitive tool (ufraw probably qualifies) reads the camera's original idea of what white balance was supposed to be,

Any curves applied are, in any of these tools, a human's idea, and not right out of the camera settings done on the computer.

Because there is a history of aftermarket raw processors that don't work with new releases of raw files, and it takes them a generation or two to catch up, and I use that term loosely. Your theory does not match reality.

Canon knows their firmware in the camera, they know the intricacies of sensor and the data it generates, they know their raw output, and they know how to make DPP work with all of this info. For the same reason people say to use Canon lenses with Canon bodies because they are a complete system, there is logic is saying that one should follow the same principle in post processing.

^^Exactly^^

And also, one more thing, raw files are proprietary formats designed by the manufacturer. Also even though the filenames may not change over time, the format inside will. This is why many programs cannot process certain raw files, why the Epson viewers needed updated for newer raw file formats, etc. In Canon's case, they update DPP to match the raw changes each time, the others have to reverse-engineer the raw or at least obtain specs from Canon before they can then adapt their firmware/software to be able to process it. Software can be so much fun sometimes!

TeamSpeed wrote in post #12299214
Because there is a history of aftermarket raw processors that don't work with new releases of raw files, and it takes them a generation or two to catch up, and I use that term loosely. Your theory does not match reality.

Canon knows their firmware in the camera, they know the intricacies of sensor and the data it generates, they know their raw output, and they know how to make DPP work with all of this info. For the same reason people say to use Canon lenses with Canon bodies because they are a complete system, there is logic is saying that one should follow the same principle in post processing.

Of course it has to catch up with a new cameras. Afterwards it either reads it or not.

The rest of your post is too vague to reply to. Using the newest ufraw I can't see differences to dpp when simply applying white balance and other base processing that the camera would have done when converting to jpeg.

Now, if you use the raw converters to do curves and other original processing things change.

uOpt wrote in post #12299427
Of course it has to catch up with a new cameras. Afterwards it either reads it or not.

The rest of your post is too vague to reply to. Using the newest ufraw I can't see differences to dpp when simply applying white balance and other base processing that the camera would have done when converting to jpeg.

Now, if you use the raw converters to do curves and other original processing things change.

DPP honors the values that come along in the raw, like what the NR values should be, and it will apply it (if you allow it). Every ISO value in camera, coupled with what high ISO noise reduction value you select in camera, generates 2 NR values that is part of the raw file. I have mapped that for the 7D and 5D2 in the past. I didn't map the lower ISOs, but there are values at some of the lower ISO settings as well in both cameras.

So does someone have an example of a raw file processed in DPP and one in Lightroom with the same basic settings for us to compare?

mtimber wrote in post #12301222
So does someone have an example of a raw file processed in DPP and one in Lightroom with the same basic settings for us to compare?

I've seen DpReview often use various RAW converters when reviewing cameras. If you skip to any camera review, you'll see how each camera's output performs with different RAW converters. The difference is there, it's minimal, but at a pixel level, it IS there.

mtimber wrote in post #12301222
So does someone have an example of a raw file processed in DPP and one in Lightroom with the same basic settings for us to compare?

I'm certainly willing to go through this now.

I just don't want to end up with a stream of "your experiment is invalid because..." which is what usually happens when no difference is visible.

I can certainly see that the noise reduction will not be identical, but then if you do noise reduction in real PP why bother? It isn't likely that doing two different noise reductions is doing any good. And the real PP programs should have the more competent noise reduction.