7D vs 7DII ISO & Noise

Hi guys, I don't want to start a whole new thread, but was wondering if there are still cases of 7dii bodies with autofocus issues as documented early in the cameras life. My original 7D's AF has been playing up for some while, being erratic and inconsistent. I ordered a new 7dii yesterday, but later saw some discussions on the net about sketchy AF performance going back to the first 6 months or so of the models life (i.e. to the middle of 2015.)

I think it depends on if you can even suss out a problem.

Mine was early, and when I have it on zone Af, and servo, I can't catch a bird flying towards me to save my life.

However, when I use one AF point in servo, I can follow cars and horses and get sharp images just fine. (***ive turned off all non cross points)

If you have ordered from someone reputable, then just test the crap out of it and use a zone setting with ai servo and see how you get along with it during your return period. Plenty 7D2's are stellar out there in the field.

I'd like to think I have a 'bad' one, but as I dont' rely on zone AF servo for 99 percent of my stuff, I'm not too worried about it, and it could still be the idiot camera operator (me). Long learning curve with all the cases, but just start with it the way it is out of the box - twiddling with the case modes will probably add variables to trying to figure out if it is the camera or you.

At any rate, I don't use it for birding, so I'm ok with this 'glitch' and someday I'll really hammer at it when I find someone I can talk to and test in real time. But I don't see the need to send back the camera when it does 99% of my needs just fine. However, if you need it to do zone af servo and be tack sharp, then by all means, send it back if it doesn't meet your needs.

On the older 7D... may try cleaning where the af sensors are at, to see if you have dirt covering them, if the insides are dirty.. I've heard that can be part of it, also lenses can start to fail and that maybe the issue, need to try some different lenses on it.

ksbal wrote in post #18196844
I think it depends on if you can even suss out a problem.

Mine was early, and when I have it on zone Af, and servo, I can't catch a bird flying towards me to save my life.

However, when I use one AF point in servo, I can follow cars and horses and get sharp images just fine. (***ive turned off all non cross points)

If you have ordered from someone reputable, then just test the crap out of it and use a zone setting with ai servo and see how you get along with it during your return period. Plenty 7D2's are stellar out there in the field.

I'd like to think I have a 'bad' one, but as I dont' rely on zone AF servo for 99 percent of my stuff, I'm not too worried about it, and it could still be the idiot camera operator (me). Long learning curve with all the cases, but just start with it the way it is out of the box - twiddling with the case modes will probably ad variables to trying to figure out if it is the camera or you.

At any rate, I don't use it for birding, so I'm ok with this 'glitch' and someday I'll really hammer at it when I find someone I can talk to and test in real time. But I don't see the need to send back the camera when it does 99% of my needs just fine. However, if you need it to do zone af servo and be tack sharp, then by all means, send it back if it doesn't meet your needs.

On the older 7D... may try cleaning where the af sensors are at, to see if you have dirt covering them, if the insides are dirty.. I've heard that can be part of it, also lenses can start to fail and that maybe the issue, need to try some different lenses on it.

Thanks very much. Appreciate you taking the time to respond so thoroughly.

Scrumhalf wrote in post #18112211
The 7D2 has better noise characteristics at all ISO values, and at least a 0.5 to 1EV DR advantage from 800 to 6400 ISO. This, coupled with the significantly more powerful AF system, would make me switch from the 7D to the 7D2 in a heartbeat.

The mark II has very random-looking noise, almost as if it were generated in software. I have not seen better noise character on any camera, though some have less noise quantity. It's opposite, perhaps is the Nikon D5 - much less read noise, but with very ugly, patterned character. The D5 would be a monster if it scored the same as it does now in DxOMark, but had the 7D2's character. ISO 3.28 million would be far more usable.

It is not perfect, though. A RAW blackframe from the 7D2 does improve if you run a program that randomly scrambles the image, but it doesn't improve nearly as much as most other cameras.

Here is a 100% crop (slight resize down to fit POTN), with a before/after on post processing. You can see the noise pattern on the left side. The final result where an 8x10 is cropped out of the image, and resized down for POTN requirements.

thanks! exactly what I was looking for

where would I find Teamspeed's advice?

If you use the search tool here at the top of the forum, and put the term "mini-revew" for the title and posts by Teamspeed, and hit search, you should see several posts about high ISO processing, for various bodies since the 7D.