Phil sorry I forgot to mention, I have tried zone, spot with expansion and all points. The all points did work slightly better but it still hunted and it didn't get the part in focus that I wanted it either front or back focused.
Coming from the 40D, the IQ is not a lot different although the extra MP's captures more fine detail (for a similar size crop you have almost twice as many pixels left). The real advantage of the 7D over a xxD Camera is the AF sytem - worth it for this alone IMO.Looking at this thread, and others, there is a rather large learning curve involved with getting to grips with this camera. Add to this the odd glitch & news of poor copies, this is not good news when contemplating splashing a large (to me huge) amount of cash:eek!:.
A question then to those of you who are getting to grips with it :
In terms of image quality, are you over the moon with your purchase?:smoke:
Coming from the 40D, the IQ is not a lot different although the extra MP's captures more fine detail (for a similar size crop you have almost twice as many pixels left). The real advantage of the 7D over a xxD Camera is the AF sytem - worth it for this alone IMO.
The difference would be more down to you rather than the Camera. With more MP's you have to get things right to take advantage of them.If I go for it, I'll be moving up from a 400D so both expect & need the difference to monsterous. It would have to last me a good while.
Thanks roy, I'm certainly under no illusions on that point.:t:The difference would be more down to you rather than the Camera. With more MP's you have to get things right to take advantage of them.
...............If you get things right then the 7D is a terrific birding Camera IMO but if you just press the shutter and hope for significantly better shots than you are getting now then you could well be disappointed.
By the way Andy, I forgot to mention the 8 fps which is no big deal coming from the 40D but pretty significant coming from your 3 fps.Thanks roy, I'm certainly under no illusions on that point.:t:
Would not hurt to microadjust the lens Max, it cost nothing and you can always switch off the adjustment if you want. I have not got around to doing any MFA myself but I am perfectly happy with the shots I am getting from the 7D.I use a 400 prime lens with my 7D and sometimes sharpness could be better.I know this is probably down to me but I wonder if anyone has had a go with the AF microadjustment function setting and if so did it improve sharpness?
Max.
Would not hurt to microadjust the lens Max, it cost nothing and you can always switch off the adjustment if you want. I have not got around to doing any MFA myself but I am perfectly happy with the shots I am getting from the 7D.
Did you see my post #706 which references the shutter speeds? could well be relevant if you are not shooting on a tripod.
They look very good to me Max :t: - the 400/5.6 takes a tc very well and the 7D captures a lot of detail.Went out yesterday with the 7D with a Kenko 1.4 tc ( pins taped) attached to my 400 prime.I went to Draycote Water one of my local patches.
The conditions were fairly good with a wintery sunshine.The auto focus worked pretty well most of the time.I used single point AF.
Because Draycote water is a large reservoir you have to do a fair amount of walking so,for me with my ageing body,I do not take a tripod so all shots were hand held.Had a lot of throwaways but did get some decent shots so I can say I'm pleased with the 7D when using a tc.
Here are a few shots I took.
Max.
Gordon, you say you were "within the minimum focus range" for the blue tit, which to me sounds like you were too close for the camera to focus fully. The blue tit would have needed to be beyond the minimum AF distance, not within it. Just to clarify, I take it that you could photograph the jackdaw just fine. My guess is that you had the camera in On-Shot AF mode and the camera could not get a focus lock (because you were too close) and thus refused to allow the shutter to be released.
Did you get focus confirmation, either audibly or visually? If you were to shoot with manual focus or in AI Servo the camera would have allowed the shutter to release, whether or not the subject was properly focused. One-Shot will lock you out if the camera can't confirm focus. This is not unique to the 7D. It is standard operation for all EOS cameras I've ever used (I have six different ones).
2) if you use Lightroom, try Canon DPP instead, LR introduces loads of noise and softens the images up quite a lot too, and for some reason doesnt get the colours right!
Unless you use LR 2.6.
Unless you use LR 2.6.