A question for Canon 7D owners (mainly)
Discussion
Now the 7D has been around for a while I assume there is a body of practical use observations that people can consider when asked about performance, etc.
I've been reading about the Mk2 EOS 70-200 f2.8 lens which seems to produce some superb results albeit at twice the price of the Mk 1. Many are suggesting that - with the larger pixel count sensors these days, the 7D being a case in point for the crop sensor bodies - the lens is good enough to be considered for use up to the 400mm range mark because one can crop severely and still have a reasonable pixel count and image size for most purposes. If you start with 18Mp and halve it, especially with incoming lighting from the centre of a lens, it should still be a great image with plenty of potential for processing.
How does that stack up in practice? I'm assuming it needs to be considered on the basis of using L spec lenses in general, not just the 70-200 II, although the specific point may be most appropriate for that lens.
I've been reading about the Mk2 EOS 70-200 f2.8 lens which seems to produce some superb results albeit at twice the price of the Mk 1. Many are suggesting that - with the larger pixel count sensors these days, the 7D being a case in point for the crop sensor bodies - the lens is good enough to be considered for use up to the 400mm range mark because one can crop severely and still have a reasonable pixel count and image size for most purposes. If you start with 18Mp and halve it, especially with incoming lighting from the centre of a lens, it should still be a great image with plenty of potential for processing.
How does that stack up in practice? I'm assuming it needs to be considered on the basis of using L spec lenses in general, not just the 70-200 II, although the specific point may be most appropriate for that lens.
Edited by LongQ on Monday 23 August 16:36
Ledaig said:
LongQ said:
I've been reading about the Mk2 EOS 70-200 f2.8 lens which seems to produce some superb results albeit at twice the price of the Mk 1. Many are suggesting that t=with the larger sensors these days - the 7D being a case in point for the crop sensor bodies - the lens is good enough to be considered for use up to the 400mm range mark because one can crop severely and still have a reasonable pixel count and image size for most purposes. If you start with 18Mp and halve it,.......
Not saying you wouldn't manage to obtain good images, but...if you are going from 200mm to 400mm via cropping, you will have one quarter of your original number of pixels - not half.
Which also helps explain why megapixel branding these days is nothing more than marketing bull, if you want to double the resolution of a 10mp camera for example, you need a sensor of 40mp.
Jumping from 10mp cameras to 12mp, 14mp etc will not actually net you much of an increase.
The thing is that much has been written about 'improved' resolving power in addition to the pixel count increase. Now as one who, when conditions and 'good light' combine well, is quite happy for many purposes (especially web posting needs) with the results that some oldish 5 and 6Mp pocket cameras can produce (horses for courses) I agree with you about pixel counts. Depending on the subject and the purpose a 6Mp image cropped to about 1/6th of the original size can still produce a reasonable screen view or even print up to a little under A4 size. Not bad for something that only cost a couple of hundred quid to start with. Of course the hit rate for getting such images from lowly hardware is somewhat compromised compared to the middle range dSLR hardware. In some situations the same sort of results are simply not possible - but that does not negate the pixel coun argument you put forward.
minky monkey said:
I've got a 7D and the ability to crop into an image is mightily impressive.
However, it's got to be a pin sharp image to start with. What I do notice, is that you really do need a good technique to be able to take advantage of the MP's. You've also got to have good glass upfront, I really notice the difference in quality when cropping a shot from my cheaper walkabout lens.
Interesting.However, it's got to be a pin sharp image to start with. What I do notice, is that you really do need a good technique to be able to take advantage of the MP's. You've also got to have good glass upfront, I really notice the difference in quality when cropping a shot from my cheaper walkabout lens.
I have seem the same point made elsewhere about starting with a top quality image. It makes sense, though I have been quite impressed with sample images produced by unknown techniques. Presumably the techniques were at least adequate!
One thought that occurred to me was that one might not see a great benefit for action shots, no matter what the glass quality, unless using a high shutter speed. Indeed I have even read suggestions that perceived sharpness might be worse. Any thoughts about that suggestion from your experiences?
minky monkey said:
For me, you need the sharpness (to a degree) to be able to maintain the detail when you crop in really tight.
If there's any blur (poor focussing or too slow a shutter speed), the tighter you crop, the more you notice it to the point where you bin the shot.
If you can't get that detail to start with, you're never going to be able to crop tightly. I shoot a fair bit of football, I use the cropping ability to aid me as I've only got a 70-200 F4 IS L so it gives me a bit of assistance.
OK, so you are taking action shots and cropping from the good lens to get results you are happy with. What sort of shutter speeds do you need to use to get that happy feeling? Indeed do the shutter speeds matter that much or is it more a case of when a shot works it works and if you take enough, enough will work?If there's any blur (poor focussing or too slow a shutter speed), the tighter you crop, the more you notice it to the point where you bin the shot.
If you can't get that detail to start with, you're never going to be able to crop tightly. I shoot a fair bit of football, I use the cropping ability to aid me as I've only got a 70-200 F4 IS L so it gives me a bit of assistance.
Edited by minky monkey on Monday 23 August 18:18
I'm not suggesting that you need to blitz with the 8fps to get results, more a question of how many shots turn out acceptably sharp for cropping purposes given the variables of moving targets.
My thinking. For head on action I tend to use a fast shutter speed so sharpness, all things being equal, should not be a problem in most cases. However for panning a fast moving subject it will be. Pixel perfect panning probably only occurs by chance no matter how much practice one has. Usually 'damn close' is close enough. But I could see the potential for close to look awful for a very critical sensor. Misplaced concern or something worthy of discussion?
Ledaig said:
LongQ said:
400mm would be at the extreme end of usage range.............
I agree with what you say, I was just clarifying the half 'mp' point.Trust me, if I thought pixels were that important I would be using a D3x and not a D200/D3 combo.
The raw theory suggests that all should be well but the practical results may not offer much.
If all I would get is pretty much the same as a 10Mp sensor with a 70-300 lens but some added camera features, then the cost comparison does not look great. Cost so far £700. 7D body, lens, upgraded memory capacity - £3,200 at best. Uk prices, approx.
Hmm.
I have little doubt the combination would be better - but would it be £3,200 better?
pernod said:
My 2c worth, just to suggest a totally different approach to this problem...
In my winnie-the-pooh brain I'd say the biggest advantage of the 7D if you are looking for extra reach is actually a mix of resolution and it's exceptional ISO performance from a crop body.
Assuming it is reasonable shooting conditions, the ISO performance is more than enough to offset the reduced light from using a teleconverter. While these are known not to give L-sharp images, the extra MP of the 7D means you can down-sample the image to increase its apparent sharpness and still have a large enough image to play with.
I've never actually used a teleconverter on my 7D to test this, but I have down-sampled a few images to increase sharpness with reasonable results.
Thanks for this idea.In my winnie-the-pooh brain I'd say the biggest advantage of the 7D if you are looking for extra reach is actually a mix of resolution and it's exceptional ISO performance from a crop body.
Assuming it is reasonable shooting conditions, the ISO performance is more than enough to offset the reduced light from using a teleconverter. While these are known not to give L-sharp images, the extra MP of the 7D means you can down-sample the image to increase its apparent sharpness and still have a large enough image to play with.
I've never actually used a teleconverter on my 7D to test this, but I have down-sampled a few images to increase sharpness with reasonable results.
I did have an extender in mind but wondered what I could get without it.
I have a 70-300 DO IS lens which gets a good rating so I suspect that it could be close enough to the resolution of a 70-200 +1.4 extender to make that combination a bit redundant. Of course I may be wrong for several reasons in addition to outright image quality.
What I have noticed just recently is that the DO lens images responds quite differently to sharpening, depending on circumstances, than 'other' lenses do. I have read similar comments about 7D sensor derived images as well, especially for smaller size presentation images. It makes me wonder how one can discover, body by body, lens by lens and editor by editor, which PP adjustments are appropriate for each image.
RobDickinson said:
Sharpening depends on so much though, print/view size, detail type etc.
Its not just down to the lens and/or body.
DO lenses seem to be plenty sharp but lacking some contrast?
7d is orsome tho give it a go.
Hmm. It seems to depend Rob, though I'm not sure I could tell you on what it depends!Its not just down to the lens and/or body.
DO lenses seem to be plenty sharp but lacking some contrast?
7d is orsome tho give it a go.
Shooting against the light is, perhaps, a bit less satisfactory than 'normal' lenses can be made to achieve - at least it is unless you find a way to PP out the challenges. But in other situations it seems possible to readily lift the images to perfectly acceptable levels of contrast, even files from a 400D. I don't think it takes any more PP then most lenses, though as I always shoot RAW with the dSLR I have an expectation of PP work anyway.
As you say the PP required depends on som many factors that there is unlikely to be a 'one size perfectly fits all' solution but I seem to be able to make things work even across variable monitors with not too much effort per image. (However with a thousand images that becomes quite a lot of effort!).
All of that said - the minimum apertures of the DO lens - f4.5 to f5.6 - are not helpful for DoF limitation with a crop sensor and the 400D and its like will always have the potential ot struggle at the f5.6 end when focusing. Continuous shooting can be a particular challenge. So the f2.8 of the 70-200 could be useful. I can resort to my 600mm ..... but it's old and manual everything and might be a real challenge fitted to a 7D. However an EOS replacement for it would cost more than I can afford, er, 'this week'.
I'm thinking I need to buy a 7D for familiarity to get the best out of it but yet should rent one to get a feel for it in the first instance. Likewise the 70-200. Decisions, decisions. Maybe I will make some calls tomorrow. (er, make that today ...).
Well - have arranged for a rental of a 7D for this weekend and next when I will, hopefully, be able to add a 70-200 Mk2 to the fun. For the first 'learning' weekend I think my 70-300 DO lens should give a good enough quality to see if any odd issues arise.
One thing I had not reckoned on was the slight scarcity of sources of sensibly priced 7D batteries (more of a problem when I decide to buy one) and the potential cost of some CF cards for the trial since my existing 4GB cards will probably be used up within the first hour! These large, highspeed cards don't come cheap! I was going to rent a couple of those too but apparently that's no longer an option offered.
This could be an interesting few days. I've just read the camera user guide. It didn't seem to complicated, really. What have I missed?
One thing I had not reckoned on was the slight scarcity of sources of sensibly priced 7D batteries (more of a problem when I decide to buy one) and the potential cost of some CF cards for the trial since my existing 4GB cards will probably be used up within the first hour! These large, highspeed cards don't come cheap! I was going to rent a couple of those too but apparently that's no longer an option offered.
This could be an interesting few days. I've just read the camera user guide. It didn't seem to complicated, really. What have I missed?
RobDickinson said:
Read up on the 7D's systems first too.
B&H have some good videos and canon has some nice qhite papers and some info.
The AF system is quite complex and setting it up right can be a challenge! if done proerly though you can have 4 or 5 single AF points under your fingers and easy switch to AI servo etc.
4gb card will get about 300 raws on.
You can shoot about 15-18 shots befoer the buffer is full, including writing to a decent card that gets you 22-24 shots.
Be prepaird for a close examination of your gear and technique if you view at 100%!!
Cheers Rob.B&H have some good videos and canon has some nice qhite papers and some info.
The AF system is quite complex and setting it up right can be a challenge! if done proerly though you can have 4 or 5 single AF points under your fingers and easy switch to AI servo etc.
4gb card will get about 300 raws on.
You can shoot about 15-18 shots befoer the buffer is full, including writing to a decent card that gets you 22-24 shots.
Be prepaird for a close examination of your gear and technique if you view at 100%!!
I spotted the potential 'flexibility' of the AF system. The concept seems undestandable enough but I can imagine that setting it up so that it works thet way you want it to be able to work for the type of shooting in progress could be a brain-stretcher without familiarity with the kit. First proper outing is likely to be Oulton Park for some racing so that should allow to me to restrict the needs somewhat. I hope. Keep it simple and build from there.
I'm surprised at the numbers you suggest. The manual indicates a much larger RAW file, even in mRAW, than my 400D. With the 400D and a 4Gb card I get just under 400 images with a typical file size averaging about 8Mb, +/- 1Mb depending on content. Unless I misread it the manual (Table on 'Page 59' of the PDF) suggest a 25Mb full size RAW file, 15Mb for mRaw and something still quite large for sRaw (11Mb). Thats sounds a bit large to me and your numbers suggest the same. Current cards are SanDisk Extreme III but I'm planning on picking up one or more class 6 UDMA cards by the expected busy second weekend.
I take your point about 100% veiwing. It will be interesting to see what changes I need to consider to my PP work flow (such as it is) to get the best out of it. Even with the current kit I keep finding new opportunities that provide noticable improvements for very small adjustments. In fact it seems to be the micro-adjustments that make all the difference. The downside is that every half decent image may need special attention before one can assess its potenetial. With the volume shooting capability of digital kit that becomes quite an overhead!
Thanks Rob and everyone for the input. Should be a fun few days.
minky monkey said:
I use a 16gb in mine and get around 500 odd large Raws.
That suggests the Canon manual numbers are about right then. Hmm. What size card to order?I can easily run to 1000 frames a day even with only the occasional 3.7 frames per second burst from the 400D. Should I mortgage the house and buy a 32Gb card or two?
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.
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.
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?
RobDickinson said:
Well for f4 and handheld it looks sharp enough, plenty of detail on the crop.
As for the exposure, its underexposed big time. If you want clean pixels you need to expose to the right, you've 1-2 stops of space there, then pull it back in post.
Also what raw conversion are you using? DPP is supoposed to be good but I use ACR (latest).
And first thing I do (to most images) is use noise ninja, even on ISO 100 shots, very lightly (acutaly profiled) , you wont loose any detail but it will celan up the noise.
Sharpening is also a but of an art, you've underexposed, creating noise, then not cleaned it up, then sharpened the noise up a lot.
Can tweak the USM parameters to not do that.
Hi Rob,As for the exposure, its underexposed big time. If you want clean pixels you need to expose to the right, you've 1-2 stops of space there, then pull it back in post.
Also what raw conversion are you using? DPP is supoposed to be good but I use ACR (latest).
And first thing I do (to most images) is use noise ninja, even on ISO 100 shots, very lightly (acutaly profiled) , you wont loose any detail but it will celan up the noise.
Sharpening is also a but of an art, you've underexposed, creating noise, then not cleaned it up, then sharpened the noise up a lot.
Can tweak the USM parameters to not do that.
For some reason, having prepared a longish reply, PH demanded I logged in again and, of course, threw away the missive in process! Such joy.
Summary version.
It is just a quick test for detail and sharpness. I know it's underexposed - intentionally so for the purpose of the silhouette test frame. I can deal with the slight noise easily enough but it does make the processing for sharpness a little more complex than the very simple small amounts applied for the sample but, given the purpose of the shot, I didn't feel it was justifiable to make the effort at this point. Indeed I wanted to keep the processing to a minimum so at to get at the base capabilities of the camera. I'll accept sharpening since that, to some degree, is a necessity if we are to make any sense of the assessment and comparisons.
I use LightZone as an editor so the conversion engine is DCRaw. All adjustment, including noise reduction (by colour and/or luminance and for selected parts of the image if need be) are usually completed as part of RAW processing.
Trying a comparison with DPP (as the 'official' tool) is on my list of things to do in the next week.
It's quite interesting to uncover the perceived strengths and, possibly, weaknesses by playing - but tomorrow (or rather, today now) is a day for shooting in the field. I'd best top up the batteries!
Edited by LongQ on Monday 30th August 00:50
RobDickinson said:
Well good luck!
The key is to get the exposure nailed and to the right, though it doesnt help when the histograme is pulled from the jpg...
You have more headroom than that but not for reds and skin etc.
The unadjusted settings seem to be quite well to the right - to the point where the grey skies of last Friday either needed up to a 2 stop recovery or, in a couple of cases, were blown out despite there being a stop or more recovery available from the darker areas without any greatly increased visible addition of noise. I was thinking of dropping things 1/3 or 1/2 a stop as a default setting. Undecided yet - I'll see what tomorrow brings.The key is to get the exposure nailed and to the right, though it doesnt help when the histograme is pulled from the jpg...
You have more headroom than that but not for reds and skin etc.
The example is, of course, well below that. It was part of a group that were shot pretty much directly into the sun - we had a vaguely interestng sunset this evening which made a nice change from the recent rains.
pernod said:
LongQ said:
I was thinking of dropping things 1/3 or 1/2 a stop as a default setting. Undecided yet - I'll see what tomorrow brings.
I use manual exposure most of the time and mentally I work on 1/3 down as a rough guide.As an aside, recently I've started using the great spot metering of the 7D to set the exposure which has improved my control over the highlights no end.
A couple of the other giys shooting there yesterday - clearly regulars - very kindly loaned me the use of their lenses for a few minutes So I can now see what a 70-200 f4 +1.4 extended can do and compare it with a 70-200 f2.8 Mk2.
All I can say is that I fear my wallet may never recover.
A couple of other observations.
The shutter release button on the 7D is very sensitive. With high speed continuous mode switched on CF card capacity disappears frighteningly quickly. The release button on the grip seeme even more sensitive ...
I've noticed some very strange results from my 70-300 DO lens which I have yet to investigate - almost like it was not correctly mounted some of the time but it could be an IS artefact. If I work it out I'll post on it.
Over all the Camera, with BG fitted (I have yet to play without it fitted) is a delight to use, very balanced, great veiwfinder and as you would expect a world away from the lower order bodies. I had a 1D4 in my hands for a couple of minutes yesterday and that was another interesting experience. The 7D+BG seemed quite close to 1D4 in terms of weight and balance. I really didn't have enough time to even begin to consider the differences in controls and performance.
As for my original question ..... I'm still looking at the output - 1 16Gb, 4Gb and 2Gb card to assess. I'll try to post some samples in the next day or so.
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