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Index: Introduction | EOS-7D Detailed Review | EF-S 15-85 IS Review
[October 2009]: What is new about the Canon EOS-7D? Well the name should give you a hint, not to mention all the "key-feature icons" above. Pretty much everything is new! About the only thing not new, is that it is an APS-C sized sensor, with Canon's standard 1.6x crop factor. What, it's not a full-frame camera like the 5D Mark II, it's not a “baby 5D”? Nope, 'fraid not. What it is, seemingly, is more of a “baby 1D Mark III” from a performance standpoint and almost a “baby 1Ds Mark III” from an image quality standpoint!
You could call it a high-end “prosumer” camera, but make no mistake, it is firmly in the realm of a professional body if you ask me. Sporting a newly designed 18.1 megapixel CMOS sensor (not just a higher pixel count version of the EOS-50D sensor, but thoroughly redesigned sensor), a completely new autofocus module with 19 AF cross sensors and a dedicated AF processor with even more customization options than a 1D Mark III, a huge 100% 1.0x magnification viewfinder, a weather-sealed body, a two-axis electronic level, full 1080p video at 24/25/30 fps (as well as 720p video up to 60fps!) and a blistering 8 fps still shooting speed, this camera is no wanna-be pro camera – it is a pro camera! If you're worried about noise levels at high ISO, given its even greater pixel density than the EOS-50D, don't be - all indications are that it will significantly outperform it. In addition, it seems that all traces of high ISO noise banding are gone too, something even the 5D Mark II can suffer from at times, although from an absolute standpoint, the 5D Mark II still seems a fair bit cleaner at extreme ISO settings, as one would expect.
The EOS-7D is slated to start shipping in early October and while I doubt it will be quite as popular as the 5D Mark II, it may not be too far off. Get your pre-order in ASAP if you want one on the first shipment. It really sounds like a stunning camera for the price!
Canon also announced three new lenses. An new EF 100mm f/2.8L HIS USM Macro, an EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 USM IS and an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS.
EOS-7D Detailed Review!
Index: Image Quality | Build Quality / Body Details | Video Features | Autofocus | Final Thoughts
[November 2009]: I have had my own personal EOS-7D now since it started shipping in early October. We had a couple of customer cancellations on the first batch we got in, so I managed to pick one up right away. To give you a sense of where I've been as far as digital cameras over the years, I have owned the full range of "semi-pro" APS-C Canon models since the EOS-20D came out in 2004 (making the switch from shooting medium-format 6x7 film at that time), so the 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D and now the 7D. In addition, for a point of comparison, I have also shot with the 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III on numerous occasions (as well as most Nikon digital bodies) and with the 5D Mark II, I have used one quite extensively already. I came this || close to buying a 5D Mark II for myself in fact. What held me back? Well certainly not image quality...
Overall I would still give the nod to the 5D Mark II over the 7D as far as image quality. At lower ISO settings (400 or less) the 5D Mark II has an amazing smoothness and tonality that, for the lack of a better term, simply seems completely effortless. It really has nothing to do with its 21 MP resolution in comparison to the 7D's 18 MP (those two numbers are really very close), but has more to do with pixel density. If you were to crop the 5D Mark II down to an APS-C size sensor like the 7D, you would only have an 8 MP image, not an 18 MP image. This means that the individual pixels on the 5D Mark II are much bigger, and thus have more individual "light capacity" (therefore inherently capable of better dynamic range with less noise) and almost more importantly, the lower pixel density does not push the absolute resolving power of lenses anywhere near as much as the 7D does.
Due to this tight pixel density, at times the 7D (and the 50D before it) can exhibit some "roughness" (for lack of a better term) when you view images at full zoom, where you can really tell that the lens you're using is being pushed up to, or slightly beyond, its "comfortable" resolving power. This resolving power limitation also applies to many of their pro-grade 'L' lenses, not just Canon's cheaper glass. Note that even though a crop-sensor camera like the 7D is nowhere near the edge of the image circle on a full-frame 'L' lens, and one would generally think that being in the sweet-spot of the image circle would potentially yield better image quality than a full-frame camera like the 5D Mark II, in reality the pixel density is so high that you really need to watch yourself: use the best lenses and make sure that you are in the sweet-spot of the f-stop range as well.
So, getting the 5D Mark II comparison out of they way, how does the 7D fare taken as an APS-C camera? Well generally speaking, I would say that the 7D easily has the best image quality of any crop-sensor camera I have ever used! Despite the fact that the pixel density is even higher than that of the EOS-50D (and I complained about it in my 50D review), not only does it seem to have more useable dynamic range, but it is significantly cleaner in low-light / high-ISO shooting. And I do mean significant! I would actually rate the 7D's overall high ISO image quality to be far closer to the 5D Mark II than to the 50D and even better, Canon seems to have eliminated essentially all pattern noise artifacts (banding, streaking, cross-hatching), that can crop up even when you push a 5D Mark II in low light. As far as nighttime long time exposures, the 7D absolutely slays the 50D and is very close to being as clean as the 5D Mark II. I did a test comparing all three cameras at ISO 400, with an 8 minute time exposure and long-exposure noise-reduction disabled on all three cameras. Both the 7D and 5D Mark II showed very few visible hot pixels, whereas the 50D had an absolute blizzard of colour specks, so bad in fact, that the image was not salvageable with any reasonable amount of image processing.
The 7D's 18 megapixel 1.6x crop sensor is also incredible if you do wildlife photography with telephoto lenses. Since telephoto lenses generally have more than enough resolution to satisfy the 7D's 18 MP sensor, you can get beautiful and detailed shots of more distant and/or smaller subjects. Remember, cropping a 5D Mark II to equal the field-of-view of an APS-C camera like the 7D, will only give you an 8 MP image, versus the 7D's 18 MP, so assuming your shot is technically well captured (good lens, sharp focus, fast shutter speed to freeze the action) you can imagine how much more useable the 7D file can be if you want to crop in even further or make huge prints!
Back to lens quality now. Yes, the 7D requires very good lenses. At present, I am very happy with my kit, consisting of a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, a Canon 24mm f/1.4L II, the new EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom (more details below), an EF-S 60mm f/2.8 macro, an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS and the EF 400mm f/5.6L. All these lenses perform extremely well on the 7D. One lens I am selling now is the Canon EF 35mm f/2. While performing very well on a 5D Mark II and on my previous bodies, it simply does not seem tack sharp anymore on my 7D. In fact, my new EF-S 15-85mm zoom thoroughly trumps the 35mm prime for sharpness, and although the prime is a few stops faster, it needs to be stopped down to really become sharp, so in the end, I have decided to sell it.
As far as Canon lenses in general, I would say that the vast majority of 50mm or longer primes ('L' or not) and virtually all longer 'L' zooms, are generally a safe bet on the 7D in terms of keeping up with its resolving power. There are a few wide angle lenses and wide zooms that do not perform as well and if you need some advice on what works and what doesn't, feel free to ask! I have used many different Canon lenses on my 7D by now (luckily, we do have an extensive rental dept. here!) and have a pretty good idea of their performance.
As far as diffraction issues, the same concerns apply to the 7D as to the 50D, so you can refer to that article as well (link here to the diffraction section). To try and put it succinctly for this review, if you zoom in to 100% to view your images, softening due to diffraction when stopping down a lens too far, will be visible sooner than with a lower pixel density body like a 40D or a 5D Mark II for example. However if you take an 8 MP image from an EOS-30D and an 18 MP image from a 7D, both shot at f/16 where at 100% zoom the 7D will show diffraction effects far more obviously than the 30D, and then for example, print them both to 20x30 inches, the 7D image will not actually look any worse. Remember that zooming in to 100% on a higher pixel density body is far more critical as far as showing diffraction effects, lens problems or even motion blur and depth-of-field issues. However these seemingly worse problems will only be more visible if you use the extra resolution to make bigger prints than you would with a lower megapixel body.
So in brief, the 7D has excellent colour and impressive dynamic range, very high resolution and while not quite as good as the best full-frame bodies, it does have exceptionally low noise for an APS-C sensor camera. I find the image quality very impressive and far better than I had anticipated after reading the 7D's specifications when it was first announced.
Here, the 7D simply shines. It feels very well constructed and is said to have improved weather sealing with tighter body tolerances and improved gasketing when compared to the 50D. In fact, Canon says it equals the weather resistance of their older EOS-1n series top-level pro film camera. There are many little improved details too. For example, the rubber flaps that cover the camera's ports will now swivel out of the way. Also, both the battery door and CF card doors are spring loaded when they open and no longer just "flop" around. There is a big bright 100% viewfinder and framing grid lines can be switched on and off (no need to buy a new focusing screen!) and the grid-lines are also backlit red for hugely improved visibility in low light. Many of the 7D's external buttons can be redefined to perform other functions, for example even the 7D's depth-of-field button can be redefined for other tasks including several different AF mode options. In general, the level of customization is way up from Canon's previous digital bodies.
A well designed new Video-Mode/Live-View control makes it much easier to switch between the two modes, start and stop shooting video, or activate and deactivate Live-View. There is a new "soft-touch" shutter release button that makes it a little easier to handhold slow shutter speeds and the rear LCD screen is even brighter and clearer than before. The LCD auto-brightness feature is also improved from its behaviour on the 5D Mark II. It seems to read the ambient light level just before switching on and ignores subsequent changes in brightness that might occur when, for example, your hand temporarily moves over its light sensor. I found auto-brightness to be very distracting on the 5D Mark II because of this, as the LCD's brightness seemed to vary constantly. Not so on the 7D, so now I am leaving auto-brightness always turned on.
As far as speed, the camera can shoot its large 18 megapixel, 14-bit raw files at an extremely impressive 8 frames-per-second, with a generously sized raw buffer (15 frames) that can grow to well over 20 frames if you are using a fast UDMA enable CompactFlash card. When shooting JPEGs at 8 fps with a UDMA card, the camera will just keep going and going and going... basically until the card is full.
However, one very odd glitch in the 7D's performance though, and I am not sure if Canon is planning a firmware update to address it, is the fact that in really low light levels, the camera generally slows right down, from 8 fps down to something like 4 fps. It turns out that this has nothing to do with any noise reduction settings or slowdown due to JPEG processing, nor does it have to do with its AF struggling in low-light. Even raw files, shooting in manual-focus mode and M exposure mode, forcing a fast shutter speed with no additional in-camera processing activated (like Highlight Tone Priority for example) will cause the camera to behave in this way in low light levels. You can pan the camera from a dark scene to a brighter one and easily demonstrate this yourself when shooting in continuous mode. Oddly enough, the one thing which seems to allow you to get around this, is to shoot in a non-M exposure mode (P,A,S) and use the exposure lock function. Somehow this slowdown seems to be due to the new advanced metering system, but in M mode, its metering system has no need to change anything while shooting continuously (it is all set manually by you!), so the camera shouldn't slow down either in my opinion! A bit of a weird problem, but since it only occurs in really low light levels (where you might need to be shooting at ISO 6400 or so), it is not too much of a issue if you ask me. Still, I do hope Canon will address it.
The 7D uses the same new high-capacity LP-E6 battery pack that the 5D Mark II uses, so its battery life is massively improved over what one could get with BP-511A batteries on the EOS-50D. I have managed to get over 16 GB worth of images out of a single battery, even with frequent use of Live-View and IS.
Finally, there is even a dual-axis electronic level built in! You can display a virtual horizon on the back LCD that will show you when you are level in both the left/right tilt axis as well as front/back tilt of the camera. This is great for doing architectural shots, especially when it is hard to see the grid lines or when it is hard to judge when exactly the camera is level in relation to your subject. Also, in the viewfinder, the electronic level actually uses the 19 AF points as though it were a virtual "bubble-level" - very slick indeed! You have to see this in action...
For video, the 7D handily trumps the 5D Mark II, at least with its current firmware, although Canon has pledged to release a firmware update for the 5D Mark II sometime in 2010, to support the oft-requested 24p (fps) mode. For now, the 7D is king, and supports 24fps (23.976 actual NTSC), 25fps (PAL) and 30fps (29.97 actual NTSC) in full HD mode (1080p - 1920x1080) and 50fps (PAL) or 60fps (59.94 actual NTSC) in regular HD mode (720p - 1280x720). It also does the same 50/60 frame rates for standard definition video (640x480). At present the 5D Mark II only shoots at exactly 30 fps, not the more "correct" 29.97, so things can get ugly as far as precisely synching with externally recorded sound or mixing footage from other HD DV cameras. This is not an issue on the 7D at all luckily!
Also, having the ability to shoot overcranked 60fps video and then slow it down in post, allows one to achieve slow-motion effects where footage plays back 2.5x slower than its original capture, if combined with footage captured at 24 fps. Of course you will need the appropriate software to do this, or be knowledgeable enough to edit the video footage metadata header to fool the computer into treating 60fps footage as though it were 24 fps. Naturally any audio recorded directly with the 7D video track will be messed up after doing this, but if you are serious about a video production, you'll likely be using an external sound recording device anyway, due to the 7D's annoying AGC, its auto-gain-control on audio recording.
Sadly, ACG is still firmly in place on the 7D with no way to override it (same as on the 5D Mark II), so even if you add a high quality external mic and plug it into the 7D's external mic jack, something like a Sennheisser MKE-400 mini-shotgun mic, or the Rode Stereo Video Mic, you still will have the camera trying to gain-up quiet moments, dragging up the noise floor, potentially introducing hiss or emphasizing undesirable background sounds, and then suppressing the audio back down again during louder passages. Adding an external sound recorder, like a Zoom H4n (which is what I use) will allow you to record much higher quality (and predictable) audio alongside the 7D's video footage. You will have to manually keep track of audio files and then re-sync the audio in post, but if you record with the 7D's onboard mic simultaneously it should be fairly easy, especially if you start a sequence with a clapper-board (or just a sharp hand-clap) so there is a sound spike to line the tracks up with.
Two areas where the 5D Mark II is still superior to the 7D, as far as video shooting, is in extreme low-light where the lower noise levels in the 5D Mark II are advantageous and in shallow depth-of-field effects, which are highly desired to achieve that elusive "cinematic" look. Obviously the full-frame sensor in the 5D Mark II will allow for shallower DOF for any given framing and subject distance, since you'll be using longer lenses due to its larger sensor. On the 7D, you'll want to be sure and use the fastest primes that you can, to achieve a relatively shallow depth of field! I also use a couple of different ND filters if I want to be able to shoot at, for example, f/1.4 and 1/50 second shutter speed in bright sunny conditions, a speed that is roughly equivalent to a 180 degree shutter at 24 fps, for those film people reading this. So ideally, it would be 1/48 second and not 1/50, but you'd never see such a slight difference.
Lastly, one point of criticism is that the 720p mode on the 7D seems somewhat crippled by huge amounts of aliasing (stair-stepping) than can sometimes appear on high-contrast, sharply defined edges - not an issue all the time, just in certain situations. There have now been two firmware updates since my initial tests in 720p mode (firmware version is 1.1.0 as of this writing), so I am not sure if this is still an issue, although since the updates made no mention of a fix for this, it certainly may still a problem. However most people will likely be staying in 1080p mode, and there are no such problems there, that I have seen so far.
One of the most radically evolved features of the EOS-7D is its all new AF system. Not content to just enhance and update the system that was in the EOS-50D, Canon decided to completely redesign it from the ground up. You now get 19 logically spaced focus points, all working as cross-sensors to f/5.6 and all having the capability to work in normal or "spot" mode. This brand new spot mode effectively shrinks down each cross sensor to be about half its normal size, allowing you to more precisely focus in difficult situations, like shooting through foliage or precisely placing a focus point on someone's eyes for example. Spot focus means that it will be less likely for the focus sensor to lock onto something that is just in front of or behind your exact point of intended focus. The centre focus point also has a diagonal cross sensor that kicks in with lenses faster than f/2.8, for even more responsive focus in low light or poor contrast situations.
There are numerous distinct focus modes and groupings that can be selected. There is the normal single point mode, basically what the 50D has, where you can select any of the 19 points with the thumb operated joystick. Then, the same thing in spot focus mode. Next, you can choose AF point expansion, where each point is surrounded by 4 additional points that help you to stay locked on your subject if you drift off track, or if the subject has poor contrast. When focus points near the peripheral edges are chosen, you only get three surrounding assist points however, not four.
Next you have zone focus, where the 19 points are divided ito 5 zones, a centre zone and up/down/left/right zones. Within these zones, the camera will auto-select which focus points it uses to stay locked on the subject. This works brilliantly for tracking birds in flight I have found. Even better, the camera will dynamically show, in real time,which points are tracking the subject so you always have visual feedback on what the camera is doing during focus tracking.
There is also a dumbed down auto-select mode when you are in single-shot AF, where the camera will choose its own points from all 19, but oddly enough, when you select focus tracking in this mode (AI Servo), you arguably get the 7D's most advanced AF tracking mode. Here you can now manually choose any of the 19 points and after you have locked on your subject, the camera will stay locked if the subject drifts around in the frame, automatically moving the focus point as needed and giving you visual feedback the whole time. The whole visual feedback aspect of the 7D's AF is not to be underestimated, since if you are paying attention, you can immediately see if the camera has re-locked focus on the wrong subject or on the background for example. No other EOS digital SLR has ever had this!
Lastly, there is a huge amount of customization as far as how the AF system behaves, what focus modes are available to select etc. It has the widest degree of AF customization of any EOS camera ever made.
Based on my fairly extensive testing to date, I would suggest that the 7D might just have the best overall auto-focus system of any shipping EOS camera at the moment. It is hugely more advanced and flexible that the AF system in the 5D Mark II or any lower end model and I believe it equals or betters the 1D/1Ds Mark III bodies in most situations. I don't think that calling the new 7D a "baby 1-series" body is too far off the mark. The just announced EOS-1D Mark IV might certainly best the 7D as far as overall AF performance, but even it seems to have some limitations to spot-focus and cross-sensor sensitivity that the 7D does not have!
One area I am not really qualified to comment on, is how the 7D performs in a team-sports environment like hockey, soccer etc. There is certainly still a chance it might be lagging the Mark III models there, and as yet, I have not really received any feedback from those who may have compared the 7D to a 1D Mark II/III etc., in those kinds of shooting conditions. If you are trying to evaluate how a 7D will perform in that sort of environment, I would highly recommend you rent one first and test it for yourself. Just keep in mind that with the complexity of its AF system, it might not be immediately obvious as to what the best settings will be. If it does not perform up to your expectations at first, think about what settings you are using and how you might be able to better tune them to suit the job at hand.
For a $2100 digital SLR, the EOS-7D strikes me as an amazing value. Well obviously... I did buy one myself after all! There is very little I can find to honestly gripe about, certainly not at this price point. I can always come up with something I find awkward or wish was redesigned but really, I would say the one real complaint I have (apart from the weird low-light fps slowdown), is that after all the feedback from 5D Mark II videographers, why did Canon not implement some sort of manual gain control for the mic input? They obviously heard the cries of 24p! They heard the requests for a true 29.97fps. So why did they not hear those desperately wanting manual control for the mic? Odd, but who knows... since Canon obviously heard and responded to those wanting manual exposure control on the 5D Mark II and implemented a firmware update, maybe we'll see a firmware update down the road, for both the 5D Mark II and 7D, that will enable some manual mic gain settings...
Finally, if this review pushes you off the fence and you decide that you've just got to get one of these for yourself... at present (early November) we have both the EOS-7D bodies in stock, as well the kits with the 15-85 IS zoom!
Oh, and lastly, why did I not buy a 5D Mark II? It's image quality is fantastic, no question, but because I do a fair bit of wildlife shooting and really wanted a responsive camera, the 5D Mark II just didn't quite cut it. It is a brilliant camera for portraits, weddings, static landscapes, really low-light shooting etc., but when you want a fast and decisive camera with minimal shutter lag, a high frame rate and a more competant AF system, the EOS-7D is overall much more satisfying...
Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Review
[November 2009]: With the new super high resolution 18 MP sensor on the 7D, I was understandably a little skeptical of a new kit lens, especially one having an aggressive a focal length range like this new zoom. The full-frame equivalent of this new lens is 24-135mm, so as much as I was hoping it would be good since that's a great range, I had to test one for myself before committing to a 7D kit. So... I bought the 7D body first (since the kits were not yet shipping) and decided that if the lens was actually good, I would bite the bullet and spend more buying the lens on its own. I suppose, at the back of my mind, I was not really expecting it to be all that good.
Boy, was I ever wrong...
It turns out that I am absolutely astounded at how sharp this lens is! As one example, at 24mm zoom, I compared it to my 24mm f/1.4L II. At every f-stop I tested (f/4 to f/16), it actually outperformed my 24mm 'L' as far as corner sharpness and equalled it in the centre, even when looking at micro-contrast detail. Un-freakin-believable! Yes, the 24mm 'L' is a much faster lens, being f/1.4 while the zoom only manages f/4 wide-open at 24mm, so I am certainly not selling my 24mm, but I am astounded at how sharp this new kit zoom actually is. In addition, the new 15-85mm is extremely well behaved as far as lens flare. Yes, it does have some distortion (you might not want to use it for architecture) and some chromatic aberration at certain focal lengths, but nothing that is worse than any of Canon's 'L' series wide angle zooms either.
Having an image stabilizer on a wide angle zoom is pretty cool too, since one can effectively hand-hold very slow shutter speeds. I was consistently getting sharp results hand-holding 1/4-1/8 second exposures, and with a few tries, was also getting decently sharp 1/2 second exposures when shooting after dark on Granville Island recently!
The construction quality of the new 15-85mm is very good as well, with a solid feeling zoom mechanism and no wobble of the lens tube at all. Not 'L' grade quality of course, and so it is not weather sealed either, but as good as any other of the best EF-S zooms. The one weak spot might be its awkward manual focus ring, which is narrow and located very close to the lens mount, making it a bit difficult to use.
So yes... I did end up getting one for myself as well. I suppose I should have waited and bought the kit! Could have saved a couple of hundred that way, but oh well, at least I did not buy it blind and knew I was spending my money on a great lens! As mentioned in my 7D article, I am now selling my 35mm f/2 since this new zoom outperforms it handily. Compared to my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at the overlapping focal lengths, I would say that the Tokina still outperforms it ever so slightly, but not by much. However 11mm is much wider than 15mm, so that Tokina will remain in my kit for the foreseeable future, that's for sure.
As I hinted in the article, my gut feeling is that overall, this new 15-85mm will outperform, on the EOS-7D, any other wide-angle zoom from Canon, including the 10-22mm, the 17-40mm, the 16-35mm and even the highly-regarded EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8. At the overlapping focal lengths, and at slower f-stops than some of those of course. On a lower resolution APS-C body, you might not notice its brilliance quite as much and obviously it is not a full-frame lens (too bad!), so any comparisons on a 5D Mark II are moot.
Any bad points? Well for a $999 lens, it would be darn nice if Canon included a lens hood with it, but no... it's a $60 option! But then, only Canon's 'L' lenses ever come with hoods, so this is not really surprising. If you don't believe how good this lens is, and I wouldn't blame you for being skeptical, then rent one out to try it first! As mentioned, we currently have 7D kits in stock that include this lens, and also have these lenses available for purchase separately.
Mike Mander
Beau Photo Supplies
November 2009