R7 - Shipping Notice vs Backorder - first impressions from the lucky few (2 Viewers)

[edenwatcher]

My R7 body is out for delivery!

Rob

 

[Barred Wobbler]

My R7 body is out for delivery!

Rob

Nice one!

 

[edenwatcher]

Battery charged, cards in, preliminary setup done, - shame it's dark! It's going to take a bit of getting used to...
What are people using for RAW conversion? I have always used standalone Lightroom for my 7DII and don't want to go down the subscription route. I was thinking of trying DxO Photolab.

Rob

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Battery charged, cards in, preliminary setup done, - shame it's dark! It's going to take a bit of getting used to...
What are people using for RAW conversion? I have always used standalone Lightroom for my 7DII and don't want to go down the subscription route. I was thinking of trying DxO Photolab.

Rob

Rather than using the free Adobe DNG converter (I'm assuming here that it can open R7 files, without any knowledge), which seemed to add noise to my R5 files during the conversion I bit the bullet and upgraded my existing Dxo Pure Raw to the Mk 2 version, which can cope with the R7 files, whereas the MK1 can't. I used the 30 day free trial before shelling out the cash a couple of days ago.

 

[SaltyDogBirding]

Battery charged, cards in, preliminary setup done, - shame it's dark! It's going to take a bit of getting used to...
What are people using for RAW conversion? I have always used standalone Lightroom for my 7DII and don't want to go down the subscription route. I was thinking of trying DxO Photolab.

Rob

Enjoy yourR7. In my experience, once you get the camera set up to your liking, it is on another level compared to the 7Dii. The custom settings I have used is are based on this YouTube video by Whistling Wings -

. I use DxO Photolab for all of my post-processing and it works very well. If you do decide to go down that route, buy the Elite version that has the prime noise reduction which is just outstanding for high ISO images. Do not expect Photolab to be the same experience as Lightroom, it is different and will take some getting used to. Once mastered it is great - at least for my needs which is almost exclusively bird/wildlife photography.

 

[edenwatcher]

Enjoy yourR7. In my experience, once you get the camera set up to your liking, it is on another level compared to the 7Dii. The custom settings I have used is are based on this YouTube video by Whistling Wings -

. I use DxO Photolab for all of my post-processing and it works very well. If you do decide to go down that route, buy the Elite version that has the prime noise reduction which is just outstanding for high ISO images. Do not expect Photolab to be the same experience as Lightroom, it is different and will take some getting used to. Once mastered it is great - at least for my needs which is almost exclusively bird/wildlife photography.

Thanks for that - I'll download the demo version of Photolab and have a play. Will check the Whistling Wings settings. I have done the initial setup based on the Wild Alaska settings, with a few adjustments. There are a few things that may not work well for me so I'm keen to look at a range of options.

Rob

 

[oquintero]

For some reason the single focus point on my R5, which usually resides in the centre, sometimes takes it on itself to hide in a corner. I don't know why, but pressing the centre of the paddle button inward resets it to the middle. Has the R7 a similar button/ switch. I found this last night on Youtube. Might be useful until Jan Wegener gets his R7 and posts a vid for settings.

Hi all, just got my new R7 still learning how to use it. Just a note, I was fighting at first with the single focus point moving to a corner but later I realized it was my face or my nose touching inadvertently the tactile screen (that activates where to AF) so I just configured the touch & drag AF (menu AF 4) setting to the right of the display (or another area where it works better for you) or you can simply press info to disable the simultaneous EVF and screen display showing where you are going to take the photo and the problem fixes.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

A speckled wood meeting its end in the company of a migrant hawker this morning.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I've been having problems over the past few days with my (updated) EOS Utility version 3 hanging up and not opening when my R7 is plugged into my PC. It was a puzzler, but I've just got to the bottom of it.

I just remembered that a few days ago I was playing with the camera and connected it to the Canon app on my phone to see how it performed. On a hunch I've just switched the Airplane mode on my camera on and EOS Utility opened as normal. Problem solved. The camera must have been trying to connect to EOS Utility by thought transference rather than by the wire I'd plugged in.

The marvels of modern technology.

 

[edenwatcher]

Finally got to take a few photos this morning, though in indifferent light. So far I am finding Capture One is giving more pleasing results than Photolab - with the caveat that I have been using Capture One Express for my Sony RX10 MkIV so have greater familiarity with the setup.

Rob

 

[Barred Wobbler]

A Lapland Bunting at Whitley Bay. Rewarding and frustrating at the same time. I've rarely known a bird so adept at hiding its eye behind stray blades of grass when the rest of its body was exposed. Doubly frustrating in that on the occasions the bird was in the open, and also when it wasn't, the eye detect often decided that it liked focusing on grass or seed-heads in preference to the bird. Fortunately it also found the bird's eye when it decided to play ball.

 

[Roy C]

Tried a small(ish) bird with the R7 and 800mm f11 combo. Was from around 30ft I guess and handheld. It shows the lens is fairly sharp although at f11 you obviously need decent light.
Please click on thumbnail for best view.

 

[Roy C]

Picked-up the 'cheapie' 800mm f11 lens which gives 1280mm fov on the R7, Been shooting with it handheld and am amazed at how sharp it is for the money (I paid £655). This Curlew shot was from around 40 yards (also cropped heavily)

 

[Farnboro John]

Got my R7 back from repair, off to have a play this afternoon though it seems all right now I've set all the functions up again.... Good job I'd faithfully recorded them on here or I might have struggled a lot more!

Now to write them into a little Word file on my laptop so I have them handy - though I hope not to need them very often.

Cheers

John

 

[Farnboro John]

Going nicely, though the first batch of pics were JPEG because I forgot to change what must have been a factory reset. Back to RAW now.

John

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Yesterday in light winds. I was hampered by injury to the first two fingers of my right hand, but I managed. Strange distortions on some of the images taken in bursts on the electronic shutter though (very few - 41 from about 3,000 shots over 2 outings, so a little over 1%). Not the usual rolling shutter showing up in the background or a rapidly moving wing, but the whole bird being either compressed or stretched, usually in the vertical plane, making it look altogether strange. Looking through those images, they may be associated with camera movement when trying to track/locate the agile bird, with the 100-500 on the crop body. Stabilisation was on even though I was shooting at 1/3200 sec, so there might be a connection with the IBIS trying to keep up with large movements. Just a hunch and by no means definitely down to rapid camera movement (see images 3&4 in the next post).

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Yesterday in light winds. I was hampered by injury to the first two fingers of my right hand, but I managed. Strange distortions on some of the images taken in bursts on the electronic shutter though (very few - 41 from about 3,000 shots over 2 outings, so a little over 1%). Not the usual rolling shutter showing up in the background or a rapidly moving wing, but the whole bird being either compressed or stretched, usually in the vertical plane, making it look altogether strange. Looking through those images, they may be associated with camera movement when trying to track/locate the agile bird, with the 100-500 on the crop body. Stabilisation was on even though I was shooting at 1/3200 sec, so there might be a connection with the IBIS trying to keep up with large movements. Just a hunch and by no means definitely down to rapid camera movement (see images 3&4 in the next post).

A few examples of the strange distortion that appeared mid-burst with the electronic shutter yesterday. All shots are uncropped and only slightly edited for levels, otherwise they are as they came out of the camera (Resized to 2048 pixels for web). My hunch that it might have something to do with rapid camera movement is negated by photos 3 & 4 here (7489& 7492), taken a fraction of a second apart during the same burst.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

This afternoon in choppy conditions and a strong wind directly off the sea that caught the lens hood and did its best to snatch the viewfinder away from the subject

 

[edenwatcher]

I thought I'd post a few thoughts on my first 6 weeks with the R7.
Like many I have come to the R7 from the 7DII - a camera which I loved from the outset and which, once setup, is simple to use. For all the criticisms levelled by some, it is still a very good camera but technology has moved on...
With the R7 I have never changed settings, changed back, changed again... so many times with a camera. At times it has driven me to despair. Some of this is my fault, as now I am more or less back with the Wild Alaska settings from up thread and I really needed to persevere. Having said that repeatedly changing options has given me a better understanding of the menus!!! I have found adjusting to back button focus a challenge. At times I have tried to use shutter button focus but found I was running out of fingers! Now I just need to get used to which button does what.
Other settings:
I have used CRAW throughout and have had no issues with this.
I started using Electronic First Curtain shutter (fear of rolling shutter!) but after a very windy session I discovered that a combination of buffeting of the lens and shutter shock gave me far fewer keepers than I should have had. I then bit the bullet and switched to electronic shutter (15 fps - seems enough!) and have seen no real rolling shutter problems and the camera is much easier to hold steady.
I always used Av with the 7DII and tried that and also the new Fv mode. However I have found the camera tends to change things when I'm not looking(!) so am now using manual mode so that I have complete control.
I find the large size of the spot focus point to be a pain - particularly when getting record shots of scarce migrants in bushes when animal eye focus doesn't have a chance. The 7DII does this much better. Given the number of focus points available I wonder if this is something that can be addressed in a future firmware update? I have definitely missed shots I would have nailed with the 7DII. Having said that I have taken shots with the R7 that I could never have dreamed of with the 7DII.
For processing I settled on DxO Photolab - the lure of Deep Prime is strong! I find the Photolab profile for the R7 and 100-400mkII to be far too contrasty however.
The R7/EF100-400mkII combination can produce some outstanding results - I just need to increase the proportion! I'll post some examples in a day or two.

Rob

 

[Barred Wobbler]

This morning's partial solar eclipse, R7 + RF100-500, using stacked ND filters. Shots taken 30 minutes before maximum; 20 minutes before maximum; Maximum coverage; 20 minutes after maximum; 30 minutes after maximum. The clouds rolled over the sun only three minutes before the end and only a tiny sliver of shadow left. Close run. Sun spots visible in the upper right & 8 o'clock positions, with a couple of smaller ones below & right of centre.