A question for Canon 7D owners (mainly)
Discussion
Well that's ever more curious.
I found a source of a reasonable (I think) deal on a Sandisk Extreme 16Gb card so ordered that but I doubt it will arrive on time for the weekend so will probably buy another from the rental vendor. Should be enough for what I anticipate doing this weekend but 2 cards may be required for the following weekend, especially if it turns out that MM's experience holds true.
If I get your results Rob I'll be in even better shape.
Card reader may be the next thing on the list. I suspect mine may not cope with UDMA nor be fast if it does.
I found a source of a reasonable (I think) deal on a Sandisk Extreme 16Gb card so ordered that but I doubt it will arrive on time for the weekend so will probably buy another from the rental vendor. Should be enough for what I anticipate doing this weekend but 2 cards may be required for the following weekend, especially if it turns out that MM's experience holds true.
If I get your results Rob I'll be in even better shape.
Card reader may be the next thing on the list. I suspect mine may not cope with UDMA nor be fast if it does.
RobDickinson said:
My mistake I have an A-Data 16gig 350x card in not an 8gig.
Ah, right. So the numbers seem to stack up, as it were, meaning that the same number of images, assuming no RAW + jpeg activity, will likely require about 3 times the capacity that I require now.Hmm. Better put in a standing order for some hard drives as well.
RobDickinson said:
You can shoot sRaw or mRaw too... if you dont need all the resolution, you still get the benafits of those 18mp (vs shooting native at 10 mp etc) but not the huge file size.
I've bougth 2tb of storage since the 7D and my PC despratly needs an update!
Those files get BIG when editing.
I was thinking along the same lines and the editing could be interesting. For some reason my favourite editor, at full quality output, full size, creates jpg files twice the size of the original RAW. Still, should be OK on file size for the agencies if I ever take anything worth offering them!I've bougth 2tb of storage since the 7D and my PC despratly needs an update!
Those files get BIG when editing.
pernod said:
LongQ - just picked this up but if you are anywhere near Berkshire area you're welcome to borrow some cards for the weekend.
pernod - many thanks for the generous offer - but I'm in the Midlands and heading to the North West and Oulton Park this weekend. I bought a 16Gb high speed CF today from the rental people (the rental deal is good and their card prices were not too excessive so I thought the net deal was fair) and have another one coming. In the post as I write according to an email that arrived this morning. If it gets here tomorrow it will be great, especially as our post seems to have become completely erratic in the past 3 days - normally about 09:30 in recent weeks but 17:00 yesterday and 18:00 today! I can scrape enough capacity for this weekend I think. In the worst case I'll take a notebook and download during the day or simply shoot jpg for some of the time. That should be part of the test anyway really.
It's next weekend that is more critical - if the weather is any good. 3 days of racing at Donington in parallel with a Hot Air Balloon event at Chatsworth for the same 3 days. It could get interesting trying to cover both. Hopefully I will have at least 32Gb of fast capacity available by then plus the 12Gb from my existing cards and a another couple of Gb from some lower performance cards used in older cameras. Should be enough for a day at a time.
Again, thanks for the offer. Were I closer I would have taken you up on it.
No problem mate!
Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
pernod said:
No problem mate!
Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
Sounds similar to my experience.Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
Initially I was blown away by the gizmos, then a certain element of disappointment - duff shots etc, and then coming out the the other side I'm more than happy.
Talk about a rollercoaster...
pernod said:
No problem mate!
Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
Well, I just switched it on and pressed the button a few times before checking the settings. SO a batch of over exposed _MG files to start the ball rolling! It was set to Manual ... (actually only about 5 and some of those are only over exposed in the sky area.)Can't wait to hear how you find it. I spent the first 4 weeks swearing at the metering on mine as I couldn't get the hang of the learning curve and kept over/under exposing. My hit rate slowly improved with some focus and some actual concentration and I'd say my photography is better for it (although it was a painful month!).
Despite that my editor can manage a very successful -2 stops adjustment from the files. Not sure that shooting so the far right is good practise though!
So far I have been checking the extremes and also playing with the 24-105 - an interesting lens that seems to deliver slightly better performance expectations at the shorter end than the longer end. I'm pleased to say that my 70-300 DO looks able to produce good results without any real effort on my part to refine technique.
As for high ISO - there are limitions of course but I randomly shot one of those white cardboard boxes in which 5 ream packs of A4 paper is delivered at ISO 6400. 70-300 Do at 300mm anf f8 to pick up the content information oprinted in black on the edge of the lid (whcih was in partial shadow (strong daylight through door 'behind' the box and strip lighting directly above). The amount of noise seemed quite low in the original at normal viewinig size. At 1:1 there were clear limitations as you would expect. However a few minutes playing with my editor and the main parts of the 'image', as it might be used in a stock shot for example, look to me to be noise free or close to it. I won'yt claim that for other subjects tried so far, though some results are similar. As yet I have not these files through Canon's DPP software either - just my regular favourite.
One thing I am slightly puzzled by.
I stopped of at a rather scenically located church near home - you can get huge vistas on a good day and it was quite a good day - and of course took some shots of the grave yard. The headstones are a great test of DoF, resolution and general image quality.
The odd thing is that those headstones and memorials that are a sort of rough stone - or perhaps weather concrete finish always look a bit 'soft' even when they were the point of focus and any inscription on them can, with typical sharpening applied, look perfectly sharp even at 1:1. Even more peculiar, or so it seems to me so far, is that the percieved sharpness of these structures (just the structures, not the surroundings which all look as you would expect them to look) can be improved greatly but seems to require a completely different approach to sharpening depending on the size one is viewing at. It's not just a case of more sharpening required at smaller sizes - the way one sharpens seems to matter but only to these specific structures. The surrounding grass, the black marble headstones and so on all respond as one might expect.
The effect is much the same no matter which lens I used nor which focal length was in play. The stone built church, a very similar colour and with weathered texture, does not have the same appearance. Most odd. It could be an optical illusion - I'll try a different editor and monitor to see what changes. Should have tried the 400D as well whilst I was there - but then I didn't know I needed to!
1600 and 3200 both seem pretty usable. Resolution will drop off a tad at those ISO settings so I don't expect miracles for ultimate sharpness at 1:1 but, as mentioned by others earlier, it seems possible to make a pretty drastic crop and still get a lot of detail given a half decent image to start from. Whether 'a lot' is 'enough' for my intentded purpose I don't yet know.
I've been impressed with the amount of detail the 7d resolves (compared to 40d) but it's worth playing with the individual micro adjustment for each lens you have. I need to go to +10 to +15 for every lens and that makes quite a difference to the sharpness I get compared to the default setting.
I just keep it simple. What works for me is put the camera on a tripod and point it at a rack of CDs in good light. Generally I know what aperture/zoom I'm going to be using for a shoot. So I set the camera to those settings and take a test shot. Preview the shot and zoom right in on the image to see if the CD title text is sharp. If it looks soft go +5 or -5, take another shot and compare, then dial it in from there until it's sharp. From memory I think the 7d can store up to 20 lens micro adjustment settings so I save each lens setting individually rather than a global setting. There's probably a much more scientific way of doing it but this works for me. I've just checked and every lens I use needs at least +10. When you think it's set correctly a good test is to take a shot of a piece of fabric and if it's sharp the weave of the material will stand out very noticeably.
I still have a 40D and had not heard of micro adjusting - looks handy. I found this that may help...?
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/c...
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/c...
xrrr said:
I still have a 40D and had not heard of micro adjusting - looks handy. I found this that may help...?
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/c...
I read that the other day - fascinating stuff but I'm not in a position to try it at the moment.http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/c...
I played with the micro adjust and the 24-105 today - not following all the recommendations but using a fixed and consistent target at some distance just to see what sort of different microadjustment made, whether accurate or not, in a real world situation that was not studio related. The thing is that shooting on a tripod and especially in a studio is, I would suggest, far more likely to show up any benefits than hand holding out in the wild.
Looking at the test shots on the 7D screen it was difficult to be certain of any differences. But viewing them on a monitor the slight changes became a little more evident especially where there was some fine detail available for comparison.
I ended up at +2 but to be quite honest I suspect leaving it at 0 would have been OK for most practical purposes since my margin of error is likely to be around 2 (at least) anyway, so I will try a few more examples in the next few days.
Hmm.
A couple of example frames from, this evening.
7D. 24-105 L lens. at 102mm. Av priority - f4.0 -1 stop giving Tv of 1/1250th. Handheld, but at that speed it's not likely to be significant.
Microfocus adjustment (playing) of +2.
Silhouette shot of a power grid pylon against a sunset. Pylon is about 800 or 900 meters away, from memory, maybe a little more.
100% crop of the top of the pylon.
Other than standard conversion from RAW the only processing so far has been 2 mild sharpening adjustments - editor default minus a bit and then editor default plus a tiny tad. Any more and the crop starts to 'grain' too much (for my liking at 1:1 viewing) in the sky area.
Obviously both images are somewhat crushed for web use.
What do we think people?
A couple of example frames from, this evening.
7D. 24-105 L lens. at 102mm. Av priority - f4.0 -1 stop giving Tv of 1/1250th. Handheld, but at that speed it's not likely to be significant.
Microfocus adjustment (playing) of +2.
Silhouette shot of a power grid pylon against a sunset. Pylon is about 800 or 900 meters away, from memory, maybe a little more.
100% crop of the top of the pylon.
Other than standard conversion from RAW the only processing so far has been 2 mild sharpening adjustments - editor default minus a bit and then editor default plus a tiny tad. Any more and the crop starts to 'grain' too much (for my liking at 1:1 viewing) in the sky area.
Obviously both images are somewhat crushed for web use.
What do we think people?
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