Canon 7D and Birds in Flight

Canon 7D, EF600mmF4 IS, 1/800 @ F4

I'm just back from a photography expedition to Utah to photograph wintering bald eagles. The eagles were quite scarce this year but I did manage to get a few good images. The weather was, for the most part poor and challenging for the Autofocus. We had snow, fog, and gloomy light most of the time when eagles were present. In the photo above I had no problem locking on the landing eagle. Having shoot nearly 2000 frames of action I think I now have a good feel of how the camera works on birds in flight. Overall I'm very impressed with the AF on the 7D. Initial acquisition is very fast. I would say it's faster than my 1Dmk2 but not quite as fast as the 1Dmk3 was although very close. The AI Servo seems to track very well and doesn't lose focus lock easily. I have custom function group III-1 set to slow. This doesn't slow the focusing of the camera down at all but prevents it from jumping quickly to another subject of object when tracking.

Canon Eos 7D, EF600mmF4IS, ISO 400, 1/2500 @ F4

This image of the bald eagle flying in heavy snow is a nightmare for most AF systems. I was able to lock on and track well most of the time with about 70% of the images in perfect focus. I was using single point AF without expansion to minimize my chances of focusing on snowflakes. I found if I didn't lock on the eagle right away bumping my AF button would quickly get my focus back on the eagle.

Canon Eos 7D, EF600mmF4IS, ISO 400, 1/500 @ F4

This image of the gull in the fog is also a very difficult target for the AF system. The lack of contrast challenges the ability of the AF to lock on and hold the subject. Here I used single AF point with expansion. The results were very good. The camera locked on and tracked the gulls with little trouble. I had trouble with previous Eos cameras in this situation.

Canon Eos 7D, EF600mmF4IS, ISO 400, 1/3200 @ F4

Again this close flyby of a male harrier in snowy conditions is very challenging. Photographing in the snow I manually choose a single focus point without expansion for the best results. Choosing the focus point manually with the multi controller (joy stick) is quick and easy and with practice will become second nature.

Canon Eos 7D, EF500mmF4IS, ISO 400, 1/1250 @ F4

I captured this image of a female harrier in the warm late afternoon light. Here I had the camera set in 19 point AF auto selection. The camera can utilize all 19 focus points to track and keep your subject in focus as it moves through your frame. I was amazed at how well this worked on the 7D. Much better than the 1d2 or 40d/50d. With relatively smooth or even somewhat busy backgrounds it was superb. The 7d displays in the viewfinder what focus points are currently focusing as you track your subject. You must first acquire focus with the center focus point for this to work properly. I'm now very confident that this fine camera can deliver professional results I require at all times....

More Thoughts on the Canon 7D

Canon Eos 7D, EF500F4IS, ISO 500, 1/320 @ F4.5

Having had the 7D for a couple of weeks now and using it extensively on my Winter Yellowstone Photo Tour last week I can now make a few observations. This camera is a major step up from the xxD line. I've had all of them from the 10D to the 50D and the 7D smokes them all. Canon has done a great job upgrading the feature set on the camera. The viewfinder grid lines and the electronic level are very useful. The viewfinder itself is great, nice and bright, much better than any of the xxd line. The new AF system seems to be outstanding. With 19 very good focus points arranged well and covering a large portion of the frame I see very little to complain about. I used single point, expanded point and spot AF during the week. Each worked well. The spot AF is useful for precise focusing on static subject but is not as stable with moving subjects. Initial acquisition is very fast. AIServo seems to be very good. I didn't have any real challenging focus situations during the tour but I did photograph a vehicle coming down the road towards me at 20-30mph. I focused on the license plate and kept shooting until I buffered out. I was able to get off 24 frames which is much better than the Canon specs for buffer capacity. By careful analysis I determined that 13 frames were razor sharp, 8 frames were sharp, 2 were acceptable and only one frame was slightly soft. I also would like to say that it was snowing at the time so there is a chance that the snow could have affected the AF system to some extent.

Canon 7D, EF500mmF4IS, ISO 200, 1/80 @ F4.5 handheld

The images show a lot of detail and the noise performance of the sensor is very good considering the number of pixels cram ed into the APS-C sized sensor. I used ISO's from 200 to 800 during the week and am very happy with what I see. I always try to use the lowest ISO possible to achieve my goals since the majority of my clients wouldn't accept any images taken at these new high ISO's like 6400, 12,800 etc. The slight amount of noise I could see at ISO 800 is very well controlled and looks much like film grain and I'm very comfortable with that. The camera is very customizable, you seemingly can make any button do whatever you want. I never have the camera set to automatically review each image after the exposure preferring to manually bring up the image for review. With the 7d I've dedicated my SET button for this function and find it very handy. All in all this is a lot of camera for the price. Now if I could just get my MK4.....

Yellowstone in Winter

Canon 5DmkII, EF24-105mmL, 3 image HDR

I've just returned from my "Winter Wolves of Yellowstone Tour". We had a full compliment of participants and came away with some great images. In this image of the Yellowstone River just above the Upper Falls I decided that due to the contrast range I would need either to use a graduated neutral density filter to hold detail in the sky or to process the image as an HDR file. I used the program Photomatix which is excellent. I bracketed 3 images with my exposure compensation set at -2, 0 and +2 while carefully checking my histogram to see if I captured detail in both the highlight and shadow areas of the image. The result seems very true to what my eyes saw.

Canon Eos7D, EF500mmF4IS

The raven image was captured handheld with the 5oomm F4IS. The raven landed on a snowcoach and allowed us to approach very close. I decided that portraits were my best option. My new Canon Eos 7D captured very good detail and the IS of the 500mm allowed me to capture a sharp image at 1/125 while handholding a heavy lens.

Canon Eos 7D, EF300mmF2.8L

I love snow covered and frosty bison. We located a herd of young bulls near Lava Creek. Using my excellent EF 300mm F2.8L on my 7d I was able to capture this wintry scene. When photographing a dark subject in the snow you must be careful with exposure so you don't overexpose your highlights while maintaining detail in a dark subject. With the size of the subject having a dramatic affect on your camera's metering in the automatic modes I decided to expose manually. I just metered a section of snow and opened up 2 stops giving me good results.