Just posted: Our Canon EOS 70D hands-on preview

but not a D7100 killer in AF performance.
hope 7D2 can catch up.

No, the 4 year old 7D was already superior to the D7100 AF system because instead of having 15 cross-type sensors all right in the center like the D7100 it has 19 cross-top covering a large area of the frame. Also, having pixel-level sensitivity to phase, tracking can theoretically be much more accurate than any standard PDAF system on the market today. Yab doesn't understand a single thing about sensors, AF, or cameras in general. All of his posts from the time he came to this site demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how sensors behave and are evaluated. Ignoring his nonsense is the best course of action....or even better, read it and go look at evidence (anywhere) that proves it laughably wrong and then ignore him. Last word to you, yab.

oh dear, I should not enjoy seeing a person go mad.

Just don't read the preview......

you wan't see the difference between 98% and 100%!
A bigger Screen is only possible with Fullframe 6D or 5D3.
The 7D is now in the dust.

I''ve yet to see anyone ever be hindered or adversely effected by having a 98% viewfinder vs a 100% viewfinder. If anything, a 98% viewfinder just results in you capturing a bit more image area than you intended, which gives you flexibility with image cropping and image straightening later in post. In other words, it gives you a bit of wiggle room, which is an advantage! Better to have a little too much in your image than too little, or nothing extra to work with.

As for your predictions of "broken off screens"...I've yet to hear of that being an issue, even after countless millions of swivel screen cameras have been sold and put into circulation. Fearmongers used to say the similar things about pop-up flashes: they'd brake off, and you can't weatherseal them! Then the weathersealed near-pro-level 7D came out with a pop-up flash, and that shut people up! So stop with the irrational, baseless, overblown FUD already. It's just a bunch of BS.

Freedomlover - Pretty far off subject aren't you?

OMD and RX100 are with much smaller sensor is that crippling too?

Don't forget OMD at start are expensive as mid-range APS-C DSLR, and RX100 is slightly more expensive than entry mirrorless/DSLR....

~Lover...
Man, you're all over the place! What's your point(s)???

BTW, have you ever looked through an OVF and an OIS lens? And then through an OVF with sensor IS? Try it and you'll realize it's definitely on purpose, but for totally different reasons than you claim.

There's also the fact in-lens IS works better, optimized for each lens. And you can see the effect thru the viewfinder as others more rational than yourself have noted.

Well, Nikon did it on the 1-series and got totally bagged over everything else about the cameras. The fact is if you can get a DSLR (vs. giant DSLR-shaped pellicle) with useful phase detect AF in live view it will be revolutionary.

It's sad for Nikon users that Nikon did video first but Canon ran with it, and now Nikon does PD AF on sensor first and it looks like Canon is running with that too. I wish Canon would just switch to Nikon-style dual dial controls and I could just jump ship.

The PD AF will probably migrate down through the entire Canon line, too, so we'll have fast AF on the successor to the 100D.

I hope Nikon releases a D600 successor with PD on sensor AF, built-in WiFi, and the better AF (and no oil on the sensor).

So the A99 has 19 traditional PDAF sensors and a 102 AF assist array. Canon has put PD AF on its newer 18MP sensors, too, but nothing like this new one. Since the new Canon sensor has 80% vertical and horizontal coverage with its on-sensor PDAF system that gives it 4377X2918 points, for a total of 12,772,086 on-sensor PDAF points. I'm sure it takes arrays of pixels to have any kind of meaningful PDAF readings, so divide that by...8 sound good? So maybe 1,596,510 AF points? I'm sure the AF routine is much more complex than I could ever guess, but suffice it to say this Canon system is different from the Sony system all while not putting a stupid fixed mirror in front of the sensor.

live view af performance

overwhelming sensor resolution is needed to squeeze the last bit of resolution from lenses and 20.2MP is not enough.

@howardroark you are talking about something totally different. the fact you have to talk something irrelevant tells that you cannot argue in straight.

sensors have to outresolve lenes many times to get near 100% of the performance out of the lens. the more the better but the improvement may not be easily visible.

basically the combined-resotution =
1/ (1/sensor-resolution + 1/lens-resolution),
it approaches lens resolution when sensor resolution becomes infinity.

Yeah, you really need 20-40 MP to make those giant 4x6 prints for Aunt Sally, or those 1 MP files for web use. I'll bet 90% of the whiners, here, don't even print their files, so the MP count is meaningless.

are you saying 3MP could be better than 12 MP or 20 MP???
if technology advances increasing the MP could also be a good factor

@Stollen1234 - the ability for a higher resolution sensor to actually display higher resolution is dependent on your final output size. If you're doing an 11x14 print, you're not really going to see much difference in quality between a 12mp sensor and a 20mp sensor. The larger you print, the more resolution becomes beneficial. But unless you actually do those larger prints, the extra resolution is wasted. So a more accurate statement would be to say that more megapixels means bigger print sizes, rather than saying more megapixels means better image quality. Consider that even when displaying an image on a huge 4K Ultra High Definition display, the resolution of that 4K display is only 3840 x 2160 (8.3 megapixels, aspect ratio 16:9).

So unless you're displaying your photos in huge format, you can just relax about all this megapixel hysteria. And pixel peeping is not how real people view real images in the real world.

I agree about the " blaming equipment part", but...
I had a 50D, than a 7D, a 5D, and for a few weeks a 1D3. Guess which camera is my most favorite now? But it is not IQ that makes the differences, although the IQ of both the 5D and 1d3 are superior to the 7D, which has most megapixels and is youngest...

T3, by the same token I do not understand people that jump to their own conclusion based on its own assumptions. The problem at canon is that IQ lags behind the competition. I had a 50D and I was perfectly satisfied with the AF, but you cannot imagine my surprise when I saw the pictures taken with my X-Pro1. It was like recovering the sight from blindness.
That's a fact. And I really do not understand why Canon keeps fiddling with marketing tricks. Take this 70D, for example: only " tyros, newbies, and wannabes" will use it most of the time on live view. The rest of us will use it a DSLR. So what's the point in boosting AF performance in live view if the IQ is subpar? Hope, really hope this is not the case. We will see the tests....

...
In any case I have been so tired of this canon approach. If you recall, my 50D was marketed as lights years ahead of the 40D in terms of IQ... Indeed it probably was worse. With the 5D mark III, which is using a slightly improved 5D mark II sensor technology, the major step forward has been in terms of income for Canon. How could they price so high and so unashamedly? Where they too busy in developing a new lens cap or in gluing a 1.4X converter to a tele lens?

Selfishness is probably their problem. Selfishness has been Kodak problem.

Sorry, but there are countless Canon-shooting pros around the world who are getting excellent IQ from our Canon bodies. We're delivering excellent IQ to our clients, and "that's a fact", LOL. If you like the IQ of Fuji's sensors so much more, great! But sitting around griping about differences in IQ between the various camera brands is rather silly, IMHO. Whether you're shooting Fuji, or Canon, or Nikon, or Sony, I've seen superb images with superb IQ shot by superb photographers from all these brands. That, too, is "a fact." The idea that a Canon shooter, or a Nikon shooter, or a Sony shooter, is shooting with "sub-par" IQ is just silly.

As for the notion that "only 'tyros, newbies, and wannabes' will use it most of the time on live view", you clearly have shortsighted tunnel vision. Better Live View AF performance is critical for the future, as the world steadily transitions to mirrorless cameras and fewer people want to lug around bulky DSLRs with flapping mirrors.

@yabokkie - resolution is rather pointless unless A) you have the lenses that can resolve that resolution and B) you are printing large enough for that resolution to be useful. There's not much point in having 40mp if you're shooting with anything less than the best prime lenses and aren't printing 30x40. And you'd better have a computer powerful enough to handle those massive RAW files that result from a 40mp sensor! So in reality, 40mp does NOT automatically mean better image quality. Real-world image quality is determined by what the final output destination is going to be. A $30,000 4K Ultra HD television has a resolution of 3840 pixels × 2160, which is only 8.3mp. And all that resolution also ends up being downsized for more moderate print sizes. So unless you're regularly printing massive department-store display images of models with flawless skin, or printing wall-sized landscapes, 40MP won't actually give you better image quality that you'll see or use.

T3, sometimes we just have to let the pixel peepers have their way. To them, the notion of a few smarter pixels being able to do better work than just adding more pixels to the sensor just doesn't compute. So let them call Canon's 20mp sensor a 40 if that's what it takes to make them feel good about wanting to own one. I doubt that Canon will be offended.

"the bottom line is resolution will go beyond the best naked eye, like African hunters. there is a requirement which is 100% feasible."

Yeah, that makes perfect sense...we all need resolution that goes beyond "the best naked eye." LOL. You're crazy.

You've completely left the real world. In the real world, 99.9% of images are viewed and enjoyed at much lower resolutions, on 2K displays, smart phones, tablets, modest print sizes, etc. That's the REAL world we live in, and where no one really cares how many megapixels the original image was shot in. The REALITY is that we've reached such excellent IQ levels that it's the CONTENT and ARTISTIC quality of the image that counts far more than how many pixels its made up of. Chasing more megapixels for the sake of having more megapixels is simply futile, and of far less practical benefit than you seem to realize. Clearly, you're obsessed beyond all rationality, haha.

Oh, and I hope you enjoy processing those massive 40mp RAW files.

You do realize that all DSLR MPs are overstated by a factor of 4, so a 40MP camera is really a 10MP camera, with the extra data being interpolated. This is the difference between "pixels" and "sensels". Your computer's 1920x1080 pixel display probably has 6 million "dots" (one red, one green, one blue for each "pixel"). The idea that this sensor is 40MP is ridiculous. The values of the two sides of the sensel are not independent, and in particular will be identical for in-focus areas, so you'll have no extra information where the target is in focus. (Read up on how phase detect AF works. It's the difference in the sides that is used to determine focus.)

I'm with you, T3. When a sensor is boild down just to the number of pixels a lot of other factors are being ignored. Since yab likes DxO he needs to go look at a 5DIII and a 7D with the same lens on each side by side. Detail resolution is better from the 5DIII across the board. Noise is better across the board. That also means as ISO increases detail loss due to noise is much less than the 7D. I love my 7D, but I understand how optics and sensors behave.

This question has obviously arisen for years and years.. My question is why none of the photo sites, (eg. DPR) who have access to camera manufacturers and distributors, don't ask and get the answer on behalf of their readers?

Hi, I am a consultant to major brands and I can answer you. Each country sets their own price based on two factors, what the competition is selling for and what the market is willing to pay.

What something sells in Euro or BP has no relation to its price in the US. Canon US sets that price.

You are helping to pay off Greece, Cyprus and Spain's debt, no? It's a feel good purchase.

I think (hope) that there is room for a 7D above $1199 without going all the way to $2099.

absolutely agree
Finally the 800 pound gorilla awakes !

Canon left the mirrorless and larger sensor point and shoot market to the others for too long....
I am absolutely getting the 70D !

usually (and this is usually .. ) canon pretty well keeps to the price of the prior model - the only time that i can recall a dramatic shift was the 5d Mark III.

the 7D was released at 1699 USD - so i'd be surprised if it's not around the 1750 to 1900 USD amount.

So with f/2.0 and exposure of 1 second that's about -1.0 EV
or for the 0 EV exposure of 2 second with f/2.0

I think they should talk about lux levels. You could get the impression that AF doesn't work if you under exposure your photos? ;)

Ahh, no... the equivalent aperture setting for 0 EV using a 2-sec exposure is f1.4, one stop down from f1.0.

The only thing they know how to do right is sell cameras. Oh, and lenses. Judging by movies and TV, Canon is lousy at giving stuff away. You'll never see Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise reach for a Canon camera and download to a PC laptop.

CLEARLY if they listened to the marketting and R&D and engineering experts that read dpreview, they'd have well over 9.3m units sold ;)

you are comparing a full frame sensor to a crop sensor - two different beasts.

secondly ... there's alot of value add to the photographer between this and the 60D it replaces. in actuality far more than AF during video that the videographers get.
let's see .. faster fps, AEB up to 7 shots, better LCD, 7D's AF sensor, AFMA, various in camera multi-shot modes.

what you should realize as well that not everyone just takes photos inside of dark bat caves and vampire hideouts.

@howardroark do you work for Canon or do you just love them lots? It's just I can't help thinking you don't get it. Many people here have invested thousands in Canon equipment and don't want the transactional loss from swapping it, nevermind the time (and sometimes stress) it would take to deliberate, research, buy and get used to a new system.
What is upsetting is seeing how far Canon went in just a few years with the advent of DSLRs, how far the prices fell, and knowing how amazing a 1 series camera is, even after a couple of decades. But Canon have disappointed many older customers for a while now.

For example Nikon at least offers a serious small full frame camera with a built-in flash - what I and many others wanted for ages.

Canon were last to the table with their APS-C interchangeable. Its obvious to everyone else when a brand (and its customers) are being milked, and partly ignored. Short term its a profitable strategy for a cash cow division, but we don't have to like it.

I've tried to develop reasonable expectations of technology and tech companies. I don't think smartphones are smart and mine hasn't "changed my life" any more than any other machine has. A camera is a camera, so go pick one that fits YOUR needs and shut up about it. You invested in a camera system KNOWING that you were spending money on technology that may or may not fit your specific needs into perpetuity, and if you didn't understand that then I don't know how anyone can have an ounce of sympathy for you.
As many customers as they've disappointed, they've made a whole bunch more happy. And for those people who are unhappy, they have every right to feel that way but no right to expect Canon to take a course of action that benefits them exclusively. Technology development isn't an assembly line and if something better comes out later then I assume that's better than something worse coming out later. I don't pity people who complain about how things work and things they can't change.

This isn't group therapy. If you're mad at Canon for doing what all camera companies do then maybe your therapist is a more appropriate venue for you to vent your frustrations. I also happen to like a lot of what Canon does. The 7D was a revelation, and I've loved my G1 X despite its limitations, and do you know why? Because I knew what its limitations were going in. I had realistic expectations and the opportunities it affords me and the image quality it produces fit MY needs.
And to more fully answer your question, I have paid Canon to supply me with devices that fit my needs, which means Canon is currently working for ME. If you want to fire them you're going to pay them their severence and rest easy knowing that you're going to a camera company that does what you like....today. I warn you, that company may not always call you and ask if you approve of their next camera design. Best of luck.

I am hoping any missing items will show up in the 7Dmark2: Dual card slots, headphone jack, digic 6 if it really is better than digic 5+. The 70D already has it right with new movie servo AF, articulating screen, new PDAF sensor, at a reasonable price point that some will buy and it is good to see new Canon innovations. For others who want more, wait for the 7D mark 2. Hopefully onscreen video and audio displays (audio level bars) will be great as well which is what is on professional level camcorders. We will see. Canon, if you are still deciding features on 7DII, I hope you are reading our requests. Please put these features in the 7DII or else the 6D mark2 whenever that happens.

howard, Andy is totally entitled to be disappointed as a videographer (as I am as a photographer :-)).
Each of us is entitled to an opinion and attacking or criticizing someone for his/hers is not very mature and not nice at all.
As an example: what if someone would comment to you "what do you know about SLR while shooting with a pocket camera and showing roughly a picture for 1000 comments?"
Hope no one does that ... would not be nice. What do you say?

Howard, you're right.

Why should anyone expect Canon to incorporate a headphone jack - it might cost them 50 cents, but more importantly it would interfere with their "dumbing down" creed trying to nudge buyers up the food chain.

Also, I don't think that asking for dual card slots was too much of a stretch considering other brands as well as Canon incorporate dual cards in their other consumer products.

And lastly, Canon's management hasn't done anyone any favors.

They were handed a golden platter with the 5DMKII user base yet they have continually taken every opportunity to intentionally limit features or raise prices exorbitantly for certain new products.

You can argue that they are simply a business, but Canon has failed on both fronts - they have alienated many of their core users and at the same time driven down shareholder value by: 1. Falling behind the competition
2. Not "speccing" their products aggressively enough to maintain robust sales.

No one is mentioning the word "sorry" except for you. Canon's drop in net income quarter to quarter from their 5DMKII heyday would appear to contradict your opinion that they haven't alienated or lost a portion of their user base. Whether this is from the competition catching up/passing or from initial disappointment in highly anticipated models (such as the the roll out of the 5DMKIII where the softer video and higher price initially turned some users away) no one knows. Canon was positioned to be the "Apple" of the photo world. Yes, Apple has slipped a bit, but Canon never realized their full potential (in my opinion) because of bad management. This has nothing to do with my personal laundry list of possible missteps Canon has made, but more from their hard financial numbers and lost sales.

Howard, I think that Nikon is trying their best to supplant Canon with video DSLRs, but just hasn't mastered the tech, whereas Canon has mastered the tech, but in their continuing effort at trying to squeeze the most money out of its users has settled for lower volume higher ticket items vs higher volume and it has back-fired financially (and with some of its users back-fired emotionally).

You know Andy G is a smart guy when you hear him complaining about how the 70D's new autofocus system won't work with his Zeiss ZE manual lenses. Yep, he's a true genius and that complaint definitely gives him lots of street cred. Not.

Maybe someday, Andy G will move out of his mom's basement...and right into a mental institution, LOL.

Of course Nikon and Canon are crippling most of their cameras in the hope customers would buy more expensive models instead. This is obvious since years.

Is it worth attacking fellow people commenting here, to defend the corporation you like? Group therapy you say?

Off

His

Meds

Andy G hates Canon so much he posts on the comment threads for products he has no intention of buying anyway. Here's a nickel kiddo, buy yourself some Ritalin.

Ca bine zici!
7D was everything I wanted, less the sensor and maybe an articulated screen. Actually not even the sensor is bad, bad is the AA filter. Considered buying one and HotRod-ing it but that got too expensive compared to a 5D. I was ready to spend the money since 50D showed up (not enough improvement and poor IQ) then no chance during the 18MP reign, felt completely let down by the 6D ...
Will wait for the 7DMkii but I'm sure Canon will manage to cripple that one too (I bet no articulated touch screen, single card, no DIGIC 6 but twin 5, let's see what their mind will cook-out ).

@Alec_c: intentionally crippled cameras = segmentation (marketing). Samsung is doing the same, major car manufacturers - the same, Apple the other way around, but it's just market segmentation. And it is working for decades. Cheers! :)

Of Canon's XXD bodies, I've owned the 10D, 20D, 40D, and now have a 60D. Frankly, I actually prefer the 60D's lighter, more compact plastic body. It's more resilient, impervious to dents or paint chipping, more temperature stable, and does a better job of handling impact shock than magnesium. These days, many of the latest modern assault rifles are being made of plastics for its superior properties...and none are made of magnesium. Why? Magnesium, while stiff, is not very resilient, is brittle, and therefore is prone to cracking. Just do a Google image search of "cracked magnesium camera" and see for yourself. Magnesium, especially in the sub-pro bodies, just isn't what it's cracked up to be, no pun intended.

BTW, you may not realize this, but all the bottom plates of Canon's magnesium prosumer bodies (10D-50D, 7D, 5D's) are all made of plastic. Tap the bottom of your 40D and see for yourself. If you want to see how the plastic bottom plate survives compared to its neighboring magnesium panels, look here:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/42049208?image=3

This is a Canon 7D, and the point of impact was the edge of the body, where the magnesium panel and the plastic panels meet. As you can see, the magnesium panel cracked and broke right off, while the plastic panel survived with just some mild scratches and denting. Plastic won, magnesium lost!

Also consider that *every* hotshoe flash made by *every* camera manufacturer is made of plastic, *not* magnesium. Why? Plastic is just a better material: lighter, better shock absorption, more resilient, etc. I don't hear anyone whining about the plastics used in Canon's speedlites.

The two photodiodes in each photosite are under the same micro lens (and the same color filter), so I doubt that they see spatially different information, just a difference in the incoming angle of that light, used for focus measurement. If so, there would not be any extra spatial detail to be got from reading all 40 million photodiodes separately.

Depends on your priorities/preferences. The D7100 has more AF points and I expect the 7D replacement to have more too but the 70D has PD on 80% of the sensor (for better LV). Both 7D and D7100 have OVF with 100% coverage while the 70D is only 98% but has articulating touchscreen. There are more differences (like slower burst rate and less robust than the 7D, etc.) but you start to see where Canon is positioning the 70D.

Agreed. It would take a lot to convince me to upgrade my 7D, but every little bit helps. Include an articulating LCD, DP PDAF, a few million more pixels, better ISO and DR, WiFi, 10fps with a deep buffer, 1080p60 video.....and there would probably have to be some cool new things I can't even think of, too.

Juck you need to read the specs for the 70D. It is not even a 20% improvement over the 60D, much less a 300% improvement!

er, no. The pixel count is not doubled, but maybe the marketing is double-speak. Each pixel is still one pixel, it's just made up from two photo diodes, each taking its light from opposite halves of the lens.

yab, that's not true. More pixels doesn't mean better image quality. It just doesn't. The term "image quality" contains too many variables for a statement like that to be true. People talk about quantum efficiency of smaller pixels but they gloss over the full well capacity being way, way lower and the readout noise being higher (S/N ratio lower).

but this is not an argument about the benefits or otherwise of more pixels. Because there are no extra pixels here to argue about.

I expect no IQ advantage over a normal 20MP design.
The image output is 20MP, not 40MP, because the signals from the two photodiodes at each photosite (under the same microlens and color filter) are merged into a single output value. If anything, the extra complications of putting two smaller photodiodes at each photosite instead of one bigger one is likely to lose some electron well capacity and some QE (light detection efficiency.)

P. S. I agree that the IQ of stills in LV mode could improve by being in better focus!

i thought the image was of butterflies.

@howardroark: No, I am not kidding. Why don't you look instead of going so uptight.

I did look. I say again, are you joking? That shot was taken at 1600 and the amount of noise in the sky isn't nasty compared to any other camera at ISO 1600. I have no idea how that photo was processed, so I don't think it is necessarily indicative of what the sensor can do, but judging by the amount of detail smudged by noise reduction and the amount of noise still remaining in the sky I disagree with your opinion.

howardroark wrote: "judging by the amount of detail smudged by noise reduction and the amount of noise still remaining in the sky I disagree with your opinion."

Wait, what? You just disagreed with my opinion and now you're saying there is noise in the sky and detail smudged?