Canon 7D Mk II is announced and available for pre-order (2 Viewers)

[redeyedvideo]

That's a lovely shot of the Baird's there Julian, great light too.

The 7D does tend to be noisy above 400 ISO however…if the exposure is right then useable images at high ISO are possible. Here's a shot of a Nuthatch taken in poor light yesterday at ISO 1250, 160th/sec @f5.6 with the same set-up with no noise reduction. (Tripod mounted needles to say)

The biggest learn for me when I first bought the 7D was to get the focus absolutely precise. There's very little room for error with all those pixels and the 7D Mark11 will compound this issue.

For me, the selling, or should I say buying point for the Mk11 will be its high ISO capability not the zillion focus points. I only use centre or expanded focus anyway. I'm sure it won't be better than the image quality of full frame Canons and nowhere near Nikons at high ISO but I can live in hope!

 

[Nick Leech]

Fantastic image of the nuthatch Dave - congrats!

 

[hampers]

That's a lovely shot of the Baird's there Julian, great light too.

The 7D does tend to be noisy above 400 ISO however…if the exposure is right then useable images at high ISO are possible. Here's a shot of a Nuthatch taken in poor light yesterday at ISO 1250, 160th/sec @f5.6 with the same set-up with no noise reduction. (Tripod mounted needles to say)

The biggest learn for me when I first bought the 7D was to get the focus absolutely precise. There's very little room for error with all those pixels and the 7D Mark11 will compound this issue.

For me, the selling, or should I say buying point for the Mk11 will be its high ISO capability not the zillion focus points. I only use centre or expanded focus anyway. I'm sure it won't be better than the image quality of full frame Canons and nowhere near Nikons at high ISO but I can live in hope!

Lovely nuthatch, superb background.

Agree with your points re Mkii. Essentially no camera will improve the quality of images if the technique is no good. Or, the set up is wrong in whatever respect. I think everyone who buys one will have a learning curve and hopefully this forum will help by sharing lessons learnt as the set up could be tricky if it has anywhere near as many options as the 1Dx.
Major point for me personally is the reduction in weight from 1D to 7D. Having said that I won't be buying on day 1. Faithful old 40D until then.

Phil

 

[Tarsiger]

Also still banging away with an old 40D; will wait until there's a lot more real world (birding) examples from this body before upgrading although interest-free credit will ease the pain. It'll be fun to have to start the learning curve all over again!!
Russ

 

[Dave Williams]

The 7D2 will feature the Single-point Spot AF which is much more accurate than the Single Point which is also offered ( and similar to the current 7D1). For static objects it is excellent.
The 7D2 is described as a Mini 1DX by Andy Rouse and it does have most of the features the 1DX has.Plenty to play and experiment with mainly around the AF system and control buttons. It will confuse others I imagine, well hopefully anyway, otherwise it's just me who is a techno idiot. I think the biggest problem lots of us have with technology is when we have learnt a certain amount and found a comfort zone we tend to stop looking for more information. It's a mistake as we often never get to find the true potential but even Andy Rouse admits that at times less choice can be an advantage

 

[Nick Leech]

Dave, out of interest, where have you picked up Andy Rouse's views on the 7D2? Can you post a link? Or do you know him?

I will wait for the 7D2 price to drop a bit, and perhaps buy one next Summer. In the meantime I'll use my 70D.

 

[Dave Williams]

Here's Andy's review so far
http://www.foto-buzz.com/index.php?script=page&id=77&type=fotoskool
It was sent to me by a friend who does know him. I met him once and I can see why he's a Marmite character but I really enjoyed his company and he passed on a couple of useful snippets of information.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Well, well.

It appears that the release date has been brought forward to 30th October.

http://www.canonrumors.com/category/photography/canon-7d-mark-ii/

 

[hampers]

Here's Andy's review so far
http://www.foto-buzz.com/index.php?script=page&id=77&type=fotoskool
It was sent to me by a friend who does know him. I met him once and I can see why he's a Marmite character but I really enjoyed his company and he passed on a couple of useful snippets of information.

Dave
Of course RTFM also applies. Most of us are guilty of just taking out of the box and start using. I guess with this camera there are going to be significant changes from current and older models around the menu's.

Cheers, Phil

 

[redeyedvideo]

Fantastic image of the nuthatch Dave - congrats!

Lovely nuthatch, superb background.

Phil

Thanks chaps, better feedback than if I'd posted in the gallery!

 

[Telephoto Paul]

Another 'hands on' blog about the 7D2, this time by Christopher Dodd
http://www.naturephotographyblog.com/

 

[Nick Leech]

http://www.foto-buzz.com/index.php?s...type=fotoskool
http://www.naturephotographyblog.com/

Reading both those reviews/blogs, the 7D2 sounds like it is going to be great!

 

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

Amazing that neither ambassador found anything they didn't like 😉

 

[Dave Williams]

I think anyone with a 7D1 will be chomping at the bit waiting to trade up to the 7D2. If you already own a 5D3 or 1DX maybe not so much. The 1.6 x crop is the real benefit from what I can see but you might not have the higher ISO performance of the other two bodies. Neither reviewer seem to venture too far up the scale beyond ISO 1600 whereas I find that I am regularly using 1600-6400 as I try to maintain f8 and a decent shutter speed.
I have found the performance of the 2.0x excellent with my 500mm f4 but in poor light you need higher ISO. One reviewer pointed out that with the 1.6 crop he could drop to the 1.4xTC instead of the 2.0x and use a lower ISO. This also has the advantage of much better AF performance on moving targets as you can engage more focus points. You might not even need a TC at all!
However, you still have that depth of field problem to consider so it's not all straightforward.

 

[Keebs]

Art Morris has been posting images from a beta version on his blog and the performance looks pretty damn impressive to me at ISO 1600, certainly well ahead of the old 7D.

Of course that particular camera is bound to get the amazing results in his hands, but it does show what's possible, even if us mortals will struggle to get ours so well exposed!

 

[Hor Kee]

I had a quick play with one today. Unfortunately its card slots had been taped shut, so no comments on the IQ. Loved the controls, although the menus are much more complex compared to the first 7D. The "set" button in the middle can be customized for many functions like exposure compensation, which is great for people who shoot in Av like me. Very responsive with two AF point expansion modes. Interestingly, I have a Sony A57 as my second system and it too had such modes despite being a budget model. Hope some of these trickle down the line for the Canon EOS system soon.

 

[Julian H]

Artie Morris is a longtime friend of mine and he's the person to whom I referred to as having a beta version of the camera in my original post. He's also a Canon affiliated person as he acknowledges, but I feel he will give a good review as fas as it relates to bird photography.

I love my 40D and shoot at 400 ISO as my default and the noise doesn't bother me at all but again I try to shoot at dawn and dusk when there is good light so as long as I can make an image that is acceptable from a noise level at 1000 ISO or 1600, I would be happy. Why would I want to be shooting at higher ISO than that?

Having access to full autofocus will increase my reach, but I am curious to know what the quality of images would be like with my 1.4x on the 7D MK II.

Also, I base my review of images as if I were making an 11x14 or 16x20 print and how would would it look printed. Killer stuff would be shots I could blow up that big and still look good. I have some many shots that I wouldn't think would look great or are sub-par, but printed out 5x7 in a magazine or book and they'd look killer, so really it all depends what your goal is as far as photography. I have a 16x20 Swallow-tailed Kite that I took with a 6.3 mp 10D that looks good on my wall!

 

[Dave Williams]

Why would I want to be shooting at higher ISO than that?

Out of my bathroom window the other day !
As I hadn't taken a shot for days I needed a photo fix and spotted this Woodpecker within 500mm plus 2.0x TC range. f8 and 1/250th sec= ISO 4000 on the 5D3
Not a masterpiece but good enough for my record purposes.
The light gets pretty bleak here in winter on a dull day, especially in "shade"

If I had a 1.6 crop I might have got away without the TC but the DOF would also suffer if I opened up the lens.

 

[hampers]

Out of my bathroom window the other day !
As I hadn't taken a shot for days I needed a photo fix and spotted this Woodpecker within 500mm plus 2.0x TC range. f8 and 1/250th sec= ISO 4000 on the 5D3
Not a masterpiece but good enough for my record purposes.
The light gets pretty bleak here in winter on a dull day, especially in "shade"

If I had a 1.6 crop I might have got away without the TC but the DOF would also suffer if I opened up the lens.

Dave
Any noise reduction?

Cheers

Phil

 

[Dave Williams]

Dave
Any noise reduction?

Cheers

Phil

Yes Phil, very hasty PP... a crop, increase light,reduce noise and sharpen again.
It was actually ISO 5000

The original view in Jpeg ( I shoot RAW) is attached.

Not long ago I never went over ISO 400 on my Nikon D200,ISO 800 on the D300s and then when I went over to Canon my 1DMk1V I limited to 1600. Now , well I'm not sure really. I would like to stick to 1600 but it does depend on the light and situation. With a TC on you lose stops and with a long lens and FX camera you lose DOF too.
I seem to recall reading that you should have a shutter speed to equal your lens length but that is often nowhere near possible unless you push the ISO to the kind of high figures that really do show the noise.

PS Looking at this original again I really should have reduced the shutter speed a little but I didn't have a lot to of room to play with.