Canon 77D Exposure

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Slightly below average saturation levels but very good hue accuracy.

Saturation. The Canon 77D produces images with mean saturation levels that are a little below average these days. Dark reds are boosted the most, with dark orange, dark greens and dark blues pushed just a little, while cyan, yellow and light green are slightly muted. The mean saturation of 108.5% (8.5% oversaturated) at base ISO is a bit lower than the ~110% average we typically see, but colors are still quite pleasing to the eye, and saturation levels are fairly stable across the ISO range, with a minimum mean of 104.9% at ISO 51,200. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. The Canon 77D produced pleasing, natural-looking Caucasian skin tones in our tests when using Manual white balance (Auto white balance was very similar). Darker skin tones show a small nudge toward orange, but lighter tones are more pinkish. Very good results. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. As we've come to expect from Canon, the 77D's hue accuracy is much better than average when Manual white balance is used (as it always is for these results). There are the usual shifts in cyan toward blue (though actually quite small), red toward orange, orange toward yellow, and yellow toward green, but all are fairly minor. Average "delta-C" color error at base ISO is only 3.93 (lower is better) which is very good. Delta-C color error varies slightly with sensitivity, but remains better than average even at the highest ISOs. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Auto and Incandescent white balance settings both struggled with household incandescent lighting, though Manual worked well. Average exposure compensation required.

Indoors, under incandescent lighting, the Canon 77D's default Auto and Incandescent white balance settings struggled, producing very reddish or orange/yellow color casts. Like other recent Canon EOS models, the 77D has a "White Priority" Auto white balance mode, which worked better, but it produced a magenta cast. The Manual setting produced the most accurate results that were just slightly cool. The Canon 77D required +0.3 EV exposure compensation for this shot, which is about average among the cameras we've tested. (Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.)

Outdoors, daylight
Very good color, though a tendency towards slightly cool color balance with somewhat high contrast under harsh lighting. Slightly above average exposure accuracy.

Outdoors, the Canon 77D produced pleasing skin tones with both Auto and Manual white balance, and overall color was generally very good. The Canon 77D required only +0.3 EV exposure compensation to keep the mannequin's face bright, a little lower than average for our "Sunlit" portrait shot (above left). The Canon 77D's default contrast is a little high, producing some washed-out highlights and dark shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of the shot above left, though the camera's Auto Lighting Optimizer and Highlight Tone Priority settings help with high contrast scenes like these. See below for examples of this. The Far-field shot (above right) is a bit cool, but default exposure is good, and the camera avoided blowing most highlights except for some specular highlights. There are some deep shadows which are a little noisy and discolored, but have good detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
~2,800 lines of strong detail from JPEGs, about the same from RAW.

Our resolution chart showed sharp, distinct line patterns up to just over 2,800 lines per picture height horizontally and to just over 2,800 lines vertically. Some may argue for higher numbers, but lines begin to merge at this resolution, and some aliasing artifacts in the form of moiré patterns can be seen at lower resolutions. Extinction of the pattern occurred between 3,400 and 3,600 lines. An Adobe Camera Raw converted .CR2 file produces about the same resolution as the in-camera JPEG, though complete extinction of the pattern was extended a bit. While ACR was able to extract more detail, it also produced more false colors. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Somewhat soft images at default sharpening, but with noticeable sharpening artifacts. Minor to moderate detail loss due to noise reduction processing even at low ISOs.

Sharpness. The Canon 77D's 24-megapixel sensor captures very good image detail when coupled with a good lens, though its JPEG images are a bit soft at default settings. Yet the 77D's default sharpening setting generates visible edge-enhancement artifacts in the form of obvious sharpening halos around high-contrast edges, as shown in the crop above left. (Keep in mind Canon has decided to keep an optical low-pass filter in the 77D to reduce aliasing artifacts at the cost of slightly reduced sharpness, unlike some competing models which have gone the other way. However much of the softness is just due to unsophisticated default processing.) Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows some detail loss due to noise suppression in darker areas and in areas with low contrast, perhaps just a little more than we're accustomed to seeing from an APS-C sensor at base ISO. Still, a decent performance for a 24-megapixel consumer model. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

In-Camera JPEGs: Standard vs Fine Detail Picture Style setting
The 77D offers Canon's Fine Detail Picture Style first seen on the Canon 5DS R and 5DS DSLRs. Below is a comparison with the default Standard Picture Style.

In the table above, we compare the Canon 77D's default Standard Picture Style setting (left) to its Fine Detail preset at base ISO. Like the 5DS/R, the Canon 77D offers users much more flexibility in sharpening than older EOS models, allowing you to adjust not only the "Strength" (from 0 to 7) but also the "Fineness" (1 to 5) and "Threshold" (1 to 5) operators. We believe these parameters correlate to unsharp mask options for strength, radius and threshold available in photo editing software such as Photoshop, although we don't know what the equivalent units might be.

The Fine Detail Picture Style preset boosts the Sharpness Strength operator one notch (to 4 out of 7) while dialing down the Fineness (1/5) and Threshold (1/5) operators to their minimum compared to Standard which defaults to Sharpness: 3/7, Fineness: 4/5 and Threshold: 4/5. The result is improved, more natural-looking rendering of fine detail along with less obvious sharpening halos than the default Standard setting. However, noise is more visible in flatter areas, and contrast is lower, making the Fine Detail image appear to have less "pop". There also appear to be minor differences in color, even though Color Tone, Saturation and Contrast settings are identical between these two Picture Styles presets. Given the flexibility in settings, though, you may be able to find a better combination than the defaults compared above.

RAW vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above the Canon 77D produces JPEG images with very good detail, but that are somewhat soft yet have visible sharpening halos when viewed on-screen at 100%. With a good RAW converter, additional detail can often be extracted with fewer sharpening artifacts. See below:

In the table above, we compare a best quality in-camera JPEG taken at base ISO using default noise reduction and sharpening (on the left) to the matching RAW file converted with Adobe Camera Raw 9.1 via DNG Converter 10.2 using default noise reduction with some strong but tight unsharp masking applied in Photoshop (300%, radius of 0.3 pixels, and a threshold of 0).

Looking closely at the images, we can see ACR extracts additional detail that isn't present in the default JPEG from the camera, particularly in the red-leaf and pink swatches where the fine thread pattern is likely treated as noise by the JPEG engine. Fine detail in the mosaic crop is also improved, but as is often the case, the conversion isn't nearly as clean and smooth looking, with more noise as easily seen in the flatter areas of the bottle crop. You can of course apply stronger noise reduction (default ACR NR used here) to arrive at your ideal noise versus detail tradeoff. And, as expected, sharpening halos aren't nearly as strong as the default camera output. Bottom line: As is usually the case with Canons, you can do noticeably better by shooting in RAW mode and using a good RAW converter than the camera's default JPEG processing.

ISO & Noise Performance
Decent high ISO performance for a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor.

Images are quite clean at ISOs 100 and 200, with just a tiny amount of luminance noise seen in the darker areas, and very little chroma noise. Some blurring of fine low-contrast detail is already visible at base ISO, though, as mentioned previously. Noise "grain" is slightly more evident at ISO 400, but detail remains very strong despite some minor blurring due to noise reduction. ISO 800 is of course a little noisier, but fine detail is still very good with a noise grain that's quite fine while chroma noise remains low. At ISO 1600 blurring becomes noticeably stronger resulting in a more evident drop in image quality, though a fair amount of fine detail is still left. ISO 3200 is quite a bit softer and grainier with minor chroma blotching, but there is still some fine detail left. ISO 6400 is quite soft and grainy, but the grain is still fairly tight and not too obtrusive. Noise and the effects of noise reduction working hard to keep it under control really become apparent at ISOs 12,800 and 25,600, with heavier luminance noise, stronger blurring and more obvious chroma blotching.

Overall, decent high ISO performance for a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor, though not quite as good as most rivals. See the Print Quality section below (when available) for our evaluation of maximum print sizes at each ISO setting.

A note about focus for this shot: We used to shoot this image at f/4, however depth of field became so shallow with larger, high-resolution sensors that it was difficult to keep important areas of this shot in focus, so we have since started shooting at f/8, the best compromise between depth of field and sharpness.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range and low light tests
Somewhat high default contrast and unremarkable dynamic range. HTP and ALO options do a great job of dealing with harsh lighting. Good low-light performance.

The Canon 77D produces images with moderately high contrast with some washed-out highlights and deep shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of the test above. The mannequin's face is too dim at the default exposure and +0.7 EV has far too many blown highlights, so we preferred the image with +0.3 EV exposure compensation. This still resulted in some clipped highlights in the shirt and flowers, a bit more than we're used to seeing from an APS-C sensor lately, indicating mediocre dynamic range compared to the best of recent competitors. Shadow detail is however pretty good, though very deep shadows are a bit noisy and discolored. Bottom line: while dynamic range in JPEGs isn't bad, the Canon 77D didn't do as well with this difficult shot compared to some recent state-of-the-art peers. Almost all highlights and shadows were however recoverable from the +0.3 EV CR2 file, indicating much better dynamic range is possible from the 77D's base ISO RAW files.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here. In actual shooting conditions, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown here; it's better to shoot in open shade whenever possible.)

Face Detection
Just like most point & shoot cameras these days, the Canon 77D has the ability to detect faces, and adjust exposure and focus accordingly.

As you can see in the examples above, the center image with face detection enabled is slightly better exposed for the face compared to the left image where face detection was not employed, as using it dropped the shutter speed from 1/30s to 1/25s. Oddly, full Auto mode (right) is actually a little dimmer in the face. It selected a much wider aperture of f/3.2, a faster shutter speed of 1/320s, and used the standard Auto Lighting Optimizer setting for lower contrast.

Highlight Tone Priority
The Canon 77D's Highlight Tone Priority (HTP) option did a good job of preserving highlight detail as shown below. (Mouse over the Off and On links below to load the corresponding thumbnail and histogram, and click on the links to access full resolution images.)

Both shots above were captured at the same exposure, the only difference being that HTP was enabled for the second shot which required ISO to be increased to 200; part of how HTP works. As you can see, the thumbnails and histograms clearly show a reduction in highlights while mid-tones and shadows remained roughly the same with HTP enabled. If you look closely at shadows, you'll notice an increase in noise is the price you pay when ISO is boosted from 100 to 200, although noise is still pretty low in the shadows at ISO 200.

Automatic Lighting Optimization
Like previous Canon EOS models, the 77D offers three selectable levels of Automatic Lighting Optimization (ALO), plus Off. In fully automatic (Scene Intelligent Auto) ALO is automatically enabled and it's available in P, Tv and Av exposure modes. (Mouse over the links below to load the associated thumbnail and histogram, and click on the links to access full resolution images.)

As you can see above, ALO has the effect of shifting shadows and mid-tones in the histograms to the right, brightening shadows and indeed most of the image while attempting to keep highlights the same. ISO does not need to be boosted for ALO so increased noise is not an issue, though it may be slightly more visible in shadows that have been boosted significantly.

HDR Backlight Control
The Canon 77D includes a couple of High Dynamic Range modes, which takes a burst of three shots at different exposures and merges them together to create an image with wider tonal range than would be possible with a single exposure. There's an HDR Backlight Control scene mode, plus included in Image Effects (Creative Filters), there is an HDR mode that offers four Artistic effects: Art Standard, Art Vivid, Art Bold and Art Embossed, as well as a Natural setting.

Because it is a scene mode, HDR Backlight Control does not offer any control over aperture, shutter speed or ISO. In this case, the camera chose ISO 250, f/2.8 and 1/400s with HDR Backlight Control selected. As you can see above, it produced an image with much higher dynamic range, much better shadow and midtone detail, and fewer blown highlights, however it does look a little flat as HDR images often do. Because it takes multiple images and merges them together, it is not recommended for portraits as any motion between frames would result in ghosting or double images. Also notice how the HDR image is noticeably "cropped" and then enlarged during the alignment and compositing process.

We did not test the Creative Filter modes in the lab, however there are some examples in our Gallery shots.

Dynamic Range Analysis (RAW mode)
While we once performed our own dynamic range measurements based on in-camera JPEGs as well as converted RAW images (when the camera was supported by Adobe Camera Raw), we've switched to using DxO Labs' results from their DxOMark website. As technology advanced, the dynamic range of modern high-end cameras in some cases exceeded the range of the Stouffer T4110 density scale that we used for our own measurements. DxO's approach based on RAW data before demosaicing is also more revealing, because it measures the fundamental dynamic range of the sensor, irrespective of whatever processing is applied to JPEGs, or to RAW data by off-the-shelf conversion software.

In the following, we use DxO's "Print" dynamic range results, which are scaled based on camera resolution. As the name suggests, this scaling corresponds to the situation in which you print at a given size, regardless of how many megapixels the camera might have. (In other words, if you've decided to make a 13x19 inch print, that's the size you're printing, whether the camera's resolution is 16 or 300 megapixels.) Also note that DxO Labs uses a signal-to-noise (SNR) threshold of 1 when defining the lower boundary of acceptable luminance noise in their dynamic range measurements, which corresponds to the "Low Quality" threshold of the Imatest software we used to use for this measurement.

Above, we compare the tested dynamic range of the 77D (in orange) to its predecessor's, the T6s (or 760D, in yellow), and to the Nikon D5600 (red), a close competitor which also uses a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor.

As you can see from the above graph (click for a larger version), the Canon 77D's dynamic range significantly improved over the T6s' at low ISOs, but it drops below the T6s' at ISOs above 400. The 77D's peak dynamic range at base ISO tested at 13.3 EV versus just under 12 EV for the T6s, which is a significant 1.3 EV advantage. At ISOs above 400, the T6s' advantage is less than about 0.5 EV which would be a little difficult to see in real-world images, so we think this is a worthwhile tradeoff.

The Nikon D5600 however performed better across the board, with a peak dynamic range of just over 14 EV at base ISO, which is about a 0.7 EV advantage over the 77D, and the Nikon manages to keep a sizeable lead up to about ISO 6400, where its lead narrows.

Bottom line, while dynamic range has improved significantly over its predecessor at low ISOs, the 77D still lags behind leading APS-C rivals. Click here to visit the DxOMark page for the Canon 77D for more of their test results.

Low Light. The Canon 77D performed well in our low-light tests for an APS-C camera, capturing bright images at the lowest light level (1/16 foot-candle), even with the lowest sensitivity setting (ISO 100). As expected, noise increases as ISO goes up and light levels go down, but luminance noise remains fairly low and fine-grained at ISO 3200. Some chroma noise in the form of subtle color blotching in the shadows and dark areas is visible at lower light levels, though it's effectively suppressed by default noise reduction. As you'd expect, noise is quite high at the maximum native ISO of 25,600, particularly when noise reduction is minimized (rightmost column in the table above).

Color balance was very good with the Canon 77D's Auto white balance setting, just a touch cool even at 1/16 foot-candle.

We didn't see any significant issues with hot pixels or heat blooming, and banding (fixed pattern noise) appears to be very low in the shadows.

LL AF: The Canon 77D's dedicated optical viewfinder autofocus system was able to focus on our legacy low-contrast AF target down to about -1.2 EV unassisted with an f/2.8 lens, which is fair, but it was able to focus on our newer high-contrast AF target down to -5.0 EV, which is excellent. When using Dual Pixel AF in Live View mode, the 77D was about to focus down to -1.5 and -3.8 EV respectively, which is quite good. The Canon 77D has an AF assist feature which strobes its built-in flash while focusing and is thus able to focus in complete darkness with it enabled, though it only works when using the optical viewfinder.

As always, keep in mind that the longer shutter speeds here demand the use of a tripod to prevent any blurring from camera movement. (A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Large sensored cameras like the Canon 77D do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

Print Quality
Very nice 30 x 40 inch prints at ISO 100/200/400; a good 16 x 20 inch print at ISO 1600; and a usable 4 x 6 at ISO 25,600.

ISO 100 and 200 images look practically identical with tons of fine detail and vibrant colors that make excellent, large prints up to 30 x 40 inches. At this size, we're pushing the resolving power the 77D's 24MP APS-C sensor. At very close inspection, we can see the faintest hint of pixelation due to the large print size, but from a normal viewing distance for a print this big, the image quality looks great.

ISO 400 prints look very similar to the previous two ISOs. Comparing side-by-side, the ISO 400 image shows just a hint of softening due to a slight increase in noise compared to base ISO. However, the effect is so minimal that it doesn't impact print sizes, and we're happy with 30 x 40 inch prints at this ISO, as well.

ISO 800 images begin to show some visible noise and subsequent softening of fine detail. The overall image quality is still very good, allowing this ISO to make pleasing, high quality prints at up to 20 x 30 inches. A 24 x 36 inch print looks quite good, too, but the noise might be a bit too strong for the most critical applications, so we'll play it safe by calling it at the next size down.

ISO 1600 prints follow a similar pattern to the previous ISO; noise is stronger now, and while a 20 x 30 inch print might work with careful processing, we're putting the check-mark next to 16 x 20 inches. At this size, noise is well-controlled and detail looks crisp, whereas things looks a bit too noisy and soft at the larger size.

ISO 3200 images begin to display rather strong noise, especially in the shadows, and the detail loss from noise and NR processing is noticeable at larger print sizes. At this ISO an 11 x 14 inch print looks nice, although for less critical applications a 13 x 19 might work.

ISO 6400 prints top-out at 8 x 10 inches, which is rather impressive for an intermediate-level APS-C camera. Noise is quite problematic, though, if you attempt larger prints, with noticeable detail loss/softening and visible noise grain. Colors have also taken on a subtle blandness compared to the vibrancy of lower ISOs.

ISO 12,800 images are fairly noisy, but they still allow for a decent 5 x 7 inch print. There is adequate fine detail and okay color remaining at this ISO to most assuredly call it usable.

ISO 25,600 prints are usable at 4 x 6 inches; any larger and the images are very noisy and lacking in fine detail.

ISO 51,200 images, using the 77D's expanded ISO setting, are much too noisy and soft to be useful for printmaking. This ISO is best avoided if at all possible if you plan on printing your photos.

Sporting Canon's DIGIC 7 image processor and a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor, the step-up DSLR beyond the entry-level Rebel series offers similar yet pleasing performance in the print quality department. Following other Canon 24MP APS-C models, the Canon 77D is capable of large, wall-sized prints (at least up to 30 x 40 inches) all the way until ISO 400. Visible ISO noise starts to creep in fairly early in the ISO range, but nevertheless, the 77D is capable of large prints as the ISO rises. For instance, you can easily get a great 16 x 20 inch print at ISO 1600 or even a pleasing 8 x 10 at ISO 6400. At the upper ends of the ISO range, prints get rather noisy and color vibrancy drops off slightly, yet it still managed a usable 4 x 6 at the camera's highest native ISO of 25,600. The expanded ISO 51,200 is not recommended for prints, however.