Rumors are circulating regarding the Nikkor 135mm f/2.0D lens. Major online retailers are listing the lens as “out of stock.” Nikon rumors has posted a translated forum post from Germany. The poster tried to buy the venerable Nikkor 135mm only to be told it was unavailable. He was then told a new version would be out in December, listed at 1399 Euros.
This practice of updating store inventory records before officially releasing new product information has been seen before from both Canon and Nikon. Only time will tell. Nikon Rumors speculates a new glass announcement the first week of December.
7D RAW quality a step backwards?
There is a storm of controversy surrounding the image quality of the new Canon 7D DSLR. Landscape photographer Darwin Wigget posted a scathing review regarding the image quality of the newest Canon DSLR offering. In his tests, his old Canon 450D produced better RAW images than the new Canon 7D.
What do you get from a revelation like this? Insurrection in the Canon camp: Pro 7D and Anti 7D shooters battling like gladiators in blog comments and forum threads (with Nikon users laughing on the sidelines).
Pro Photo Home did their own tests of the Canon 7D and Canon 450D raw abilities. In these tests, using different RAW processing programs, the 7D came out on top.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Is this a tempest in a teapot? This battle will probably continue, with many lives lost due to forum and comment flaming.
Its my understanding that due to the pixel density of the 7D, the images actually suffer as you increase your f/stop. Now I do not know this, I have only read this on a couple different sites. This might make sense that the landscape photographer you mentioned would probably use higher f/stops to get his landscape shots. Just a thought. I guess an easy way to test this would be to have a shootout of the 450 and the 7D under same conditions using a high f/stop like f8 or more.
Hello rz:
Thanks for your comment. I haven’t had a chance to test this out first hand. Most lenses have a “sweet spot” around f/8, after diffraction starts to kick in. I don’t think the landscape photographer’s test were very good. He used unadjusted RAW files, processed in Canon’s DPP – not the best RAW conversion software. I might tackle this project myself in the new year.
As a 7D owner I have to say I’ve got some absolutely incredible images from it. Moving from a 20D to a 40D I saw a huge improvement in overall image quality. Moving to a 7D probably wasn’t as dramatic a change, especially on the noise front. However, the level of detail is just stunning. No issues with sharpness. Image noise can be an issue but only low light, and it’s much better than the 40D. High ISO to freeze action in well lit frames with a well balanced exposure and even ISO 800 is not an issue with a little post processing. I have printed all images at A3, no colour noise issues at all and luminescent noise is so fine you have look hard to see it. Even at ISO 800. Sharpness does suffer at ISO 800 but only slightly and at 400 I haven’t noticed any issues at all. Overall, the 7D has helped me realise how good some of my L lenses actually are. I’m sure the 5D2 can deliver higher quality but for performance vs £, I’m more than happy with my 7D, until one day when I can afford a 1Ds.
You sound like adverting from Canon department…