Canon 7D Mk II is announced and available for pre-order (1 Viewer)

[hampers]

Well I have a well wrapped package in my mitts (can't open it till she who must be has gone out just to avoid the question of cost!) and these images are tempting me enormously, just need health sorted and out we go with the new toy! From what I am seeing posted the higher iso performance is looking good. Will help with our winter light.

Phil

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Is that on Canon 400/5.6 without a TC?

Yes, hand held. More failures than successes unfortunately. Moving all the time and often by the time I'd focussed on it there was nothing there to photograph and it was off elsewhere.

 

[John Oates]

So far, I've found the 7D ii quite confusing. So many options. I'm very much a birder with a camera, but I do appreciate that familiarity with the camera will result in more keepers. I'm new to Canon DPP and I'll be pleased when Photoshop Camera Raw is updated. I've been testing mine out today in the dull weather, with a 2x converter and 500mm f4 ii. I'm quite impressed, because I couldn't have used this combo with autofocus on my old 7D. The focus on flying birds is very fast and the ISO seems far better. Here is one of a Shoveler, taken from a hide and processed in DPP and Photoshop. Considering the conditions I think it is OK and certainly a shot that would have been very difficult using a 7D.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15089910843/

 

[Barred Wobbler]

So far, I've found the 7D ii quite confusing. So many options. I'm very much a birder with a camera, but I do appreciate that familiarity with the camera will result in more keepers. I'm new to Canon DPP and I'll be pleased when Photoshop Camera Raw is updated. I've been testing mine out today in the dull weather, with a 2x converter and 500mm f4 ii. I'm quite impressed, because I couldn't have used this combo with autofocus on my old 7D. The focus on flying birds is very fast and the ISO seems far better. Here is one of a Shoveler, taken from a hide and processed in DPP and Photoshop. Considering the conditions I think it is OK and certainly a shot that would have been very difficult using a 7D.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15089910843/

Hi John

I'm assuming from what you say that you processed the image in DPP rather than Photoshop.

Have you tried just opening the Raw file in DPP, then using 'Convert and Save' in the 'File' menu?

This produces a TIFF image of the Raw, which will appear alongside the Raw image. You can then open the TIFF in Photoshop and process it as normal. When you've saved your edit, just delete the TIFF to save memory space.

Apologies if I've misunderstood and that's what you're already doing.

Like you I'd sooner have a patch to allow Photoshop to open the image in Camera Raw. It's more flexible.

 

[Grahamdevenish]

Are people checking AF accuracy/calibration with their lenses and TCs or assuming perfection straight out of the box? If the latter this might explain imperfect results in the absence of any other obvious explanation.

Personally I always check AF calibration with every body, lens and TC combination I use. It is rare that 0 micro adjustment is the best setting, even with L glass and pro or semi-pro bodies. There is a good reason that cameras, and now lenses in Sigma's case, include this adjustment feature.

Mmmm, It appears that I'm not the only on here! I'm struggling with sharpness, have micro adjusted my Sigma 300 F2.8 and even the 24-105l needed a tweak, which it never did with my 7D or 5D. I took some shots with my Sigma 70-200 F2.8 EX DG APO today and even then I struggled with bite on the eye of birds. (Single point AF).

Lack of time and suitable light is frustrating me and I haven't even got near my Sigma 500 yet! Yet I've seen some brilliant results, although most people around seem to be posting with Canon Primes, there must be a whole bunch of out there that use Sigma/Tamron!!

Anyone else struggling?

Graham

 

[HokkaidoStu]

Mmmm, It appears that I'm not the only on here! I'm struggling with sharpness, have micro adjusted my Sigma 300 F2.8 and even the 24-105l needed a tweak, which it never did with my 7D or 5D. I took some shots with my Sigma 70-200 F2.8 EX DG APO today and even then I struggled with bite on the eye of birds. (Single point AF).

Lack of time and suitable light is frustrating me and I haven't even got near my Sigma 500 yet! Yet I've seen some brilliant results, although most people around seem to be posting with Canon Primes, there must be a whole bunch of out there that use Sigma/Tamron!!

Anyone else struggling?

Graham

I've used it a couple of days, you can see results on my blog (linked in my signature). I'm fairly happy with it so far.............

To be honest I'd never bothered with AFMA on my original 7D. The results always seemed good enough enough to my eyes.

I have had quite a lot of OOF shots with my new camera so far but I've only been using AI Servo with moving subjects on the 7D2, usually at 700mm and I reckon a lot of my AF misses are down to using this AF mode, especially as I had slow tracking enabled. The narrow depth of field is a factor too.

But having said that I'm going to do AFMA on the 7D2 in one shot mode when I have the time in the next few days.

 

[HokkaidoStu]

I just played around checking for front and back focusing with my 7D2 and a 500f4 with both teleconverters. Completely unscientific and you may laugh at me for doing it this way: I didn't use a focus chart and just lined up 3 things staggered, as far away as I could physically manage in my apartment (2 battery chargers and some deodorant, about 10 meters away) and focused on the central one. First with normal AF and then with liveview to compare. It seemed to hit focus every time and there was no adjustment after I changed to liveview.

I may try 'properly' later but it seems OK.

Here's a slightly cropped and (fairly) lightly processed image from yesterday.

 

[Roy C]

Anyone know if the 7D2 will do 'Exposure compensation with Auto ISO' like the 1Dx ?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Anyone know if the 7D2 will do 'Exposure compensation with Auto ISO' like the 1Dx ?

It appears to Roy, but I'm sitting indoors and not in a shooting situation.

I've dialled in Manual Exposure and set the ISO to Auto.

The top wheel adjusts the shutter speed and the rear dial adjusts the aperture as you'd expect, so I've opened the menu and dialed in some exposure compensation on the top line of the second screen (Expo.comp./AEB).

The setting selected appears in the viewfinder, so it appears the function is available, although it would take a field test to settle the matter beyond doubt.

Maybe someone who still has some daylight could give it a try.

 

[John Oates]

Hi John

I'm assuming from what you say that you processed the image in DPP rather than Photoshop.

Have you tried just opening the Raw file in DPP, then using 'Convert and Save' in the 'File' menu?

This produces a TIFF image of the Raw, which will appear alongside the Raw image. You can then open the TIFF in Photoshop and process it as normal. When you've saved your edit, just delete the TIFF to save memory space.

Apologies if I've misunderstood and that's what you're already doing.

Like you I'd sooner have a patch to allow Photoshop to open the image in Camera Raw. It's more flexible.

That is pretty much what I did with the file. I opened it in DPP as a Raw file, converted it to a JPEG and then put it in Photoshop. It turns out that DPP automatically adds noise reduction to the raw file, which can be reversed, but I didn't with this photo.

 

[Dave Williams]

It appears to Roy, but I'm sitting indoors and not in a shooting situation.

I've dialled in Manual Exposure and set the ISO to Auto.

The top wheel adjusts the shutter speed and the rear dial adjusts the aperture as you'd expect, so I've opened the menu and dialed in some exposure compensation on the top line of the second screen (Expo.comp./AEB).

The setting selected appears in the viewfinder, so it appears the function is available, although it would take a field test to settle the matter beyond doubt.

Maybe someone who still has some daylight could give it a try.

Try pressing the Q button select EV on the screen and see if you are offered the choice of brighter or darker. If you can only see the scale and you rotate the top dial and the scale goes both ways you are bracketing the shots not changing EV.

 

[John Oates]

The 7D ii is really growing on me. This afternoon I took some high ISO photos in bad light. The results are quite good I think, compared with how the 7D would have done. It's not something I plan on doing lots of, but it will certainly help when taking pics in dark places - I'm sure to get lots more usable record shots in deep shade & twilight! Noise control was added automatically in DPP and I did not alter it. The camera was hand held.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15719850502/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15716396381/in/photostream/

I don't think I need to do an AF micro adjustment - at least not on the 500mm.

 

[Roy C]

It appears to Roy, but I'm sitting indoors and not in a shooting situation.

I've dialled in Manual Exposure and set the ISO to Auto.

The top wheel adjusts the shutter speed and the rear dial adjusts the aperture as you'd expect, so I've opened the menu and dialed in some exposure compensation on the top line of the second screen (Expo.comp./AEB).

The setting selected appears in the viewfinder, so it appears the function is available, although it would take a field test to settle the matter beyond doubt.

Maybe someone who still has some daylight could give it a try.

Thanks, that's good news :t: - I have just see it confirmed on another site as well. Its just the 1Dx and now the 7D2 that has this facility in the Canon range.

BTW a way to test it is to set auto ISO, go into manual and set shutter speed and aperture so that the metering dial is central on zero - then dial-in some Ev comp and see if the metering dial changes to show the Ev comp (previously on other Cameras as soon as you did this the auto ISO kicked in and changed the ISO so that the Ev comp did not take effect and the dial would still be on zero Ev).

 

[Roy C]

The 7D ii is really growing on me. This afternoon I took some high ISO photos in bad light. The results are quite good I think, compared with how the 7D would have done. It's not something I plan on doing lots of, but it will certainly help when taking pics in dark places - I'm sure to get lots more usable record shots in deep shade & twilight! Noise control was added automatically in DPP and I did not alter it. The camera was hand held.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15719850502/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15716396381/in/photostream/

I don't think I need to do an AF micro adjustment - at least not on the 500mm.

They are looking good John although it might just be me but the ISO 5000 shot looks a lot more noisey than the ISO 8000 shot - maybe its cropped a lot heavier.

 

[John Oates]

They are looking good John although it might just be me but the ISO 5000 shot looks a lot more noisey than the ISO 8000 shot - maybe its cropped a lot heavier.

Thanks. I'm hoping to start using it normally soon, rather than finding tricky stuff to pick on! I'm not sure why the Dunnock would have more noise - maybe it's the way DPP processed it. It's also possible that I added too much sharpening.

 

[redeyedvideo]

A useful tutorial from Canon on the focussing points particularly for BIF. Looks interesting.

http://learn.usa.canon.com/galleries/galleries/tutorials/eos7dmarkii_tutorials.shtml

 

[hampers]

Dave
Thanks for posting this, most useful. There are 5 other videos on the page so will make good and educational viewing.

Phil

 

[Roy C]

I'm not sure why the Dunnock would have more noise - maybe it's the way DPP processed it. It's also possible that I added too much sharpening.

I doubt it is anything to do with DPP John as it is a superb RAW converter IMO. Although I have Photoshop and Lightroom I have always preferred Canon's RAW conversions to ACR. What I have done for years is to convert the RAWs in DPP and then send to Photoshop as a 16 bit tiff to do the vast majority of editing - works for me. Another very useful tool in DPP is the DLO (Digital Lens Optimizer) as long as you have a supported lens it can make a nice difference although it can increase noise slightly at times (easily taken care of with a good noise reduction package like Topaz DeNoise).

 

[HokkaidoStu]

A few more things I've noticed after using it for a few days:

They seem to have changed the Exposure Level Indicator. It doesn't appear at all on the bottom (like all the other EOS bodies I have used) unless you have auto ISO and even then the indicator doesn't move in M mode, it just stays at 0. Unless you use exposure compensation..............

The new ELI is on the right hand side. Very easy to overlook!

The (new 'N') battery doesn't last long, neither do older ones. Canon offer a free battery grip to the first 10,000 buyers in Japan who send off the documentation. I mailed in the form right away, having 2 batteries may be essential. I switched GPS off right away too. It's a thirsty camera.

Not being able to use Lightroom is a bit of a pain. I used to use DPP/Photoshop but 2 years ago I changed to Lightroom for 99% of my PP work and much prefer it. Not that DPP is bad (far from it) but Lightroom is (for me) so much quicker and easier. C'mon Adobe, hurry up.

The AF seems very quick and the burst mode is great. I was worried about 'only' having a 400X CF card but it seems to be holding up nicely. Having dual cards is good too, in fact I forgot to put my CF card back in the camera , went out taking pictures and didn't even notice.

I'll hopefully give it a bigger workout over the next week or so including high ISO shots. I'm not expecting miracles but I want useable shots at ISO 1600.

 

[John Oates]

It was dull again today, so I took some more high ISO shots and tried out the 1.4x converter. I'm finding I'm looking through my camera more than I'm looking through my bins. Here is a handheld Reed Bunting at ISO 3200, which I wouldn't have attempted with the 7D:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswildlifephotos/15539766087/

I agree with HokkaidoStu about battery life. Seems significantly shorter than the 7D.