No, but it's so good that one starts to contemplate this question, which was never the case before the 7D was introduced. Both systems, crop and full frame, have their pros and cons and place in photography. But before I get into that let me say I have not been as excited about a camera since the introduction of the 5D MK I four years ago. That's because the 7D raises the crop camera bar to the point where crop users will not feel at a disadvantage to full frame camera users, especially if coupled with awesome ef-s lenses such as the 17-55 f2.8.
How so? The 7D sets a new standard in four major ways.
1. It produces whopping 18MP pictures, which are just 3MP shy of the current top of the line full frame Canon cameras. Just few years ago most pros were producing stellar results using the 1Ds MKII 16MP camera. Now you have more MPs in a crop sensor, that's a major achievement. This achievement translates into bigger prints and, perhaps more importantly, cropping power. Out shooting wildlife with a 300mm instead of 400mm? You can crop the 7D files down to 50% of their original file size and still obtain sharp pictures. It's just not that easy with the 1D MK III 10MP files.
2. Many worried that extra MPs in small crop sensors would translate into nosier pictures, but the amazing thing is that this camera produces images with what seems to be less noise than the 1Ds MKII. The noise level is very good. At ISO 1600 I still prefer pictures coming from my 5D MKII, but below ISO1600 they are very close. Frankly, I can go with either camera because most of my professionally shot portraits and product pictures are shot at ISO100. At ISO100 both produce very clean files and are practically indistinguishable.
3. Focus is the one area that was lacking on the previous 1.6 crop Canon cameras and this camera changes that. It's not a 1D in focus speed and accuracy, but it's the next best thing compared to them. It's faster than the Canon 5D MKII, which is known to be slightly faster or around the focus performance range of the 50D and 40D.
4. The drive chain is fast, so fast it's beyond anything I needed in my professional work in portrait, commercial, and product photography. Going through pictures taken at 8fps produces very little difference from frame to frame. One probably has to shoot a very fast moving subject/object to see the advantage of such fast drive system.
There are obviously many other things that I have not covered in this review. But based on the above, all I can say is that this camera has really raised the bar for all cameras and made it much more affordable to obtain a professional level camera for all types of photography. If you were considering buying the 5D MKII as an upgrade give this camera a test because it might be all you need.
As for the advantages of crop cameras I always find it odd that casual users who shoot many things but focus on landscape think they need a full frame to realize their potential. Crop cameras such as the 7D and 50D are fine for most users and offer many advantages including:
1. greater depth of field at lower aperture for landscape photography
2. greater tilt and shift effect because of sensor size relative to effect (8mm in shift is greater in effect relative to a 22mm sensor compared to a 35mm sensor)
3. greater magnification with micro lenses and extension tubes because of smaller sensor (1:1 in full frame equals 35mm, 1:1 in crop equals 22mm)
4. smaller lighter lenses with wider aperture that achieve greater reach (such as the 17-55 2.8 vs the 24-70 2.8 similar reach but much lighter and smaller)
Traditionally the three areas full frame cameras outshine crop cameras are a bigger brighter viewfinder, shallower depth of field for portrait photography, and better ISO performance, which on the last point the 7D has proven not be an issue anymore.
And for the second point really, most beautiful low depth of field portraits are done around f2.8-2.0 in full frame (going wider will make depth of field too narrow to place two eyes in focus). Hence, if one is using a wide prime, a crop sensor will produce the same depth of field at 2.0-1.4. Considering an affordable 50mm f1.4 lens on crop has the same field of view as 85mm lens on full frame there is really no reason to discount a crop camera any more as the 7D levels the playing field. Canon EOS 7D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-inch LCD (Body Only)
The Canon EOS 7D is Canon's new semi-pro / enthusiast digital SLR and competes primarily with Nikon's recently updated D300s. It's a terrific SLR that shines in photo quality, control placement, speed, and viewfinder size and coverage.
First, let me tell you a little about myself so you can gauge what my expectations for the camera are. I'm strictly a hobbyist photographer and use my camera a couple of times a month at museums, outdoor parks, and vacations. Besides photos of my dog, my photography consists primarily of static subjects. This is my second SLR.
Enough of me, onto the camera. The 7D is a fairly bulky SLR and dwarfs "entry level" models such as the Olympus E-510 (see my photos), though it's no bigger than Nikon's D300s. With that said, it's not uncomfortably large and is easy enough to carry around all day. Build quality is terrific and the camera has a solid, luxury feel to it. The 7D fits very well into my average sized hands and, with the kit 28-135 lens, is nicely balanced. All the buttons are easy to reach and, if you've used a Canon camera before, easy to figure out. The magnesium body is sealed against moisture and dust. The shutter button is well placed and has a nicely defined halfway point. A control dial is on the back of the camera and behind the shutter button too. There is also a joystick-like toggle on the back of the camera as well.
A large (3") and high-resolution (920,000 pixel) screen is on the camera back with a secondary status LCD display on the top (with backlight). The screen is a pleasure to use when reviewing images for focus, and when manually focusing in magnified live view mode. Compared to the 3-inch 420,000-pixel screen on my Panasonic LX3 it's a definite upgrade, and makes a noticeable difference.
The viewfinder is huge and bright and has 100% coverage. Coming from the Olympus, which has a very cramped and tunnel-like viewfinder, it was a revelation, and was one of the reasons I decided to step up to the 7D. Also, by using a transmissive LCD on the viewfinder the only markings you see until you confirm focus are for the selected focus method (for instance, a single box when using one focus point, or brackets when using the auto select autofocus method). Moreover, a composition grid can be imposed on the viewfinder. The information display on the bottom of the viewfinder is large and bright and contains lots of shooting and camera information.
The camera is very responsive and turns on almost instantly. The sensor cleaning occurs when you turn the camera on or off but can be interrupted during power up. Focus speeds with the kit lens are very speedy, even in dim light (two 40 watt lamps and a television as the only light sources in a 17' x 11' room). The 19-point all cross type autofocus is uncanny at picking the correct subject. If it doesn't get it right the first time it will the second. I usually set all my cameras to center point autofocus, but the 7D does a great job picking out the subject, so I leave it on fully automatic mode. Live view focusing is not a quick, especially in low light, and I only use live view when I need to shoot at a weird angle and I can't shoot looking through the viewfinder. Live view can be used with a mirror flip or contrast detection. The contrast detection mode is fairly pokey, while the mirror flip mode is quicker, but introduces a brief break in the view. Continuous shooting is available in both a high and a low setting. High is 8 FPS, while the low speed is 3 FPS. The shutter sound is nicely subdued and not nearly as noisy as the Olympus' is.
Photo quality is terrific. There are various Picture Styles you can choose to alter the contrast, sharpness, color tone, and saturation of the photos. At any rate, 99% of the time, colors are natural, exposure is accurate, and dynamic range is great. At this level of camera, that's expected though. What I really love about the 7D is the high ISO noise, or lack thereof. The luxury of feeling confident while shooting at high ISO is priceless. I've taken a good number of shots as high as ISO 3200 and have no complaints. Of course there is a bit of noise, and the mushiness that noise reduction brings, but for an 18 MP image at ISO 3200, I have no complaints. The ISO speeds above 3200 are OK as well, but I'll reserve those for emergency use only, they get fairly processed looking. The relatively large APS-C sensor not only allows for low noise, but also allows me to produce nicely blurred backgrounds and great depth of field. I couldn't achieve the same degree of that effect with the smaller 4/3 sensor in the Olympus, and I certainly couldn't do it with my point and shoot cameras unless I was in macro mode. There is an Auto Lighting Optimizer feature that attempts to correct photos that are not correctly exposed (e.g. subjects are too dark or highlights are lost). It works well for the most part, but, depending on the subject, the differences are very subtle.
The HD movie mode is nicely done as well. You set your focus, either automatically or manually, before you start recording. You can refocus during recording but you'll definitely notice it. You can adjust shutter speed, aperture, and ISO in manual movie mode as well. There is a monaural microphone on the front of the camera, or you can plug in a stereo microphone. By pressing the shutter button, you can interrupt the movie briefly to take a still photo, similar to Canon's S series super zoom cameras.
The kit lens is nicely constructed and fairly sharp from corner to corner. Purple fringing is not much of a problem in my photos. The field of view is kind of narrow though. The lens starts at 44.8mm with the 7D's 1.6x field of view crop factor taken into account. Without a wide angle it's not an ideal all around lens, but I do feel it's worth the extra money for the kit with this lens. You end up getting a nice, ultrasonic motor, image stabilized, 4.8x lens for a minimal cost.
The only things I don't like about the camera so far are that in auto ISO you can't limit how high it goes. I find the 7D wants to jump up to ISO 3200 fairly quickly in low light when it doesn't need to go nearly that high. When it jumps to ISO 3200 I find I can dial it down to ISO 1600 manually and still get an acceptable shutter speed, so the Canon is being very cautious jumping up so high. The other thing I'm not fond of is the fact that when you're in playback mode the most you can zoom out is a 9-image grid. With such a large high-resolution screen I would appreciate an index grid playback mode that showed more photos. Lastly, I find the process for setting the custom white balance a bit long winded. You have to take a photo of a white reference object then go into the menus to choose that photo as the reference photo. On other cameras, even Canon's point and shoots, the process is much faster, and it doesn't save the reference photo to your memory card. It's not the worst system, and I have become very quick at it, but it could be better.
All in all... a phenomenal semi-pro SLR. The Canon 7D covers all the bases.
12/17/2009 Update: I found a nice case for the 7D which fits the camera with kit lens quite well. It doesn't fit much more than that, but it's a good case if you don't carry too many accessories with you. It's the Lowepro Topload Zoom case.Lowepro Topload Zoom 1 Camera Bag (Black)
12/19/2009 Update: You can change the depth of field preview button to switch to another autofocus mode when you hold it down, instead of doing a depth of field preview. I find this very useful since I hardly ever use depth of field preview. Now if I find that the autofocus is consistently not picking the right subject for a shot, I simply hold down the depth of field preview button to have it temporarily switch from auto select mode to spot focus mode. Very convenient.
01/04/2010 Update: Just got back from a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The 7D was a joy to use. I took about 160 photographs. Of those only 4 or 5 are out of focus due to camera error. The low light performance continues to impress me. I took many photos at ISO 1600 through 3200 and all of the photos are completely usable. In the large "Sea Life" and "African Mammals" rooms I was able to take sharp pictures of these very dim rooms while shooting handheld at ISO 3200 and no flash (see pictures). Anyone who has visited these exhibits knows how challenging they can be to shoot.
10/20/2010 Update: I am still loving this camera. No problems to report. In fact, I was a little miffed when Canon introduced the 60D because it seemed like I could have saved some money by buying that, however, one of the students in my digital photography class bought one, and while it is a nice camera, the build quality and design are nowhere near the standards on the 7D. Still happy with my purchase.
04/05/2011 Update: Still no problems to report with the camera. I took it out after a recent snow storm when it was still flurrying and it survived just fine.
P.S.: Sorry for the long review. There is a lot to cover, and even so I may not have gotten everything. If you'd like to know something I didn't cover, feel free to leave a comment and I'll answer it as quickly as I can. Also, I will update this review as needed based on any new experiences I have with the 7D. - Canon Eos - Digital Slr - Photography - Canon 7d'
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