Notes from the Field

Let’s skip the funny and witty introduction paragraph; at least I hope my intros are funny and witty. The Canon 7D is the best camera I have ever bought. There, I said it, now go read another blog about using your iPhone’s camera to document the growth of moss in the forest or something. Sorry I thought I get through it without being witty.

I have owned, and used, many cameras, both Canon and Nikon, digital and film. But this camera seems to have its act together more than any other. Not since the Nikon F100 have a run across a camera that has such great features at a reasonable price point.

When I switched from Nikon to Canon a few years ago, I had some buyer’s remorse. While I love the features of the 1D Mark II, I never really liked the ergonomics of the Canon compared to my past Nikons. My next Canon purchase was the 5D Mark II, a camera which I have fallen in love with and taken many, at least I think so, great frames. But once again, not a big fan of the location of the buttons and the camera never felt right in my hand. I was also discovering the Nikon CLS system with my daytime job’s Nikons and found that my Canons were lacking.

But in the Canon 7D I have found solutions to my wishes for my next Canon body.

The are four areas that stand out as I have used this camera for the first 24 hours:

Ergonomics and Build Quality

Right out of the box, I can tell that the 7D is built better and fits my hand, unlike the 5D, which always felt a bit cheap and underwhelming. While I am still not in love with the layout and location of the Canon’s buttons, I am certainly smitten. The camera feels solid in my hand and I feel that Canon has done their homework on this camera. Much comparison has been made between the 7D and the 5D Mark II, and while I have worked with the 5D Mark II, and loved its image quality. I have to say that I felt that Canon had short changed photographers by not making any design changes to the camera, inside or out. Sure you have video and more mega pixels, but all of the features, including the dreaded auto focus, are still the same.

There is a method to the madness of the designers at Canon in regards to the 7D. I can find all of the buttons with ease and the newly added button and switch combo unit to toggle between live view and video recording is much needed and appreciated. Until the 7D, neither Canon nor Nikon had a good way to toggle between looking through the viewfinder and using live view.

The new video/live view selector switch on the Canon 7D

Sensor Quality

Probably the biggest issue with the 7D is the size of the sensor. Unlike the 5D Mark I and II, this camera’s sensor is not full frame. Some who have used the Mark II for shooting video have pointed out a bit more noise and a loss of the nice soft depth of field that you get when shooting wide open on lenses with 1.2 maximum aperture. While I don’t like going back to the cropped sensor, I do not find myself needing super wide-angle lenses to get the shots that I take. If there is a valid complaint about the 7D, this is it. But the actual sensor is amazing and the images and video are breath taking. Does the 5D Mark produce bigger and better images, yeah, but not by much and in the realm of video, the quality of the 5D’s sensor is offset by the fact that the 7D can shoot is 24 frames per second and 29.97 FPS. This means you don’t have any crazy sound syncing issues with external recorders or other cameras on a video project.

If you are going to buy a DSLR camera just for the video, and money is not an issue, then the 5D is probably your camera. But if you are going to be shooting stills as well, then the 7D’s sensor is perfect.

Auto Focus and Metering Modes

Canon has had nothing but problems when it has come to auto focus in the last few camera lines. The 1D Mark II was a disaster and while the 5D was not really designed to be a sports or action camera, it’s auto focus it low light situations was terrible.

The 7D is much more improved in the area of auto focus. In my limited time working with this camera, I feel that the 7D’s auto focus is as good if not better than the 1D Mark II that I own. The new zone selection for auto focus is great, and helps you isolate the area of the frame where most of the action is happening. Low light focusing makes the 7D stand out, and the speed of the focus is much better that either the Mark I or II of the 5D.

The camera also seems, but I haven’t really put it through the paces, to do a better job of metering complex lighting situations. Even through my 1D Mark II was older and had more noise than the 5D, I always like how the 1D performed with metering. The 7D gives me the best of both worlds.

Flash Control

For me it is a toss up on what feature is number one of the list of must haves for the 7D, HD video recording or the ability to wirelessly control Canon Speelights without having to have a flash, or a remote commander, in the hot shoe of the camera.

Now this is nothing new for my fellow Nikon shooters out there. In fact my biggest regret on switching sides was leaving behind the commander mode that was available on models like the D90, D200 and the mighty D700. Just use that little pop-up flash on the camera to send a signal out to your external Speedlights and now you can switch power settings, go between TTL and Manual modes, make all of the same adjustments you could with a 580EX plugged into the hot shoe. While it is not ground breaking in camera technology, it is the only camera in Canon’s line that has this option. I am sure it will not be the last.

Since you don’t have to “burn” a flash in the hot shoe of the camera, you are actually saving yourself $400 by not having that flash on the camera. There is a downside to using the pop-up flash for triggering the external Speedlights, when you turn the camera to capture a portrait position you may be blocking the Speedlights from seeing the pop-up flash. You also need to ditch the lens hood on many of your lenses since it can block the flash from coming from the pop-up.

The new menu control for wireless flash control for the Canon 7D

What is Missing?

Not ever camera is perfect, there is always something missing from what comes out of the box. The biggest issue with the 7D is that the sensor is not full frame and produces more noise than the 5D. Once again a compromise on Canon’s part and I don’t see it being a big deal.

While I am so happy about Canon adding control to external Speedlights through the pop-up flash, but Canon still needs to change how their TTL system works. I, and so many others, want individual EV control over all three groups rather than ratio. I do most of my work in the manual mode, but I would love to be able to dial in EV compensation on my groups like I can on my Nikon gear at work.

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I think this is probably Canon’s best camera for the money and the features offered, some of those features I haven’t even talked about, like 8 frames per second still capture.

So if you were on the fence on buying a new Canon body or thinking about dipping your toes in the video DSLR revolution, the new 7D is probably your next camera.