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The 7D. . . WHAT A CAMERA!
I’ve been playing with my new 7D for about a month now, but last weekend our film group shot our first actual film with it. We were shooting in a dirty, dark warehouse with a couple of lights, smoke machine, the 18-55 2.8 lens and an experienced crew. We are all astonished at the performance of this camera. Stunning sharpness, excellent contrast response, nearly no noise even at 800-1000 iso and generally a pleasure to use. We turned it off between shoots, so we only needed two batteries for a 6 hour session and nearly filled a 16G card. I would strongly suggest at least 3 batteries and two chargers.
Just wanted to tell someone who knows what we’re talking about what a great time we had. Good job Canon… but make your new 422 codec a firmware upgrade to the 7d, aina?
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12 Replies
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Hey, I have a 5D Mark II on approval. Is the 7D as good as or better than, the Mark II? What about lenses? Are the 7D lenses cheaper than Mark II? Case in point, I have a 70-200 2.8 I am testing. As I recall it costs 2500 or so. It’s a monster. I would appreciate any comments on difference between the cams. The Mark II body is around 1000 or so diff in price. I dont mind paying the diff, but if the 7D uses cheaper lenses (The Mark II uses “L” lenses which tend to be expensorama..), and if total expense for 7D is say 1/2 the Mark II, then…
I am interested in still photography and good functional video. I just don’t want to be a pioneer with an arrow in my back. 🙂 kThanks in advance for any help or opin-onions. -
I agree I like the 7D footage and the ability to use some of my old Nikkor lenses.
I use Neoscene to transcode my 7D files which produces a 4.2.2 avi file but a firmware upgrade to 4.2.2 would be great. Perhaps the next generation Canon DSLR’s will have their new Mpeg-2 codec.
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I’ve been a DV and HDV guy for quite a while and recently started using Premier Pro after moving away from dps Velocity NLEs.
My friend just got the 7D. He’s new to video. We shot some 1080,30p test footage and I brought it into my Sager notebook. It has 3 SSD’s in a Raid 0 config with the Matrox Mini02 breakout box, CompressHD technology and Premier Matrox sequences with Matrox I-frame Mpeg codecs.
The MOV file dropped onto the timeline played jerky and the video was about 5 seconds out of sync. When I paused the payback, the system would not stop until it got to the end of the clip and then the CTI jumped to the end of the sequence. The MOV plays smooth in the QT player.
I figure it had something to do with the captured video spec. I did not set it up and I don’t quite know the nuances & options of the 7D’s video capture….yet. I want to learn more. The quality of the video through decent lenses is NOTHING like I’ve experienced in the prosumer DV world.
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John,
I’d do a little research into lens systems – AFAIK you’re not locked in to the L series, but you are locked in to Canon compatible lenses, which is not a bad thing at all. Look up lens rental and you’ll find a plethora of options.
L series lenses tend to be faster an better constructed. For pro work in the field, they’re a great investment. For the occasional shoot, well, depends on budget.
re: The question is one better than another, well – it really depends on what you’re using it for. Right now the 7D provides greater options for video (which *may* change as firmware updates come to the 5D), but remember that these are primarily still cameras, and the 5D is considered by most a fuller- featured still cam (snsor, MP, etc).
Cheers,
StaceApple Certified Trainer
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Hi Buck,
This issue has been addressed in several of the NLE forums on the COW, but since this is a new forum…
The 7D, 5D, T1i and just about every other DSLR shooting video captures to a compressed QuickTime format, which is great for acquisition but terrible for editing.
The cure is to convert to an uncompressed format (using Compressor, etc) prior to editing, and you’re ready to go. If you want greater details as to why, there are plenty of posts on the COW that can help you out.
My preferred flavor for editing is ProRes 422, but I’m sure there are many Avid and Adobe folks on here that can add suggestions for those platforms.
Cheers,
StaceApple Certified Trainer
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[Norman Pogson] “I agree I like the 7D footage and the ability to use some of my old Nikkor lenses.”
Whoa! You can use old Nikkors on the 7D? Tell me more…
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
I have had the 7D for a few weeks and just shot some footage in the cockpit of an light aircraft. If you have been in aircraft cockpits lighting is crazy and changes constantly. I was shooting 30fps on full auto with a Tamton 2.8 17-35 lens and the video was spectacular. I rendered it in Compressor pro res 422 (FCP Studio 7.0)which did a quick job and dropped in the FCP timeline and the footage played flawlessly. I have also shoot video with 5D MKII and really haven’t seen any difference even in low light. For a thousand dollars it is a lot of camera for the $$$$$.
mike
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Hi Jason,
Yes you can use Olympus, Nikon etc lenses on your Canon 7D or 5DMKll with the help of a $10 adapter from Ebay just search for Nikon to EOS lens adapter. I got one and works great, you will need lenses with an aperture ring and of course everything then is manual focus and exposure.
I blog on the Canon 7D for film making.
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Hi Buck,
The 7D codec is mpeg4 h.264 quicktime and is highly compressed and won’t play smoothly on most computers. I use Neoscene to convert my camera footage to a .avi file and that edits and plays without any problems.
If you want to test the footage quickly, connect the 7D to a TV with the supplied cord, I use a 42″ plasma and see the raw footage no problem.
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