7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

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Archive 2009 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

atsi
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p.4 #1 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

WmPat wrote:
This is just a stab in the dark, but ...

atsi, what firmware version was installed on your 7D when you first noticed this problem? Did it change at all if you updated to ver 1.0.9 ?

I had 1.07, now 1.09, no difference.

Oct 26, 2009 at 02:50 AM

Alek Komarnits
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p.4 #2 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Excellent "figuring out" in this thread ... and while it would be pretty easy to test my 7D by simply shooting in a pitch black room, I had to do something more complicated! ;-)

Read the whole setup and see resulting images here, but in a nutshell, I had a tripod mounted 7D taking burst frames of a digital stopwatch displaying hundredths of second - see image below. And yes, you could simply look at the subsec times in the EXIF ... but like I said, I went complicated! ;-)

The results were exactly what others have said - frames/second dropped from eight to four in very low light conditions, even with manual exposure and manual focus. The 50D shooting under the same conditions did not show any drop in performance. So yea, the 7D is trying to do something "smart" even in full manual, and this gets tripped up under very low light conditions.

BTW, it still seemed to shoot the same 4fps in that pitch black room, so my guess is whatever it is (metering?), it's just "giving up/timing out" after a certain amount of time and return control back to the camera.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Oct 30, 2009 at 04:38 AM

rscheffler
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p.4 #3 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

This pretty much explains why, other than not having to change anything and thus save product development money, Canon didn't add the 'great' new 7D metering system to the 1DIV. On a pro camera such a frame rate reduction would be intolerable.

In a way it also smacks of typical Canon tactics to slightly cripple a lower tier product. Though Canon would phrase it as addressing a specific market segment. The 7D gives you almost what the 1D series does, but with a few gotchas that on paper appear minor, but in practice can be significant. The fps reduction and skimpy buffer, for example. Chances are for any major sporting events, there will be enough light and the fps won't drop. But because the metering works with reflective light readings, if a given team wears very dark jerseys... you never know.

Oct 30, 2009 at 06:08 AM

jcbenner
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p.4 #4 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

rscheffler wrote:
This pretty much explains why, other than not having to change anything and thus save product development money, Canon didn't add the 'great' new 7D metering system to the 1DIV. On a pro camera such a frame rate reduction would be intolerable.

In a way it also smacks of typical Canon tactics to slightly cripple a lower tier product. Though Canon would phrase it as addressing a specific market segment. The 7D gives you almost what the 1D series does, but with a few gotchas that on paper appear minor, but in practice can be significant. The fps reduction and skimpy buffer, for example. Chances are for any major sporting events, there will be enough light and the fps won't drop. But because the metering works with reflective light readings, if a given team wears very dark jerseys... you never know.

I think it is a bit premature to describe this as Canon intentionally crippling the 7D. I bet this issue is addressed in firmware within a month or two as it is likely just a software bug.

Oct 30, 2009 at 12:36 PM

Tom_W
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p.4 #5 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Alek Komarnits wrote:
The results were exactly what others have said - frames/second dropped from eight to four in very low light conditions, even with manual exposure and manual focus. The 50D shooting under the same conditions did not show any drop in performance. So yea, the 7D is trying to do something "smart" even in full manual, and this gets tripped up under very low light conditions.

BTW, it still seemed to shoot the same 4fps in that pitch black room, so my guess is whatever it is (metering?), it's just "giving up/timing out" after a certain amount of time and return control back to the camera.

It there a range of lighting between your ISO 6400 and ISO 1600 shots where the camera shot somewhere between 4 and 8 fps?

Oct 30, 2009 at 01:16 PM

Tom_W
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p.4 #6 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

rscheffler wrote:
In a way it also smacks of typical Canon tactics to slightly cripple a lower tier product. Though Canon would phrase it as addressing a specific market segment. The 7D gives you almost what the 1D series does, but with a few gotchas that on paper appear minor, but in practice can be significant. The fps reduction and skimpy buffer, for example. Chances are for any major sporting events, there will be enough light and the fps won't drop. But because the metering works with reflective light readings, if a given team wears very dark jerseys... you never know.

There's a significant difference between not including a feature and "crippling" a product. The original Digital Rebel was crippled - available features were deliberately disabled in that body even though the camera's hardware supported those features (and a later "hack" allowed them to be accessed).

Conversely, the 5D2 doesn't have a crippled AF system - it has a different AF system than the 1-series (and the 7D, unfortunately). They simply didn't include the advanced AF system in the 5-series. There is no firmware hack that can change a 15-point AF system into a 45-point AF system.

Oct 30, 2009 at 01:22 PM

garyvot
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p.4 #7 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

I agree this seems like an artificial limitation in manual exposure mode, and should be addressed if possible by Canon.

But: ISO 3200 f2.8 and 1/100 is when this is triggered? In practice, I would never shoot a sporting event at those settings; you'd need 1/500 minimum to stop action. And 3200 is kind of the top end for this camera for me anyway; I would do 6400 only in an emergency or for newspaper reproduction. So I can't see this being a real limitation for me. (YMMV)

I don't want to suggest the OP isn't right to point this out, but it strikes me that this, like a number of other complaints, is based more on principle than practice. (A good example is 5D2 low ISO noise: you can see noise at ISO 100 if you push the shadows by 4 stops in post, but at ISO 100 there should be no noise; ergo the camera "fails".)

Edited on Oct 30, 2009 at 01:34 PM · View previous versions

Oct 30, 2009 at 01:32 PM

Will Patterson
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p.4 #8 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

rscheffler wrote:
This pretty much explains why, other than not having to change anything and thus save product development money, Canon didn't add the 'great' new 7D metering system to the 1DIV. On a pro camera such a frame rate reduction would be intolerable.

In a way it also smacks of typical Canon tactics to slightly cripple a lower tier product. Though Canon would phrase it as addressing a specific market segment. The 7D gives you almost what the 1D series does, but with a few gotchas that on paper appear minor, but in practice can be significant. The fps reduction and skimpy buffer, for example. Chances are for any major sporting events, there will be enough light and the fps won't drop. But because the metering works with reflective light readings, if a given team wears very dark jerseys... you never know.

Mounting my 300 f/4 IS to my 1d2n equates to an instant drop in FPS down to about 5 or 6 fps. It's infuriating but apparently I'm not the only one with this issue.

Oct 30, 2009 at 01:33 PM

atsi
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p.4 #9 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

garyvot wrote:
I don't want to suggest the OP isn't right to point this out, but it strikes me that this, like a number of other complaints, is based more on principle than practice. (A good example is 5D2 low ISO noise: you can see noise at ISO 100 if you push the shadows by 4 stops in post, but at ISO 100 there should be no noise; ergo the camera "fails".)

It is a real limitation that does affect real applications. I won't go into all the details here because it has been mentioned here and other forums. It is an unnecessary limitation that can be removed very easily in the firmware. Simply, if the shutter button is depressed, and if the exposure mode is in manual, then disable metering while the button is depressed. It IS that simple to fix.

Oct 30, 2009 at 02:02 PM

garyvot
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p.4 #10 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

atsi wrote:
garyvot wrote:
I don't want to suggest the OP isn't right to point this out, but it strikes me that this, like a number of other complaints, is based more on principle than practice. (A good example is 5D2 low ISO noise: you can see noise at ISO 100 if you push the shadows by 4 stops in post, but at ISO 100 there should be no noise; ergo the camera "fails".)

It is a real limitation that does affect real applications. I won't go into all the details here because it has been mentioned here and other forums. It is an unnecessary limitation that can be removed very easily in the firmware. Simply, if the shutter button is depressed, and if the exposure mode is in manual, then disable metering while the button is depressed. It IS that simple to fix.

Yes, I agree with you--on principle.

Oct 30, 2009 at 02:09 PM

Alek Komarnits
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p.4 #11 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Tom_W wrote:
It there a range of lighting between your ISO 6400 and ISO 1600 shots where the camera shot somewhere between 4 and 8 fps?

At least in my limited testing, I always saw either 8 or 4 fps ... nothing in between or slower, although I recall one time it "staccot'ed" probably due to toggling modes. Atsi did more extensive testing (great writeup BTW), but sounds like no variance there either.

I would rarely, rarely "machine gun" at this low of light situation, so it's more an interesting oddity to me. However, my guess is a firmware fix that says if "machine gunning", disable check metering (if that is it) if in manual exposure mode after the first frame (since it's handy to see/check before you start firing) would be an appropriate fix.

Oct 30, 2009 at 05:50 PM

Access
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p.4 #12 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

I did a search in the thread and I didn't see this mentioned, so here's a thought.

How does canon's AWB work? Is there a some kind of color sensor in the camera that has to gain up in low light, possibly slowing things down? Is there any co-relation between AWB (vs. a pre-selected white balance) and this behavior?

Oct 30, 2009 at 06:20 PM

anorphirith
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p.4 #13 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

switch to manual focus

Oct 30, 2009 at 06:20 PM

atsi
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p.4 #14 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Access wrote:
I did a search in the thread and I didn't see this mentioned, so here's a thought.

How does canon's AWB work? Is there a some kind of color sensor in the camera that has to gain up in low light, possibly slowing things down? Is there any co-relation between AWB (vs. a pre-selected white balance) and this behavior?

The 7D will fire full 8 FPS if exposure is locked in AV mode in good light and then moved to low light. The 7D will fire full 8FPS if used in live view mode regardless of light level. The exposure indicator cannot be seen and is in fact off during high speed shooting so exposure information is not available anyway to the user during high speed shooting. Just as in the case of AV mode and exposure lock, white balance can be determined at the press of the shutter button and then left as is for the duration of holding the shutter button down. AWB, or not, the same thing.

There is no reason at all for this.

Oct 30, 2009 at 11:20 PM

paulfeng
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p.4 #15 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Here's an application where it's going to matter to me - taking shots of the Int'l Space Station as it flies overhead, as seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulcamerastination/3954337005/

The station is bright, but everything else in the frame is really dark, so the camera's metering is going to say "ooh, low EV here," and unless corrected, the camera is going to say "better slow down, cowboy!"

Well, if not corrected, I guess the upside is that the buffer will last longer per burst.

Oct 31, 2009 at 05:45 AM

python2000
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p.4 #16 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

paulfeng wrote:
Here's an application where it's going to matter to me - taking shots of the Int'l Space Station as it flies overhead, as seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulcamerastination/3954337005/

The station is bright, but everything else in the frame is really dark, so the camera's metering is going to say "ooh, low EV here," and unless corrected, the camera is going to say "better slow down, cowboy!"

Well, if not corrected, I guess the upside is that the buffer will last longer per burst.

I'm hoping Canon sends out a Firmware upgrade for this but I'm wondering if, for what you are talking about, isn't 4 FPS enough? I know you bought it expecting 8 FPS so you should be upset, but is Frames per Second a big deal for you?

Oct 31, 2009 at 05:59 AM

atsi
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p.4 #17 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

python2000 wrote:
I'm hoping Canon sends out a Firmware upgrade for this but I'm wondering if, for what you are talking about, isn't 4 FPS enough? I know you bought it expecting 8 FPS so you should be upset, but is Frames per Second a big deal for you?

Yes, make do with 4FPS because Canon says so, even though the camera is spec'd for 8. Is that really the way you want to buy equipment? You want to buy with the expectation that it will meet its specifications as advertised and find that it actually does something less well than the previous models and the excuse is a one line disclaimer that you can find in the manual as a footnote? I am sure that all the manufacturers would love being able to get away with that.

It isn't up to someone else to decide what I need in my camera, it is my choice. I purchased the 7D with the expectation that it would do 8FPS and with no artificial limitations, just as my 300D did its FPS, and the 20D after, and the 40D after that. They all can do their max frame rate in full manual with no limitations on the ambient light level. The 7D can't even do as well as the 20D in low light. That is not right.

Oct 31, 2009 at 12:45 PM

python2000
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p.4 #18 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

atsi wrote:
python2000 wrote:
I'm hoping Canon sends out a Firmware upgrade for this but I'm wondering if, for what you are talking about, isn't 4 FPS enough? I know you bought it expecting 8 FPS so you should be upset, but is Frames per Second a big deal for you?

Yes, make do with 4FPS because Canon says so, even though the camera is spec'd for 8. Is that really the way you want to buy equipment? You want to buy with the expectation that it will meet its specifications as advertised and find that it actually does something less well than the previous models and the excuse is a one line disclaimer that you can find in the manual as a footnote? I am sure that all the manufacturers would love being able to get away with that.

It isn't up to someone else to decide what I need in my camera, it is my choice. I purchased the 7D with the expectation that it would do 8FPS and with no artificial limitations, just as my 300D did its FPS, and the 20D after, and the 40D after that. They all can do their max frame rate in full manual with no limitations on the ambient light level. The 7D can't even do as well as the 20D in low light. That is not right.

Atsi, I think you misunderstood my post. I didn't say anyone should "make do". I had a specific question about shooting the ISS.

I thought I made it clear that Canon should update the camera and that he should be upset. I'm not clear why you responded the way you did.

Oct 31, 2009 at 05:24 PM

paulfeng
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p.4 #19 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

python2000 wrote:
paulfeng wrote:
Here's an application where it's going to matter to me - taking shots of the Int'l Space Station as it flies overhead, as seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulcamerastination/3954337005/

The station is bright, but everything else in the frame is really dark, so the camera's metering is going to say "ooh, low EV here," and unless corrected, the camera is going to say "better slow down, cowboy!"

Well, if not corrected, I guess the upside is that the buffer will last longer per burst.

I'm hoping Canon sends out a Firmware upgrade for this but I'm wondering if, for what you are talking about, isn't 4 FPS enough? I know you bought it expecting 8 FPS so you should be upset, but is Frames per Second a big deal for you?

One aspect of shooting the ISS this way is just luck: whether one's tracking just happens to be really good when an exposure is made, whether the sky happens to exhibit particularly good "seeing" during an exposure (which is what I suspect happened in the linked shot, thus providing better detail than any other shot I took that pass - or ever before), and so on. Given that, along with the fact that the view is continuously changing, and that some views/angles/altitudes/positions will be better than others (e.g., when it's highest overhead, the least amount of air is between us, so I want to shoot lots there), I want to "sample" the scene as much as I can. Then, when the buffer hits the wall, I might try refocussing: I have found that the focussing part is somewhat a matter of luck as well, so I sometimes refocus between bursts. The faster the FPS, the quicker I can finish a burst to get on to the refocusing and the next burst.

Oct 31, 2009 at 06:26 PM

atsi
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p.4 #20 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

python2000 wrote:
ote]

Atsi, I think you misunderstood my post. I didn't say anyone should "make do". I had a specific question about shooting the ISS.

I thought I made it clear that Canon should update the camera and that he should be upset. I'm not clear why you responded the way you did.

You are right, I did misunderstand and I apologize. As has already been said, the higher the number of frames you can grab in a chance situation, the better your odds of getting a good shot.

Oct 31, 2009 at 06:41 PM

python2000
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p.4 #21 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

atsi wrote:
python2000 wrote:
ote]

Atsi, I think you misunderstood my post. I didn't say anyone should "make do". I had a specific question about shooting the ISS.

I thought I made it clear that Canon should update the camera and that he should be upset. I'm not clear why you responded the way you did.

You are right, I did misunderstand and I apologize. As has already been said, the higher the number of frames you can grab in a chance situation, the better your odds of getting a good shot.

It's cool. I wrote it late at night and probably wasn't as clear as I could have been.

I just got my 7D and haven't encountered the issue yet. I do notice that many times I get two shots from one shutter press. I'm not used to the 8 FPS I guess.

Oct 31, 2009 at 09:42 PM

rollyblu
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p.4 #22 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

So will Canon release a firmware to fix this?

Nov 01, 2009 at 03:52 AM

WmPat
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p.4 #23 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Will Patterson wrote:
Mounting my 300 f/4 IS to my 1d2n equates to an instant drop in FPS down to about 5 or 6 fps. It's infuriating but apparently I'm not the only one with this issue.

First time I have heard of this limitation.

I have used my 300mm f4 non IS with my 1D2n a lot and never noticed any slowdown in burst rate. Does it make any difference if you have the IS switched on or off?

Nov 01, 2009 at 04:35 AM

atsi
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p.4 #24 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Firmware is 1.1.0 out, and it doesn't fix this problem. I know it was released to fix the ghost image problem, but I hopped.

Nov 05, 2009 at 04:35 AM

apdieb
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p.4 #25 · 7D, 8FPS? only in good light!

Nov 05, 2009 at 05:40 AM


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