I Rest My Case
Posted on 13. Feb, 2010 by Thomas in Blog, Gear
Following up on my comments from the other day about the new Canon Rebel / 550D, DXO labs have run their tests on a pre-production model and the results are…..well, I think they speak for themselves:
“Yeah, but it’s got 18 megapixels maaaannnnn, that’s all that matters”
[UPDATE]
Just a quick point. I picked the D90 because it’s a camera that I know. Bear in mind that the D90 is two years old. I’m not trying to make this a Canon / Nikon thing. I own 3 DSLRs and two of them are Canons. I know test results aren’t everything either, but they do seem to match up with people’s experiences of other Cameras on there so I would give them a reasonable amount of credit.
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There are, I think, two types of photographers. Those who obsess about test results from potentially biased websites then spend hours looking at images at 100% and those who go out and take pictures. I give you this thread of images taken with a camera that has a nearly identical sensor to the new one:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/836385/0
I’m willing to bet shots from the Nikon won’t look much different.
The two types of Photographers are those who have had their work critiqued by professional clients and those who haven’t. If you think you can cut it by not checking your images at 100% or not being concerned about things like Image quality then I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening if you ever want to work commercially or sell your images as stock. Try telling a client that, actually the image is supposed to look fuzzy/noisy and that they shouldn’t be looking at their images that closely. Seriously, try it.
The sad thing is lots of people believe this way. If you only ever want to take shots for yourself thats fine but if you ever want to be a Pro you need to learn to critique your own images, both from a composition AND from a technical point of view. Avoiding the latter is not going to get you anywhere. Yet somehow it’s become a meme on the internet that technical quality isn’t important, that checking the quality of your images is wrong, and wanting the best quality is somehow wrong.
As for the images looking the same as the Nikon I can see differences straight off and that’s even scaled down to screen size. You have some lovely Images there, and that’s great. Can the 7D take great shots – of course it can. You can get great shots out of most cameras. You can work around the limitations of most cameras, but the more work you spend doing that the less time you spend on creativity. The 550D though is not the 7D either. The 7D looks substantially better. I’ve looked at the samples DP Review has posted and you don’t need to look at them at 100% to see the compromises that have been made.
Detail is smeared out of existence. There’s no information in subtle textures. Even at Low ISO. I’m sure if you shoot raw this won’t be as bad but this is a camera made for consumers so they probably won’t do that. My point is and was always that they have needlessly shoved megapixels into the camera when there are plenty of other areas where they could have improved things, and in the process compromised the technical quality of the resulting images
If technical quality means nothing to you then you’re all set. But please stop bashing those who do care about such things. It’s not because we’re “obsessed” – it’s because we’ve been on the receiving end of clients who do care about such things.
Um, maybe it’s the raw converter used, not the camera:
http://www.prophotohome.com/news/2009/11/19/canon-7d-worse-than-canon-rebel-xsi/
Rant all you want, I’ll pick up a 550D for stock work, which means no more upsizing and I’ll make money with it.
Let those bitches from Nikon camp rant whatever they want. They are those who, from facade, bitchy and critical toward Canon but at the same time behind backdoor they pray every night for Nikon to increase the megapixels and improve video capability to full HD 1080p. Freaks.
I will pick up this new and wonderful Canon Rebel camera soon. I love to take photograph. Mama, I used to have Nikon camera back in the film days but no more…
Thomas, I am proud of you for writing the truth… Canon campers can’t see the forest because of too many trees (pixels). Step back from the trees and there is clearly a beautifull forest. Long ago(in photo years) a 40d showed me this forest and it was great…Now it looks like canon will keep planting too many trees in small forest. What a shame…..Ken…ps. Thomas, please step out from behind that camera. We would like to see this man who calls it like it is.