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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 21, 2009 2:14:42 GMT
I'm dying to test a production model of the 7D to see if the AF and low ISO noise is much better than the beta unit we tested. For Metro Manila based birdnuts, I offer my free services to help fine tune the camera to his/her birding lenses. ;D ;D ;D
With the video features of the 1D4 (costing nearly a quarter megapesos) very similarly spec'ed, I'm taking a hard second look at the 7D.
I understand Ed M. (based in Canada) had the distinction of being the first PBPF owner of the 7D, but he returned his unit because of low ISO noise concerns.
Anybody brave enough? ;D
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Post by Ed Matuod on Oct 21, 2009 3:09:28 GMT
(I offer my free services to help fine tune the camera to his/her birding lenses.)
If I have known this. Or it might be just a bad copy (for a new one?).
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Post by Edu Lorenzo Jr on Oct 21, 2009 6:37:35 GMT
@sir Ed,
The one you used was also a pre-prod version?
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Post by Toto Gamboa on Oct 21, 2009 10:29:10 GMT
I am brave but I am poor hahhaahha! I am still waiting for Santa and his flying deers!  |
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Post by Ed Matuod on Oct 21, 2009 19:39:51 GMT
@ tukayong Edu,
Nope, it was one of the first 7Ds that arrived here (first batch). It's just that the rule here is 'once a customer is not satisfied with a product he/she's buying, he/she have 15 days or even a month to returned it'. Full refund, no question ask. I think this rules/regulations apply too in 'pinas, right?
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Post by Edu Lorenzo Jr on Oct 22, 2009 0:29:07 GMT
Sir ed, That kind of a deal here is for certain products only and certain stores maybe. Can't apply that rule to any and all products (I know that works the same way on your side of the ocean). Canon did oblige PBPF with a pre-prod, if they can extend that to a production version, well lucky us. I have been tracking the threads and reviews of the 7D, as when i was planning to migrate to Canon, I was waiting for this "60D" to come out, I almost went with the 500D for the video feature. The D300s came out in the Nikon fence and I am still also at a wait and see stage as I am still happy with my D90 + 80-400 combo. As for the question who is brave enough? I would be beside Toto here, I am brave but both my pockets are not that deep.  I know the 7D as a camera is a sterling addition to anyone with general photography in mind's arsenal. But avian photography has special demands, here my 80-400 falls short particularly with BIFs in the AF speed area, so moving to a 7D might not be too far a step away, and might not be worth it. |
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 22, 2009 2:01:56 GMT
My good friend Osawa just got back from Japan - and brought with him a 7D! I will get to test its' BIF capabilities this Saturday using my 400 5.6L with an without a TC. We tested it at my office, and so far, it seems okay. The feel is better, but I think it's heavier than my 50D. Surpise: We stacked a Sigma 1.4X and a Canon 2X MkII Extender using a 300 f 2.8L and the darned thing Auto-focused in fairly bright light using the center AF! My 50D can't do that! :-) Will try to persuade him to let me "test" his unit more thoroughly this Saturday, but no guarantees. At the very least it'll be 50D Vs 7D shoot-out. :-) For reference - here are two shots that I did of swallows using the 5D MK2 and 400mm bare:   Mind you, the 50D tracks and locks on BETTER than the 5D MK2 from my experience:  So if I can still track swallows with the 7D with busy backgrounds, I'll probably buy one too! :-) |
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Post by Toto Gamboa on Oct 22, 2009 2:34:36 GMT
Hi bobby. I'll be very interested to know the behaviour of the 7D and the results since I have similar set of gears as yours. I am also using 50D and 400 5.6L. When Mastah had the 7D tested with some of the members here, The group I was with wasn;t able to test the 7D's AF capability.
The 50D tracks well on non-busy background for subjects as small and as fast as a swallow but is almost useless on a very busy one even with large subjects like terns (I really have less than 5% success rate on this). One very undesirable behaviour of the 50D is that it focuses on the background once it cannot reacquire the subject instead of just 'hanging out there' like with my D300 then until it is able to reacquire the subject. I wanted to know if the 7D eases up on this situation.
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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 22, 2009 2:41:00 GMT
Hehe.... looking forward to your test, Bobby!
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 22, 2009 3:38:03 GMT
Toto - are you using the center AF on the 50D? I suggest you try the outer AF on the upper right side - the darn thing tracks and locks better with that one. :-)
Mastah - me too! :-)
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Post by Toto Gamboa on Oct 22, 2009 4:08:02 GMT
Toto - are you using the center AF on the 50D? I suggest you try the outer AF on the upper right side - the darn thing tracks and locks better with that one. :-) Mastah - me too! :-) I always use the center point. I only tried the upper right hand focus point on static subjects and saw no difference with the center point in terms of accuracy. I'll try it on a BIF next time. Will give feedback on this. ;D THanks! |
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 24, 2009 12:41:52 GMT
Well, we did it - Osawa and I went to Jugan as scheduled, and the light was what you might call "ideal" not too bright, and not dark at all. In the old days it'd be called an f11 day.
First off, I apologize for not being able to upload ANY photos at this time. The DPP version I have came with the 50D and cannot read the 7D images - and I'm still quite tired to process the 50D proofs.
Impressions on the 7D:
1. The feel of the unit is excellent in my hands, it is responsive and very quick.
2. This is one camera that you may need to read the manual of, specially on the AF side - too many variations for my taste.
The "test" we did:
1. We decided to use the 300mm L IS with a Sigma 1.4X TC at first (Osawa's favorite lens), but the camera would return an error message when used in AI Servo at 8fps. It would work at the lower fps though (3 fps?) Note that we tried the same combo on my 50D and it worked perfectly. Osawa cringed at this, but remained optimistic.
2. We then decided to use my bare 400 f/5.6 L and I started targeting the terns that were around (the Swallows were way off on the other side this time, so we settled for the bigger, slower, Terns).
3. Using ZONE AF is useless with the 7D - it would focus on the clouds most of the time. I switched to SINGLE CENTER SPOT AF, and the thing locked on like a missile - quick, accurate and with excellent exposure. I observed it's initial "capture" of the subject as on par, or better, than the 1D MkII, and as long as I kept the AF dot on the bird, the 7D worked very, very well indeed.
4. I then moved to a location with busy backgrounds - some huts, trees and shrubs all around. This is where the 7D failed miserably. I tried ZONE, the SPOT thing, etc. and the 7D would ALWAYS focus on the background! I tried to slow down the AI speed response time (there's a function to do this), but the problem was that it could not achieve a positive lock in the first place! To confirm whether it was my technique, I transferred the lens to my 50D using just the Center AF, and it would lock on quite well in some circumstances (50-50), though not in the league of the 1D Series bodies. Still, I tried again using the 7D, but I just could not get a lock-on. Every time it seemed that the subject was coming into focus, the 7D just went right on through and focused on the background.
5. In Osawa's words "Ma 40D is faster!" - That's him, not me.
6. We settled down and tried to find out why his unit would return an error message with the 300mm+1.4 TC (Bothe Sigma and Canon) when using AI Servo at 8 fps. I tried my "taped" Kenko on it and it worked! But why? the 300mm f/4 with a Sigma or Canon 1.4TC (both un-taped) would work on my 50D, but not on the 7D? We then pulled out the heavier-than-me 300mm F/2.8L and tried the Canon 2X Mk2 on it, and it worked on the 7D! Well, it could be the lens ...
7. Mirror bounce (slap to some) is more pronounced on the 7D - Osawa has to use Live-view now most of the time to capture tack sharp images. His 300mm f/2.8 does very well when bare, but add a 2X TC, things get out of hand quickly. The 50D is also subject to mirror bounce, but with proper techniques, it can easily be overcome.
My humble opinion:
The 7D is a definite upgrade to the 40D, as far as I can tell (but Osawa still thinks it's slower on AF), and the movie mode will appeal to the more adventurous among us. Still, if you have a 50D already, and don't care much for video, I think it'd be better if you stick with the 50D for now.
The test we did was very informal of course. We used the unit as we would have used it in the field. We worked on what we had, with the knowledge of the unit that we had at that time, and used techniques and skills we normally use during birding trips.
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Post by Neon Rosell II on Oct 24, 2009 14:32:15 GMT
Thanks Bobby and Osawa for testing and giving your review on the 7D. That's good (your suggestions) now the 7D won't give me nightmares anymore..hehehe
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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 24, 2009 23:27:13 GMT
Thanks for the feedback, Bobby. Seems the production 7D you tested is behaving like the beta 7D we used at BIFs with busy background. Looks like it's now the right time for me to share part of my report to Canon Manila on the beta 7D we tested: ___________________________________________________________ 1. Except for AF and noise (which I will discuss below), the 7D is a solid performer in all other areas as specced. The control ergonomics are great, the 8 fps burst speed is amazing at action shots, the LCD is very impressive, all coming in at an affordable USD 1.7K package. 2. Noise: Based on capturing and processing in DPP many RAWs with a beta 7D, here are my impressions on the camera's noise characteristics. Note that this is a result of my subjective "visual feel," and not based on objective scientific testing or numbers. 2.1. ISO 100 is very clean and can take aggressive sharpening before noise starts to be noticeable in the shadows. 2.2. ISO 200 - 400 are not as clean when compared pixel-to-pixel as those of my 5D2, 40D, 1D2 and 20D. Noise (albeit very fine grained) starts to be noticeable in the shadows with aggressive sharpening. 2.3. ISO 3200 - 6400 have fine grained noise, but none of the banding I see in the 5D2. Even ISO 12800 has no or very little banding, but the noise grains seem to be larger, and as such this ISO is perhaps only useable for smaller prints or for greatly resized web photos. 2.4. I'm under the impression that the 7D's noise charateristics are optimized for print rather than pixel-peeping at 100%. I welcome this approach, as we can easily filter out the noise when posting web-sized photos. I haven't printed 7D photos yet, but when I compare these to my previous photos which were printed large, the 7D's fine-grained noise should do well in printing. 3. Auto Focus: As a bird photographer, this is the single most important feature of the 7D. How the new camera focuses will define its success for me. I read the manual carefully and tweaked the AF settings of the camera over two days in the field to squeeze out the best possible AF performance it can yield at birds in flight. Though I think I’ve tried all possible combinations of AF settings, it’s ironic that I have the following experiences: 3.1. At flying birds with the sky as background, the 7D's AF is amazingly fast and accurate - at least as good, or even better than my 1DM2. Note that my 1DM2's AF is no slouch, as it can get bursts like these: www.pbase.com/liquidstone/image/110874673/originalwww.pbase.com/liquidstone/image/76810061/original 3.2. At birds in flight (BIF) with a busy background, the 7D has major trouble picking out the bird from the background. This is regardless of the settings I used (and I tried them all). The 7D always picked the background to focus on. My 1DM2 and 5D2 (both with expanded AF points) easily outperform the 7D’s AF by a good margin, shooting in the same condition. I’ve already linked to bursts from my 1DM2 earlier, and here are a few birds in flight (many with a busy background) using my 5D2: www.birdphotoph.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=review&action=display&thread=2274As configured in the beta 7D, the AF is not very useable at BIFs. I hope the AF performance improves dramatically in the production units. 3.3. From my point of view, the AF processor and sensor are very fast, as evidenced by the amazing AF speed and tracking accuracy when the background of the BIF is a plain sky. The right AF hardware is already there. I suspect that what needs to be done is just a tweak of the AF algorithms, and this can perhaps be implemented via firmware. With the beta 7D’s AF as tested, the active AF point(s) almost always lock(s) onto the contrasty background, ignoring the BIF. I surmise that the BIF with its fluttering wings pose a less contrasty signature to the AF sensor, hence the subject is “ignored.” I propose that the AF algorithms be tweaked so that when the AF sensor “sees” a less contrasty object nearer the camera, it prioritizes AF on that object even if the background is more contrasty. This can be implemented as an additional “Near Object AF Priority” menu, and can be added to the AF custom functions. |
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 25, 2009 2:01:09 GMT
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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 25, 2009 2:49:05 GMT
Nice shots with the 50D, Bobby!
Did you shoot the 7D in RAW? If so, what are your impressions on noise at low ISOs (200 - 400)?
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 25, 2009 9:54:51 GMT
I will borrow the CD that came with the 7D from Osawa, but looking at the Color Display, I'd say that the 7D matches the 50D at up to ISO 800, and is better beyond that.
I will update the board when I get to view the files I have. :-)
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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 25, 2009 11:37:03 GMT
Bobby, out-of-camera jpegs always have NR applied regardless of any camera settings, and could appear as noise-free (with less fine detail too as a consequence of the NR) . It's best to look at the RAW files and set NR to 0 for both chrominance and luminance, just for the purpose of evaluating the characteristics of the 7D pixels.
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Post by Bobby Kintanar on Oct 25, 2009 11:44:39 GMT
Yes, I will see to it that I will be looking at the RAW files. At the moment. my version of DPP can't read the 7D RAW files I have (we shot RAW on both cameras), so once I get to upgrade my DPP (by borowing the CD that came with the 7D from Osawa), I'll check on this matter ASAP, Mastah. :-)
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Post by Romy Ocon on Oct 25, 2009 12:37:28 GMT
Yes, I will see to it that I will be looking at the RAW files. At the moment. my version of DPP can't read the 7D RAW files I have (we shot RAW on both cameras), so once I get to upgrade my DPP (by borowing the CD that came with the 7D from Osawa), I'll check on this matter ASAP, Mastah. :-) Hi Bobby, If you wish to download the latest DPP 3.7.2 (some early 7Ds came with DPP 3.7.1), it's only a 69 MB file from Canon SG. support-sg.canon-asia.com/contents/SG/EN/0200090001.html |
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I know the 7D as a camera is a sterling addition to anyone with general photography in mind's arsenal. But avian photography has special demands, here my 80-400 falls short particularly with BIFs in the AF speed area, so moving to a 7D might not be too far a step away, and might not be worth it.
