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The "quiet" Canon
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When it was first announced, a lot of people gasped. While the features looked great, a lot of people, knowing that more is not always better, were left scratching their heads in disbelief over the pixel count on the new Canon 7D professional APS-C digital SLR: a whopping 18Mp of resolution. That pixel count alone had some people, fearing noisier images, ready to stick a fork into the camera before it even hit store shelves.
To understand the apprehension over a high pixel count, one must look back on digital camera history. With the release of the EOS D60 in 2002, Canon assumed the title of low light/high ISO king. Canon's undisputed reign would last 5 years from 2002-2007, an eternity in the digital camera world. In fall 2007, Canon released its 10Mp EOS 40D, which continued the trend of excellent performance. However, within the week, Nikon fired back with its feature packed, 12Mp D300. Besides boasting some more advanced features than the 40D, the D300 also had image quality in low light/high ISO situations that was virtually equal. Despite its thunder having been stolen, the 40D was, and is still regarded as an excellent camera.
In fall 2008, Canon took the 40D, refitted it with an improved LCD screen, micro focus adjust, 15Mp sensor, and called it a 50D. As the camera made its way into the hands of photographers and reviewers, something troubling emerged: the 50D was noisier than the 40D. Not only that, but the 50D, in efforts to suppress noise, started to smear away the fine details. It was this loss of detail and extra noise that, for the first time in over half a decade, left Canon playing catch up in the image quality race.
So why was the 50D noisier than its older brother? Simple, big pixels perform better than small ones and the 40D had larger pixels than the 50D. This is why large sensor digital SLRs have higher quality images in adverse conditions than small sensor point and shoots to such an extreme degree. Per pixel, the 50D was capturing less light than the 40D, which resulted in a noisier image despite a gapless microlens sensor design introduced with the 50D that was supposed to optimize a pixel's light gathering ability. For the first time since the beginning of the digital era, new technology was unable to offset smaller pixel size brought about by an increase in resolution.
Apparently, Canon's 50D backtrack got other manufacturers' attention because all other digital SLR camera makers, including Canon's arch-rival, Nikon, have held their pixel counts steady since then. With a recent round of point and shoots, Canon actually lowered the pixel count, something that would have once been unthinkable. With the often steady, sometimes reduced pixel counts, crop SLR Canon shooters were expecting the same for the latest digital SLR. An improved 15Mp sensor was widely expected. Some even dared hope for a 10-12Mp sensor. Instead, Canon stuffed a 18Mp sensor into its professional 7D crop camera.
When looking back to the 40/50D reduction in image quality, a lot of people were nervous, and rightly so. If a 15Mp sensor was nosier than the old 10Mp model, how bad would 18Mp be? Needless to say, there was a lot of anticipation in the intervening days between the 7D's announcement and the time it hit stores. However, as the camera started to find its way into Internet-savvy photographers' hands, the image quality of the 7D seemed very good. Unfortunately, it is difficult to draw conclusions from photos posted online by many different photographers in totally different conditions. To get an accurate picture of the 7D's abilities, a controlled lab test would be in order.
On Friday, Digital Photography Review, possibly the premier camera review Web Site, posted its review of the EOS 7D. The result: an “easy” highly recommended. While many readers would definitely stop to check out the 7D's many features, such as a new 19 point (all cross type) autofocus system, weather sealing, and new flash system to name a few, many undoubtedly skipped right to the noise tests. In looking at the noise test, the 7D is easily better than the 50D despite the 7D's smaller pixels. In looking to the chief competition, the 7D, at least to my eyes, looks like it retains more detail than Nikon's D300s.
So, for all of those who feared that Canon was losing its magic touch, fear no more! With the 7D, Canon has appeared to recapture the magic from the glory days before the arrival of the D300. What Canon has managed to do here is quite impressive in putting a camera to market that can outperform in terms of noise other models with a third less pixels. So, Canon shooters, rejoice. You have quite a camera available to you. Non Canon shooters, you should be happy, too. Capitalism is a great thing in that it breeds competition, better products, and lower prices. Whether you shoot Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, or Sony, you can be sure that your maker will get to work in developing new technology that can equal or better the 7D. This is truly a case where, eventually, everybody wins.
For more info:
Canon USA
DPR's 7D review
