To Graham (Valvebounce)
Hi Graham
Thank you for your comments and compliments. Indeed, I really like the 7D II, which, in my opinion, has far better and different noise than the 7D. I often use it with ISO 1600 or even 2000 when taking pictures of animals in winter at low light. There is a huge difference between the older and the new 7D - especially in sharpness (e.g. fur of animals).
I was just curious to see how the 7D II performs in high ISO when taking shots after sunset. I did not expect miracles but was surprised by some outstanding pictures - especially when thinking of all those pictures taken without a tripod I was really really surprised by the results. Of course, the new 100-400 II is an outstanding lens, too.
To your question about how usable these high ISO pictures are, well, let me say this: you surely won't enlarge it as big as 10 feet tall!
But I can imagine that it would be very usable for smaller prints (1 foot??
)
You can make your own decision when looking at the pictures below. The first two are 100% crops of the original photo of the Holiday Jet Airbus A319. Picture 903_5198orig1 = jpeg from original unprocessed raw file (no noise reduction, no increase of contrast - just original), the ...pro1 file shows the same processed by Canon's digital photo professional-software version 4. Noise reduced in brightness level 11, in colours level 14. +1 in contrast that's all.
The second series shows the Iberia-Airbrus A320 at ISO 6400, the same like the first two pictures - first the unprocessed original, second processed by Canon's digital photo professional. No other software used.
I think, those results could be worse, could they?
Snowleo
(my real name is Marcus)