Discovered 7D limitations last weekend

I co-worker's wife shoots Ice Skating. She ask me to come and help out with some posed pics in front of studio lighting. That went great. Pics turned out beautiful with the good ole 7D.

After that was finished I tried my hand at the skaters with my 7D & 70-200 2/8 II lens. It was dark and the skaters were in the spot light. I had to use 64000 ISO, f2.8, and 1/640 SS to help freeze action.
The pictures were somewhat acceptable with many culls. Actually, it did better than I thought it would. I didn't think any of them would turn out. Of course they were grainy especially if you started doing any cropping.

Then I got a look at her pics. She has a 5D III & used the same lens as me. She was shooting 12,600 ISO, 2.8, 1/640. Wow, he pics blew mine out of the water. Very acceptable, and she had many more usable pics.

Ok, I am wanting FF now. The 5D III, or the IV when it comes out. What an eye opening experience.

Yes, the 5D3 has mush better High ISO performance, but why were you shooting at ISO 64,000 when she was shooting at ISO 12,600?

You both should have the same ISO if the lighting conditions were the same.

I could not get my 7D to go there. I have done it in the past, but for some reason now it won't go to 12,600. I followed the instructions and set the ISO Expansion to "ON", but when I tried to go there, the 12,600 was not available.

After seeing how grainy my 64,000 pics were, it is better that I stayed there anyway, however, I have to figure out why my 7D will not obey.

guntoter wrote in post #17345795
After seeing how grainy my 64,000 pics were, it is better that I stayed there anyway, however, I have to figure out why my 7D will not obey.

I am a real novice here but do you mean 6400 ISO instead of 64,000? By saying it is better that I stayed there anyway it sounds like you would have been going to a higher ISO.

Just curious on my end, like I said "really new to this".

msowsun wrote in post #17345753
Yes, the 5D3 has mush better High ISO performance, but why were you shooting at ISO 64,000 when she was shooting at ISO 12,600?

You both should have the same ISO if the lighting conditions were the same.

I assume he meant 6,400 not 64,000?

A 64k ISO shot taken from a 7D would make you instantly pass out from brain freeze!

The files clean up relatively well at high ISO, but I've had difficulty preserving any valuable details beyond 3200. Nice job on capturing some keepers.

guntoter wrote in post #17345795
I could not get my 7D to go there. I have done it in the past, but for some reason now it won't go to 12,600. I followed the instructions and set the ISO Expansion to "ON", but when I tried to go there, the 12,600 was not available.

After seeing how grainy my 64,000 pics were, it is better that I stayed there anyway, however, I have to figure out why my 7D will not obey.

Do you have Highlight Tone Priority enabled? If so ISO 100 AND ISO 12,800 will not be available.

She was using ISO 12800, f2.8 and 1/640 with her 5DIII.

You were using ISO 6400, f2.8 and 1/640 with your 7D.

So, you underexposed your images by at least a full stop at a high ISO, then I would assume you were pulling up the exposure in post-processing.... Well, frankly, noise is pretty much guaranteed to be worse when you do that with any camera.

Full frame will always be cleaner at high ISO though. Do the math. The 5DIII's sensor is half as crowded with pixel sites, as the 7D's (roughly 25,000 vs roughly 54,000 per sq. mm). So there will be less cross talk and less heat in the FF camera's sensor, both of which effect noise in images. I would guess that the FF camera's pixel sites are larger, too.... And it uses a weaker anti-alias filter I'm sure... Both of which should increase fine detail compared to the APS-C camera. Applying noise reduction whittles away at fine detail, so the FF camera would win out in that respect, too.

Search for Teamspeed's guideline posts here on POTN, for high ISO shooting with 7D. Very informative and useful.

But, you've hit upon one of the key reasons I use both crop and full frame. The crop cameras are great for a lot of things, better than full frame for some things. But the full frame is superior for high ISO work and a few other things.

coming from a 650D to 6D, i too was wowed by the high iso capabilities of a full frame. in fact, it seems you can push the raw file further too...

If you're framing identically with a 7D and a 5D3, then the 7D will have fewer pixels on target, that's true. The benefit of the 7D is to be able to crop tighter with the same lens; if that's not necessary, then yes you're losing a little resolution.

But there's no reason properly-exposed images at ISO6400 should be too noisy, or unusable - unless you're cropping in post, which defeats the purpose of having an APS-C sensor in the first place. Definitely check out TeamSpeed's great thread on shooting the 7D at high ISO to see how it can be done: 7D High ISO Mini review

SgtEagle,
Yep, I added an extra zero.

Thanks ffblint, I will check to see if it is enabled.

Well said amfoto1,
Even though I have been sold on a FF when the money is available, I never want to be without a 7D or 7DII.

I will check out TeamSpeeds post that you mentioned.

guntoter wrote in post #17345715
Ok, I am wanting FF now. The 5D III, or the IV when it comes out. What an eye opening experience.

Heh, well now that we got the issue of the 'tiny' order of magnitude error in the ISO levels resolved......(but hey, what's one order of magnitude error among friends, I always say,,,,).

You hit the nail on the head when it comes to indoors sports and usable f/2.8 lenses. I make large-ish prints for indoor sports (12x18 and 20x30) and I've long had an interest in low noise bodies. For a long time I used fast primes for indoor sports mainly because there was nothing (IMO) that was acceptable from the standpoint of sensors and processing acceptable above ISO 3200.

Around the time the 1D Mark IV was announced, Adobe reached ACR 6. The 1D4 itself was worth a fair stop over the 1D3, and Adobe's latest RAW converter was worth a stop as well. Seemingly overnight, we stepped from ISO 3200 being "OK" to ISO 12800. And again (IMO) that is where we are today.

I use my 5D3 and 1D4 up to 12800 without worry. I know I can get a good print (20x30) at that level. I don't go higher than that.

JeffreyG, 12,800 is an exciting ISO value for me to think about. I know the 7D will go there, but with what results? I do some indoor sports, and I may do more of the Ice skating in the future, and it is the most challenging photography for indoor sports I have encountered.

I am very interested to see what the 5D IV will hold for us. I am for the most part a "center focus" guy, but for this event I did use expanded center. I assume that the 5D IV will have a similar focus to the new 7D II or even better. The FPS could be bumped up from the 5D III also. When those skaters go into those spins, then FPS gets pretty important.