new Canon 7D announced...
 

Well the much rumoured EOS 7D is now official...

Loads fo details available on Canon's website and a few retailers are already offering it for pre-order... http://www.canon-europe.com/About_Us...ss_Release.asp

Having read that my first thoughts are:
- I'm amazed it's called a 7D, I assumed the 7D when it arrived would be full frame.
- having consulted 5000 photographers about what they want I'm shocked to see a 18mp sensor, lets hope the high ISO performance is as good as it will need to be.
- 19 point AF, 8fps and dual processors all look promising.
- an intergrated speedlite transmitter, could be a great feature.
- new body design, so new accessories (battery and battery grip) needed.
- electronic levels in viewfinder, great for landscape work.

and perhaps most interesting of all this comment from WHE's page - "also a dual layer sensor which gathers information from each distinct zone to produce an accurate, consistent exposure"... I wonder quite what this means, perhaps one layer for shadows and the other for highlights, leading to an improved dynamic range?

I really thought that Canon would have gone down in sensor size the way they did with the G11. Most photogs that I've heard express an opinion wanted less mp and greater ISO. Can't wait to read the reviews.

Canon essentialy claim the new sensor caapable of high ISO with much less noise and more pixels. If true would be great. In fact if true it looks to be a great camera, not seen a price yet though.

From a birders point of view this looks a very interesting camera.
1.6 crop for effective 'reach'
18MP for cropability with less high ISO noise than the 50D (according to early reviews)
8 FPS
AF point expansion to aid focus tracking.

Early UK prices are up to £1699 but this is the per-order rip off that we always see. In the US it is $1699 so I reckon it will settle around £1300 ish once they start to ship.

cant believe the money they want for yet another crop frame camera

I can.....and to be honest, people will pay for a cracking camera with high mp/ pixel density AND excellent high ISO performance. It's probably a good time to launch new technology too, in a bid to inject some movement into a sales market that has slowed of late (recession, yen vs pound/dollar etc)

However, my first thought is.......how much did they pay SONY for the rights to use the model number 7D? Or, maybe those model number 'rights/ownership' died with the KonicaMinolta name and weren't transferable to SONY?? Similar happened with Olympus vs Leica when the Olympus M1 (which became the OM1) was launched.

I'm sure there will be plenty of Canon 7D vs Nikon D300s comparisons coming in the press and online reviews.

Interesting times

Joe I am off to pick one up from Jessops.

For those who have yet to read through the pages of information on this new release, or just want some movie footage, here's one of the better one's I stumbled across recently....

http://journal.phottix.com/


a reasonably good concise quick review I thought......with an important point about thinking of the 7D as a cropped sensor 5D, rather than a 50D revamp.

NOOOOooooooooooo! lol

If you want to wait a while we might see one come in at Real Camera!?.....We've had 50D and 5Dmk2 bodies, infact we've had cameras people have brought in to sell to us which are barely used! (I guess financial climate etc)

To Late. He! He! just waiting for the battery to charge, I thought I would get in quick before the price increase Canon are supposedly putting prices up by 10% because of the yen.

lol :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Lucky you Christine, this looks a very interesting camera indeed especially for the bird photographer. We await your feedback

Roy I will post a small review as soon as I manage to get some shots the weather is lousy here at the moment.

Sorry Mike, I missed your comment, I didn't see the green lettering LOL!

Lets hope the weather is good tommorrow when I come over and have a go with it lol...

P.S. I take it Mario will be using that really tatty old Canon 50d now then?! ;)

A very short review
 

Well today was the first day I have had chance to get some decent birds shots, Our resident buzzard decided to show itself again so here are a few shots.
The first one was when it was sitting on a branch so was able to get some nice clean shots at ISO 200.
The other 3 gave me chance to try out spot focus with expansion and A1-servo. I had a good percentage of keepers considering the best speed I could get was 1/640s at 5.6 ISO 800. I would have had a lot more if the light had been better.
When it took off from its perch it caught me by surprise so it was a couple of frames before I locked on, when it did lock on the tracking was very good I found that if I did lose it from the center focus point one of the others took over, very impressed. Any bad shots I had were due to motion blur with my bad panning.

I still haven't had chance to test out all the other modes yet I am still reading the manual. LOL!

Nice start Christine, the flyers look quite clean for ISO 800.
Next thing to try with flyers is zone AF using the centre 9 cluster to see how it compares with spot expansion.

Thanks Roy, that will be my next test if the buzzard is co-operative. The lighting has been dreadful today so not good to get the best shutter speed at a reasonable ISO. I am hoping to have sun tomorrow which would make the tests easier.

Thanks for the post Christine, Roy took the words right out of my mouth about the centre 9 point cluster. I also believe there are many other options in the menus like how quickly it will refocus, in other words ignore another object briefly passing in front of the subject. It will certainly keep you busy fine tuning to get the best out of how you shoot! Still the weather is supposed to be set fair for a few days so look forward to further posts.

I have run the test today with the center Zone focusing, the buzzard was nowhere to be seen so had to make do with a Jay and a crow.

I was very impressed with the speed in which it locked on once I had the bird in the viewfinder, whether it would have been easy with a busy background I don't know, that will have to be my next test with Zone AF.

The first and last shot of the crow have blur because I couldn't find it at first in the viewfinder and two the last shot I was about to stop the sequence.

I have posted two full sequences on flickr as there is just to many to post on here. The first one of each set is the full frame so you can see how large the bird was in the frame, the rest are 100% crops.

I received my 7D Tuesday @ a cost of £1300.

For the first time in over 40 years I've got to read the manual, and no doubt will have to read the "Flash" section a number of times.

First impressions are, Very impressed.



Harry

Congratulation Harry, enjoy using it.
You will find its a very big learning curve with this camera its so different than in previous models, as I have found out with the new AF system. I am getting there and now starting to get some stunningly sharp photos I just need to have some photo opportunities.

Here are some more test done last night indoors testing out ISO12800 the result are very pleasing.
Setup.
Canon 100mm macro lens
No flash taken in room lighting.
1/13s F5.6 Hand held.
1st Image just re-sized for upload no editing.
2nd Image 100% crop
3rd image with a little colour noise removed I have left the luminance at zero I prefer the noises instead of smearing.

BIF Sequence
 

This was not intended as a test but turned out pleasing considering the circumstances.
These are from 18 continuous frames.
Very overcast with no light ISO 3200 1/800s Hand held, Canon 400 f5.6 @f5.6. Please ignore the noise the bird was about 150 yards away.

Out of the 18, 3 were OOF, the first shot and the last 2 is where I lost sight of the kestrel. If I hadn't lost sight of the Kestrel in the viewfinder I think its possible there could have been more sharp images.

Two samples. The first one is the 2nd shot of the sequence and the other is frame 16 of the end of the sequence. I have put a 100% crop overlay-ed on the photos.

That's very good for ISO 3200 Christine but how are you finding the Low ISO noise levels? I saw some samples on BF at ISO400/500 and they were terrible. I have also seen a few post's elsewhere that question the low ISO noise levels. This bothers me as I shoot predominately at ISO 400.

Hi Roy the noise is there at lower ISO but I don't think its any worse than the 50D although I don't look that closely. Most of the photos I have taken since I got the 7D have all been high ISO. With the bad weather I haven't been able to go below 800 I have also shot a lot of indoors without flash, using available light. The High ISO is definitely much improved over the 50D.

I post most of my photos on the web at reduced sizes which doesn't show up any noise anyway. As long as the photos are sharp with plenty of detail I really don't bother about it, I can soon clean them up.

Another two taken today in better light, again unfortunately a long distance.
ISO 400
1. Full frame with 100% crop insert, no editing.
2. 100% crop, noise reduced on the sky, kestrel no noise reduction.
Link ro the RAW file
http://www.mediafire.com/?yn3oigahtwi

I was on the beach yesterday trying out the autofocus on seagulls, must practice more as I had great difficulty tracking the birds.

What was obvious was the noise in a blue sky at 400ISO which was atrocious when run through ACR RC 5.6. but reasonable at 100ISO. but when run through DPP was pretty good.

Hopefully I'll be able to get out Friday and give it another whirl.

I deleted my first attempts, but managed to rescue this from the recycle bin.

This one has had full noise reduction applied in DPP.

Harry

Weather sealing of the 7D
 

This looks rather impressive

http://canonfieldreviews.com/7d-1-weather-sealing/

Harry

This one was shot at ISO 800 with minimal noise reduction - quite pleased with the lowish noise level.

Very nice Roy.
I have found the exposure is more critical on the 7d than the 50D if you want clean images between 400-800 ISO. I give a third of a stop increase in EC to cut the noise down and then pull it back in the software its much cleaner and it doesn't blow the highlights.

I could not agree more Christine. That's what it is all about 'shooting to right' as much as you dare without blowing critical highlights. Any under exposure that is pushed in processing will amplify the noise.

its always good.i use another canon.i give the details of this cam.its good but how about ISO?everything is ok but i need more ISO.

The noise at high ISO is excellent for a crop sensor camera especially if you do not underexpose in poor light. If high ISO performance is your main criteria above anything else look at full frame cameras like the 5D II or, if you have the money which I have not, the 1 series.

I've had this camera for a month now after having the 30D for the past 3 years and using a 5DMk2 for a few months. This camera is a perfect blend of the x0D series and xD series of cameras. If it were a full frame camera, it would definitely be a pro grade camera.