Canon 7D mk2 owners thread.

I just got my 7D mk2 yesterday from John Lewis in Oxford St! (who knew?) It was a spur of the moment decision, mainly because they actually had one in stock although I was planning till wait till January. I have upgraded from a 50D.
I managed to take the 7D mk2 out and about for a short while today and I can honestly say, I am gobsmacked. I sometimes get a little worried reading threads like this whereby people are reporting problems or the camera not living up to expectations, so it's performance today has just blown me away. I haven't got to the stage where I have altered the settings as yet, as it is obviously something that I am going to have to look into. However, out of the box, it's performance compared to my 50D could not be more different. It appears to me that it's AF and tracking are amazing. I have also found that I love that little springy lever on the back. A stroke of genius.

Sorry for harping on but I am genuinely so chuffed with this camera and I cannot wait to find out what it is capable of. I had to tell someone!
 
duggiebee, I have to echo your feelings. I too upgraded from the 50d & the improvement is fantastic!!
 
mipevo6 said:
Mine is working as expected as well
Click to expand...

Right, Martin and Bob, I have also traced this to "Lens aberration correction>Distortion on/off" setting....if it's set to "Off" all is well, however if it is set to "On"and the magnification point chosen when that is set to "actual size", the point changes to only displaying the centre point no matter what focus point is chosen by you.
Will let Canon know, sounds like a software problem.

Still to resolve the review time failure, however.

George.

ps, Martin, thanks for the iso info.
 
George said:
Right, Martin and Bob, I have also traced this to "Lens aberration correction>Distortion on/off" setting....if it's set to "Off" all is well, however if it is set to "On"and the magnification point chosen when that is set to "actual size", the point changes to only displaying the centre point no matter what focus point is chosen by you.
Will let Canon know, sounds like a software problem.

Still to resolve the review time failure, however.

George.

ps, Martin, thanks for the iso info.
Click to expand...

Interesting.... I am assuming the distortion correction is only for JPEG anyway and won't affect the RAW ?

and no worries on the ISO info, always happy to share/help where I can
 
mipevo6 said:
Interesting.... I am assuming the distortion correction is only for JPEG anyway and won't affect the RAW ?
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I have no idea, Martin, all my shooting is in RAW and I assumed it would apply to that as well?..

It's not a setting option in the 1 Dx.
 
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But the camera displays information (e.g. histogram) based on the embedded preview JPEG, and that does have (as far as I know) all processing options applied to it, be they picture style parameters, noise reduction, ALO, HTP or anything else.
 
Yes, Tim, but why wouldn't it select the correct focus point?
 
Well I don't know the 7D2 in person, and I never shoot with any image processing enhancement enabled, but my guess is that the distortion/aberration setting reshapes the picture and thus the AF points move too. Or rather, the AF points do not get moved with the reshaped image and would thus be a lie if displayed. That's one part of the puzzle, maybe. The other might be that if you use back button focusing and focus/release/recompose then there will be no active focus point at the point that the shutter fires.
 
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The only enhancement (if you could call it that) that I use is the lens correction data provided by Canon...which I assumed was not "enhancement"....is it?
 
I have tried with back button focus held on and it shows the focus point fine...

If I turn on the lens correction for distortion it no longer displays.

I have to assume that it no longer finds the information about the point when the transformation is made.

My assumption was that it only affects the JPEG and not the raw anyway so i can apply lens correction in LR after.

However, it would be nice to know what is or isn't applied.

Wonder how we ask Canon...

I could ask my CPS guy I guess?
 
Yup, I use BBF as well, you can try your guy, I have a good contact as well, don't think Frankie Jim would be much help as he's not technical ( he told me at a pre launch of the 1 Dx that AF at f8 was a complete impossibility and spent 10 mins explaining why!!!)......let's try over the next few days to bottom this.
Will try to speak to my contact tomorrow, and report.
 
andrewc said:
Apple OS X update released today for 7D2 for Aperture 3 and iPhoto compatibility.
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....I have just come home after a long weekend away and being offline (snapped my very first Kingfisher and also my very first Red Deer!) and this news about Aperture compatibility is extremely welcome! Thanks for posting the info, Andrew @andrewc :)

EDIT:
This update isn't showing in Software Update - I'm still on Aperture 3.5 on OS Mavericks, is this 7D2 compatibility update only for Aperture 3.6 on OS Yosemite?

EDIT:
As I feared, it only works on Yosemite :(.

Link: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1777?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
 
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mipevo6 said:
Interesting.... I am assuming the distortion correction is only for JPEG anyway and won't affect the RAW ?
Click to expand...

George said:
I have no idea, Martin, all my shooting is in RAW and I assumed it would apply to that as well?..
Click to expand...

The corrections are applied to the raw file to create the jpeg (embedded and the separate file if selected) and leave the original raw data untouched....a sort of in-camera DPP if you will.

Unless there have been changes very recently then only "custom white balance" will affect raw data (AFAIK)

Bob
 
Surely custom white balance, just like any other white balance value, is simply meta-data. Are you suggesting that every raw pixel value would be physically altered from true "raw" if custom white balance was used? Why would Canon engineer like that?

I thought raw files were only physically altered by choice to shoot with HTP, which basically halves ISO values per pixel, and long exposure NR, which shoots and merges/subtracts a dark frame, were the only options (other than exposure settings) which would alter raw data. Everything else is just a meta data value stored in the raw file.
 
So are we saying that lens correction data is a waste of time if you aren't processing in Canon DPP?....and if you are shooting in RAW?...and that if we are shooting with HTP enabled, the raw rata is being altered?
 
George said:
So are we saying that lens correction data is a waste of time if you aren't processing in Canon DPP?....and if you are shooting in RAW?...and that if we are shooting with HTP enabled, the raw rata is being altered?
Click to expand...

I think the RAW is untouched ...

I think the features are their for JPEG shooters

LR can do the same lens correction to the raw.
 
Well, I must admit, I thought the RAW data was basically inviolate, and however I worked on the basis that it was a sort of sidecar file that when you did any pp work in DPP it was automatically applied, if you go directly to LR you could as you say use their lens correction.

Better look in to this a bit further, or perhaps someone else has an answer?

Gonna ask Canon tomorrow.
 
Tim, George,

White Balance first.......
Canon has made several changes to the way WB is recorded and applied over the years (the latest being with the 1Dx, 5D3 and peer lower spec bodies). I researched this a while back after seeing differences on my IR converted bodies. Normally WB is applied by just changing a word in the EXIF data to represent the WB setting and calculated temperature. It seems that CWB actually changes the process and this can be seen by taking two identical shots (one with a selectable WB and the other using CWB)...they'll produce noticeably different file sizes and not representative of simply changing a single integer value.
Calculating and applying WB is quite clever. The sensor is scanned for groups of pixels where the RGB values are close to each other and also close to the maximum.....it is then assumed that these are a spectrally neutral colour (white or grey). Applying white balance correction is achieved by upping the iso of the red and/or blue channels to balance them with the green (also used for intensity). If you're shooting within 1 stop of noise problems then it's better to set your own white balance and get it as correct as possible rather than simply doing it in PP. In halogen for instance then you can expect something around 3600k. If the camera gives you 4000k and you correct downwards in PP then the blues were under exposed and blue channel noise will be more evident. If the camera gave you 3000k and you correct upwards then you've run the blue channel at a higher iso than necessary and induced noise that way.....lose-lose situation. Going the other direction and the reds will suffer in the same manner.
(I'm sure the in-camera algorithm is a lot more complex than my explanation but it gets the theory across.)

HTP.....it is (or was) a simple integer written into the EXIF to use when adjusting the raw data.......afaik.

Dark frame substitution.....it's a long time since I used this but is the resulting file larger or smaller than the uncorrected version. If it's larger then it would seem that the light pixels in the dark frame have been mapped rather than overwritten.

Bob
 
Thanks, Bob, interesting stuff!!

What's your take on the lens correction data? is my understanding from my post above wrong re lens correction data?

George.
 
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Interpret Canon's words yourself, George. If they're literal then the raw is untouched (save for the required bits in the EXIF to allow PP code to act upon it)

The EOS-1D X can internally process its own RAW images. The camera applies the following processes to the RAW image and saves the result as a JPEG image: brightness adjustment → white balance → Picture Style → Auto Lighting Optimizer → noise reduction at high ISO speeds → JPEG image recording quality → color space → lens peripheral illumination correction → distortion correction → chromatic aberration correction.

Bob
 
...And the pp code will just be for Canon software I assume?
 
Not necessarily, any code can read the EXIF from the raw file. LR applies camera and lens profiles based on reading EXIF tags but they may not have exactly the same corrections as DPP. RAW is basically TIFF (tagged image file format) and it's up to the software house to make the profiles.

Bob
 
OK, well I'll have a play........and of course the original 1 Ds didn't produce RAW files as such, they were TIFF files and were called that!!
 
Bob, regarding WB, I don't have any raw analysis software which can read 5D3 files at the pixel level, but I did just perform a little, very crude, experiment. Here are four raw files loaded into Lightroom.....

20141116_223345_.JPG


The first is a red bag used to set an absurd custom white balance. The second is a "white" wall shot with that custom white balance. The third was the same white wall shot with WB = 10,000K. The fourth is using Auto WB. Exposures were manual and identical, spot metered initially at +1. File sizes differ, but not by much.

As a next step I then set the WB for all four files to Daylight in Lightroom. Note that the original red bag was shot with Daylight WB to begin with and should not be expected to change appearance (much).

20141116_223546_.JPG


Now to my untrained eye, but also using the Lightroom colour sampler, each of the shots of the white wall appear remarkably similar to me. They might look even more similar if I had used a tripod instead of hand holding. Anyway, the point is that with WB equalised there is no material difference between them. This suggests to me that the underlying RGB pixel data is also identical in each file, demonstrating that the WB value when shot has no influence in raw pixel values.

Surely if a custom WB is to materially affect pixel level raw data we should see bigger differences than none when equalising the WB parameter in post, especially when the custom WB value was so extremely off the charts of normal. Yes? No? Have I cocked up in my reasoning?
 
It's late here (France), Tim...I'm going to have to get my head around this in the morning. As I alluded to earlier, I investigated this when I started seeing raw files from my IR converted bodies (5D2's) increasing by 2-4Mb if cwb was set.

I'll be back!

Bob
 
Some interesting info but this thread is severely lacking images. Come on peeps with 7D2s, get posting!
 
Nothing scientific Drew but I took the 7D2 along to the football today to give it a quick whiz against the 1Dx's.

This was 1/1250 f/5 @ iso 1250 on a 300/4 IS. This is the centre third of a portrait orientated shot and then downsized to 667x1000. A little more sharpening wouldn't have gone amiss.
It's all a little academic until Adobe come up with the goods but my only observation is that the output appears warmer than the 1Dx's, more like the 5D3.

Bob
p960221446.jpg
 
Thanks Bob. Yeh understand processing software updates need to catch up - is LR5 supporting the camera yet?
 
Doesnt seem to be Drew. Nor DNG converter. So its RAW and JPEG next time home on the loop and convert later.
 
dolina said:
What do you not like about your 7D Mark II?
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....I do not like:

(-) The position of the Erase button - If I am reviewing shots in very low light or darkness, it's too easy to action it rather than the Playback button. Having said that, I don't know where else it could be positioned and I am getting better at avoiding it when not wanted.

(-) In playback/reviewing images, I find the stubby 'joystick' tricky to control when navigating around an enlarged image.

(-) That the Rate and Creative Photo buttons aren't customisable to other actions - Or are they customisable?

What I do like about the 7D Mark II is a very long list! The only EOS camera I have any experience to compare it with is the 70D and some occasional use of my daughter's 100D.

I am even happier now that Apple have updated RAW compatibility for the 7D2 in Aperture 3.6 - The next few days are going to be busy!

:)
 
RedRobin said:
....I do not like:

(-) The position of the Erase button - If I am reviewing shots in very low light or darkness, it's too easy to action it rather than the Playback button. Having said that, I don't know where else it could be positioned and I am getting better at avoiding it when not wanted.

(-) In playback/reviewing images, I find the stubby 'joystick' tricky to control when navigating around an enlarged image.

(-) That the Rate and Creative Photo buttons aren't customisable to other actions - Or are they customisable?

What I do like about the 7D Mark II is a very long list! The only EOS camera I have any experience to compare it with is the 70D and some occasional use of my daughter's 100D.

I am even happier now that Apple have updated RAW compatibility for the 7D2 in Aperture 3.6 - The next few days are going to be busy!

:)
Click to expand...

You can change the rate button to lock which lots of pro's use to mark their keepers.

The creative button is useful for quick access to hdr which works quite well in standard mode and keeps the RAW files for you so is a quick way to do AEB as well.

What don't i like ?
  • The ISO performance (its decent, but not as good as a FF (yes I know I am asking for the impossible :) )
  • Battery life (glad i invested in a grip)
  • No RAW support by Adobe yet
haven't found anything else so far.
 
dolina said:
What do you not like about your 7D Mark II?
Click to expand...

I personally think that 14-15 Mp would have been adequate given the ability of today's mainstream lenses to put detail on the sensor. This could have moved the noise signature upwards 1-2 stops (based on Canon's ability with similar pixel density) and it's unlikely that "cropability" would have suffered noticeably. 20Mp on an APS-C equates to 50+Mp on a full frame sensor....more than twice what they're currently producing.

Different people look for different spec's and 15Mp would undoubtedly have attracted criticism but I'd have been happy with it.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
I personally think that 14-15 Mp would have been adequate given the ability of today's mainstream lenses to put detail on the sensor. This could have moved the noise signature upwards 1-2 stops (based on Canon's ability with similar pixel density) and it's unlikely that "cropability" would have suffered noticeably. 20Mp on an APS-C equates to 50+Mp on a full frame sensor....more than twice what they're currently producing.

Different people look for different spec's and 15Mp would undoubtedly have attracted criticism but I'd have been happy with it.

Bob
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Exactly my opinion Bob, in fact I think I said that earlier in the thread, and although the noise performance is better than the mk1, it still leaves a lot of room for improvement.

I feel the 1Dx was a step in the right direction, dropping to 18 Mp, and it's noise performance is in another league from the 7D2 (for obvious reasons).

The AF is excellent, however, the biggest improvement IMO, and people upgrading from 50, 60 and 70Ds will see a huge improvement.

George.
 
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