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Canon 7D Mk II is announced and available for pre-order (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter Ashraf Kotb
- Start date
Marcus Conway - ebirder
Well-known member
Who knows?
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Marcus Conway - ebirder
Well-known member
I would agree. If mine had focussed consistently then the AF tracking alone was sensational. Perfectly usable up to ISO 1600 and the images seemed to have a great range of colours and tones. My buddy has a 'sharp' one and he's coming next week. Can't wait to try it out.
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
Are you shooting in RAW or jpg?
I shoot in Raw + Sjpg. Maybe the transfer of the much larger Raw file to the card takes more power. Just speculating - I haven't a clue about how these things work, but there's not a chance in hell of mine getting anywhere near 13 hundred shots on a charge.
John Oates
Active member
It seems to be a rather common issue, but I seem to be ok. I shoot in raw. I'm still in the habit of turning my camera on & off too, which I'm hoping to abolish! The 7D was great for battery life. I've been in some very cold places and I was amazed how long the batteries could last - even a few days without charging. I'm hoping the 7D ii comes close. I'll be able to charge my batteries on a daily basis on my next trip, so I won't have to take too many even though it will be cold.
The only problem (and it's not really a problem) with the non-Canon battery is that it doesn't get recognised by the camera. One minute I get a flashing red battery warning and then it will tell me it's at 37%. So I have no idea how much charge I have left, but I'm not bothered because I have a spare in my bag.
They must have thought you were complaining about a printer and not a camera.
Bit of a 'fail' from Canon UK................
John Oates
Active member
Here are a couple more from Marsh Lane, near Solihull where I haven't seen the sun since about June. The Pied Wag was handheld and the Green Woodie (with 1000mm) was from a hide. I'm not claiming they are great photos, but I would say that they are better than if I'd been using the 7D.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15216391494/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15872488316/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15216391494/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15872488316/in/photostream/
redeyedvideo
It's like water off a duck's back!
Alan, I have just the camera for you. It's fully manual, has no batteries to go flat, it's built like a tank and is capable of taking far better pictures than some I've seen from the 7DII, just let me know how much you're willing to pay (up to £1599). Good luck in Darien!
On a serious note - I was really looking forward to the 7DII but I won't be parting with my hard earned until Canon recall the lemons and ensure any new releases are calibrated before they leave the factory. They have history here.
Marcus's experience has shown the poor service from Canon (I've had similar) and sounded a warning to anyone, myself included, who may have been tempted to buy a grey import.
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lewis20126
Well-known member
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Jeez.... my first SLR was one of those! From the factory that gave you the T34/85 I reckon. You could use it for banging tent-pegs in without risk of damage (other than bent tent-pegs)!
I shall have nightmares tonight.
John
graham catley
Well-known member
That's the up market Zenith I had to make do with the B, no light meter and the back held closed with insulating tape: these modern photographers don't know how we learnt!
BodyResults
Well-known member
Honestly if you shot the way John Oates did I'll bet you would get similar battery performance. From reading you posts I can see why you think you have poor performance.
I'll bet John went out for several hours and shot all 1355 shots in the outing.
It sounds like you shoot a small number of shots take it home, run the battery down more while downloading instead of using a card reader like most people do. Then you turn the camera off without recharging the battery and using it for a small bunch of shots then next day and use up more battery connected to the computer and maybe fiddle with settings.
Do me a favor, charge your battery to 100%, go out and shoot your shots and before you plug your 7D2 into the computer take the number of shots and divide it by the percent the battery dropped. So if you took 100 shots and the batter now says 90% then you are getting about 1000 shot capacity of single session shooting.
The difference lies in the way people define performance and how it is used.
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Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
If you'd read my posts properly you'd have seen that the times I can get out this month have been limited to an hour or two every three to five days, simply because the weather has been heavy gloomy cloud all month since the camera arrived - leaving no opportunity for an extended spell of shooting. Today is no different 100% heavy overcast and drizzle. I'd love to get out and fire off a thousand shots in a session, but there's not been a chance. Look at my isabelline wheatear shot from a couple of days ago for an example of the weather we've been having. Shot at lunchtime (12.36) on an open beach on ISO 10,000 1/1000 sec F6.3. That's the light we've got.
I've just this second (09.45) taken a shot of the garden to test the light today. The auto ISO exposure gave me 1/1000 sec, F5.6 ISO 12,800.
I defy you, John or anybody else to go out in that and fire off a thousand exposures.
You take what you can get and live with it.
The standard test for the number of exposures for a charge that canon uses involves firing off shots on a camera with alternate shots using the built-in flash and switching the camera off and on again after every ten shots, auto-focussing. Canon claims that this regime will give 670 shots at 23° and 640 at 0° (the 7D is 800 and 750 for the same operation).
http://www.cipa.jp/std/documents/e/DC-002_e.pdf
I've been putting my camera through a much less rigorous test than that, and I've yet to get anywhere near those figures, although the last charge seems to give slightly better figures than the one before it. The battery is once more fully charged and I'm waiting to get out to test this charge. I live in hope.
Regarding your accusations of constant switching on and off and downloads, if you look back through and count on your fingers you'll find that I only used the camera seven times to flatten a battery on the first charge I measured and reported on this thread and only 4 times on the second charge. Unlike John, who admits to turning the camera on and off during the day, I keep mine switched on from when I leave the house to when I return, which should avoid the battery drain associated with powering up during the day.
Regarding doing you a favour, if you read the figures on my posts you'll see that that is precisely what I have been doing, and none of them on the first charge measured add up to 100 shots for 10% charge drop. For example, 8th November full battery 70 shots charge down to 81%, 9th November 48 shots charge down another 10%, 16 November (the next time out) 176 shots to date for 49% remaining - after only three shooting sessions. The first session of 244 shots on the second charge (23 Nov) came close. There were indications of an improvement. I'm yet to try the next charge.
I've had enough experience with my old 7D over the years to know what my shooting regime should deliver and on early indications the new camera isn't coming close on battery performance. I hope it does after another charge or two, we'll see, because I love the camera.
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Got mine a couple of weeks now, coming from the 1D4. Very happy with it, snappy autofocus (better than 1D4), great noise control (1D4 might have the edge here but very close), silent shutter. Not experiencing any softness or issues.
Great Bittern 7D2 500mm II + 1.4x III (1/1600s f6.3 iso 800) and a 100%crop
Great Bittern 7D2 500mm II + 1.4x III (1/1600s f6.3 iso 800) and a 100%crop
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Were you at Kenfig Pool today or did you nick one of my files? OOPS! I haven't down loaded my card yet! That is almost identical to several of my shots from lunchtime today. Nice capture by the way.
So far the 7D2 seems to be a bit of a Marmite camera. Many (most?) are VERY happy with it but a few others seem to be having battery and AF issues. I have certainly seen some excellent images taken with the 7D2 - placing it equal to the 1D4 - high praise indeed.
Some of this will be down to the learning curve of the new AF system which takes a bit of learning! Though some experts seem to have problems with it and others are nailing shots almost as well as the 1DX!
Whilst I would not expect the 7D2 to give the same battery life as the 7D (basically the same battery) It looks like Barred Wobbler is having battery issues. The 7D2 has many more times the processing power of the 7D (and an extra processor) which is going to empty batteries pretty quickly!
If it's any help I get between 200 - 400 shots from my 1DX before I re-charge the battery - this is FAR below spec. This is because the camera is always on and I am waiting quite a long time for my subjects. If I am shooting quickly, over a short period of time, I can get 2400 + shots and still have one or two bars left on the battery meter - so it's all down to personal use or a duff battery/meter.
John Oates
Active member
I've had this battery in for quite a while now (possibly a week or more) and use the camera most days. It finally ran out of charge after 1585 shots. I don't think I'm doing anything special to prolong the charge, other than having the GPS disabled.
Dave Williams
Well-known member
Reading these recent reports has not influenced my decision but I passed on the opportunity to buy a Mk2 when in Hong Kong recently where a typical shop price is less than £1100 it seems.Nothing to do with grey imports,Canon have accepted both my 1DX and 5D3 for their CPS level of support so I don't see that as an issue. I do think the price will drop in the UK soon after Christmas anyway.
Reading about battery life issues,the same had been mentioned about the 1DX before I bought mine and I was horrified to find out how quickly it went flat until someone pointed out that my camera wasn't set to go in to sleep mode and as I don't tend to switch the camera off it was slowly draining away the battery.I now get enough power to comfortably see me through a days shooting. Likewise,the 5D's battery seems to fair pretty well although there are times I need to replace them on a single day's shoot. Annoyingly, the 1D series chargers will take two batteries at once whereas the 5D's only one when more often it's the latter one that gets most use.
Reading about battery life issues,the same had been mentioned about the 1DX before I bought mine and I was horrified to find out how quickly it went flat until someone pointed out that my camera wasn't set to go in to sleep mode and as I don't tend to switch the camera off it was slowly draining away the battery.I now get enough power to comfortably see me through a days shooting. Likewise,the 5D's battery seems to fair pretty well although there are times I need to replace them on a single day's shoot. Annoyingly, the 1D series chargers will take two batteries at once whereas the 5D's only one when more often it's the latter one that gets most use.
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
I am delighted to report that;
(a) The clouds parted for a while and the sun made its first appearance in almost a week,
and,
(b) On its fourth charge cycle my battery finally turned up for work today and put in a proper shift. 537 shots and still 59% charge remaining. That compares to only 440 shots for the entire previous charge (but including some very long exposures in the order of ten seconds to 15 minutes that distorted the result) and 535 shots for the charge before that one. Touch wood, but it appears that my battery problem was a lazy new battery and a few charges look to have turned it round. Let's hope so. There were indications of an improvement on its last charge, bulb exposures excluded, but today was vastly improved.
Some shots from today
(a) The clouds parted for a while and the sun made its first appearance in almost a week,
and,
(b) On its fourth charge cycle my battery finally turned up for work today and put in a proper shift. 537 shots and still 59% charge remaining. That compares to only 440 shots for the entire previous charge (but including some very long exposures in the order of ten seconds to 15 minutes that distorted the result) and 535 shots for the charge before that one. Touch wood, but it appears that my battery problem was a lazy new battery and a few charges look to have turned it round. Let's hope so. There were indications of an improvement on its last charge, bulb exposures excluded, but today was vastly improved.
Some shots from today
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