Canon 7D mk2 owners thread.

Thanks for that Martin, its the reach I've been looking for, I was originally thinking of upgrading to faster glass to get cleaner images and cropping but having seen your shots and reading the reviews on the new Siggy, Its left me scratching my head.

I guess it depends what you shoot. Birds is the thing that needs reach so I am thinking about the 150-600S sigma as well as small birds need as much reach as you can get :)

I'm hoping to receive mine soon.
I use raw & process with elements 10. Elements 10 doesn't support raw on the mark 2 . . . I've looked for an update to download but with no success.
Can any one suggest a solution . . bearing in mind I'm not very tech savy so please keep it simple if possible!!! Thanks.

You will need to edit in DPP ( free with the camera) or your going to have to upgrade to a newer version of elements that supports the 7d2 ( one isn't available yet) or move to something like Lightroom (which needs an update that isn't available yet either)
 
The next LR / PSE update will include support for the 7D2, but the Adobe employee who mentioned that on another forum said he wasn't allowed to mention when it would be released. In the meantime there is DPP. A slightly older version is included with the camera so ?I downloaded DPP 4 and it works fine.
 
Another option is OnOne's software,perfect photo suite 9, which seems to work fine with CR2 files from the 7D2...haven't fully tested it but on initial trials looked ok.
 
You can use Adobe's dng tool to convert your files and then process with elements
 
You can use Adobe's dng tool to convert your files and then process with elements

The Adobe DNG Converter will be an option for those who have older versions of RAW processing software which will no longer be updated, but the DNG Converter has to updated for the new cameras too afaik. It is normally updated more quickly than the compatibility updates for ACR and LR.
 
Just a quick question, on the original 7D that I have you can set the depth of field preview button to toggle between one shot and AI servo but I have always found it fiddly as its underneath the camera in an awkward place
On the new 7D can you on the custom settings set any of the other camera buttons to do this?:)
 
first thing i noticed is a lock in the centre of the top dial, a great feature, Ive lost count of the times mine got accidentally turned in the bag, weirdly the images come up with 418a8667 etc instead of img_ etc

That's really handy I've been caught out a few times with the top dial got moved round me not noticing
 
Just a quick question, on the original 7D that I have you can set the depth of field preview button to toggle between one shot and AI servo but I have always found it fiddly as its underneath the camera in an awkward place
On the new 7D can you on the custom settings set any of the other camera buttons to do this?:)

It looks as though you can set that function on the AF ON button, the AE lock button, the DOF button and the lens button on superteles
 
It looks as though you can set that function on the AF ON button, the AE lock button, the DOF button and the lens button on superteles


Thanks mate thats brilliant
The new 7D is looking the a seriously good camera:)
 
The Adobe DNG Converter will be an option for those who have older versions of RAW processing software which will no longer be updated, but the DNG Converter has to updated for the new cameras too afaik. It is normally updated more quickly than the compatibility updates for ACR and LR.

....When I checked last night the Adobe DNG Converter hasn't been updated for the 7D2 yet.

Once converted, you can load into Aperture (Mac) and probably Lightroom.

The bundled DPP doesn't offer much and looks very clunky to use.
 
Well my local dealer tells me he will have general stock next week so if he offers me a decent trade for my 5D3 I may do the deed. If not then I need to weigh up if I can live with 3 bodies till I sell the 5D privately.
 
....When I checked last night the Adobe DNG Converter hasn't been updated for the 7D2 yet.

Once converted, you can load into Aperture (Mac) and probably Lightroom.

The bundled DPP doesn't offer much and looks very clunky to use.

I had a play with DPP 4.1 and it isn't bad, not as easy to use as LR but relatively workable
 
Thanks to you all for that.
If I load the supplied software, will I then be able to download the newer DDP 4?
I'l also have a look at OneOne as suggested . . never heard of that!
Thanks again.
 
Thanks to you all for that.
If I load the supplied software, will I then be able to download the newer DDP 4?
I'l also have a look at OneOne as suggested . . never heard of that!
Thanks again.

just download it , don't bother installing the old one. It will ask you for a serial number and off you go.

You can download it from here
 
I had mine out last night & today to test the low light performance and the AF settings.

I was trying to track squirrels today in various AF modes & it didn't seem as easy as we've been lead to believe to achieve focus in every shot.

Got a couple of sequences;
1.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markwalker/15064216544/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markwalker/15498297719/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markwalker/15498772858/

2.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markwalker/15660488696/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markwalker/15660490216/

Does anybody have any tips?
 
Mark, only had a quick look but the obvious observation is that the shutter speed is far too slow. I suggest trying again with a much faster speed.
I've bought this body for bird in flight shots . . . so I'd be really disappointed if fast focusing wasn't good.
Good luck.
 
Used mine today at the Watford v Millwall game. I'd reassigned a number of the buttons and the changes I'd made seem to work well. What did strike me very early on was how quick it focussed, a lot quicker the 7D but also seems quicker than my 1D Mk IV. I'd started off using the expanded focus points but found this was switching the focus off the players too much so I quickly switched to centre point and also reduced the tracking sensitivity to the slowest possible. This seemed to work well for me.

The metering seemed to cope a lot better with the variable light - I shoot manual when the light is constant but when it's very variable I shoot in AV and used to struggle getting the right exposure consistently with the 7D Mark I but the Mark II seemed to cope very well.

It was nice having the single button to lock images, which is critical to me pitchside when sending images in live. It was a pain on the Mark I so now it's like the 1D series in that respect (just have to reassign the 'rate' button).

I'd really hate going above 2500 ISO on the Mark 1 - went unto 4000 today and really happy with the quality of the images. Here's one of the images taken as ISO 4000 - sorry I can't post the image but it's part of DataCo restrictions;

http://focus-images.photoshelter.co...YqvGwfu7s_I/I0000OlEwR1n0.KE/C0000lzmFg3V5llw

Overall I had a lot more keepers, which is good!

I've got some MMA next saturday night so that will give the high ISO a testing :)
 
Focusing is fast

i would say slow shutter speed
Mark, only had a quick look but the obvious observation is that the shutter speed is far too slow. I suggest trying again with a much faster speed.

Thanks guys.
I was shooting a lot of aperture priority today before going manual so perhaps I should of gone full manual sooner.

The ISO performance on this camera is incredible though. Other's might not quite call it incredible, but the jump from 300D to this makes it incredible! :D
 
I've bought this body for bird in flight shots . . . so I'd be really disappointed if fast focusing wasn't good.

....I'm coming from a 70D and the 7D2 AF system is extremely good and you can customise many aspects of it, including its speed within defined parameters.

Being able to customise your buttons and change various settings on-the-fly while still looking through the viewfinder is key to nailing images.

This is just a JPEG and not a stunning flight shot by any stretch of the imagination but is one of my first efforts with the 7D2. Focus success rate coupled with 10 fps (or whatever fps you want to set up to 10 fps) results in more keepers.

Cormorantimm_0297vns.jpg


^ Canon 7D Mark II, 400mm F/5.6L, Tv, 1/6400th, F/5.6, ISO 1000 (Auto). This image's crop is also a massive enlargement.

Since taking this and other shots yesterday, I have fine tuned the global 'Standard' picture style setting (in the Menu) to be sharper.
 
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I've done this as well - upped the sharpness, contrast and saturation by a notch each.

....It'll be interesting to see how such tweaks manifest themselves when we can process the RAW images. I'm not wanting to use DPP and so am uploading my RAW versions to a new folder in readiness - I am an amateur wildlife photographer and so I can afford to wait.
 
....It'll be interesting to see how such tweaks manifest themselves when we can process the RAW images. I'm not wanting to use DPP and so am uploading my RAW versions to a new folder in readiness - I am an amateur wildlife photographer and so I can afford to wait.

Most of my work is editorial sports so speed and keeping storage space down is key to me and so I rarely shoot in RAW so can wait a while as well. 95% of my editing is in Lightroom and so I'll be keeping my eyes open for an update :)
 
I don't have a CF card reader so am connecting the camera straight to the laptop at the moment. When I plug it in via my laptop's USB 3.0 port, it's not connecting. Only if I plug it into one of the USB 2.0 ports. Anyone else come across this phenomena?

Shot some football this morning, fingers crossed and hopefully they look better than my 550d images!
 
....I'm coming from a 70D and the 7D2 AF system is extremely good and you can customise many aspects of it, including its speed within defined parameters.

Being able to customise your buttons and change various settings on-the-fly while still looking through the viewfinder is key to nailing images.

This is just a JPEG and not a stunning flight shot by any stretch of the imagination but is one of my first efforts with the 7D2. Focus success rate coupled with 10 fps (or whatever fps you want to set up to 10 fps) results in more keepers.

Cormorantimm_0297vns.jpg


^ Canon 7D Mark II, 400mm F/5.6L, Tv, 1/6400th, F/5.6, ISO 1000 (Auto). This image's crop is also a massive enlargement.

Since taking this and other shots yesterday, I have fine tuned the global 'Standard' picture style setting (in the Menu) to be sharper.

Sorry but that ain't tempting me at all :thinking:
 
Sorry but that ain't tempting me at all :thinking:

....I did warn you that it wasn't a great shot. But if you want to ignore the rest of what I posted, then so be it :)

Try out the 7D2 and see for yourself - They'll be in the shops very soon if not already and I think it's probably the only way you might be satisfied.
 
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Sorry but that ain't tempting me at all :thinking:


Thought when I saw your 5D3 up for sale Neil that you were going for one of these??

From what I can see it pretty much has the same AF as the 5D3 in terms of AF cases and adjustments. If its as good as the 5D3 then it'll be pretty good.
 
....I did warn you that it wasn't a great shot. But if you want to ignore the rest of what I posted, then so be it :)

Try out the 7D2 and see for yourself - They'll be in the shops very soon if not already and I think it's probably the only way you might be satisfied.

I didn't ignore the rest of your post, just a little confused why you put that shot up as i know your usual standard is way beyond that :thinking:

Thought when I saw your 5D3 up for sale Neil that you were going for one of these??

From what I can see it pretty much has the same AF as the 5D3 in terms of AF cases and adjustments. If its as good as the 5D3 then it'll be pretty good.

I'm still considering one of these but for a all round body and image quality the 5D3 is going to take some beating and that low light performance is way beyond what i'm seeing from the 7d2.
 
I didn't ignore the rest of your post, just a little confused why you put that shot up as i know your usual standard is way beyond that :thinking:

....Well, I suppose I was pleased to have at least captured the shot and I have shot a lot worse inflight images when I first started in December last year with the 70D. So it's a better start for me with a new camera. But I take your point absolutely, Neil, and as I am determined to use this 7D2 as much as possible and learn and grow into what it can do, I expect to improve as I did with the 70D.

It sounds as if you may not better your 5D3 but I think that the 7D2 is probably by far Canon's best crop-sensor body for wildlife - I hope so because that's why I bought it! So far, it feels as if it will enable me further. I can only consider the 7D2 personally.

EDIT: I didn't realise that the smilie you used was meaning 'confused' - I read it to read 'slightly stupid'. My apologies if my response was a bit sharp.
 
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I didn't ignore the rest of your post, just a little confused why you put that shot up as i know your usual standard is way beyond that :thinking:

I'm still considering one of these but for a all round body and image quality the 5D3 is going to take some beating and that low light performance is way beyond what i'm seeing from the 7d2.

I was going to wait until adobe released the update for LR before I bought one but a mate of a mate has offered me a good price for my 5D3 so hopefully will get one in the next couple of days. I will still have the 5D3 for a little while so it will be interesting to compare the 7DMkII, 5D3 and the 1DX against each other across the higher ISO in RAW and JPEG.
 
I will still have the 5D3 for a little while so it will be interesting to compare the 7DMkII, 5D3 and the 1DX against each other across the higher ISO in RAW and JPEG.

....Surely nothing is going to match the high quality of the 1DX. The 7D2 vs 5D3 will be more interesting but it's crop vs full frame.
 
I don't expect the 7D to trouble the 1DX in any way shape or form but as I will have the three bodies then it would seem a good opportunity to take a series of pics across various ISO to see how it does compare.

I'm buying it for the crop to allow me to take a 300 instead of a 500 when I want to travel a bit lighter and for smaller birds where the reach will be handy.

The 7D MkI was a good camera let down by its ISO handling. If the MkII can go to 2500-3200 and give good results then it will be a big step up. Its a step up anyway with the AF system and the other small improvements in customisation. The disappointment for me was that I was hoping to see a 1 series body on it.
 
Realistically Canon would of been stupid if they made 7D2 so good that it affected sales of the higher priced bodies, a classic case of you get what you pay for :rolleyes:
 
I'm on the fence with the 7D2 at the moment. The AF looks to be fantastic, and 10 fps is nice. I'm not seeing anything IQ wise that is leaps ahead of the old 7D, it is still very early days though. If I was unhappy with the 7D AF it'd be an easy decision... I'm quite interested to see if Nikon respond, a D750 with a D400(?) would be a fantastic setup. In the end though I can't be bothered to actually sell my gear, so I'll probably have a 7D2 (or 1D4) by Christmas :D
 
Well first indications are that image quality especially re noise is easily better than the MkI.

If the AF is as good as the 5D3, which it should be, then its hard to see what advantage a 1D MkIV would have over the 7D MkII apart from build quality.

The 5D3's AF is better than a MkIV's.
 
I went to a local park for a few minutes yesterday and shot some football, rugby and my kids playing. The AF is brilliant and I would say probably as good as the 1DX.

The IQ is good, maybe slightly better than my 70D (which in turn I found to be much better than my 7Dc). It isn't as good as a full frame but then I don't think many people would expect it to be.
 
Well if its that close to the 1DX then it should be a winner for Canon. I think though that it will lose out a bit using the superteles when the extra speed from the bigger battery of the 1Dx will come into play.
 
going by what canon pretty much spec it as a great focus system built for wildlife and sport, better iso performance than a 7d , 70d and 60d but not a scratch on the iso performance of a 5d3,1dx and a 6D as all of those are similar in noise performance levels.

The focus system though is very similar to the 1DX is it not?
 
Well I find this all very interesting as so far people are saying how good they think it is, however I have a friend who has boxed his back up and it's being returned tomorrow..!

He's no idiot either, published wildlife tog.. He didn't feel the images were sharp or in focus.. Preferred his mkiv

I'm a little disappointed as it was on my radar, time will tell..!
 
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