The 7D has landed!!! (1 Viewer)

[hollis_f]

Getting a 7D after all the pictures I have seen on here, whats the difference between spot focus and centre point ?

With Spot Focus the camera uses a very small area to determine the focus. With Single Point the area used is larger. Spot is great for a situation like the one Roy mentioned - when you want the focus on a pinpoint area. The disadvantage of Spot is that the small area may not contain enough contrast to allow it to AF.

 

[Nikon Kid]

With Spot Focus the camera uses a very small area to determine the focus. With Single Point the area used is larger. Spot is great for a situation like the one Roy mentioned - when you want the focus on a pinpoint area. The disadvantage of Spot is that the small area may not contain enough contrast to allow it to AF.

Thats interesting, as I seem to just use spot focus, as I thought it must be a bit more accurate than single point, and must say that I have had some occasions when the AF will not work. Maybe I should go back to single point.

 

[peteh]

The size difference between spot and centre is not that much really.
There is a great Canon conference video on the b and h website which shows everything about the 7D and it covers all the focus types in great detail.
I was expecting the spot to be a spot but infact its the size of the rectangle in the middle. The centre point focus area is the same but extends just outside the rectangle as well.

 

[Saphire]

I have just had an amazing show over our house, millions of starlings. The noise was deafening. I had to quickly run in to get my 50mm lens because the 400 was to long and while I was taking still shots I remembered I could take video,:-O
I will have to edit all the clips because there is a few out of focus and very dark, when its done I will post a link to the video.

The photo is one of the still shots.

 

[Nikon Kid]

I make it about 2500 to 3000 in that shot, we await the video

 

[Roy C]

I have just had an amazing show over our house, millions of starlings. The noise was deafening. I had to quickly run in to get my 50mm lens because the 400 was to long and while I was taking still shots I remembered I could take video,:-O
I will have to edit all the clips because there is a few out of focus and very dark, when its done I will post a link to the video.

The photo is one of the still shots.

Must have been a great site Christine.

 

[Saphire]

Yes it was an amazing site Roy, thousands decided to congregate in all our conifers for a short rest so you can imagine the noise.
The light was terrible for getting decent still photos, the light was nearly gone it was 4.50pm when I took the above photo so I was lucky to get any.

I had to laugh when Mario was covered in poop, they missed me. LOL!o

 

[Saphire]

Here is the link, I am not happy with the quality on utube the size isn't correct.

New up-load. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo5Kh74ImBc

Edited: Corrected the size, lightened and re-uploaded.

 

[Tectortony]

Nice one Christine, it bring back memories of Bradford 50 years ago -- noise,poops and smell !

 

[Fountain]

Have a look at this photo please, it's a crop, which is then about 75% with the original full shot shown in the bottom right.
Taken at iso1000 with a 7d & 100-400 ... I am happy with it, would you be ? , very little noise & sharp even without sunshine.

Taken at 1/400 at f8 handheld.

 

[JohnZ]

To be perfectly honest and, without wishing to cause any offence whatsoever, I would less than satisfied with your shot.

 

[deco]

Fountain, I wouldn't like you to be put off by any negative, well-intentioned comments. Your picture does indicate the resolving power of the 7D. Given the distance, lighting conditions and selection of ISO, I think you did very well to extract detail from the shot. Perhaps perversely, you might have extracted more detail if you had chosen a higher ISO - perhaps 1600..? It is generally accepted that selecting an ISO in full increments e.g. ISO 200, 400, 800, 1600 or 3200 will provide better results than an intermediate ISO (e.g. ISO 1000).
Hope you continue to enjoy your camera.

Deco

 

[HokkaidoStu]

As a very heavy crop it doesn't look so bad.

 

[Fountain]

Thanks John, Deco & Stu.

Apart from cropping and resizing there was no editing & the 7d was set to default on everything bar cnIII. (taken on Av set at F8) There is considerable room for improvement on the camera set up and indeed post editing to extract more.

Deco, thanks for the tip about ISO.

 

[hampers]

Fountain, I wouldn't like you to be put off by any negative, well-intentioned comments. Your picture does indicate the resolving power of the 7D. Given the distance, lighting conditions and selection of ISO, I think you did very well to extract detail from the shot. Perhaps perversely, you might have extracted more detail if you had chosen a higher ISO - perhaps 1600..? It is generally accepted that selecting an ISO in full increments e.g. ISO 200, 400, 800, 1600 or 3200 will provide better results than an intermediate ISO (e.g. ISO 1000).
Hope you continue to enjoy your camera.

Deco

I have set the camera option to only use full ISO increments. There has been previous posts on this and other forums that intermediate ISO and I have decided to steer clear of them all together.

 

[JohnZ]

I can only apologise if you are offended Fountain. It was never my intention.

 

[Nikon Kid]

Have a look at this photo please, it's a crop, which is then about 75% with the original full shot shown in the bottom right.
Taken at iso1000 with a 7d & 100-400 ... I am happy with it, would you be ? , very little noise & sharp even without sunshine.

Taken at 1/400 at f8 handheld.

Its not Good, but its not bad at that distance, alright if you want to ID a bird but not good enough for putting on a website, again I can only stress the great advantage of getting close to your subject for better IQ and detail, agree with others on ISO don't use the camera software for in between ISO.
Enjoy your camera its truly a very good one.

 

[Fountain]

I can only apologise if you are offended Fountain. It was never my intention.

Not in the slightest John :t: .

I should have made it clearer.. the original question wa meant to be just about the technical quality of the result and nothing else...I just don't know if its poorer than it should be

 

[Roy C]

I have set the camera option to only use full ISO increments.

I have done the same Phil.

 

[peteh]

I did that originally as well. But missed the flexibility of increment iso. So went back to using them and I have to say I am seeing no problems with it at all (Im very criticial of my own work and would be the first to complain if I could see any camera related issues on my photos.)
This was at iso2000 which is an increment.