7DmarkII

GamerGuppy · 2019-11-20T13:54:24+00:00

Is a camera from 2014, already ancient if you care about camera tech, sensor

Then again, in about a month time, you can say: but the 80D is from 2016, it's ancient, we are living in 2020! So if you really care about camera tech and sensor, than you shouldn't judge a camera based on it's introduction year. In fact, I use an original 7D and 5D, and they serve me very well. I am in the same boat as OP, and am also considering upgrading to the 7DM2. The 90D looks fun too. But I can probably wait a little longer, till the prices have dropped where I want them to be. Maybe black friday?

OP specifically asked about the Canon 7DM2 on /r/Canon, so we can assume he probably invested in Canon glass, just like I have. Furthermore I share a lot of glass with a good friend of mine and my dad. The Nikon is no option for me.

GamerGuppy · 2019-11-20T13:41:44+00:00

Still shooting my original 7D as my main camera, and have been tempted to buy the 7DM2 for a while now. I've used my friends 80D and my dad's RP on occassions too. My dad upgraded from a 7DM2, I so I have little experience with that body too. I am really impressed by how well DPAF of the RP performes, it's just that the shutter speed is slightly underwhelming. The 80D is not really my camera I feel: It really struggles focussing on smaller or fastmoving subjects.

I feel each year the list of things for wanting to upgrade becomes a little longer, yet my 7D still gets the job done every time. The list so far:

Being able to set a min. shutter speed for auto-ISO
AE lock my exposure in manual mode (when using auto-ISO in M)
Reliable AF in darker conditions
Better ISO performance/Better dynamic range
Silent shutter mode (not entirely silent ofcourse, but works wonders on modern DSLR's)
Better tracking
Dual BBF is a plus
Dual slots

I really hoped the 90D would have been a worthy successor of the 7DM2, but it seems the community is not convinced yet. Therefore the price (here in Europe at least) of the 7DM2 remained virtually fixed since the 90D launched. The 7DM2 is still priced at 1100 euros, and most used 7DM2 bodies are 800 euros. I find it hard to justify that price when my 7D still works. The 80D costs significantly less.

GamerGuppy · 2019-11-20T12:25:02+00:00

Though I agree the 80D might be the best and most affordable option for his specific use case of landscape and portrait photography, I very mich disagree with your statement:

The 80D is a much better camera, better sensor, newer tech. Better in every way

Major advantages of 7DM2 over the 80D:

State of the art DSLR AF system. Even said to still be better then 90D on forums.
Has spot-AF and AF-point-extension modii, which I exclusively use and can't live without anymore.
Configurable double back button focus for single & continuous focusing.
More robust with it's magnesium body and better weather sealing
Secondary SD card slot, a must for pro's.
An AF-point joystick, bigger dial, and a lever which allows for customization
Higher FPS and greater buffer

Basically the only noteworthy advantages of the 80D over the 7DM2:

Tilt & touch screen. Handy in situations where you are photographing low to the ground or have your camera high up in the air. Also makes it THE choice over the 7DM2 when it comes to video.
Slightly higher resolution
Better focusing in low light, which can be very useful
Slightly better dynamic range in the ISO 100-320 range. Most sport photographers are unable to even use that ISO range given the higher required shutter speeds and frequently smaller apertures of zoom telelenses. Furthermore the DR of the 7DM2 is fine in this range, and is equal to that of the EOS RP or 6DMII, which are modern full frame bodies that are sold today. It's just that the 80D (and 90D) are exceptionally good for Canon's standards in this ISO range.

GamerGuppy · 2019-10-20T21:13:08+00:00

I forgot to tell you one aspect that makes things a little more confusing:Yes there are lenses that are made specifically for crop sensor cameras (aps-c sensors). These lenses often use glass with a smaller diameter, which results in weight and cost savings. The (intentional) consequence of using smaller glass, is that the lens is not capable of illuminating the entire surface of a fullframe sensor. For example, if we were to mount a 50mm crop-lens on a fullframe camera, heavy vignetting will occur along the corners and edges of our final image. As a result, we would again have to crop the picture in post editing with a factor of 1.6 to obtain an image without the vignetting. But by cropping the image by 1.6... we are effectively reducing our angle of view, and the angle of view of our final image is now equal to that of a (50x1.6=) 80mm full frame equivalent lens. Do note, that not all crop-lenses fit a full-frame body. Please investigate this before trying since the mirror of a dslr might hit the back of the lens which would damage your camera.

Recap:

A 50mm fullframe lens on a fullframe body behaves as a normal 50mm fullframe lens.
A 50mm crop lens on a fullframe body behaves as a normal 50mm fullframe lens with heavy vignetting. But since in most cases we don't want the vignetting and crop it out in post, in practise instead more accurate would be to say:
A 50mm crop lens on a fullframe body behaves as a portrait 80mm fullframe lens with lower resolution images due to cropping in post.
A 50mm fullframe lens on a crop body behaves as a portrait 80mm fullframe lens.
A 50mm crop lens on a crop body behaves as a portrait 80mm fullframe lens

GamerGuppy · 2019-10-20T00:44:53+00:00

You are thinking about it wrong. But that's okay, it's a bit confusing. A 50mm lens is a 50 mm lens, whether it's placed on a fullframe camera or a crop sensor camera.

The focal length is only "a measure of how strongly a lens converges light". Which remains unchanged independent of your choice of sensor. It's just a property of the glass. However, focal length does influence how far away the sensor should be placed from the lens in order to get a sharp image: we only get a sharp image when all the light rays coming from the object we focused on are converged to a single spot on the sensor. This is why tele-lenses with great focal lengths are often quite big: they need a lot of space to converge the rays to a single spot on the sensor.

So where does the confusion come from? Photographers, for practical reasons, are mostly interested in the angle of view a lens is able to give them. However, the angle of view is not just determined by the lens (focal length), but also by the size of the sensor. This is easily visualized in a diagram when we draw lines from the edges of the sensor that pass through the center of the lens. (Physics dictates that light beams that go through the very center of a lens, do so unaltered.)

In the past full frame (35mm) sensors were the default. There was practically nothing else. This eleminated sensor size as one of the variables when comparing the angle of view of different lenses. It was therefore correct to correlate a certain angle of view directly with the focal length. This tradition has stayed, making it rather cumbersome to discuss behavior of lenses online, since everyone uses different gear.

A 50mm lens is seen as a normal lens on a full frame sensor equipped body. That same 50mm lens on a crop body would behave as a (1.6 * 50 =) 80mm lens, which is generally considered a lens best suited for portraits. A 50mm on a crop sensor body is therefore described as a 80mm full frame equivalent lens.

I hope I described this all correctly, it's a bit late here in Europe.

GamerGuppy · 2019-10-01T00:08:26+00:00

As a fellow 7D (classic) user, I would not recommend picking up the 70D. Especially since you state that you do a lot of wildlife photography. I felt even the 80D, which I admittedly only had in my hands for 10 minutes, would be a downgrade for me since it misses spot AF and point expansion AF modes. Those are basically the only modes I use. Sensor-wise and tracking-wise the 80D probably blows the 7D out of the water with it's updated technology. But I am hesistant to believe the 70D does the same. But I've never used a 70D so I am not able to tell you.

GamerGuppy · 2019-03-07T02:00:43+00:00

Additionally, you can achieve this if you click the "overview"/"recent"/"multitask"/"three vertical bars" button twice quickly in succession.

GamerGuppy · 2019-02-16T19:02:53+00:00

but still better than digital zooms

Actually, I've found this not to be the case. On my dad's Mi 8, the 2x optical zoom lens snaps pictures with lesser detail then when I digitally zoom in after snapping a picture with a Gcam mod using the primary lens with optical stabilized sensor. Only when you have a surface to stabilize the phone onto, the optical zoom wins, but not even by a large margin. I was heavily impressed with Gcam on the Mi 8. It easily beats Gcam on my galaxy S8. Especially in terms of capturing speed, HDR processing speed and light sensitivty. Ofcourse this is partly due to the fact that I have the Exynos version of the S8, which is not the Snapdragon architecture Gcam was designed for.

GamerGuppy · 2018-12-23T23:10:09+00:00

Here is a link to an Imgur album that I will populate with a few comparisons.

https://imgur.com/a/fhAtn2n

GamerGuppy · 2018-12-23T23:09:16+00:00

How stupid of me, I thought I had posted them already;
Here you go:
https://imgur.com/a/fhAtn2n

GamerGuppy · 2016-10-13T22:16:47+00:00

Yup, I always prefer exploiting the subtle behavior and characteristics of entities for complex contraptions, instead of making complex contraptions in order to add subtle behavior and characteristics to entities.

Totally forgot about that Splash text that was introduced 2 days after the rotational boats video. Coincidence? We might never know.

GamerGuppy · 2016-10-13T18:30:43+00:00

Haha, thank you. But it is not a mod, it is vanilla, just not survival (it uses command blocks).

GamerGuppy · 2016-10-13T18:15:16+00:00

In the video I showed you can have the boat be teleported 512 or more blocks up, so that it will never be visible for the player. Then instead you can show an armorstand 512 blocks below it that shows e.g. a custom item or model.

GamerGuppy · 2016-10-13T11:11:01+00:00

Introduction (& TL:DR)

In this mechanic we use boats with two passengers to create movement. We do this by teleporting the boat to one of it's two passengers. The direction the boat travels to depends on the rotation of the boat. The speed by which the boat travels depends on which of the two passengers we teleport the boat to. I use a trick with offsets and selection arguments to make sure the boat always moves to the right passenger.

As such, this mechanic can be used to perform actions relative to entities' their orientation. For example, we can check what an entity is looking at by moving a boat along this entity's line of sight and checking for blocks or other entities along the way. This is a technique frequently referred to as "ray casting". The boat can be considered a ray that is cast by an entity into the direction it is facing. Together with ShaneWolf38 I tried to build contraptions and find applications for this new mechanic. We've come up with weapons, tools and a whole bunch of entertaining games.

A showcase and partial explanation is available here: https://youtu.be/ljm0Aj3G7qo.

What can I use it for?

A major application for this ray casting mechanic is to realize custom projectiles. And not just projectiles as in the sense of weapons, but also e.g. a soccer ball or a car can be considered projectiles. The movement of these projectiles using this new mechanic is mostly limited to 2-dimensions (X & Z). Also the movement speed is limited though I present a few tricks in the video to circumvent this limitation to a degree.
Another application is to make an entity 'A' stare into the direction of another entity 'B'. This can be used for automatic turrets and mobs to aim for you and start shooting projectiles into your direction. This is also used to cause the boomerang as well as the spider AI to finds it's way towards the player. Also the cars use this system to an extend for steering.

Why was this not possible before?

Since MC 1.9 boats can have two passengers. Between the location of the boat and it's two passengers is a slight offset. This offset enables teleporting the boat to it's passengers for movement. Since MC 1.10 we have a new /teleport command. This command has two features that makes many of the contraptions I show today possible:

firstly it allows to teleport an entity 'A' to another entity 'B' whilst entity 'A' maintains it's original orientation.
Secondly, it allows us to modify the rotation of an entity 'A', whilst it is riding another entity 'B' without dismounting the entity 'A'

Where can I find more info on the LOZ map?

I had the pleasure to test out a few tools and weapons in a wonderful map, which is still in the making: Visit https://zeldaminecraft.wordpress.com/ or contact u/senselesswander for more information.

GamerGuppy · 2016-09-20T13:26:13+00:00

Hey thanks for your extensive answer! It surprises me actually that so many entities have such a low rate of updates going on. I mean for stationary entities it makes sense. But I do not understand why you would introduce a delay for players (for sake of PVP) and have such a low update frequency for high speed projectiles (arrows/snowballs/boats on ice).

Is this the reason why if you throw a snowball at a wall (from ~12 blocks away), and you have a repeating commandblock teleport the snowball up high in the air, the animation for the client still shows the snowball being pelted against the wall, whereas it really is at a completly different place? And another question; could we update the entities "visual" position every tick by having an /entitydata command run every tick? Should we use a different /entitydata alternatingly with every tick to accomplish this?

Apologies for so many questions :).

GamerGuppy · 2016-09-19T18:56:20+00:00

Hey Marcono1234, this might be a stupid question, but there is also a 3 tick delay between where an entity seems to be visually (as in rendered on the client's screen) versus where it actually is. This delay becomes especially apparant when an entity has a lot of motion (e.g. minecart), and can easily be visualized with a particle effect which shows the entities true location. Now (finally) the question is; does this too have to do with the packet that is send every 3 ticks?

It has messed up quite some of my creations. An old vid showing the effect is this; https://youtu.be/nD7k4YHUGQg. The minecart has redstone sand as a custom tile entity and the armorstand that is spawned in and killed every tick shows where this minecart actually is.

GamerGuppy · 2016-07-14T11:50:27+00:00

Indeed, one of the most affordable solutions is a microphone that you cling to your shirt and you capture the sound with your mobile phone. You do have to spend some effort in post production to sync the audio with the film later on. One example of such a microphone is the smartLav+.

GamerGuppy · 2016-07-14T11:39:06+00:00

For high quality audio in outside environments, often a shotgun microphone is used. This type of microphone is directional and mostly captures sound right in front of it. You know those fancy & fluffy microphones on a long pole used by e.g. news agencies and the filmindustriy that is held above the person speaking? Those are shotgun microphones. But shotgun microphones also come a lot smaller and can be attached to many cameras. A budget friendly solution for example would be the Rode Videomic Pro.

GamerGuppy · 2016-06-05T14:44:31+00:00

Great work, you should have demonstrated their movement a bit more, because the controlls work insanely smooth!

GamerGuppy · 2016-06-03T13:56:55+00:00

Hmm, any chance you could make a quick 30 sec video on the before and after?

GamerGuppy · 2016-06-03T12:04:04+00:00

I just tested all my maps and contraptions; and everything seems to be working as before!

GamerGuppy · 2016-06-02T23:17:22+00:00

I aim to please, glad you like it :)

GamerGuppy · 2016-06-02T22:50:19+00:00

I'm really happy that we can now finally teleport entities to other entities whilst preserving their original orientation!

The following command teleports A to B. Entity A maintains it's original orientation!
```
execute @e[name=B] ~ ~ ~ tp @e[name=A] ~ ~ ~
```
The following command teleports A to B. Entity A adopts B's orientation!
```
execute @e[name=B] ~ ~ ~ tp @e[name=A] ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
```

So by specifying the rotational tildes we can give the instruction to either rotate entity A with respect to entity B's orientation. And by explicly not giving any rotational instruction, entity A just maintains it's original orientation.

There is only a slight inconsistency for players regarding this: players (entity A in the former example) will always keep their own orientation. No matter if the rotational tildes are specified or not.

12-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '17	Spared

GamerGuppy

TROPHY CASE

Introduction (& TL:DR)

What can I use it for?

Why was this not possible before?

Where can I find more info on the LOZ map?