7D impressions...

S

SPZ

Veteran
I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed so far. Compared to the 5D, its much softer, and has less dinamic range. Footage out of the camera reminds me of HDV, with HDV like colors and the picture feels, well, less solid. Somehow the H264 compression is handicaping too much the camera output, compared to, say, an HVX with DVCPRO HD. Its a good low light camera, but for Broadcast HD production i have to say its not up to par to cameras like the Sony EX and HVX. Aliasing is an issue, but the compression and soft output is what cripples this camera too much.

Of course, I'm still getting the grips with DSLR shooting, but so far, compared to the 5d that I had the chance to try out for a couple of days, which immediately popped and created stunning results out of the box, the 7D's picture looks much more consumerish. What's going on I do not know.

I'll be shooting a sporting event and got myself a set of expensive L lenses for the 7D to cover it. However, I'm worried and will definitely be shooting HVX again as the A cam.
 
So happy with my 7D :)
I don't really understand how you can be disappointed with the results.
I guess it's all about expectations, and how unrealistic they can become.
No, the 7D isn't the holly grail, it won't do beautiful cinematography without your help.
But it's definitely capable of delivering stunning images.
So many people expect to take it out of the box and make magic.
It's a camera, and like every single camera before it (and after), you need to learn its strengths and its weaknesses.
To those hesitating, don't worry, if you get this camera and work on your skills, you can get astounding results.
I'm a director, not a cinematographer, so I don't care as much about absolute resolution and codecs as i care about feeling and mood. The 7D can give you a very cinematic feeling if you use it as you would any other camera.
ie: Work on the framing, the lighting, expose correctly, work on the acting, the costumes, the locations, think about SOUND!!! - double system of course, not directly on 7D.
The list goes on...
If you don't have an interesting subject, framed in an interesting way, doing interesting things (with quality SOUND!!!) - then the camera won't matter.

Did I mention you may need a good script to begin with ?

If you do, prepare to be blown away by the 7D's possibilities at that price point, simply unheard of !!!

- well, it's not really at that price point since you're gonna need a fair deal of accessories, but so do most, if not all, cameras. So it's definitely one of the cheapest starting points :)



oups!, wrong thread...
 
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SPZ said:
I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed so far. Compared to the 5D, its much softer, and has less dinamic range. Footage out of the camera reminds me of HDV, with HDV like colors and the picture feels, well, less solid. Somehow the H264 compression is handicaping too much the camera output, compared to, say, an HVX with DVCPRO HD. Its a good low light camera, but for Broadcast HD production i have to say its not up to par to cameras like the Sony EX and HVX. Aliasing is an issue, but the compression and soft output is what cripples this camera too much.

Of course, I'm still getting the grips with DSLR shooting, but so far, compared to the 5d that I had the chance to try out for a couple of days, which immediately popped and created stunning results out of the box, the 7D's picture looks much more consumerish.
Click to expand...
This doesn't make much sense to me. How can you be so sure of what you are saying about the 5D versus the 7D if you haven't compared them side-by-side, using the exact same settings and lenses? There are just too many variables involved to make such a sweeping conclusion off-hand. Most users who have compared the two side-by-side (like Kholi and Stephen Mick) have found the images from both to be virtually identical, except for DOF and FOV.

And how do you know that the H.264 compression is a major handicap? It should only be an issue if you're seeing compression artifacts, i.e. macro-blocking. Maybe the problem is the 4:2:0 color space?
 
SPZ,,,,some things we've learned in the last few weeks in regards to the images ALL of these DSLRs make includes their actual resolving power and aliasing as overall resolution. All of them are not as sharp as a standard camcorder (or can not resolve as much detail). The sharpness in the 5Dll that you see over the 7D has nothing to do with true resolution but an aliasing effect that gives them a sort of pseudo sharpness that can sometimes look good but often times produce some ugly jaggies on horizontal planes. With that said understand that the 7D and 5Dll and GH-1 are different cameras. People are accustomed to setting their sharpness to "0" no matter which cam used...but from what we've been seeing not all "0" settings on each camera is the same. It was recently suggested that setting "0' on the 5Dll is basically equivalent to "+2" on the 7D. "0" on the 7D makes it look too soft. So when comparing the image's "softness" or when trying to match up both cameras..use "0" on the 5Dll and "+2" on the 7D.

What about the compression do you think cripples the camera (over the 5Dll)? They both use the same compression and as a matter of fact the 7D's is a little better. If you are comparing the compression to the HVX then that's a different story.....the HVX is better (I can't touch that)....but me personally I like the images from these DSLRs better. Overall though I can't stand the compression from these cams....they kill my PC. But that's in regards to their handling amd not necessarily in the image they produce. But it's nothing Cineform or other free codecs can't fix.
 
It seems that the age old "it depends" is as true as ever.

For professionals, this camera has compression and physical issues that eliminate it from being viable as an HD production camera.

For amateurs (or aspiring professionals, like myself), cameras like the 7D represent such a quantum leap forward in DOF and interchangeable lens capability. The entire DOF adapter market came into being to achieve shallow DOF, and now it is here without having to buy the $4000 camera to mount it to.

There are trade offs in both directions in price, quality and features. I think it all comes down to who your client/audience is. For me, I think I'm realizing that I'm simply making videos for the web and for fun indie projects. I don't need to worry about anything other than "how does it look?" And if it is somehow limited, I'm not screwing a client. I can see where more seasoned shooters are hesitant who have paying clients.

And lets remember, it is a $1700 camera after all. :)
 
I will say that in-camera settings and specific lenses make night and day differences with the 7D. I'm a little more used to fixed lens prosumer cameras where the look you get is pretty much out of the box with minor changes. With this camera, throw on a 50mm 1.4 prime and you have amazing shallow DOF. The kit lens alone barely scratches the surface of its capabilities.

Noah
 
Well, the main problem I have is with the compression. Like a fellow dvxuser said in a post in this thread- I just can't spell his online name!- its probably the 4:2:0 colorspace, but I suspect the H264 encoding has something to do with it.

This is all uncientific but through the judgement of my eye meter- there's some sort of "plastic" filter on the footage, something that makes the footage look less solid than an EX and an HVX, for example. I noticed this more on the wide shots. Feels like very heavy noise correction. In this video, I used the "Standard" setting after trying the neutral option, which I didn't like. The problem with this setting was that the sharpenning just looked like Photoshop sharpenning- I could see the "plastic layer", yet, sharpenned edges. How can I explain this? I know it doesn't make much sense, and through youtube you probably don't see these flaws, but having handled and worked with professional grade footage for many years, the immediate impact was that i was looking at HDV.

I also have experienced some problems on some of my usual workflow with HVX footage. One of this was encoding to DVD, for example. I usually edit in HD, then create an uncompressed 8bit pal timeline to export letterboxed to a quicktime movie, which then goes to Toast for a preview copy to my client. With 7D footage, I did the exact same workflow- Added, of course, the H264 to DVCPRO HD 1080p 25 conversion in Mpeg Streamclip for FCP editing, since I will be integrating this footage with DVCPRO HD HVX footage in the sport event I'll be shooting. What happened was that the toast encoded file created, or boosted some of the artifacts the picture had. Since this is exactly the same workflow to my HVX DVCPRO HD workflow, something was very wrong here. I tried exporting again from Mpeg Streamclip in every possible configuration, etc, as well as changing sequence settings and export various versions, but toast would butcher the footage. The solution? It was exporting through compressor. I just don't understand why the exact same workflow would create problems on the 7D footage, when it never created problems to HVX footage. My only explanation is that the 7D signal is not as robust os the Native DVCPRO HD one. True, the 7D footage went through a conversion, but could this be enough to create this problems?

I still have lots of testing to do, still, and would love some of your suggestions to the problems. Going to prores from the H264 is not an option right now due to workflow for my upcoming event. Other than this, camera settings, suggestions, anything that could help me pull out the best of this camera would be a godsend!
 
SPZ said:
Well, the main problem I have is with the compression. Like a fellow dvxuser said in a post in this thread- I just can't spell his online name!- its probably the 4:2:0 colorspace, but I suspect the H264 encoding has something to do with it.
Click to expand...
What I've been reading from other users is they convert their footage to an i-frame 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 codec before editing. I'm not familiar with DVCPRO HD but I think the idea is to convert the footage into something much higher color space and even higher than 8bit so as to give you more headroom with editing. With that said I've seen folks using Cineform for this type of (10bit or higher) conversion.
 
The only advantage for going 10 bit is for graphics and other overlays. I don't think it will add anything to the original footage...
 
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