Playing with the 7D
18th March 2010
In: Gear Reviews
Ok, I've had a few chances to test out the Canon 7D now, at the Solway Firth shooting mainly flocks of birds, in the park shooting sequences of my (quite fast) dog running straight towards me, and on Cumbrae shooting shore birds, and I've come to a couple of conclusions:
1. This is a really, really nice camera. The image quality of static \ slow moving animals is brilliant, and so far seems very good for moving (e.g. birds \ dogs) subjects.
2. The autofocus is a massive step-up from the 40d I am used to using and the number of shots I am able to keep has gone up massively. However, it's still not perfect, and I have several shots where the focus has slightly missed, and I'm not entirely sure how it will cope with animals moving towards the camera at speed. I tried testing it with my dog in the park (very unscientific test), and it would get a couple of shots in a sequence perfectly, a few more where the focus has slightly missed, and a couple where it missed completely (although that didn't happen too much, as I was using AI tracking sensitivity on 'slow' in the custom functions).
So the jury's out a bit on that one, and I'll need to wait and see how it performs in situations that I shoot more regularly (and if it can get me a shot of a gannet diving, all will be forgiven!), which should be next week when we go back up to Stornoway for another fishing trip. I should also point out that the photos I took at the Solway Firth and on Cumbrae were generally more successful than the dog shots, and while the camera still missed a few photos, it was far fewer than it would have been with the 40d.
3. You can drive yourself nuts looking at 100% crops.
4. Image reviewing takes a lot longer! Our computer at home is a 2 year old, quad-core gaming machine that we bought for gaming and graphics handling and has been more than capable of coping with all my photo processing jobs in the past. I was a bit surprised then at just how much of a slow-down there is with the files from the new camera! I use Canon's Zoom Browser to check through any photos I've taken, and then do a first-pass edit in DPP and I am finding that both programs have significantly slowed down. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this and whether it's due to the larger file size (I shoot 18MP raw files) or if it's related to the updated versions of ZB \ DPP?
Anyway, these are just some of my initial thoughts with the camera. I will hopefully be able to add a bit more detail to it next week once I'm back from Stornoway and can really compare it with subjects I am really comfortable shooting (finger's crossed for good weather!). Overall it seems to be a cracking camera; the main thing for me at the moment is working out how far it can be pushed, and how to make the most of the massive array of settings available! I'll also get some example shots added to the post once I'm back at my home machine. If you have any comments, feel free to get in touch!
1. This is a really, really nice camera. The image quality of static \ slow moving animals is brilliant, and so far seems very good for moving (e.g. birds \ dogs) subjects.
2. The autofocus is a massive step-up from the 40d I am used to using and the number of shots I am able to keep has gone up massively. However, it's still not perfect, and I have several shots where the focus has slightly missed, and I'm not entirely sure how it will cope with animals moving towards the camera at speed. I tried testing it with my dog in the park (very unscientific test), and it would get a couple of shots in a sequence perfectly, a few more where the focus has slightly missed, and a couple where it missed completely (although that didn't happen too much, as I was using AI tracking sensitivity on 'slow' in the custom functions).
So the jury's out a bit on that one, and I'll need to wait and see how it performs in situations that I shoot more regularly (and if it can get me a shot of a gannet diving, all will be forgiven!), which should be next week when we go back up to Stornoway for another fishing trip. I should also point out that the photos I took at the Solway Firth and on Cumbrae were generally more successful than the dog shots, and while the camera still missed a few photos, it was far fewer than it would have been with the 40d.
3. You can drive yourself nuts looking at 100% crops.
4. Image reviewing takes a lot longer! Our computer at home is a 2 year old, quad-core gaming machine that we bought for gaming and graphics handling and has been more than capable of coping with all my photo processing jobs in the past. I was a bit surprised then at just how much of a slow-down there is with the files from the new camera! I use Canon's Zoom Browser to check through any photos I've taken, and then do a first-pass edit in DPP and I am finding that both programs have significantly slowed down. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this and whether it's due to the larger file size (I shoot 18MP raw files) or if it's related to the updated versions of ZB \ DPP?
Anyway, these are just some of my initial thoughts with the camera. I will hopefully be able to add a bit more detail to it next week once I'm back from Stornoway and can really compare it with subjects I am really comfortable shooting (finger's crossed for good weather!). Overall it seems to be a cracking camera; the main thing for me at the moment is working out how far it can be pushed, and how to make the most of the massive array of settings available! I'll also get some example shots added to the post once I'm back at my home machine. If you have any comments, feel free to get in touch!