While I was testing the Canon EOS 70D a couple of weeks ago, I thought about the main differences between the “other” APS-C cameras from Canon and what has changed over the last few years. In most comparisons online the 70D wins slightly when comparing it to the 7D. I wanted to find out if there really is a difference in terms of image quality because it’s obvious that the 70D has way more features than the four year old 7D.
Why comparing it to the 7D and not the 60D? We couldn’t find a 60D quick enough to test it so I thought the 7D would be a good rival especially when it comes to shooting video.
The video below features a short introduction to the 70D and how it overall compares to the 7D in both photo and video mode.
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What I didn’t really noticed until I was editing the comparison was the difference in sharpness. The 70D is definitely sharper which leads to more visible moiré/aliasing. The 7D has a softer image but the moiré is still visible. I still like the image of the 70D more because of the All-I video compression (ca. 91 Mbps) and the benefits of getting more out of it in post. When sharpening the 7D footage in post to make it match the sharpness of the 70D the image falls apart slightly and the aliasing will get sharper as well.
When I first noticed the contrast and saturation difference between the two DSLRs I was confused. I checked the picture style a few times, other settings, switched lenses but in the end the image from the 70D had more contrast and saturation.
Below are two photographs that clearly show the difference between those two cameras.
Once thing Canon should have done is include another card slot because the 70D has only one SD card slot. When filming in All-I or taking raw photographs I quickly ran out of storage. I used 16GB and 32GB cards most of the time but having a second card slot there would have been great. The 5D Mark III has one slot for SD and the other one for CF cards. I like that idea more than having two CF or SD card slots.
As I said in the video the Canon 70D convinced me because of the video mode. It is not a totally different pair of shoes but it has some of the features the 7D was lacking like a higher bitrate, flip-out touchscreen and auto focus.
Written by Moritz Janisch
