Canon 5DsR Resolution vs. 7D MkII

[David Stephens]

I received my 5DsR yesterday and couldn't wait to compare it to my 7D MkII at ISO 400 and 800. Those are my typical bird in flight ISO settings, in order to get a high enough SS. I mounted my EF 500mm f/4L IS II on my sturdy Induro tripod and took pictures of a sign with a great bit of detail (look at the edges of the letters). The exposures are the same for each body at each ISO and well lit, not challenging either sensor. I let DxO Optics Pro 10.4 apply Default noise reduction and sharpened the Raw images all the same in conversion to JPEG. It's interesting see a slightly different color interpretation of the two bodies.

Interestingly, the corrugation of the sign's surface didn't cause moire in the 5DsR.

All my wildlife shooting today was with the 5DsR and, of course, I discovered quickly how much slower the 5DsR is and filled up the buffer once or twice and it took quite a while to clear. Given the results of this test, the 7D MkII will remain my bird and wildlife body and the 5DsR will be a most excellent portrait, travel and landscape body. I was very pleased with both bodies, but actually a little surprised that the 5DsR didn't show more difference at ISO 800. I'll look for a repeatable target with finer detail.

You can see full EXIF at the Flickr site. Here's an Album on Flickr showing all the cropped and uncropped images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/sets/72157654706175433/with/19820296814/
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/sets/72157654706175433/with/19820296814/)

5DsR at ISO 800 cropped to 1316p

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/448/19820296814_d5830d0933_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/wcscHq)5DsR Cropped To 1316p ISO 800 (https://flic.kr/p/wcscHq) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII at ISO 800 cropped to 1316p

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/435/20443016355_034e170689_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/x9tNxe)7D MkII cropped to 1316p ISO 800 (https://flic.kr/p/x9tNxe) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

5DsR at ISO 400 cropped to 1316p

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/380/20434299262_0425ba97a2_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/x8H8fw)5DsR Cropped to 1316p ISO 400 (https://flic.kr/p/x8H8fw) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII at ISO 400 cropped to 1316p

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/384/20256381239_152fccef70_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/wRZfqp)7D MkII cropped 1316p ISO 400 (https://flic.kr/p/wRZfqp) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

If you want to show the resolution difference you need to compare RAW files at pixel level, from a subject that has some fine details, a dollar bill or an ISO chart is a good example. something that has high frequency detail/texture.

not sure what you can say from these files, they show lots of halo and jagged artifacts from strong sharpening and are (surprising) noisy too. If you took a shot with a third camera and shrunk it this much, then sharpened I bet it wouldn't look different...

I tried a 5DSR the buffer was actually pretty good, I use SanDisk Extreme pro UDMA7 cards (160MB/sec). If you use a different CF card or a SD card it will slow down quickly though...

[Don Lacy]

Hi David, Other then DPP4 all the profiles for third party Raw converters for the 5DS cameras are still plimanary with some doing a better job then others right now for example ACR is struggling with color and clipping the blacks so it's kind of hard to compare other cameras against the 5DS unless your using DDP4 in my opinion. I would not judge the Raw files from them using a third party converter right now.

[David Stephens]

Hi David, Other then DPP4 all the profiles for third party Raw converters for the 5DS cameras are still plimanary with some doing a better job then others right now for example ACR is struggling with color and clipping the blacks so it's kind of hard to compare other cameras against the 5DS unless your using DDP4 in my opinion. I would not judge the Raw files from them using a third party converter right now.

Thanks Don. DxO's version is not preliminary. Their protocol for developing profiles for each body/lens combination is consistent Still, it was interesting to see the difference in saturation between the two bodies.

I'll probably repeat the test using a currency, as Arash suggested, and even include DxO and DPP. Just need a little time.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Dave,

if you like to use DP 4.2 uset this settings --> sharpness=3 luminance NR=3 chrominance NR=4

Enjoy your new camera, it's a great body :)

[David Stephens]

Hi Dave,

if you like to use DP 4.2 uset this settings --> sharpness=3 luminance NR=3 chrominance NR=4

Enjoy your new camera, it's a great body :)

Thanks for the advice, Arash.

I was playing with DPP 4.2 last night and was wondering about Sharpness and NR settings. I ended up simply using the Default settings, within 1 point of yours if I recall correctly, and getting pleasing results, working on rabbits and birds. I used Auto Gamma, DLO and a very light touch with Shadows, defaults on Sharpness and NR, with very nice results, even at ISO 1600.

I'm betting that landscapes at ISO 100, the main reason I bought the body, will be stunning.

[David Stephens]

ISO 400 comparison 1584x1056p

5DsR

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5736/20599391525_cc0af9fe1c_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xoigqR)5DsR ISO-400 1584x1056 (https://flic.kr/p/xoigqR) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5757/20606058971_d4b2fe8c63_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xoTrqP)7D MkII ISO-400 1584x1056p (https://flic.kr/p/xoTrqP) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

[David Stephens]

ISO 800

5DsR


https://farm1.staticflickr.com/721/20411454470_53850d57f7_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/x6G3hN)5DsR ISO-800 1584x1056p (https://flic.kr/p/x6G3hN) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr


7D MkII

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5675/20573235716_203bb597f5_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xkZddC)7D-MkII ISO-800 1584x1056p (https://flic.kr/p/xkZddC) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

[David Stephens]

ISO 1600

5DsR

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5628/20599431445_6a648329e3_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xoiti8)5DsR ISO-1600 1584x1056p (https://flic.kr/p/xoiti8) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/588/20599473045_7ce159b9f9_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xoiFEn)7D-MkII ISO-1600 1584x1056p (https://flic.kr/p/xoiFEn) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII with Raw conversion in DPP

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5759/19979655223_422a360b68_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/wrwXqc)7D-MkII ISO-1600 1584x1056p DPP (https://flic.kr/p/wrwXqc) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

[David Stephens]

As Arash suggested, I took images of a dollar bill and did Raw conversion with No Correction in DxO Optics Pro 10.4. As you see above, the unprocessed 5DsR image at ISO 1600 is superior to all of the 7D MkII images, not only in sharpness, but also color resolution.

In the ISO 1600 example, I added one process in DPP with no correction except for DLO and it narrowed the gap a bit, particularly in color interpretation and somewhat less so in resolution, but still in a positive way.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks for the advice, Arash.

I was playing with DPP 4.2 last night and was wondering about Sharpness and NR settings. I ended up simply using the Default settings, within 1 point of yours if I recall correctly, and getting pleasing results, working on rabbits and birds. I used Auto Gamma, DLO and a very light touch with Shadows, defaults on Sharpness and NR, with very nice results, even at ISO 1600.

I'm betting that landscapes at ISO 100, the main reason I bought the body, will be stunning.

def. settings uses unsharp mask instead of RAW sharpness. I would avoid it

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Dave,

These all look soft to me. In particular the 7D2 samples look like they are OOF. They don't show any detail. Perhaps the shutter speed was too slow or the camera did not lock focus. I would use self time with a flash to eliminate camera shake and use live view focus to make sure focus is right.

hope this helps

here is what a sharp shot should look like

1DX + 400DOII+2XIII ISO 1600. DPP 4.2

154749

[David Stephens]

I think that the 7D MkII may have been in AI Servo mode instead of One-Shot, so I made certain that both cameras were in One-Shot mode, used f/4 and 1/1000-sec. and tried again at ISO 1600. The 7D2 does much better and only a little behind the 5DsR in these two shots:

5DsR

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5621/20674107991_4b68550e97_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xuUd2M)5DsR Retest ISO-1600 1584p (https://flic.kr/p/xuUd2M) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

7D MkII

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5803/20479403018_73b4395347_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/xcGi2u)7D-MkII Retest ISO-1600 1584p (https://flic.kr/p/xcGi2u) by David Stephens (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstep/), on Flickr

[arash_hazeghi]

Better but these still look soft, especially the 5D, what lens are you using? are you using remote release or self timer? what tripod/head are you using?

[David Stephens]

Better but these still look soft, especially the 5D, what lens are you using? are you using remote release or self timer? what tripod/head are you using?

Thanks for looking.

That's the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS at 200mm, remote release, Liveview focus, Induro C414 tripod with Arca-Swiss Z1 ballhead.

[arash_hazeghi]

I suggest using flash (manual set to high speed sync). If you use IS make sure it's on mode 1. ( although it shouldn't impact at 1/1000sec).

best