Canon 7D

The Canon 7D camera

Canon: Battery Life

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 17. February 2012 - 6:21

Canon created the LP-E6 battery for the Canon 5DMk2. It's an expensive battery, $100+ in Canada. Canon said that it's expensive because it has its own CPU. Many people have speculated that it's a strategy to “kill” the “generic” batteries. Actually it's not just the CPU but also the significant higher capacity. The benefit of the LP-E6 is the much longer battery life. In the “good old” days, it was very common for a battery to last between 300 to 500 photos.

Canon claims that the LP-E6 last approximately 1,000 photos at 23°C/73°F without the popup flash and 900 photos with a 50% popup flash use.

Here's a poor photo of the battery info on my Canon 7D. It had to be, I was in the field, and I had to use somebody's else point and shoot. My other camera had a long tele without any close focus. But it's good enough to see the battery status:

Canon: Camera Error Codes

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. February 2012 - 6:10

Before we go into the error codes with the Canon Cameras, you need to realize that all the new digital cameras from the cheapest point and shoot to the most expensive Hasselblad are not cameras but computers with a lens at the front, a screen at the back and various buttons instead of a keyboard. They all have a CPU, a screen, memory and a drive (usually some flash) to store the photos.

Canon like most camera manufacturers have not been very helpful in figuring out what are the problems with the cameras. Here's the list of what I figured out:

Canon 7D: My Basic Setups

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 19. December 2011 - 6:00

Recently, I was asked as to what was my everyday use setup for the Canon 7D. I have 5 stored settings. Yes, I know that there's only C1/C2/C3 but I can set the A mode and the M mode and the Canon 7D remember these settings.

I do mostly indoor landscapes and indoor & outdoor portraits, be it people or animals.

  1. I have removed the focus from the shutter. I always use the AF-ON back button or the focus will change every time that I press the shutter. See: Canon 7D and the AF-ON Button

Canon: MicroAdjustment Not Working

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 5. December 2011 - 6:46

I received an email from Tatyana. Here's the key extract for her email.

I've tried to follow your instructions for the Micro-Adjustment. I can't get it to work, I still have some front-focusing…

BTW, I expected Tatyana to be either from Russia or Central Europe but she is from the Netherlands.

My instructions are at: C.Fn III -5 - AF Microadjustment. The Micro-Adjustment is controlled by the C.Fn III-5 - AF Microadjustment. After an exchange of a couple of emails, I found that instead of focusing and taking the photo through the viewfinder. She tried to make the procedure much faster by using the Live View.

Canon 7D: C.Fn III -5 - AF Microadjustment

Canon 7D: C.Fn III -5 - AF Microadjustment

183 Megapixels Photo

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. December 2011 - 6:44

This is a humongous, ginormous, image: 183 megapixels. As you can see from the Lightroom screen capture, it is: 37,717 pixels wide by 5,110 pixels high, that's 192,733,870 pixels.

I did this image on a Canon 7D. It's a composite of 42 photos. It was part of a serie of photos that range from 35 megapixels to this one at 183 megapixels.

183 Megapixels photoThis is a humongous, ginormous, image: 183 megapixels. As you can see from the Lightroom screen capture, it is: 37,717 pixels wide by 5,110 pixels high, that's 192,733,870 pixels.I did this image on a Canon 7D. It's a composite of 42 photos. I'm not that interested in a Nikon D800, a D900, a D4, or a whatever the name will be and their rumored 36 megapixels sensor. Where are the lenses for such a sensor? At 18 megapixels per photo, it took me 2½ hours to compile the image on an iCore 7 8Gb RAM. I have so much detail that I can read the labels in the background.I can't put it on my website, I tried and it brought the web server to a crawl. I can't upload it to Smugmug. It's too big. Luckily this image is for printing. I haven't yet discussed it with the printer. I'll do that on Friday.I was able to import it in Lightroom but now Lightroom is extremely slow. The raw image is 1.6 gigabytes, that's a lot of disk IO for the preview. Looks like after the printing, I will have to delete the image from the catalog and recreate it as a JPEG with a 40% to 50% quality to make it manageable.

Canon: Pressing the Shutter and Evaluative Metering

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 29. November 2011 - 6:29

Everybody knows, by now, that there are two steps to the shutter button:

  1. Pressing the shutter half-way activates the auto-focus, if the focus is still associated to the shutter button, and sets the automatic exposure combination in Av, Tv, or P mode.
  2. Pressing completely the shutter takes the photo.

What most people do not realize is that when you are in Evaluative Metering and Single Shot AF mode, pressing the shutter half way locks the exposure for 4 seconds.

Canon's Image Stabilization In Action

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. November 2011 - 7:56

Canon optical image stabilization in action

Canon Optical Image Stabilization In Action

This photo has zero, no processing, this is a straight screen capture. You can see Canon's optical image stabilization in action. As you can see from the box, both photos were taken at 1/50sec on a 70-200L f/4 IS at 187mm.

2011 Resetting The Clock to Standard Time

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. November 2011 - 14:33

Today is Sunday 6-Nov-2011. In Canada and the US, the first weekend after Halloween is when we go back to the “standard time.” All my computers, cell phones and telephones changed the time by themselves. My home appliances and my car do not reset the time by themselves, I had to change them manually.

But this blog is not about cars or phones… This blog is about photography. There's no camera, that I know of, that changes the clock back and forth automatically for the daylight saving time and the standard time.

Why is it important to have the clock properly set on your camera?

Canon: Inconsistent Exposure, Why?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 31. October 2011 - 6:34

These 2 photos are 2 photos of flying Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill Cranes are big and heavy birds. They fly slowly. I took these 2 photos less than ½ sec apart. Take a look at the skies. Zero processing, just the defaults applied. So it should be the same. Noooo. Why? Because of the “big because”

These 2 photos are 2 photos of flying Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill Cranes are big and heavy birds. They fly slowly. I took these 2 photos less than ½ sec apart. Take a look at the skies. Zero processing, just the defaults applied. So it should be the same. Noooo. Why? Because of the

Canon 7D: AEB, The Auto Exposure Bracketing

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 21. September 2011 - 17:06

With the AEB, Auto Exposure Bracketing, you can take automatically three or more photos with a different exposure for each photo. The Auto Exposure Bracketing is most often used for HDR.

AEB was not designed for HDR but to get the “right” exposure.

Canon 7D: Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 16. September 2011 - 5:16

There are 2 types of lenses (very simplified):

  1. Lenses for full frame cameras
  2. Lenses for APS-C cameras

The 7D has a setting to correct the light fall off at the corners with the Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction.

How to Make the Auto Lighting Optimizer Work

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 14. September 2011 - 16:54

I was “playing” around, and decided to try the Auto Lighting Optimizer on my Canon 7D. Guess what? Nothing!

Was it a problem with the camera or a problem with the operator? Turned out that the problem was that I didn't RTFM[^1], meaning that the the problem was with the operator.

On page 75 of the manual, Canon mentions that the Auto Lighting Optimizer works only with JPEGs. The Auto Lighting Optimizer doesn't do anything in RAW. In RAW, the Auto Lighting Optimizer only adds a flag that the processing software must interpret and process accordingly.

Canon 7D: Secret of the Zone AF Focus

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 7. September 2011 - 6:01

The Zone AF is a “mini” version of the Automatic AF Point Selection, the default AF mode. It works in the same way as the Automatic AF point selection except that it restricts the AF points to a small cluster (zone) that is selected.

Within this zone, the system will focus on the closest subject with adequate details, even if you're in Servo AF Mode.

You can select from one of five zones: the nine-point cluster in the center of the viewfinder or one of the a four-point triangular cluster to the left, right, above, or below the center zone.

Canon 7D: Changing the Focus Mode

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 5. September 2011 - 7:15

One of my favorite feature of the Canon 7D is the orientation linked AF points. This means that the default AF points are selected depending on the orientation of the camera.

My base setup is the Zone AF. Horizontally (landscape mode) I use the center zone. Vertically (portrait mode), the 7D changes to the top zone (for the face.)

The problem is that now I have to be careful when I use the Quick Screen and the AF focus selection mode. To change the AF focus selection mode:

  1. Hold the camera horizontally, with the lens pointed forward

Canon 7D: Camera User Setting C1 C2 C3

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. August 2011 - 5:31

The Canon 7D has the capability of storing all of your settings into one shortcut, the C1, the C2 or the C3. It will store all of the settings from the Q, the Quick Control Screen, the menus, the custom functions…

  1. Set all of your settings to exactly like you want
  2. Menu → 3rd yellow config tab → Camera user setting → Register → and select the mode dial C1, C2 or C3.
  • It's an all or nothing system. You cannot edit or change just one item of the user setting.
  • Saving the settings wipes the previous setting and writes the new one.

Camera User Setting Bug

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