Canon 7D homebrew presets question

[Box Brownie]

Hi All

I recently got the 7D and have a learning curve to handle the RAWs compared the old 40D.

Now with the 40D the Capture Sharpening defaults seemed fine and the Noise equally so but the 7D is a different kettle of fish  

So to anyone using the 7D what starting point for Sharpening settings and Luminance Noise have you found works satisfactorily?  I say starting because I am sure that I wil have to adjust them subject to whether said image is say bird feathers (high frequency) or architecture (low frequency)

Many thanks in advance for some pointers.

Oh, on the fairly simple walkabout first set of images I found the get ETTR I was using at least +2/3 EC compared to the 40D where +1/3 was my usual setting using Centre Weighted metering.

[David Good]

It really depends on your subject matter and exposure. I do find the 7D to be a very capable camera but at anything over ISO 400 or so the noise becomes quite obvious. My starting point is zero'd out on all sharpening and noise reduction sliders then adjust to taste on an individual basis (then Sync similar shots). But then I shoot a lot of birds in varying light and different ISO's.

I also have found that I generally ETTR by 2/3 EC with this body while with the 50D it was 1/3 EC.

[Box Brownie]

It really depends on your subject matter and exposure. I do find the 7D to be a very capable camera but at anything over ISO 400 or so the noise becomes quite obvious. My starting point is zero'd out on all sharpening and noise reduction sliders then adjust to taste on an individual basis (then Sync similar shots). But then I shoot a lot of birds in varying light and different ISO's.

I also have found that I generally ETTR by 2/3 EC with this body while with the 50D it was 1/3 EC.

Hi David

Many thanks for the insight, most interesting that the +EC needs are the same/similar..............if I recall even my old 350D needed +1/3.  Almost like most Canon bodies are programmed to underexpose!

As for the LR settings yes I take your point about starting at zero but was hoping to have more of baseline to work off of rather than zero    Like you I (try) with birds and BiF  

The noise as seen on the PC screen reminds of the fine grain of certain film types, can no longer recall whcih one as way too long ago

Lastly, have you found any value in Auto ISO usage?

[fike]

I also see some noise on clean, clear skies with my 7D at about 400 ISO, but that noise is really hard to detect in prints.  I find that as high as 640 ISO can be very a clean and a good point of compromise on higher ISOs like 1000 and 1600 where noise reduction becomes important. The best noise reduction I have found for this camera is down-sizing.  For print, if I use 300 DPI or higher (on my 8MP 30D I could use 240 DPI) or for online presentation if I reduce the size the size by 50%, the noise averages away. 

As for sharpening and noise reduction, I use neat image for anything 640 ISO and above.  I find that the Neat Image algorithm is a bit aggressive so I use their remove half the noise settings until I get to 1600 ISO. 

As for sharpening, I don't do it in ACR.  I use a combination of Neat  Image and Unsharp Mask, usually on an adjustment layer that can be masked to apply only to the non-sky/non-smooth gradient areas of the image.

[David Good]

I try to do capture sharpening in LR on the raw file as much as possible, but there are times when I resort to using Noiseware Pro then PK Sharpener Capture in PS (usually when I hit ISO 1600). I have found the results from LR4 to be quite satisfactory for most instances now though. Of course, us birders shooting BIF's are forced to use higher ISO's to keep the shutter speeds up and provide sufficient DOF.

I tried Auto ISO a few years back, was not too impressed though, I still prefer Manual exposure (old school).

[fike]

I tried Auto ISO a few years back, was not too impressed though, I still prefer Manual exposure (old school).

The inability to configure an ISO max in Auto ISO is kind of a killer for me. 

Here is a rumor regarding Auto ISO (among other things) that I hope is more than a rumor.
http://www.canonrumors.com/2012/06/canon-eos-7d-firmware-version-2-coming-soon/

[eliedinur]

Posted by: Box Brownie
Oh, on the fairly simple walkabout first set of images I found the get ETTR I was using at least +2/3 EC compared to the 40D where +1/3 was my usual setting using Centre Weighted metering.

Posted by: David Good
I also have found that I generally ETTR by 2/3 EC with this body while with the 50D it was 1/3 EC.

My understanding of ETTR must be fundamentally different from other folks. I have always practiced it by placing the brightest significant highlight as close to clipping as is possible without actually clipping it. This would make it scene referred and dependent on the tonal scale of the subject and would preclude a simple and fixed, one-size-fits-all EC adjustment.

[David Good]

My understanding of ETTR must be fundamentally different from other folks. I have always practiced it by placing the brightest significant highlight as close to clipping as is possible without actually clipping it. This would make it scene referred and dependent on the tonal scale of the subject and would preclude a simple and fixed, one-size-fits-all EC adjustment.

Agreed, but for most of the shooting I do, on the 7D, in most instances a +2/3 EC fits the bill. With the old 5D I tend to adjust for a zero EC.  I don't think your understanding is different, we all have different subject matter and styles that work for us given the equipment used.

To the OP's question, you can always start with the supplied sharpening for Scenes or Faces and adjust from there. Noise reduction is more dependent on several factors that would make it more difficult to suggest a default setting.

[Tony Jay]

My understanding of ETTR must be fundamentally different from other folks. I have always practiced it by placing the brightest significant highlight as close to clipping as is possible without actually clipping it. This would make it scene referred and dependent on the tonal scale of the subject and would preclude a simple and fixed, one-size-fits-all EC adjustment.

You are absolutely right in theory.
The difficulty with an in camera histogram is that it doesn't necessarily tell the truth with respect to the RAW information.
It varies sensor to sensor but it is likely that the RAW file does not clip where the histogram says it does.
This is because the the histogram is based on JPEG representation and not the RAW file.
(Many in the industry are calling for camera manufacturers to at least give the user the option of using a RAW based histogram.)
So, in some cameras almost two stops of exposure headroom may be available despite the histogram warning of clipping.

Thus, exactly how to expose with an individual camera is a dynamic combination of the principle you have elucidated along with knowledge of exactly how much exposure headroom that camera possesses. One usually works this out by trial and error.
Considering that half the information that a sensel can gather is found in the brightest stop and a further quarter in the second brightest stop a lot of tonal information is lost if one's exposure decisions are wrong.
So it is well worthwhile working out exactly how the sensor in one's camera behaves to take full advantage of what the sensor can capture.

One post in this thread has made mention that Canon cameras seem to chronically underexpose anyway and in my experience this is correct.
However with a little experimentation I have worked out exactly what the exposure headroom really is and thus expose accordingly.

Regards

Tony Jay

[Box Brownie]

Hi guys

Many thanks again for the insight and feedback, much appreciated 

In regard to ETTR and +EC for Canon ~ I take the elied's point but that in practice infers there is time for analysis and correction at the 'location', this is fine for landscape work unless of course you are catching a time critical event like sunrise or sunset.  But as David Good & I (I think ) are talking about BiF and in my case airshows & motorsports the action and possible changing conditions preclude the moment to moment ETTR tuning so a "fixed" +EC gets me/us enough of the way to ETTR such that LR PP can hopefuly yield the expoure tweaking without ruining the image???

As for the capture sharpening & NR I am just trying to set some baseline control that in the case of capture sharpening corrects for the AA filter effect and broadly AFAIK that is quite camera model specific, hence my opening post comparing what I see in LR with the 40D vs the 7D RAW images.  Of course again AFAIK when you throw NR correction that skews the capture sharpening choice because of the edge softening (is that the right way to describe it?) the NR setting introduces.

I hope what I say above makes sense compared to you guys knowledge on the subject.......................if I am going totally off the beam please do get me back on the track 

[eliedinur]

So it is well worthwhile working out exactly how the sensor in one's camera behaves to take full advantage of what the sensor can capture.
.... with a little experimentation I have worked out exactly what the exposure headroom really is and thus expose accordingly.

That is, of course, the implied precondition for ETTR. Thank you for elucidating it.

[hjulenissen]

I think it is confusing to mix the terms "EC" and "ETTR".

Applying EC is simply saying that the built-in auto-exposure has a tendency to over/under-expose compared to what you would like, your kinds of scenes etc. I happen to agree: my Canon cameras tend to be on the conservative side, and i can nearly always expose significantly harder before I see clipping. My guess is that Canon adds quite a bit of headroom just to be on the safe side (never know if a user might be really interested in those highlights).

ETTR is about the true exposure (not about a correction factor for the auto-exposure), and judging if one image is truly ETTR using in-camera or commercial applications is hard.

Just my 0.02
-h

[David Good]

I think it is confusing to mix the terms "EC" and "ETTR".

Applying EC is simply saying that the built-in auto-exposure has a tendency to over/under-expose compared to what you would like, your kinds of scenes etc. I happen to agree: my Canon cameras tend to be on the conservative side, and i can nearly always expose significantly harder before I see clipping. My guess is that Canon adds quite a bit of headroom just to be on the safe side (never know if a user might be really interested in those highlights).

ETTR is about the true exposure (not about a correction factor for the auto-exposure), and judging if one image is truly ETTR using in-camera or commercial applications is hard.

Just my 0.02
-h

My bad, interchanging the two

[Deep]

I see no one has actually answered your question!  Try these for a crude starting point (ASA 100-400):
Sharpening amount - 60; radius - 0.8; detail - 25; masking - 7; Noise reduction luminance - 10; detail - 50; contrast - 0; colour - 25; detail - 50.  From 400-1600, set luminance to 20.  These seem a good starting point on a 60D so should be close on a 7D.

[MikeB55]

There is some specific Lightroom 4 default for the 7d opinion here http://www.foto-biz.com/Lightroom/Lr4-the-proper-camera-defaults but I have not tried them however. This site has a number of Canon 7d specific posts.

Regards

Mike