Mini-Review: 7D vs 5DII High ISO 3200-25600

I am about to head off and do a band competition, but wanted to know what to expect tonight since I will be shooting at 6400 and 12800. I have done this in the past with the 7D with what I consider great success, but I will take the 5DII with me too. I did this quick little test, same settings on each at each ISO, with a different lens on each at a different FL to get the same FOV, no post processing, OOC jpegs. Here are the 100% crop results, and you can see the original images as well in My Smugmug Gallery.

Obviously the 5D is cleaner, but the 7D does well enough for an APS-C and it doesn't exhibit the banding I see in the 5D high ISO shots (some shows up in 12800, but more prevalent in 25600), however the 7D luminescent noise takes over, and you can see the maze pattern really well at that ISO. Just an interesting test I thought, I hope you enjoy!

EDIT: Later around reply 75 or so, I do a raw to jpeg conversion comparison, and also, I map out what the raw files have for noise reduction values for each ISO for each body for each noise reduction value. ( for those that are raw shooters and want to skip past -> https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=10910785#po​st10910785)

The overall scene...

inbefore5dmarkIIfanboy​sand7dfanboys

Nice comparison man

Both good up to and including 6400iso. Even 12800 looks as though it'd clean up ok.

Good stuff, ta

Interesting--subscribing.

makes me sorta wish I got a 7D instead of a 5D1, heh.

are these SOOC jpegs or DPP or LR/other?

SOOC jpegs, but I did have the raws as well. What I think may be happening is that high noise reduction of "disable" on the 5DII really means none, but on the 7D, it still does a little cleanup. I believe when the 7D first came out, this was the conclusion. This could most likely be why the OOC jpegs are this close. If I yank the raws and then convert with no noise reduction, I wonder if I will get the same results. I will have to see if I have time tomorrow to check.

The band competition tonight was just bad, a fog rolled in, and really muddied up the shoot, and with the stands full, I was a little protective of having 2 bodies with me, even though I only shot the 5D. I don't think I ended up with too much, I will see tomorrow.

interesting comparison, especially at 12800, the word TWISTABLE is sharper with the 7D than the 5DII. is the focus point in the same places for all comparison?

NIce useful comparison there, TeamSpeed! Now, I wonder how the 1Ds4 will stack up?

the idea here, is :5dmk2 has standard NR applyed in postproccesing of internal cpu and 7d not apllied too much.From this reason 5dmk2 is much clean!Conclusion:5dmk2 less noise but less sharper,7d more noise but sharper!!!prefer the sharp images!!!

Hmm, I see places where the focus points are different, but where they are both focused on the same point, I don't see the 7D doing better on details.

Wow....I remember a few years ago shooting with the 20D thinking how clean the files were compared to my Minolta 5D and Sony a100....Both look great to me....FWIW....I prefer my 7D over my (sold now) 5DmkII's

thatkatmat wrote in post #10893056
Wow....I remember a few years ago shooting with the 20D thinking how clean the files were compared to my Minolta 5D and Sony a100....Both look great to me....FWIW....I prefer my 7D over my (sold now) 5DmkII's

Heh! There ya go now, Matt!

Hey Tony...Wasssssup
You're not allowed to comment in this thread mr 1DmkIV...:p

Interesting comparisons, but the 5D2 will kick the 7D to the curb in low light, high ISO situations. Low light is a different ball game than your tests.

District_History_Fan wrote in post #10893085
Interesting comparisons, but the 5D2 will kick the 7D to the curb in low light, high ISO situations. Low light is a different ball game than your tests.

Is this from personal experience shooting both the 5d2 and 7d in identical low-light environment simultaneously or are you theorizing? (I would really like to know and see these samples.) I would think such a bold statement would warrant actual photographic evidence to support and back-up. I'm too cheap to rent a 5d2 for 4-days for some ~$160 to find out for myself. But seeing that there are a number of folks (though probably few are "gearheads") with both the 5d2/7d, I'd be curious if someone could show such comparisons: same low-light event/conditions and close to side-by-side photos taken to demonstrate the curb kicking.