OK, I’ve really slacked off on continuing my review of the Canon 7D.  It’s getting close to a year since my first post about the camera.  I was spurred to action today when a friend sent me news that Canon was offering a locking mode dial modification for the 7D and 5D Mark II.  You just have to pay them $100.  This is a feature they added to the new 60D.

If/when I get back to my review, I’ll point out that the dial can easily get bumped out of position when you least want it too.  I often carry my camera in a backpack while I’m birding, and when I take it out, this dial is out of position as often as it’s where I expect it to be. That’s not good, especially when you’re trying to get a quick shot of a bird before it flies.  Yeah, I could just keep the camera around my neck or on a tripod if I’m that concerned about getting THE photo, but I can usually do without the extra hassle of that, so the camera is staying in the pack for now.  I didn’t have this problem with the 30D

With that said, I have no plans on getting the modification.  One hundred dollars — about 6% of the price of the camera — for something I think should have been taking care of before the camera went into production seems a bit steep.  If my 30D had the same problem, I’d probably be more open-minded about it, but in this feature, the 7D was a step back.

Since I’ve written this much, I might as well touch on my one other complaint and not worry much about ever finishing a full review.  The 6D or 8D or whatever they want to call it will probably be out by then.  OK, my other complaint: I’ve been blowing out highlights regularly with this camera, something that never happened with the 30D.  Maybe the smaller pixels on the 7D are causing a decrease in dynamic range.  By the way, the new 60D has the same sensor, so I’m not expecting that camera to be any better.  I wonder if there’s any hope of getting a sensor with fewer pixels from Canon anymore.

Otherwise, it’s a really nice camera.  A bit noisy, but better than the 30D (I haven’t done any comparisons with the 40D or 50D, and anyway, all of those cameras are obsolete now).  It would be cool if Canon would bring back eye control for selecting autofocus points…unless it causes blindness or something.

Greetings.  I’ve really been slacking off with posts, particularly with keeping up with the 7D review, so let’s just jump into it.

I did some side-by-side comparison shots with the 7D and my 30D.  I used the same lens (400mm f/5.6) and camera settings on both cameras to take photos of a pocket calendar from Money Magazine (ironically, the calendar hasn’t improved my money situation since they sent it to me; perhaps I should have taken them up on the subscription offer).  These shots are inside at nighttime, so I was using ISO 3200, 1/80 sec, and f/5.6.  Sharpness and noise reduction were set to zero on all shots.  The 7D has more pixels than the 30D, but I didn’t bother to adjust the shooting position so that the subject covered the same number of pixels.  To equalize the size of the subject on screen, I increased the size of the 30D image and/or decreased the size of the 7D image (I didn’t notice any appreciable difference between either method).  Arguably, this may not be the technically-correct way to do it, but I wanted to be more comparable to the situation in the field.  When you’re stalking a bird, it’s not going to let you get closer just because your camera has fewer megapixels.  Finally, I cropped the image and then reduced the image size so it would fit on here.  Again, not the best technique for comparisons, but deal with it.

Here are some shots.  The first two is comparison of the cameras when the autofocus is used:

7D with autofocus on

30D with autofocus on

Next up are shots that were manually focused through the viewfinder of both cameras:

7D manually focused through viewfinder

30D mannually focused through viewfinder

Obviously, I didn’t nail the focus the first time with the 30D, so I took another crack at it:

30D manually focused through viewfinder, 2nd try

I included both of those shots because it may show the advantages of the 7D’s viewfinder.  It’s much brighter and bigger than the 30D’s, so presumably, it’s going to give you a better chance of nailing the focus manually.

OK, next up are the same manually focused 7D shot plus another shot manually focused using the LCD zoomed to the highest magnification:

7D manually focused through viewfinder

7D manually focused through LCD

OK, finally here are some samples that were manually focused through the viewfinder and the shutter was tripped with the self-timer.  I held on to the camera to damp vibrations:

7D manually focused, shutter tripped by self-timer

30D manually focused, shutter tripped with self-timer

So what have we learned?  First, my 7D underexposed compared to the 30D.  I can’t remember if this is an expected result of having smaller sensor pixels.  I’ll have to check on that.  (And for what it’s worth, when I lightened the 7D images, they maintained image quality.)  Second, it appears to me that the 7D has better image quality compared to the 30D.  I’d love to do some comparisons with the 50D if I could.  Finally, both cameras produced noisy results, though that’s not surprising since they were both set at ISO 3200, but I’d say the 7D wins.

More to come on this subject: I’ll be comparing images from the “real world”.

The review of my new Canon 7D DSLR has been delayed largely due to the weather here in the lovely Pacific Northwest.  As you might imagine, it’s been raining.  Raining quite a bit, actually, and I’ve been hoping to first test the camera out on a sunny day.  This past Saturday actually had some sunshine, and I was able to do some comparison shots with my 30D.  One of the first things that I discovered was that I’m not very good at manually focusing the new camera, so I’ll need to work on that before I can really get into comparing image quality.

However, in the meantime, I can say that the 7D’s viewfinder is impressive.  It’s very bright and sharp (and that’s why I’m surprised by my focusing problems).  The LCD screen is equally impressive.  Both the viewfinder and LCD screen are way beyond the 30D’s.  I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything if I use the camera and my 400mm lens instead of my binoculars to look at a bird.  Now I’m not saying that the camera is a replacement for my binoculars — I’m sure the view through the bins is still better, and I’ll probably start noticing the difference the more I use the camera — but I won’t be terribly disappointed if I can only look at a bird through the 7D.

It’s been too long since my last post.  I’ll place the blame squarely on the holidays.

Anyway, I bought the controversial Canon 7D DSLR a few days ago.  I say “controversial” because the reviews vary from proclaiming it to be the best crop-factor* DSLR ever to no better than a Canon Rebel that costs about 1/3-third the 7D’s price.  (*A crop-factor DSLR has a sensor smaller than a 35mm film frame, and makes the apparent focal length of a given lens longer than what it actually is, i.e., the image is magnified compared to a DSLR with a full-sized sensor or a 35mm film camera.)

That’s one of the problems with the internets: you can easily find the full range of opinions and reviews on absolutely everything.  In the coming days, I will add to that morass and provide you with my own review of the camera!  I plan on approaching it not so much from a technical, pixel-peeping viewpoint but more of a look at real-world results.

I haven’t done any serious testing of the camera yet, so the review will have to wait, but I have learned one thing about video playback.  You can find more than a few complaints about dropped frames online.  Quite a few people suggest the problem is using a memory card that’s too fast.  Some blame the camera itself.  But it appears the actual problem is the computer, particularly the software used for viewing the playback.  I was experiencing the same problem — jerky movement caused by missing frames — when watching the playback on my computer.  I was using an old (i.e., not the fastest) CF card, so that shouldn’t have been a problem, and then I reformatted the card as suggested.  Still had dropped frames, but the playback looked fine on the camera, so the problem had(?) to be on the computer.  Then I found a post recommending the use of the VLC media player, a free program, for viewing the video from 5D Mark II and 7D cameras.

After following the instructions in the aforementioned post (you have to make a change to the preferences or it won’t work), the video plays back quite well.  Some of the videos I recorded before reformatting the card still drop frames, but I wonder if it’s just that those videos are more demanding and maybe it has nothing to do with the reformatting.  Anyway, I just shot a couple more videos.  They’re very jumpy when viewed on ZoomBrowser EX, software provided with the camera, but there doesn’t seem to be any hiccups when watching them on VLC.

More to come as the testing continues!