Canon EOS 7D Mark II Is Sharper And Has Less Noise Than EOS 5D Mark III

pknight wrote in post #17961747
I have always set my 7DII at +2/3 stop EC. If I shoot as metered, I get underexposure.

That roughly ties in with what I was seeing. The underexpose isn't really noticeable until the iso starts to go up. I would have said the water and it's myriad reflections would not have helped, but not all the shots had water in them and my 7DI didn't seem to exhibit the same trait. I will see if I can get an image off a server somewhere, but I'm not at home at the moment (were the files are) and I think the consensus would be simply that it was underexposed (I reckon I pushed around 1 stop in LR). I did check that I hadn't nudged the exposure, or something similar and I with Av and fixed iso so I don't see the problem being there. I use LR6 for conversion btw

I do love the shutter sound on the 7DII. Sounds really well damped, I assume this is the motor powering the mirror up and down and not having a spring return?

So if I over expose by around 2/3 of a stop do I run out of headroom and permanently blow out the image with the 7DII, or will it still be recoverable? I can see this will help noise as a side product

Geordie Amanda wrote in post #17961830
That roughly ties in with what I was seeing. The underexpose isn't really noticeable until the iso starts to go up. I would have said the water and it's myriad reflections would not have helped, but not all the shots had water in them and my 7DI didn't seem to exhibit the same trait. I will see if I can get an image off a server somewhere, but I'm not at home at the moment (were the files are) and I think the consensus would be simply that it was underexposed (I reckon I pushed around 1 stop in LR). I did check that I hadn't nudged the exposure, or something similar and I with Av and fixed iso so I don't see the problem being there. I use LR6 for conversion btw

I do love the shutter sound on the 7DII. Sounds really well damped, I assume this is the motor powering the mirror up and down and not having a spring return?

So if I over expose by around 2/3 of a stop do I run out of headroom and permanently blow out the image with the 7DII, or will it still be recoverable? I can see this will help noise as a side product

I bought my 300D new from Jessops just before it was replaced by the 350D. I found it consistently underexposed by 2/3 stop. So much so I had Jessops send it back to Canon under warranty. It was returned as being fully in specification, and still underexposing by 2/3 stop. So I had to run it at +2/3 EC all the time. That was before allowing for ETTR. My 20D was identical in needing a base +2/3 EC before ETTR just to center the midtones. Even my 50D needs the plus EC boost, but I have noticed with that that I don't need to push the ETTR as far as I did with the older cameras to get a nice conversion. At least for relatively normal scenes.

Alan

I do 1/3 over at higher iso's and seem to come out fine. Under and you lose detail and pick up more noise.

I do single point AF with servo for moving targets, keeping the point over the target and get pretty decent sharpness, depending on where the zoom is set on my 70-200. But I shoot horses and dirt track, not birds or dragonflies.

Hopefully this has worked and you can click on it to see it and read the metadata. Can I upload the RAW file on here?

I did a straight conversion to jpeg from the original RAW file using LR6

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FUJF​Yv

ksbal wrote in post #17961950
I do 1/3 over at higher iso's and seem to come out fine. Under and you lose detail and pick up more noise.

I do single point AF with servo for moving targets, keeping the point over the target and get pretty decent sharpness, depending on where the zoom is set on my 70-200. But I shoot horses and dirt track, not birds or dragonflies.

That's pretty much what I do, although I have been experimenting with expanded points as things like jet Skis, flyboards and Kite surfers are pretty erratic, not to mention fast moving.

Geordie Amanda wrote in post #17961830
So if I over expose by around 2/3 of a stop do I run out of headroom and permanently blow out the image with the 7DII, or will it still be recoverable? I can see this will help noise as a side product

I don't think you will run out of headroom, as it will simply be giving you the exposure that you were after to begin with, if the meter worked the way you expected. With AV, it will be altering the shutter speed to provide the additional exposure, so you need to take that into consideration. I find it best for me to use manual mode, set the shutter and aperture where I want them, and let the 7DII adjust ISO to obtain exposure. I have limited the maximum ISO so it doesn't get too high (although the 7DII handles high ISO well). I can quickly make adjustment to shutter or aperture if the meter wants a higher ISO than I have set as the max.

The POTN histogram shows that you had at least 1 stop of headroom available in that exposure, and generally, it is all about 2 stops underexposed. If you have the raw, you have additional room beyond the JPG histogram. You can share raw files via dropbox, or a few other filesharing sites.

Rubbish article

click bait for techies

I've really only noticed the underexposure once the ISO start to move up. As I said though, I'm new to this camera and hopefully will learn it's foibles (I did wonder if the water spray fooled the exposure reading with it's reflection, but the underexposing seems constant regardless). Perhaps I should try pushing the exposure at Isos of say 800+ and perhaps a lesser push at low ISOs.

Thanks for the heads up on the exposure push guys