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Canon 7D Test Drive
18 Megapixels
APS-C CMOS 1.6x

Disclaimer:
The following review is not suppose to be some kind of a professional review. If you are looking for such reviews you will not find it in my homepage. I just plan to write a simple review with my thoughts to assist my friends with the camera they want to buy since most of the time the guy at the electronics department doesn't know much about the camera apart from the price of it by scanning the barcode. If you found my website from the internet then good for you! The reviews are just my thoughts and I am happy to share with anyone. It is possible I will make the occasional mistakes and if I do please let me know about it!

 



Introduction

My third day with the Canon EOS 7D. But before I go on I want to say I'm working on the speed issue. I should get an upgrade in terms of bandwidth later this week and it should be less of a problem. Pls support my website by ordering your Christmas presents or books for school or whatever through the links of my sponsors from my website so that I could continue to host this website for free =) Ok...I was off topic a bit there and now back to the topic! I want to as if you have heard about DLA (Diffraction limited Aperture? I read on a website where it says you will not get the added benefits of using a smaller aperture due to the smaller pixels on a high density image sensor. It sounds ridiculous to me since back in the days of film I never heard of anything like this.  I am sure most people including myself do not have a full understanding of DLA but pretty much it means with the 50D your photos will degrade at f/8 with a 15mp sensor and with the 7D your photos will degrade at f/7.1 or so…I thought you get more Depth of Field and result with sharper images with a smaller aperture? This article really scared me and I was reluctant to use any aperture value smaller than f/7.1 when I had my 50D. I also head more megapixels meant more noise. I went ahead and tested my old cameras and see if it is true since I must have been so stupid to upgrade when im paying more for less IQ. All I found was that there is more detail with more mp and from my previous tests (day1 and day2) it proved that more mp does not necessary mean more noise at higher ISO.


My samples today are mainly places or things that has both highlights and shadow contrast to see how the 7D performs. I used ISO settings in the mid range which most of us would be using for everyday shots and used aperture values way smaller than what the DLA table told us not to do.

Day 3: Old Hong Kong. DLA of the 18MP CMOS

ISO 800
1/500s
f/4.5
18mm

 

I used the Canon EF-s 17-55mm f/2.8 lens for all the photos in this series. I think this is the best walk around lens for the 7D. It has IS, it is sharp, and you have your big f/2.8 if you really need to use it. I took a photo of a local convenient store (we have 7 Eleven too!) to show how the camera performs when there are so many different colors and shadows from the fruits. I asked the owner of the store if its ok to take a photo of her fruits since I think it looks nice (obviously I bought something to drink before I asked). She gave me this wierd look and said "NO PHOTOS!". She then asked where do you come from? I think she meant who do I work for so I said "From America". She then eased out and said "For America OK!" It was a good thing she did not show me the fruit knife...i was just trying to take a photo of her fruits =P

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISO 640
1/30s
f/22
17mm

 This is a photo of the New S600 Mercedes... Just kidding...I wanted to take a photo of the scaffolds (or tubes) on the building. In Hong Kong we do not use steel. Instead we use bamboo for scaffolding (I know...looks kind of sketch but it works...). I set the aperture to its smallest setting since there are strong blown highlights in this photo. Do you see DLA affecting the image quality?

ISO 320
1/80s
f/14
23mm

 Nothing much to say about this photo. Just a back alley that I walked by. Reminds me of Rush Hour 2 with Jacky Chan in Chinatown. Again there are blown highlights along with a photo with many dark shades. If you look closely it's looking at the dynamic range of the 7D in another dimenstion.

ISO 250
1/250s
f/7.1
28mm

 This is a photo of local fishing boats in Hong Kong. I took this photo with an aperture setting of f/7.1 and this is supposedly the optimum setting for IQ in terms of DLA. Looks good from a technical/physical standpoint?

ISO 3200
1/6s
f/22
17mm

 

This photo was a real challenge to the Camera and the Lens. I tried to but cannot avoid lens flare for this photo. I did not bring my lens hood along and It always helps to have a lens hood for these cases. I wanted to show eveyone a photo of Hong Kong and the beautiful street advertisement lights. We don't have Las Vegas but we have just as many lights on Nathan Road of Hong Kong =P To prevent the neon lights from over glowing I set the aperture as small as possible. Again...is DLA affecting this photo to the degree you would say DLA lead to this poor photo (i dont think its poor at all)?

Well, Andrew I thought you said there was a challenge to the camera? Haha..yes there was. it was actually drizzling and I really had to believe 7D sealing which is the same as the EOS-1n ia really that good. I didn't have an umbrella but I need the photo...what could I possibly do otherwise?

I hope you enjoyed the Photos. I personally think as a photographer we should focus on taking the photos rather than technical details such as DLA since this theory is way too complicated for most photographers to understand. In my sample photos there are many occasions we have to use smaller apertures that are way smaller than what the DLA chart/tables suggest. If we stick to the DLA table we would have to miss out on a lot of gd photos! I suggest we leave DLA and noise control to R&D at Canon and let them deal with the problem and let them defy the laws of physics (for us) with their gapless microlens image sensors. LOL

I hope you enjoyed the photos...If you decide to buy the Canon EOS 7D or its accessories you can get it them at B&H or Amazon by clicking on the links. It shows your support for my website so that I can keep adding to this site!

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