7D Reviews: Shit are happen!

Hello and welcome. This is your favorite camera guru reporting to you live from my office here at Canon USA. I’m sitting here burning some really good ganja so there’s a lot of smoke in the room, and in fact visibility is so low right now I’m having some difficulty seeing my monitor. Yeaaahh mon. I figured I needed to relax after all the shit that’s been going on recently. And it’s either getting high and relax, or snapping and picking up my double barrel shotgun to do some serious damage around here.

I thought Halloween was over, but apparently that’s not the case. We released a fix for the ghosting problem on the 7D, but as it appears, that’s the least of its problems right now. The horror stories keep pouring in. There are some more reviews out right now and it doesn’t look good. All those people who were writing in to me complaining about the noise seem to have been on to something. I was trying to ignore those complaints hoping it would just somehow go away, but it seems like it got worse instead.

As you all know I did my best for this not to happen. I talked to Tokyo several times about easing on the megapixels now, for the sake of our users, but the Japanese don’t want to listen. Let me remind you of this chat I had with Maeda a while back:

That’s how it basically kept going every time. Thank God they didn’t put 21MP on the 7D or else we’d have an even bigger problem right now. I fear for the 7D Mark II though. They might even take it to 24MP.

But anyway, let’s take a look at some of the reviews. First up we have the 7D review done by Darwin Wiggett. Here’s essentially what he has to say about the 7D:

Again to our eye the 7D files look soft and mushy compared to the snap in the other two files. Of course we expected the flagship Mark III to outperform the mid-priced 7D but we did not expect the entry level Rebel to better the 7D especially when the Rebel’s 12MP files were interpolated to 18MP!

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The files from the Canon 7D were so disappointing to us that we began to wonder if we had received a dud camera. We borrowed a different body. Off we went for round two, again shooting numerous scenes with both the 7D and the Rebel XSi. We got the exact same results:  the little Rebel bested the 7D every time in terms of file quality. The second 7D body performed as ‘poorly’ as the first.

So… we got a THIRD 7D body and ran more tests.

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We looked on the web for reviews of the Canon 7D and almost every review site RAVES about the camera both in terms of features and performance (we agree) but also in terms of file quality (huh?).  Also on photo sharing forums a lot of photographers think the file quality of the Canon 7D is awesome. Maybe our expectations were too high? We thought the 7D should give us files better than a Rebel or G11. Maybe we are just too anal?

Yeah, as the technical advisor at Canon USA, I too expected the 7D to give us better looking files compared to the much older, cheaper and entry level Rebel and G11. But as we can clearly learn from this, our expectations and the reality dictated to us by Tokyo rarely match. And this has been true for the last 4 years. Perhaps I too am just being “too anal”, as Darwin puts it. But it’s hard not to be “too anal” when we have Canon Inc’s gigantic corporate cock up our collective asses here at Canon USA.

Let’s anal-yze one of the images from the review below.

On the left you can see the 100% image crop from the 7D and on the right from the Rebel XSi. As you can no doubt observe, the hay appears to be melting and almost forming a single body of hay on the image taken by the 7D. Based on my calculations it could be that the 7D image was taken after the Rebel image, at which point the hay reached sufficient temperature to start melting. However, I was just told that hay doesn't melt, so we have no choice but to conclude that the 7D might be fucked.

I’ll have to ask Tokyo what happened to the extra resolution that the 18MP sensor from the 7D is supposed to offer the next time I call them. I hope you realize that now uncle Bob on the wedding you’re covering with your 7D and 24-70mm f/2.8 L is going to be making better looking pictures with his cheap Rebel XSi plus kitlens, which he got on Ebay in what had to be a pretty good deal too. And I suggest you have some excuses prepared for when they ask you how little Timmy’s photos from his G11 look so much better compared to yours. And I’m not trying to summon John Harrington here, but think of the far reaching consequences this is going to have on the photography business when people start to realize that their own uncle Bob and little Timmy can take much better pictures and they don’t need a $3000 charging “professional” to cover their event. In the end, it’s the person behind the camera and not the camera that makes the picture, right? Right??

Next we have our very own Moses with a review that put a smile on my face. I tell ya, I thank God for people like Darwin Wiggett and Moses because they make my work so much easier for me. Now I have some material to use in my arguments with Tokyo. Moses wrote down a lot of words on his website to essentially just make the following point, and I quote:

Now the 2 year old 40D costing round $800 delivers better image quality than the ’state of the art’ 7D which costs $1700. Does this make sense to you? Not to me!

It doesn’t really make sense to me either. But I’m willing to bet the Japanese think this makes perfect sense. Now in case this isn’t sinking in yet, let me summarize for you what we’ve just learned:

• The EOS 7D produces less detailed images compared to the entry level, cheaper Rebel XSi and G11 cameras, even while having more megapixels.
• The EOS 7D produces noisier images than the two year old EOS 40D while being twice as expensive.

If you're a 7D owner, this book will make you angry.

Looks like if you’re a 7D owner, the best camera really isn’t the one that’s with you.

Kaan joo now understaan why am burning di ganja here right now in me office, mon? Yeaah mon, like a reel Rastaman!

Seriously though, this really sucks.

Our only hope right now is the 1D Mark IV. But to be honest, I’m afraid of what is going to happen and my confidence in Canon is at an all time low at the moment. I am still trying to do my job as best as I can under the circumstances, but it’s not easy.

My latest Tech Tips have recently been published over at the Digital Journalist. And I also got interviewed by Photo Induced about the 1D4, check the movie below.

I was just about to get drunk when those guys from Photo Induced showed up. I already had a few shots of whiskey but I think I still managed to give a pretty decent sales talk. You’ll notice that I look much older and I’ve lost some weight as well. All the recent problems here at Canon are taking their toll on me I have to admit. I’m already starting to think about retiring too. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. And yes, before you ask, the 1D4 sample I was holding in the video had it’s CF slot glued.

Meanwhile the Nikon D3s is available and people are already raving about the great image quality it offers. I’m quite sure that our 7D would have matched the D3s if it was kept at 10MP. But we all know how that worked out. Wildlife photographer Moose Petersen wrote about his experiences using the D3s on his website. Imagine that… a wildlife photographer called Moose… Anyway, if you look at the D3s samples on his website, it becomes clear that the 1D4 is going to have tough competition. I do know from my own tests here at the office that certainly ISO 102,400 on the 1D4 doesn’t look quite as good as ISO 102,400 on the D3s. Perhaps this is why Japan ordered everyone to take down all 1D4 sample images. But if they think they’re going to fix this with noise reduction we’ll have another 7D type of situation on our hands very soon. I tell ya, I’m not looking forward to this year’s holiday season, that’s for sure. I’m just waiting for our shipment of production 1D4s with production firmware to see just how bad it’s going to be.

Bradley Cooper and Chase Jarvis (right) - Seperated at birth?

But those fucks at Nikon are so cocky and self assured right now they’re giving away $100,000 through photographer Chase Jarvis for the best movie made and submitted to them. I’m willing to bet they’re doing this just to give us an extra kick in the nuts after Japan ordered us to take down Laforet’s video “Nocturne”. I imagine the morning briefing at Nikon the following day went somewhat like this:

Nikon Executive 1: Hey guys, did you hear about Canon Inc. taking down that new Laforet video??

Entire Meeting Room: LOL ROFL LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!

Nikon Executive 1: Oh God, what a bunch of fucking morons! Unbelievable!

Nikon Executive 2: You know, I think we should use this opportunity to post even more of our own videos, just to piss those Canon USA guys off!

Nikon Executive 1: God damnit, that’s a great idea! Hey, even better, we give people money to post their videos!

Entire Meeting Room: LOL ROFL LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!

So now we can’t post videos here at Canon while Nikon’s giving away $100,000 to do exactly that! This is just fucking childish behavior on their part. Just rub more salt on our wounds will ya? Fucking wankers. And they couldn’t have picked someone more suitable to do this either. That Jarvis guy’s on crack 24/7. I wish we had him on our side to promote our products. Did you see the videos he posted on his website? Boy that’s something else. A world of difference between those videos and my boring 1D4 sales talk.

So you see now why I need the whisky and the ganja, right? Nikon is encouraging photographers like Chase to use their equipment and even giving away tons of money doing so, while we are here shooting down talented people like Vincent Laforet, peace and blessings be upon him, and ordering them to take down their videos taken with our equipment. Boy that really has to have a positive influence on any good will they have towards us.

And I’m not even going to mention the new Nikon iPhone application. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, keep it that way.

I’m telling you if I wasn’t a mentally strong person, I’d have snapped a long time ago. All I’m trying to do right now is to somehow make it to my retirement without going insane.

Fuck! Looks like the fire alarm just went off. Gotta go.