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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Canon 7D for sports? For anything?
Michael Okoniewski, Photographer
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Syracuse | NY | USA | Posted: 12:39 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> I just purchased a Canon 7D based on the specs and some recommendations. I am very disappointed with the camera. I've tried three different lenses, with various in camera mico adjustment calibrations for focus and the stuff still looks mushy. I thought this might be a good upgrade for my day to day bodies and it might get me by for sports over my Mark II body. Especially in the higher ISO range. I've put 30+ hours into testing and talking to other photogs. Most are having the same issues with IQ and focus as myself.
Is anyone out there having success with a 7D for sports or any kind of photography?
Is the Mark III scenario playing out with the 7D...you have to find a "good" body to get it to work? |
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Monty Rand, Photographer
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Bangor | ME | USA | Posted: 12:49 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> Mine is awesome. Love it!!!!! |
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Matthew Sauk, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | United States | Posted: 12:58 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> Man my focus was as good as the mark IIN and image quality was just fine.
I had ZERO issues. Loved it |
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Jason Joseph, Photographer
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Dublin | OH | USA | Posted: 12:58 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I am using a 7D and a Mark III and they are both spot on in terms of focus. I will say that you have to find the settings that work best for your style in the menu. At first, I was pretty unhappy with my 7D. But after working with it and trying different settings, I have become very happy with it. |
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Scott McCall, Photographer
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Orlando | FL | USA | Posted: 1:13 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I have no issues with mine....it works great. I shoot a lot of lacrosse with it and there isn't a much faster sport out there for the focus to have to track. I had 1 full page and 1 double truck published last month and image quality was perfect. |
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Christopher Anderson, Photographer
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Machesney Park | IL | U.S.A. | Posted: 1:14 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I agree with Jason. We recently purchased a 7D as a backup and at first I wasn't thrilled with it but after using it for awhile and adjusting the settings we've been very happy with it, especially in gyms without strobes and shooting at ISO 2500. |
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Al Goldis, Photographer
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East Lansing | MI | USA | Posted: 1:22 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> I thought the AF on my 7D was about as good as my Mark IIn. Better in some ways, not as good in other ways depending on the situation.
Personally, I just didn't care for the image quality.
Try the setting for single point AF with expansion. If that doesn't work, try a different camera. |
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Jane Tyska, Photographer
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Oakland | CA | USA | Posted: 7:08 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> I just got mine recently and still playing with the AF settings, but haven't found a combo I like yet. Getting a lot of back-focusing and though I have it set to focus hitting the thumb button on the back of the camera, the focus keeps engaging when I press the shutter as well.
Time to read the manual I suppose to change that!
Anyone want to share the settings that work for you?
Other than that, seems to be sharp when it's in... |
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Michael J. Treola, Photographer
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Middletown | NJ | USA | Posted: 7:23 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> Focus on my unit is terrible as well as the image quality. I don't even take it out of the bag. Easily ranks as one of the most disappointing purchases in a long time. |
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Derek Regensburger, Photographer
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Thornton | CO | United States | Posted: 8:11 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I returned mine for the same reasons. The IQ is fine if you look at the images at small sizes. Enlarge the files to 100% and it gets really ugly. The camera produces much too soft of an image to reproduce large scale. My guess, if everyone did the same and did side by side comparisons with their Mark IIIs and IVs, it would not be much of a comparison. |
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Jane Tyska, Photographer
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Oakland | CA | USA | Posted: 8:33 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> Agreed on the image quality, check out this side by side comparison of the 7D and 5D, 7D on the left. Gets really ugly at higher ISOs.
http://www.cameratown.com/reviews/canon7d/ |
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Mike Doran, Photographer
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Petaluma | CA | U.S.A. | Posted: 8:55 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I bought mine in mid December and started using it for small shoots such as my brothers ice hockey game and a sports car race in January. The images are tack sharp and the video from the hockey game turned out well. I used it this past weekend for 4 days of American Supercamp amd other than forgetting to turn on the noise reduction Iam pretty happy with my purchase. I initially bought the camera as a backup to my Mark III but I have been using it more and more with my Mark III being saved for the start of the motorsports next month. |
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Mike Morelock, Photographer
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Greenwood | AR | USA | Posted: 9:08 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> Man I must be one of the greatest photographers alive, since I manage to take good pictures day in and day out with my 7d.
Since I am so great it's pretty much impossible that any camera would ever give me trouble but if it did I can only assume I might send it in for warranty repair, instead of not using it. CPS is great about this, just a few days and it's back in your hand. My greatness would make this an extreme longshot, but since these new cameras have more and more custom settings, I might make sure I have mine all sorted before blaming the tool.
Seriously, I started off day 1 with my 7d set I thought like my 1ds2 and 5d2. I was shooting birds in flight and all day my internal monologue was "I'm on that bird, focus you POS FOCUS!!" Checking images that night it was even worse than I thought. Heck I had done better in the past with the 5d2 and it's no great shakes in the auto-focus department. I was just about to go online and attack the 7d as universally bad since my copy wasn't working, but instead I turned in my man card and read the manual. I found something deep within, changed a setting. Then I read a thread on here where people had posted their settings, changed something else, went back the next day and started nailing frames.
Pixel peeping does it look as good as a mark 3? I hope not. This thing has 60% more pixels. Try upsizing that mark 3 by that much or downsize the 7d then get back to us. Better yet, make a print. The 7d needs different sharpening. Same thing happened when the 1ds2 came out. People wanted the old 1ds back, the 1ds2 is just not sharp. Then people adjusted, figured out the sharpening and there was no more looking back. The Mark 4 should kick the 7d's ass, you have to get something for the extra 3 large besides a sturdier body, and 2 more frames per second. |
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Matthew Sauk, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | United States | Posted: 9:10 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> I still don't understand why people view an image at 100%, it's like viewing a 20x30 print a few inches from your face! lol
How many times do you do that?
The images are huge, hell the 5D Mark II at 100% on my screen didn't look great either. But then again I understand how to view them |
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Matthew Sauk, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | United States | Posted: 9:14 PM on 02.25.10 |
->> Jane,
So again you are comparing a full frame camera to a 1.6, not really fair to be honest.
And to be honest I think it did pretty well. |
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Chad Greene, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Knoxville | TN | USA | Posted: 9:33 PM on 02.25.10 |
| ->> I use the camera everyday, tack sharp and no problems. Sports is spot on and looks wonderful coming out the camera. One tip I can tell you is to try slowing down the focus. |
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Daniel Shirey, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Athens | GA | USA | Posted: 7:17 PM on 03.04.10 |
| ->> My 7D is fantastic. Was really able to tweak the focus on my lenses using the micro adjustment and am getting sharper images than I ever have. I constantly keep asking myself "wow, is the 300 really this sharp?" |
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Steven Limentani, Photographer
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Charlotte | NC | United States | Posted: 9:47 PM on 03.04.10 |
| ->> I have nothing but positive things to say about my 7D, AF, IQ and high ISO. |
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N. Scott Trimble, Photographer
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Lake Oswego | OR | USA | Posted: 11:27 PM on 03.04.10 |
| ->> Mine was great shooting a medical documentary in Peru. No complaints, other than the 1.6 crop factor of course. Nice and sharp, and peppy! |
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Charles Baus, Photographer
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Palm Springs, Los Angeles | CA | USA | Posted: 11:39 PM on 03.04.10 |
->> I had a 7D for a month and I absolutely hated it. The AF was awful as was the High ISO.. Obviously my 1D mark IIN's AF was much better and to my surprise so was the high ISO.
I ended up sending it back and bought a used 1D mark III luckily got a good one, it's AF is equal to my 1D mark IIN and image quality and high ISO is very nice. |
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Peter Tarry, Photographer
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croydon | Surrey | England | Posted: 5:56 AM on 03.05.10 |
| ->> Mine is fantastic, i have really enjoyed shooting with it.I got it in early january and have used it on car tests ,six nations rugby, premiership football and day to day newspaper features. In fact i like it so much im planning on buying a second one. |
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Michael Okoniewski, Photographer
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Syracuse | NY | USA | Posted: 9:41 AM on 03.08.10 |
->> I'm now on my second 7D body. Tested it with another photog's lenses vs. mine on his 30D. Everything on the 30D was crisp and sharp. His lenses and mine.
I'm getting white hot pixels at 640 asa and above. Images look mushy even at F10. I've tried different USM settings and the white hot pixels are looking like a radically over sharpened image, despite have no USM run over them. And yes, sharpening is turned off in the camera. I parked two images on my site. Feel free to download them and give me suggestions or solutions.
www.SyracusePhotographer.com/7D |
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Jonathan Nimerfroh, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 9:46 AM on 03.08.10 |
| ->> I just started a new blog and all of the post are photos with the Canon 7D. Only sports i shot so far is some surfing. Take a look - http://www.jdnphotography.net/blog/ |
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Robert Benson, Photographer
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San Diego | Ca | USA | Posted: 10:51 AM on 03.08.10 |
| ->> I had mine for about 10 days, used it on four shoots, then quickly returned it: pictures were softish and mushy. Ugh. |
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Nuno Gonçalves, Photographer
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Braga | Portugal | | Posted: 11:48 AM on 03.08.10 |
->> I've been shooting futsal, basketball, volleyball, handball with my new 7D, and so far I'm very happy!
Recently I covered a game from the Challenge Cup between ABC (Portugal) and VfL Gummersbach (Germany) using a 17-40 4, a 70-200 2.8 and a 85 1.8 (wide open).
The AF was always on the spot. You can check the photos from that game here: http://www.nunogoncalvesphotography.com/p108266493
The ISO used was 4000 with the exception of the images 11, 19 and 20 (all at 3200).
Here you can find the coverege of a cultural event from the Confucio Institute. The ISO used was between 1600 and 3200.
http://www.nunogoncalvesphotography.com/p116777608 |
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Michael Okoniewski, Photographer
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Syracuse | NY | USA | Posted: 7:06 PM on 03.09.10 |
->> Thanks everyone, but I put 153 frames thru the second body I rec'd and that was enough for me. I took the camera back and they refunded all my money. The files off of an old 20D at 800 asa look better than those at 640 asa on the 7D.
And after talking with over a dozen photographers, many who actually make a living with their cameras, I heard the same complaints, mushy images and trouble focusing. It's possible, if I had more time to invest, the focusing issue could be solved, but the IQ on this camera isn't worth the effort or money IMO. It's worse than my 20D. This is a big disappointment to me. The specs on this camera are outstanding. The real world IQ is horrid.
And to those that say the 7D isn't a "pro" camera, well Canon lists this model as one meeting their requirements for CPS membership.
Again, thanks to all who posted here and then gave me some of their time via phone. |
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Dan Powers, Photographer
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Appleton | WI | USA | Posted: 11:14 PM on 03.09.10 |
| ->> When I had the chance to use the 7D it worked flawless. Lowlight frames were awesome...ISO 4000 and 5000. Wish I owned one to be honest...Dan. |
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