[LeDave]

pingflood, my bad. I thought I read somewhere that the 7D had a upgraded 50D sensor, but guess I was wrong. Also there was a website that I've read before that had the 7D and 50D comparison and there was minimal differences in the noise levels.

[pingflood]

They are as far as I know the same generation sensor (so relatively similar in technology) but the 7D crams more stuff into the same area. As far as noise, yeah, the 50D and 7D are not far apart, but as I mentioned the 7D appears to not be plagued with the banding issue that haunts us 50D owners... not that it's a real issue 99% of the time but I've had a couple of shots I had to turn monochrome because I got some red banding in the shadow areas at ISO 6400. I will note however that in those cases I did underexpose slightly, and I think that if I had gotten the exposure right the banding would not have been noticeable. The 50D (not sure about the 7D) is very sensitive to proper exposure, but if you're careful about it the results are pretty damn impressive.

[Samsungian]

Bing.Com


I've noticed sellers of a variety of camera gear citing Bing cash back as a better reason to buy and try and then sell off their aquistions for little to no cost.

I haven't noticed a tidal wave of 7D for re-sale, well any more so than 5D MarkII or Nikon cams.

I've noticed 50D continues to meander down in price, now $929 at B&H. Another camera I enjoy reading about GH-1 Panasonic shed $200 a couple weeks ago and remains there after the holidaze, now at $1299 with its dedicated HD & IS 14-140mm lens included. One of thesedays I may get this panny if it drops another $200ish it would be fun to try, and if I don't like it sell for less cost than a rental would run. And then I'd let go of my remaining Canon FD lenses I'd like to try with GH-1.

WELL, Assuming anyone rents the GH-1 , buy right & try for a month or so would maybe cost me $100ish... Unless I keep it...

What makes you think it has the "same sensor as the 50D"? One thing Canon did solve quite well in the 7D is banding at higher ISO. At 6400 and 12800 my 50D can show it fairly often depending on the subject, but the 7D seems virtually free of it.

As to why so many are for sale; I think that people were just expecting it to perform magic based on all the hype, and once they realized it's just another camera that's an incremental upgrade from the previous one, the $1700 or so they put into it doesn't seem so good.

[cwood]

The ergonomics of Canon always drive me crazy. I have a mkIII which is a lot like a 7D but with the grip permanently attached. With over 50,000 shots on that camera now I still can't find many of the buttons when shooting vertically without taking my eye away from the view finder to look around - of course with 24 buttons its easy to miss the one you're aiming for anyway.. The joystick is WAY out of reach for me so if I want to adjust the focus point I can either use the front wheel to move it in a straight line left-to-right or I have to stop shooting to look for the joystick. I also don't understand why they don't do a hyper-program. no matter how I set up the custom functions I'm always unhappy with how the P, AV, TV modes are controlled.

And on top of it all Canon zoom lenses turn the wrong way. Tamron, Nikon, Sigma, Pentax ALL turn the same way but Canon goes backwards... Just another good reason to shoot primes I guess.

As someone who is more accustomed to shooting Canon than you I would be curious to try the camera myself. But I can't see ever paying that much for an APS-C camera anyway. I was so thoroughly unimpressed with the 50D that I just want to see what kind of improvements they made. The last APS-C camera they made that impressed me was the 30D which to this day I still like quite a bit.

[reeftool]

I haven't seen the 7D yet but it was the ergonomics of the K10D that sold me on the camera the first time I picked it up in the store. I felt very comfortable using the camera and working the controls from day one.

[palmor]

Having had a 40d and now a 7d I still think I liked the overall ergonomics of my K10/K20 better but I'm starting to get used to it enough where I don't notice it much anymore.

The 7d does have a little bit of a learning curve that I'm still going through (the same way I had to when going from my istDS to my K10) but so far so good. I finally had a chance to shoot some indoor dog agility a couple of weeks ago, really the 1st time I've been able to do this type of shooting with the 7d and I was just playing/learning. I was surprised of the results at ISOs between 4000 and 6400

All Dogs Gym Photo Gallery by palmor at pbase.com


John

[heliphoto]

John, those are great! I bet your selling photos like hotcakes now .

[heliphoto]

I haven't seen the 7D yet but it was the ergonomics of the K10D that sold me on the camera the first time I picked it up in the store. I felt very comfortable using the camera and working the controls from day one.

You're lucky, the 5DII is the only DSLR (of 4) that I've held before I bought - sucks living where there are no camera stores (even walmart and staples stopped carrying Rebels and the like ).

[PentaxPoke]

Peter,
I have recently had an opportunity to evaluate the 7D for some time. The "boxes" that you refer to in the viewfinder is the new transmissive LCD viewfinder in the 7D. As Josh mentioned, they can be completely user-configurable. In fact you can turn all indicators off and have a completely clean viewscreen if you want. It eliminates the need for any aftermarket focusing screens since you can turn grids, circles, AF points, etc. on or off as desired.

In comparing my k-7 to the 7D, the only thing I liked better about my k-7 is the control ergonomics. To be fair though, I have been using Pentax for decades, so I am much more familiar with the layout. Image quality of both cameras was comparable until high-iso, where the 7D is about a stop better. That is not really a surprise to anyone though.

What blew me away about the 7D though, was the AF system. It opened my eyes, and actually made me a little bit mad. Since I had only been using Pentax cameras, I didn't realize how much better other companies AF systems were. In every lighting condition I tried, the 7D would lock on instantly and reliably. The ring-USM was fascinating. It was also amazing how well the focus tracking worked. (John's indoor dog videos are a great example!) When I went back to the k-7, I felt like I was back using AF systems from the 90's. My understanding is that the 7D is even an improvement in AF over previous Canon systems. Apparently the algorithms have been revised, and the camera has dual Digic processors with one I believe is dedicated to AF.

[pingflood]

I think the dual digics is to process the 8fps 18mp shots and there's another processor dedicated to AF, but I might be wrong -- memory's a little fuzzy on that one.

The AF is an improvement over the XXD in that it tracks a little better and has more AF points. From a pure speed perspective though it is not going to be noticeably quicker than a 40D or 50D, both of which employ all cross-point sensors. My 50D is blisteringly fast, but the "gap" between sensors is a little too big to employ tracking across the AF grid so I stick to center point only when doing bird work. That's where the 7D would really shine.

[palmor]

John, those are great! I bet your selling photos like hotcakes now .

Thanks! Although at this event I wasn't the show photographer so I could just practice (my wife and dog were competitors). The lighting in the indoor events are awful and I don't think I'll be all that happy with the results no matter what (when compared with outdoor shots). I do have one event lined up at this facility later in the year so luckily I have at least 2 more "practice" trials before I need to produce sell-able stuff It will be interesting to see how the photos come out between these practice runs, hopefully I learn enough and the photos improve greatly over these.



John

[Okami]

The AF in the 7d is noticibly better than the xxD atleast in my experience

[pingflood]

The AF in the 7d is noticibly better than the xxD atleast in my experience

In what way? I have yet to have the 50D let me down even on difficult subjects like fast moving birds. My 1Ds II is better for tracking things moving around across AF points, but from a sheer speed and accuracy perspective it's no better.

[PentaxPoke]

I think the dual digics is to process the 8fps 18mp shots and there's another processor dedicated to AF, but I might be wrong -- memory's a little fuzzy on that one.

I think you are right ping. With the dual digic's the 7D can retain 8fps for a full RAW file of 14-bit depth. The D300s drops to 2.5 fps at 14 bit. It will go up to 7fps if you drop the bit depth to 12.

[Peter Zack]

Well I've had a chance to go over the pics a little. A couple of comments and adding to that a shooter I collaborate with quite a bit. He has a few cameras and his own business as well as a full time shooter. His primary camera is a 5D. Yeah I know it's old compared to today but still a very nice unit. Hands down looking at the 5D vs the 7D vs the 40D, the 5D is the cleanest at high ISO's and that's to be expected.
The AF on the 7D is very good but I may be wrong, are they sacrificing some accuracy for speed? Shots where the subject nearly filled the frame are not completely nailed. The light was poor and that would contribute to that but it just wasn't pin sharp and he mostly shot with a 70-200mm f4 and the 17-40 f4. Both very good lenses.

High ISO's. Better than the K20D. I'd say that his 1600's look like my 800's. So he has a full stop better. The noise seemed "finer" to my eye as well. Luminescence noise was similar in appearance but Chroma noise was much nicer (if you can say that about noise). Easier to deal with and "clean up".

Image rendering. Very nice and close to if not equal to the 5D. Much much better than the 40D. Better skin tones and images that have more life and pop. But maybe it's because I'm so used to the "Pentax Look" I still like the Pentax images better. There's something I can't quite figure out that works better in the image rendering. A bit more 'Natural" contrast. Better skin tone and to my eye "more depth" to the image. The Pentax images are richer looking. The 7D still has a bit of that "flat look" that I see in the 40D (which sucks IMO). But these are slight with the 7D and in PP you can get a fantastic image.

Overall a very very capable camera. I still wouldn't use one with that terrible grip. It just does not fit the hand comfortably and the K20D is a much easily camera to handle.

It's certainly raised the bar for the others. The 300Ds is there in many ways and now it's up to Pentax to launch a camera to this level and/or introduce a FF body with many of these ablities (AF for one thing and higher ISO's) The KX shows thay can do it.

Now lets see a replacement for the Gosh darn (that's me swearing in internet speak as strongly as I can), DA*16-50mm lens. It's such an important lens and the IQ is great but the AF is as bad as it possibly could be. For a premium lens, it is terrible.