7D first impressions

[philip_wilson]

<p>I just picked up a 7D last week and can post my first impressions. I will compare it to the 5DII and later will post some test shots.<br>

Image quality is generally very good - not as good as the 5DII and it maxes out at 800 ISO whereas I am happy with the 5DII up to 1600 ISO and will take that camera to 3200 ISO if necessary. In general however I am pleased with the image quality and it was better than some early posts led me to beleive.<br>

AF this is very good - clearly better than the 5DII and easy to set up (although the control system does take getting used to as it differs from previous Canons in that you need to select the AF pattern type - all, zone, spot etc... and then select the Af point if you want just one). The camera aoppears to be faster than the 1V but only with easy targets. So long as the AF can lock onto an edge or contrats change it is lightning fast. When there is a difficult target (e.g. white wall) the 1V is slightly better. The algorithm that selects an AF point when you have a lot selected is very good and not easily fooled. I have tried to fool it by shooting through deck railings etc... but it usually chooses the right object - this will be useful for hurried shots.<br>

Other features - there are some annoying differences from the 5DII which take some getting used to. The body has a quick menu system to bring up the exposure settings on the rear LCD - you can set the joystick push but not to bring up the exposure settings which is a nuscience if you are used to the 5D II system. Live view and video controls have changed an the on switch is on the mode dial. Other than that it is essentially a 5DII clone.<br>

I also bough the 18-135 kit lens as it was only an extra $300 and seemed a useful walk around lens (My other zooms are the 16-35 F2.8 II, 24-70 F2.8 and 70-200 f2.8 which are larger and heavier. The lens compact and light but plastic construction. The AF on the lens is very fast depite not being USM - indeed I am unable to notice a difference between this lens and the 24-70 in terms of AF speed. Optically the lens appears quite good which surprised me given it's price. It is not as good as the F2.8 zooms and I will shoot some samples to confirm this. The IS system on this lens is very impressive and is probably good for almost 4 stops as Canon claims.<br>

I will shoot some kids ice hockey tomorrow and describe how the AF performs in real world use. I am expecting great things given my experimentation as I do not expect ice hockey to reveal the weakness of the AF with low contrast / difficult subjects. Nightime sports may be more difficult for this camera.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>Quick crops - not exactly the same scale but showing 18-135 F3.5-5.6 IS and 70-200 F2.8 non IS on 7D. Both shots are F11 and ISO 100. The 18-135 is 1/160 and the 70-200 is 1/125. Both taken on tripod with remote release. The crop is about 8-9% of the full image. Thus if the image displays about 8 inches wide on your screen the print would be 8.5 feet by 5.7 feet.</p><div></div>

[philip_wilson]

<p>L series lens</p><div></div>

[philip_wilson]

<p>70-200 is sharper and the Bokah is better but I am surprised how good the 18-135 is. In the center it is sharp - but it gets softer at the edges. When I get more time I will post a better set of shots and get the lens crops closer as the focal lengths were not quite the same.</p>

[serguei_fenev]

<p>It would interesting to hear your comments on kids ice hockey shooting - I'm thinking about getting this camera mainly because of this and would like to see how AF and 8fps work in this type of application. Thanks for sharing the information :-)<br>

Serguei</p>

[a._n.k.]

<p>Philip, thanks for the image posts. What focal length was the image?</p>

<p>I would love to hear more about the lens 18-135. Any other observations you noticed? How is it at the long end? Is the edge soft throughout the entire focal length? Does it improve if you stop down the aperture?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

[ken schwarz]

<p>Philip, thanks for this review. I'm a little unclear as to what has changed with respect to the back LCD controls when compared with the 5D2...could you explain in more detail what has changed?</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>The shots were taken at 135mm focal length and the tree is about 20 -25 feet from my deck (where the tripod was).</p>

<p>The on off switch is changed - the old off/on/on and thumbwheel on switch is gone. There is now an on-off on the rear bottom of the mode dial (i.e . the top LHS of the body) and a slider to turn the thumbwheel on and off where the old on/off switch was.<br>

live view is now on the RHS of the prism and is a switch (video or stills) around a start stop button<br>

The old live view button is now a print and RAW/JPEG button - I have never printed from a camera but you can use it to awitch from RAW to JPEG - I doubt I will ever use this button<br>

Next to this is a new button called quick menu this basically pulls up the rear exposure settings much like pushing the joystick did.<br>

The 7D gives you more opportunity to re-assign buttons than the 5DII did but you cannot get the exposure settings to be activated by the joystick<br>

Finally there are several additional functions added to existing buttons - for example the INFO button brings up the level indication system and can be set to toggle through various rear scren options.</p>

[medina photography cherry]

<p>I am just not that imprssed with the camera, as a matter of fact I am down right disappointed! I think I will take back to the store and get the 50D and the 15-85 IS lens. JUNK!</p>

[kel_madics]

<p>you already have snow there?</p>