FIRST OUTING WITH CANON 7D MARK 2

Date: 30 & 31 March 2019
Location: Frasers Hill
Mission: To test 7D2 performance

In my latest Page: My Gear Part 1 - Camera Bodies posted yesterday, i talked about the various Canon bodies i have used since 2010 up to the latest one i bought and received on 25 March 2019, the Canon 7D Mark 2. I have promised to go for an outing just to test this new body in the field and see how the AF performs in tracking and locking on birds, the ISO performance and noise issue in various lighting conditions. I just want to make a point that a 4 years old body can still be relevant for birds and wildlife photography despite not having the latest features compared to the latest offering by Canon or competitors.

My point is how you use the features in a body to maximize the performance in the field to produce good enough images for the intended purpose. I do not really need 4K features as i do not shoot 4K videos, or extract images from 4K videos. Most of my images are not meant for big prints, they are meant for my blogs which most of the time were scaled down to 1920 x 1080 pixels HD quality which is good enough for monitor viewing. For Wi-fi feature my 7D2 was shipped with a wi-fi card which i can use when the shooting is done at the end of the day.

So with that said, i drove to my favorite Frasers Hill last Saturday (30 March) to test how 7D2 performs compared to my 80D and 5D3. The immediate difference i felt was how much lighter my set up of 7D2 + 70-300mm f4 - 5.6 L lens, and 400mm f5.6 + 1.4x extender was compared to the same combination with 5D3. It was however heavier than the same combination on 80D of course, since the 80D body is made of polycarbonate resin on aluminium chasis while 7D2 was made of magnesium alloy like the 5D3.

AF PERFORMANCE:

I shot some plants and flowers for starters around 1.00p.m in bright sunlight just to see how the AF tracks and locks on the subject which is constantly blown by wind. In this condition i find that using the center AF with 4 helper points locked better on the subject than the center point with 9 helper points. I set the AF locking shutter priority to locked on for 1st and 2nd images instead of release, because there is no point in quick release and get tens of shots in a few second burst but missed the focus on the subjects. It might slowdown the burst rate of 10 frames per second as the camera is always trying to keep track and ensure focus during the burst shots. The 7D2 allows you to change how many shots you want in low continuos shot mode, i put mine to 4 shots per second.

7D2 AF did well on this flower under windy condition. This one is shot at ISO2500, f6.3 and 1/1600 sec.

7D2 focus and sharpness is way better than 80D. This one is shot at ISO3200, f6.3, 1/1600 sec

This one is shot at ISO3200, f6.3, 1/1600 sec

SHARPNESS & NOISE:

I find the 7D2 images shooting under the same lighting conditions to be much sharper than the 80D images when zoomed in. I think it is due to the different sensor design and pixel pitch of the 7D2 which is bigger than the 80D. Bigger pixel gather more light and should be less noise. The images of the 7D2 are not soft and usable even at ISO 3200. It picks details of the birds feathers quite nicely.  These images were lightly edited in Lightroom for brightness and noise reduction. I find the 7D2 starts to show noise above ISO1000 but the images are still usable up to ISO3200 with a bit of editing. If you are lazy on post-editing, you can adjust the picture mode you use in the camera on sharpness, contrast, saturation and color temperature. You can also use noise reduction filter from low, standard to high on all your images shots on high ISO.

This Chestnut-capped laughingthrush was shot at ISO1000, f5.6, 1/2000 sec under shade of a tree

This Rufescent Prinia was shot at ISO1000, f5.6, 1/1250 sec

This was shot at ISO2000, f5.6, 1/1250 sec

FOCUS IN LOW LIGHT

The 7D2 had no problems focusing on a subject in a very low lighting condition deep in the woods or almost sunset. It locked on the subject quite fast even when the subject coloratura is very dark like the bird in the photo below.

Original image converted from RAW in Lightroom. This was shot at almost sunset at the edge of the forest using ISO3200, f5.6, 1/400 sec.. The 7D2 had no problem locking focus on the subject and burst away a few shots

The same image recovered in the Lightroom by adjusting exposure and noise reduction.
I think this bird is a White-tailed Robin

This image was also recovered from a very dark original RAW file shot at ISO3200, f5.6, 1/400 sec above. It shows very good focus ability of 7D2 in the dark

This Rufous-browed Flycatcher was shot deep in the woods with heavy canopy
at ISO 4000, f5.6, 1/250 sec. The image has been edited to reduce noise as the
image at ISO 4000 had a lot of noise. However, the 7D2 did a good job of acquiring
focus in low lighting condition.

I feel the outing is too short to test all the 7D2 features. All of the shots i took were handheld without a tripod or monopod. The lens were not yet adjusted for AF micro adjustment on 7D2 as I did not have the time to do so. I think i  should go for another outing to test the 7D2 using a tripod or monopod, AF micro adjusted lens, and using flash in low light conditions to see how it performs. Maybe i should do it this weekend. I will post more images in my next post. In a nutshell, the 7D2 felt good in my hands and a joy to use, definitely better than the 80D that I have. Image quality wise it is more noisy than my full frame 5D3, but the AF performance and burst rate are better. It is lighter than 5D3 and I did not feel the same tiredness after using it the whole day.

Thanks for reading. Until then, happy birding.