First Impression of the Canon 7D

Last year in November I bought a Canon 7D. The 7D fullfilled nearly all my expectations to a camera for wildlife photographers. It has a fast frame rate, a newly improved AF, enough MP, lightweight, Live View and Video.
Unfortunately I didn't had time to test my 7D for wildlife photography yet. So last week I went for a week to Belgium to give it a try with the short-eared Owls. Last year I shot hundreds of images with my Canon 1DIIn the Sigma 500/4.5 EX HSM and the 1.4x or 1.7x konverter. I was curious to see if the 7D could hold up to my beloved 1DIIn.

So here are my first impressions.

Resolution and Noise

The one point I was most curious about was, if the Sigma 500/4.5 EX HSM (with konverters) could deliver enough resolution for the 18MP of the 7D.
After my first day of shooting Herons and Grey Partridge and viewing the results I was definitely relieved to see that I shouldn't have to worry:

Here is an image I shoot at ISO 5000 and a 100% Crop (click on the image to see the full version)



100% Crop

Canon 7D - Sigma 500/4.5 EX HSM + Kenko 1.4x TC - f8 - 1/1000s - ISO5000 - Window Mount

I was quite impressed by the resolution at ISO5000. If I see some of my images which I shoot at ISO1600 with my 1DIIn than the 7D is a good step forwards.

I also made some images ath different ISO settings and put the 100% Crops togehter into 1 image:

The images were processed with Aperture 3 and no Noise Reduction was applied.

AF Performance:

Light conditions were not the best during the week I was in Belgium. It was grey the whole day with no sun. So it was a difficult situation for the AF and a good one to test the AF performance under difficult light situations for me.
With the modified Kenko 1.4x konverter the AF worked very good. Just as I was used to with my 1DIIn. In One Shot Mode the AF locked quickly on my subject. I also tried the Soligor 1.7x Konverter, which used quite often with my 1DIIn. Under this light conditions the 7D had quite some problems to lock focus on the subject and AF was not really a pleasure to use. I will have to test the 1.7x konverter with sunlight to see if performs better then, but under grey conditions it didn't work well for me.
I am very happy with the Kenko 1.4x Konverter and the AF performance in One Shot Mode. I didn't really get a chance to make test in AIServo Mode. I hope that I will get some chances in the near future.

Here are some more images from that week:






I hope that I will be able to shoot some wildlife images with my 7D in the next months.

Sebastian

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Short-eared Owls

Short-eared Owls in Belgium

I have spent the last months a few days at the belgian coast to photograph Short-eared Owls (asio flammeus) there. It was my secon encounter , after one short fly-over of a Short-eared owl I witnessed in the north of the Netherlands.
At my first visit to this area in December I was not only lucky enough to see a Snowy Owl, quite a rare visitor to Belgium, but also saw 5 different Short-eared Owls at one spot in action. In the late afternoon this birds start to get active and fly over the polders in this area looking for prey. It is really a fascinating view to see this beautiful birds flying over the fields and then abruptly changing direction to catch their prey, mainly mice, on the ground.

The images above were taken on my first visit of the short eared owls to Belgium in December 2008.

Then in January I went to Belgium, as it is quite close to my grandparents, a couple more times and a great time with these birds. I haven't made the image(s) I wanted to take of this birs, but it will definetly not be the last time that I will go to Belgium and I hope that the short eared owls will stay at this place for a while.

Short eared Owl - asio flammeus - Sumpfohreule - Velduil

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