Canon 7D mk2 owners thread.

Swanseajack said:
I thought it was the other way round with crop bodies using FF lenses??? WIth crop you have the sweet spot of the lens, the center and your not using the outer part where lenses usually suffer?
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The fall-off towards the edge is more a "feature" of wider lenses and telephotos rarely suffer from any noticeable softening.....certainly at the higher end of the market.

Bob
 
RedRobin said:
I think it depends what species of wildlife you are photographing. I haven't been lucky enough to photograph an Otter yet. Yesterday, I was stood on a small rock by the sea, being blown about and 3 Purple Sandpipers approached me to within the 12ft MFD of my 400mm! This gives me another excuse to buy Canon's new 100-400mm L.

I'm very pleased indeed with my 7D Mark II but note that I have never used a 1DX nor 5D3. Yesterday, before they got too close....



^ Image virtually uncropped (just a slither). More info on Flickr.
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That's a lovely image. You'll be well chuffed with it I assume?
 
Jackwow said:
That's a lovely image. You'll be well chuffed with it I assume?
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....Thankyou, Neil :) - I am indeed well chuffed with it, especially in the windy circumstances. But also because it is the first Purple Sandpiper I have seen.
 
Swanseajack said:
I thought it was the other way round with crop bodies using FF lenses??? WIth crop you have the sweet spot of the lens, the center and your not using the outer part where lenses usually suffer?
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In a way that's correct, especially on poor lenses which have poor corner performance but with high MP sensors, lenses are starting to become a sort of bottleneck for image sharpness. Lenses have a finite amount of resolution so as we get high and higher MP sensors, the lenses are not increasing their ability to resolve details at the same rate. FF sensors use more of the lens so this is less taxing on the glass.

The lenses are not perfect and the increased MP count (which results in closely packed pixels on crop sensors) means some detail is lost. Some people have discussed this on the CanonRumors forums and have worked out that the 1.6x crop benefit over a FF sensor is more like 1.3x when you factor this in. It's still a benefit with overall reach but a regular FF user might notice the fact they can't afford to crop in as much in PP without losing detail.
 
RedRobin said:
....Except that frame rate dramatically drops if you select the quiet/'silent' mode. From 10 fps to 4 fps, if I remember correctly. 10 fps is too valuable not to have set.
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10fps isn't always necessary :) It's great for targets in motion and action etc but sometimes being quiet is better.

It's nice to be able to take photos of people without a massive loud click and I can imagine it would be useful when in a hide or cache when photographing the more cautious subjects that aren't moving around at 100mph
 
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Phal said:
..... Some people have discussed this on the CanonRumors forums and have worked out that the 1.6x crop benefit over a FF sensor is more like 1.3x when you factor this in. It's still a benefit with overall reach but a regular FF user might notice the fact they can't afford to crop in as much in PP without losing detail.
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To come up with a statement such as "the 1.6x crop benefit over a FF sensor is more like 1.3x" is bizarre. It will vary, and wildly, from lens to lens and without specifying the MTF50 in lp/mm (at the very least) it's not even academic. There are many lenses out there that can't even provide the resolution for today's FF sensors so they're never going to give 1.3 more on an APS-C sensored body.

Bob
 
Yeah it'll different from lens to lens but it's not really a bizarre statement. Even if the figure isn't precise, it highlights something that a lot of people take for granted.

As much as we all love to laugh at the DxO Mark scores for cameras, it's interesting to compare the sharpness scores for the same lenses on different camera bodies. I don't pay too much attention to the number itself but the difference between bodies on the same lenses is interesting.

If a lens is already behind in resolution on a FF sensor then it will be worse on an equal MP count crop sensor. It'll be interesting to see how the rumoured high MP Canon FF camera fares.

Ultimately I just brought this up because it explained Gaz's thought that he couldn't crop as much on the 7d2 compared to his 1Dx
 
Phal said:
.....

Ultimately I just brought this up because it explained Gaz's thought that he couldn't crop as much on the 7d2 compared to his 1Dx
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Simplistically, a lens with an MTF50 that exceeded the lp/mm of the full frame sensor by 1.6x or more would crop down to the equivalent.....anything less isn't going to cut it.

Bob
 
Phal said:
10fps isn't always necessary :) It's great for targets in motion and action etc but sometimes being quiet is better.

It's nice to be able to take photos of people without a massive loud click and I can imagine it would be useful when in a hide or cache when photographing the more cautious subjects that aren't moving around at 100mph
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....Agreed. Which is why I wrote "I think it depends what species of wildlife you are photographing" in my post.
 
RedRobin said:
....Agreed. Which is why I wrote "I think it depends what species of wildlife you are photographing" in my post.
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lol :P that's in the next post which I skimmed so didn't catch that hehe
 
Jackwow said:
I don't even know what that means!
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x2

Meaning I don't understand either and not anything to do with x2 extenders or teleconverters!
 
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Jackwow said:
I don't even know what that means!
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RedRobin said:
x2

Meaning I don't understand either and not anything to do with x2 extenders ot teleconverters!
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Okay Neil and Robin, here goes without getting too technical.....all numbers arbitrary to keep the maths simple.

If you have an image that consists of alternate black and white lines that progressively get closer and closer then there comes a point when the lens and/or sensor can't separate the two lines and they merge into a grey blur....MTF50(%) is the point where this occurs. A useful way to state this is in line pairs/mm (lp/mm).
So, if a lens can resolve 100 lp/mm on the sensor then a sensor with more than 200 rows/columns of pixels/mm is limited by the lens' resolution or ability to provide the detail....it can in theory record more detail than it's getting from the lens. If the sensor has less than 200 pixels/mm then the sensor is the limit....the lens is providing more detail than the sensor can record. If a FF body has the same MP count (+/- ) as an APS-C body then the APS-C body will have 1.6x more rows/columns of pixels/mm.

It's unlikely that any lens (mainstream) can resolve enough line pairs for an densely packed APS-C sensor to record them all (or a high Mp FF sensor for that matter) so the recorded detail is blurred. Of course, when the final image is enlarged the blurring will become more apparent and APS-C images need more enlargement than FF images to achieve the same final output size.

There are many more factors involved (the angle of the lines being high on the list) but hopefully you can see the logic behind it all.

Bob
 
Thanks, for explaining that so well, Bob :)

I'm now wondering if Canon's dual-pixel(?) APS-C sensor technology in the 70D and 7D Mark II bodies have an influence on what you have described. Not that I actually need to know! I just use what I've got and try and capture the best images I can with it - 'Best' being evocative and with character and not just technically.

I have just arranged funds to buy the new 100-400mm II which will be used on my 7D Mark II - Should be a very practical combo for my amateur wildlife efforts.
 
I've had a 7D2 for a short while, so I'll share my thoughts, what I will say, I've had a 7D for 5 years, and it has stood up well for all the wildlife/sports shooting in that time, rarely missed a beat, and produced some excellent images. And I've never ever subscribed to the notion that the 7D ISO capability is crap above ISO400, I regularly shoot at ISO1600 and even push a little further if I can nail the exposure, producing crisp, clean images.
Anyway, the 7D2 is a nice evolutionary upgrade, feeling similar in hand to the original.

Specifically, ISO capability, mainly for my own use (and not to be considered particularly scientific), I compiled a chart looking at the 7D against the 7D2 at different ISO, taken with a 300mm F2.8 lens, shot in RAW, no noise reduction, with 200% crops of a selection of the RAW files.

The original image, the arrow indicating where I took a 200% crop slice from (as it seemed to contain the most noise)

4G5A8902.jpg


The comparison table at each ISO

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From the table, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference between each model, perhaps 1/2 a stop in favour of 7D2 ?, what I have noticed though, is that the 7D2 images 'scrub up' a little better than the 7D images, resulting in a cleaner final image, don't know if this is because of the slightly larger file size?, taken together resulting in perhaps a 1 stop advantage to the 7D2.

In respect of autofocus and tracking, the 7D2 has been an absolute revelation, the 7D autofucus/tracking was very good in decent light, particularly as I always had fast primes attached, which helped, but suffered in low light, the major weakness of the original 7D IMO. While the 7D2 is in a different league, it performs exceptionally well in low light, this morning I took the dogs out walking over the fields, before sunrise, just as it was starting to get light, a friend of mine had a black border collie, chasing a thrown frisbee, the 7D2 locked on and stayed glued to the dog , even while it was running towards me, very, very impressive. This for me, filled the major deficiency in the original 7D.

Like others I had some hesitation in upgrading, I was more than happy with my 7D, but I'm pleased I did, the 7D2 has built on what was a good camera, and added a few useful bells and whistles that I haven't yet got round to trying.

I don't think the 7D2 will be replacing my 1DS3 anytime soon for landscapes/people, but I can't wait to try it out on the Harewood red kites.
 
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Les McLean said:
In respect of autofocus and tracking, the 7D2 has been an absolute revelation, the 7D autofucus/tracking was very good in decent light, particularly as I always had fast primes attached, which helped, but suffered in low light, the major weakness of the original 7D IMO. While the 7D2 is in a different league, it performs exceptionally well in low light, this morning I took the dogs out walking over the fields, before sunrise, just as it was starting to get light, a friend of mine had a black border collie, chasing a thrown frisbee, the 7D2 locked on and stayed glued to the dog , even while it was running towards me, very, very impressive. This for me, filled the major deficiency in the original 7D.

Like others I had some hesitation in upgrading, I was more than happy with my 7D, but I'm pleased I did, the 7D2 has built on what was a good camera, and added a few useful bells and whistles that I haven't yet got round to trying.

I don't think the 7D2 will be replacing my 1DS3 anytime soon for landscapes/people, but I can't wait to try it out on the Harewood red kites.
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It's rare that I've noticed the focus struggle in low light and it has to be pretty damn dark with little contrast before it starts to struggle :)

I've also wondered whether the 7d2 images seem to 'process' better than before but I can't say I'm sure on how it would do that.
 
Morning all,

I'm agonizing over the lens choice for general walkabout /standard zoom on the 7dmk2

May I get any views/real world experience on the 15-85 vs 18-135 vs 17-55 f2.8. I'd rather have IS so that's ruled out the 17-40L for me - I've had 24-105L on crop and was forever wanting it wider. Price isn't an issue if it's going to be a keeper lens. Not too bothered about video so STM not a worry for me.
 
If 35mm is long enough then the 16-35 f/4 IS is an absolute peach of a lens.

Bob
 
One of my favourite lenses for general use is the 17-55 f/2.8. Its been said many times that if it wasn't an EFS lens, it would be branded as an "L" lens. I cant vouch for that of course, but the IQ and build quality is very good indeed.
 
Trev4 said:
One of my favourite lenses for general use is the 17-55 f/2.8. Its been said many times that if it wasn't an EFS lens, it would be branded as an "L" lens. I cant vouch for that of course, but the IQ and build quality is very good indeed.
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....My daughter has this lens on her 100D and I have borrowed it. Excellent general purpose walkabout lens in my opinion.
 
Probably old hat to some of you, since the 7DII will take the newer faster SDXC UHS1 cards, I bought one, I was pretty surprised at just how much faster they are compared to older cards
I rattled off as many RAW frames as the camera would take in one burst, and then timed how long it took for the buffer to clear:-

Lexar Pro 600X 64GB SDXC........9 seconds
SDHC Class 10 32GB..................29 seconds
Kingston 133X 16GB CF..............34 seconds

So around 3 times the speed, and at £25 for 64GB ,pretty good value for money in my book.
 
C10 is meaningless. You need to know the write speed to make the comparison meaningful.
 
Soton_Andy said:
I have a feeling I'll miss the peachy 50-80mm portrait zone. I should add my other lens is the 70-200
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I also quite like my Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 as a kind of walk about lens but if you want something a bit longer which is still a zoom then there's only two options that come to mind.

EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 - was already mentioned.
EF 24-70 F2.8 mk2 - that might need you to sell a kidney first though and it's not very wide since it's not really designed for crop bodies.

I guess there's other third party lenses with similar focal lengths that would be cheaper but I don't know how well they perform.
 
Did a quick test on different speed CF cards today.

All Sandisk

Extreme 60 MB/S. 27 frames before slowdown. Time to full buffer again. 7.75 seconds

Extreme Pro 90 MB/S. 34 frames before slowdown. Time to full buffer again. 5.5 seconds.

Extreme Pro 160 MB/S. 36 frames before slowdown. Time to full buffer again. 5 seconds.

Doesn't seem to be much point in buying the very fastest cards.
 
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Phal said:
I also quite like my Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 as a kind of walk about lens but if you want something a bit longer which is still a zoom then there's only two options that come to mind.

EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 - was already mentioned.
EF 24-70 F2.8 mk2 - that might need you to sell a kidney first though and it's not very wide since it's not really designed for crop bodies.

I guess there's other third party lenses with similar focal lengths that would be cheaper but I don't know how well they perform.
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The EF-S 15-85 is a great lens with a great focal length range. I'm on my second.
 
DemiLion said:
C10 is meaningless. You need to know the write speed to make the comparison meaningful.
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It was quite meaningful to me, I didn't need to know the write (or read) speed to realise what a difference it made.
 
Another one is on order and coming my way so lets see if i get lucky, contrary to what some may think i really do want this to work for me but if it will not focus on a tripod aimed at a test chart then it will be going back :rolleyes:
 
Neil B said:
Another one is on order and coming my way so lets see if i get lucky, contrary to what some may think i really do want this to work for me but if it will not focus on a tripod aimed at a test chart then it will be going back :rolleyes:
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....Good to read that someone isn't giving up on what is Canon's flagship APS-C body. If you are wanting what an APS-C has to offer then it's worth sticking out for a 7D Mark II which works how it's meant to. You have just been unlucky.

Sure, it won't be absolutely THE perfect camera - No camera or lens (especially) ever is! But the 7D2 has a lot going for it in my opinion.
 
Neil B said:
Another one is on order and coming my way so lets see if i get lucky, contrary to what some may think i really do want this to work for me but if it will not focus on a tripod aimed at a test chart then it will be going back :rolleyes:
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I'm interested to hear how you get on Neil. My feelings are the same as yours including an element of disappointment. As I posted previously I tested the camera to the best of my ability before admitting defeat and returning it as faulty. If it is a known issue then I would have thought it would be in Canons interest to have acknowledged it by now unless the numbers of genuine faults as opposed to user errors are so low as to be proportionally insignificant.
 
RedRobin said:
....Good to read that someone isn't giving up on what is Canon's flagship APS-C body. If you are wanting what an APS-C has to offer then it's worth sticking out for a 7D Mark II which works how it's meant to. You have just been unlucky.

Sure, it won't be absolutely THE perfect camera - No camera or lens (especially) ever is! But the 7D2 has a lot going for it in my opinion.
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:agree: i did actually get one or two good images that cleaned up well, just the lack of consistency i couldn't live with but here's hoping for a good one.
 
Phal said:
I came across this site when I first looked for a new CF card for my 7d2 and it has other cameras on there tested too.

http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/canon-7d-mark-ii/fastest-sd-cf-card-comparison/
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That's very useful link Etienne, and Gary I take your point about not being much point in buying the fastest cards, but at least the comparison charts in the link provided can help to steer away from wasting money, for example from the table two cards of similar speeds (SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s 32GB & Toshiba Exceria Type 1 32GB) , there is 6 times the price difference ($50/$310)
 
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Trev4 said:
I'm interested to hear how you get on Neil. My feelings are the same as yours including an element of disappointment. As I posted previously I tested the camera to the best of my ability before admitting defeat and returning it as faulty. If it is a known issue then I would have thought it would be in Canons interest to have acknowledged it by now unless the numbers of genuine faults as opposed to user errors are so low as to be proportionally insignificant.
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Let's just say between us we have a fair bit of water under the bridge when it comes to knowing what's good or bad, all i can do is compare to what i have had in the past and i do have an open mind on mass produced electricals and faults they may have.
If a simple test fails then i couldn't see much chance of it working in more challenging situation, to me 10fps is all well and good as long as at least 7-8 are focussed properly o_O
As you know Trev i like my Owl flight shots so AF is tested to the max in low light and that is something that the 5Dmk3 handled well, if the 7Dmk2 can equal or better it i will be happy that my £1600 has been a good investment.
 
I bought 160 MB cards for my 5D3 which did benefit from them, primarily I think due to its small buffer. With the higher buffer in the 7D MkII and even more so in 1DX I'm not seeing the benefit of spending the extra money. I use the 160s in the 1DX and I get about 45-48 frames before it slows. Up to now I've not even come close to running down the burst rate so think I will stick to the 90s for the MkII.

Hopefully Neil this one will be a good one. Its a nice camera and out specs the 1DX in some aspects. Ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

Just to put it all in perspective. Nikon seem to have withdrawn the D750 from sale almost due to a light leak or flare issue. Again its not affecting all cameras. The camera is getting cracking reviews but something seems to have slipped through QC. They seem to be on the ball in addressing it but Nikon have had fairly significant issues with the last three bodies. D600,D800 and now this one. Its not great when these issues arise but I guess its inevitable given the complexity of the design.
 
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Neil B said:
As you know Trev i like my Owl flight shots so AF is tested to the max in low light and that is something that the 5Dmk3 handled well, if the 7Dmk2 can equal or better it i will be happy that my £1600 has been a good investment.
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....Therein is the big question. I think that comparisons between crop-sensor and full-frame image quality is much in favour of FF, so doesn't that mean that your 5Dmk3 is more likely to satisfy you more? IF both the 5Dmk3 and 7Dmk2 handle low light on equal speed/aperture settings, then surely the FF will be less noisy? AF is doubtless more advanced, being Canon's latest, in the 7Dmk2. And any increase in fps is an advantage.

I am finding that my 7Dmk2 displays more noise at ISO 1000 than 'advertised' or should I say expected. But to be fair, it's in the bigger crop enlargements where I notice it and it has been nothing which I couldn't acceptably (to me) resolve with noise reduction and post-processing methods.
 
Neil B said:
Let's just say between us we have a fair bit of water under the bridge when it comes to knowing what's good or bad, all i can do is compare to what i have had in the past and i do have an open mind on mass produced electricals and faults they may have.
If a simple test fails then i couldn't see much chance of it working in more challenging situation, to me 10fps is all well and good as long as at least 7-8 are focussed properly o_O
As you know Trev i like my Owl flight shots so AF is tested to the max in low light and that is something that the 5Dmk3 handled well, if the 7Dmk2 can equal or better it i will be happy that my £1600 has been a good investment.
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I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation Neil. I wasn't getting that with the Red Kites but then they are, in my view, a difficult bird to photograph especially in a feeding situation like Gigrin.

When this 61/65 point AF system is working well with the right case settings then it is very capable. When I photographed the ospreys in Aviemore last year my 1DX was turning out sequences of 14-16 images perfectly in focus. I was gobsmacked when i looked at them because no other camera I've had has come even close to that performance. I was throwing stuff away because a wing wasn't in the right place because the one before or after had it just where I wanted it.
 
RedRobin said:
....Therein is the big question. I think that comparisons between crop-sensor and full-frame image quality is much in favour of FF, so doesn't that mean that your 5Dmk3 is more likely to satisfy you more? IF both the 5Dmk3 and 7Dmk2 handle low light on equal speed/aperture settings, then surely the FF will be less noisy? AF is doubtless more advanced, being Canon's latest, in the 7Dmk2. And any increase in fps is an advantage.

I am finding that my 7Dmk2 displays more noise at ISO 1000 than 'advertised' or should I say expected. But to be fair, it's in the bigger crop enlargements where I notice it and it has been nothing which I couldn't acceptably (to me) resolve with noise reduction and post-processing methods.
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It's got a lot to do with the 1.6 crop Robin, you end up with a "equal ish" quality image after cropping the FF. I don't have one of the big 500mm primes anymore due to portability/flexibility so the 1.6 gets me back some of the reach i lost, it is very much a game of balancing your set-up to work well together.
 
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