I have a 7D as a back-up & spare to my 1d3,5d3 stable. While I didn't like it intially, I do like it know. At first the images looked soft. After researching settings, I have it dialed in and it's a very nice camera. I'd go the Canon Loyalty route in a heartbeat. I bought my 7D used off CL and was duped. The guy said "just over a year old" used in the studio.... At that time there was no way to judge shutter count short of sending it to Canon. The camera was spotless.... Worked fine.... At my last CPS check & clean I asked Canon for a shutter count..... drum roll please: 68,574..... My pro rep smiled and said there is one on a stand in San Franciso still firing away at over 1,000,000 actuations that still looks brand new
akin_t wrote:
Honestly, I don't understand you people that need to "spend time" in LR to "fix" noise and sharpness issues.
I've had my 7D for 2+ years, and my post processing is minimal ... 3 minutes on a picture tops on all of these.
I always laugh when people say this, then post ISO 200 etc. shots. Good lord, I hope you don't have to remove noise at that ISO. Realize that people use cameras very differently -- the 7D is widely regarded as a noisy-as-hell sensor in the video community especially, because we are indoors a LOT and video requires a static shutter speed. Meaning, we can either add more softboxes etc. to light up the room or up the ISO. This is the reason the 5D2 kills the 7D in many ways. The 7D heavily struggles with ISO 1600 on up and WITH ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING.
I can't understand how 7D users like you can't get that. A picture of the sunset has absolutely no value in the noise argument when people need a body indoors with low, artificial light.
For what it's worth, your indoor shot with the x-mas tree is too grainy/noisy for me, I wouldn't promote/sell that photo myself without heading back into Photoshop. People have very different tolerances for noise. If you have a very low tolerance for noise, and SHOOT INDOORS, the 7D sensor is basically automatically adding hours in post treating the image/video as opposed to a 5D2 or a 1D4 sensor. It's a simple time management technique.
My experience behind this post is years of HD shooting from Rebel T1i up to 7D's, 5D's, GH2's, 1D's. Believe me, no client wants to pay for extra hours of editing and I'll never want to "baby" a noisier/uglier sensor when I could do it right the first time with better sensor and get paid more for less work. Also, bonus, it gets out the door faster to the client.
I agree with Robert, I own a 7D and had previously shot a 30D and the capability of the 7D is amazing. Is it perfect? No.... but no camera is perfect in my opinion. This camera does a very nice job of capturing the sports I shoot.
jaredcolletti wrote:
but I'm tempted to buy a 7D since it seems to represent a real leap in performance from my 30D. Question is, do you think the next gen of the 7D is coming it in the next few months.
I think people will be predicting the release of the 7D2 for about the next 3 years. People have been predicting the 5D3 for the last 4 years! Every month, the 5D3 was 'just around the corner'. Buy what you need now. Use it and enjoy it! The 7D is a MASSIVE improvement over your other cameras.
Ralph Thompson wrote:
...While I didn't like it initially, I do like it know. At first the images looked soft. After researching settings, I have it dialed in and it's a very nice camera. I'd go the Canon Loyalty route in a heartbeat.
I DO like it and am staunchly LOYAL to Canon. I wonder about these settings you dialed it, care to share please, the ones regarding sharpness?
BTW, sorry for the crap storm this has caused. Evidently I hit a nerve inadvertently. I don't want to start a war. A lot of crap I didn't include in my OP is being tossed around, I'm sorry.
@thedutt: if I were to get a 7d today, I would go the Canon Loyalty Program route. +1. And I would heartily recommend that the OP get a 7D--the price is incredible. (Or get a 5d2 refurb; mine just got shipped today!)
I'm coming from a line of Canons: film EOS>300D>40D>7D. I was one of those who was scared of the "soft images" from test shots. The 7D has a definite learning curve, and you have to read the manual (I got a book). I'm still mastering light levels and ISOs.
But the AF is deadly accurate and this camera has a flexibility that is beyond anything I've ever used. And the "soft images"? Well, for me the key was using Lightroom: sharpening, a radius of .6 instead of 1.0, and some masking. The resulting pictures have been incredible.
