The EOS 7D is breaks new ground in terms of high ISO image quality. Its noticeably ahead of the EOS 50D. The grain on the images from the 7D are much more even with none of that streaking and blotching found on the EOS 50D. Next the 8fps shooting speed puts the camera squarely in the professional sports camera league.
Of course professional frame rates are useless without an equally good AF system. And the Canon EOS 7D does not dissapoint here. At first I was a bit wary of new AF system as I noticed that AF coverage across the frame had not actually increased. I would have much preferred an additional 4 AF points at each of the four courners, just to round out the "semi-diamond" layout. But I guess that would have been too much to ask. After having tested it for some weeks now, I'll say that the current layout and spread is adequate. I wouldn't go into the new iFCL / 64 segment metering system, AF tracking speed control, Focus Shooting Priority, AF zone selection, AF points expansion, AF points display, VF grid display, AF points tracking display, and automatic change of AF points given orientation change- all of which contribute to getting in-focused shots while the action is taking place at high speed. You can read all about that in official Canon literature. How the camera performs in actual use is the most important of all.
See full pixel crops of BIF (Bird in Flight) photo sequence below:
You'll notice that the camera's AF system was not easily fooled by items that came between the lens and the subject being tracked. I had the burst mode set on Focus Priority. Meaning that the camera only fired when the AF had acquired focus. The trick is to let the AF system lock on before letting loose the 8fps shutter.
And speaking of burst shooting, I found the buffer of the Canon EOS 7D to be more than adequate when covering the short flight of these birds across the wetlands. Of course, you'll need to use a high speed CF card. I was using the Sandisk 32GB Extreme III CF card, not the fastest CF card money can buy, but pretty fast enough.
The Canon EOS 7D is definitely worth the upgrade. Readers will note that I haven't even touched on the high definition video capability of the camera yet. That's because I'm currently teaching myself how to cut video. I'll have more on that in a future blog post. For now, I'm going out to take more pictures and record more of that gorgeous 1080p full HD video using my collection of Canon EF mount inter-changable lenses.
Update (8th Dec '09)
It seems the weather sealing on the Canon EOS 7D is also pretty impressive. Here a Canon shooter takes his own Canon EOS 7D out to Antarctica for 3 1/2 weeks and shoots during snow storms and while lying down on wet ice. Altogether an excellent performance for the new camera. I'm glad to be using one now. This now gives me a lot of confidence in its all weather capabilities.
