I doubt if the coming rainy months are going to help me get out and do some photography, but perhaps I will actually draw something. We’ll see….

If you’re too lazy to read the whole review, it comes down to this: If you don’t have a need for purchasing a new full-frame camera, but you are serious about your photography, buy the Canon EOS 7D. I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the camera from the moment I first held it in my hands.

I won’t bother to list the full specs, but some of the key features are a 18mp sensor, 8fps drive, and full 1080p video. This isn’t a full-frame camera, so the 1.6 FOVCF applies. That’s a good thing for people interested in medium- to long-range photography. If you’re doing a lot of close-ups, such as professional portraits, you’ll probably be better off with a full-frame sensor. However, for most uses and especially for nature photography and long sports shots, this is a great camera.

A lot of people have been raving about the video capability (see an example), but really that’s an awesome bonus for me that wasn’t a major factor in my decision to buy this camera. The benefit of it being able to handle 1080p at 30fps is that you also see the speed of the dual DIGIC 4 processors when you shoot stills at 8fps, even with full-sized raw images. A lot of the time, I end up changing it to the lower 3fps setting, so I don’t accidentally take 2-3 shots every time I push the shutter button.

The first thing I noticed picking up the Canon 7D was the solid feel. It’s nearly 2lbs (about 12oz heavier than a Rebel XT), so you’re looking at 4lbs with a 24-70mm f/2.8 Canon lens and more with a flash. The viewfinder coverage is 100% (which may take some adjustment, if you’re used to the 95% in the other non-full-frame Canon cameras), but the first thing you’ll notice after taking a shot is the amazing LCD (specifically, it’s a TFT) screen. It’s 3 inches, 920,000 pixels, and amazingly vibrant. I’ve even had non-photographers comment on how clear it is in the short time I have had this camera. For the first time, I actually feel like the LCD will give me a reasonable indication of color saturation and sharpness when previewing images.

An updated firmware (1.0.9) for the Canon 7D is available, which is supposed to correct AF accuracy. I haven’t had any problems with autofocus; it’s been extremely accurate and very fast for me. I like that I can have the points of focus highlighted when I review images. This camera also features live view, which lets you watch the LCD screen rather than looking through the viewfinder. This can be very useful in some cases, but I prefer the viewfinder.

Here is an example of a 1024×683 section from a full-size JPEG shot taken with the 7D. I took it indoors as a quick snapshot, playing around with my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. This section comes from the full photo, which was taken at 200mm from roughly eight feet away. I did no post processing on this image.

If you’re curious here is the full photo from which the previous image was cropped. It is 6mb, so click at your own risk!

Honestly, I tried to come up with some negative things to say, and I haven’t found much. The image quality is maybe a tiny bit noisier than expected, but the sensor gives you a lot of pixels to crop out, so I am very pleased. The 7D also has quite a few buttons, but they’re fairly easy to figure out, and you can customize them. As a side note, I noticed that the 7D is taking photos 1/3 brighter than the Rebel XT with identical settings.

Since this is such a great camera, the one big consideration when purchasing this camera is the 1.6 FOVCF. Essentially, that means the sensor is smaller than in a full-frame camera, so it doesn’t use the full image coming in from the lens. That gives you an advantage when your pictures are primarily longer range, but it’s not ideal for close portraits. That means the 24-70mm lens that many people use as a general purpose lens is like a 38-112mm lens on a full-frame; for some people, that’s too wide. There are EFS lenses (e.g., the 17-55 lens, which is like a 27-88), but they do not work on full-frame cameras. That can make the lens choice a bit tougher for some people. Fortunately, most of my photography is not significantly affected by this, and my two primary lenses (24-70mm and 70-200mm f/2.8) cover 99% of what I need.

Bottom line: This is an awesome camera. I am so extremely impressed with it that I still get excited every time I use it. This camera is a great deal when compared to the Canon 5D II, which costs $1000 more. Many people will probably consider buying the Canon 7D and putting the extra $1000 toward an L-series lens, because good glass makes a world of difference. Anyway, the Canon EOS 7D is amazing, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of great photos from it popping up on sites like Flickr.

I received my Canon EF 24-70mm F/2.8 L-series lens on Wednesday, so I took a trip Thursday to Mt. Rainier. Actually, when I left, I wasn’t sure where I was going, but my photographic compass guided me toward Mt. Rainier as a point of natural beauty. The skies were clear in Redmond, and the weather was in the low 70s. Really, it was a perfect day for a drive, and an excellent day for heading to the mountain. I took my T-tops off and began my cruise.

Except, it wasn’t the perfect day for driving because traffic sucked. I-405 was congested the entire way as was WA-167. Normally I don’t let traffic annoy me too much, but I the trip was around 2.5 hours without traffic, and I specifically left around 1:30pm on a Thursday, thinking I’d avoid most other cars. Then, the weather was toying with me. When I would cruise for a mile, the sun would hide behind the edge of a cloud front to the south. I would get stuck in traffic for a while and the clouds would move more south, revealing the sun once more. It was really just teasing me the entire way. I debating heading back because the weather and traffic were both fighting me, but I kept thinking “I’ve come this far…. It’s going to clear up soon.”

Traffic was bad until the last 30 minutes of the trip, and the clouds loomed overhead as I entered the park. I was frustrated but determined. Sometimes clouds can result in good photos, so I pushed onward. I paid the $15 fee to enter and the lady at the booth told me that Paradise was beautiful, and the sun was hitting it. I went right past every overlook and viewpoint area, rushing straight to Paradise in order to ensure I got there while the sun was still visible. A thousand or so feet below Paradise, I broke through the cloud layer and the result was amazing.

I did a little bit of “hiking” to get some more shots before deciding that I’m incredibly out of shape, and I would rather get some “less typical” shots. I found a great viewpoint, and I got some really cool shots looking toward the sun just above the clouds.

On the way back, an SUV changed lanes into me and I narrowly avoided the accident by slamming my brakes, crushing my horn, and swerving to the curb…. It was a bad day for driving, but it was a great day for photography!

Well, it’s not really “industrial,” but that’s the adjective that always comes to mind from strong incandescent lighting. This was a one-second exposure.

This past Saturday, I went to the first varsity football game of the season for the high school where I am doing my teaching internship. I took about 250 photos, learning and relearning quite a bit about sports photography (since I’ve largely focused on landscapes and other mostly immobile objects in the past), but I haven’t really had a good chance to look through them all. In fact, I didn’t even do any digital editing to these besides cropping and shrinking. Someday I’ll have free time to do all that… someday…

Happy Independence Day! …For all you non-Americans, happy regular day!

I have not been updating my blog as much as I used to. All kinds of things are keeping me busy, but I did recently purchase a new lens for my camera. I used the new lens to take the bottom two photos on this page; I took the rest with the old kit lens.

The above two photos are from a series of a bit over two-hundred that I took of people jumping into the water at Whatcom Falls Park. It was tough to get the exposures to turn out well, because the sun was shining through the trees, causing some places to be extremely bright and others to be rather dark. Taking the photos was a lot of fun, though it wasn’t until near the end of the shots that I had started to pan well.

This was just a random shot that I took when I was relaxing in the grass. A bird flew overhead and caught my eye, so I followed its path and snapped a shot when it landed.

These last two shots are the ones I took with the new lens.

This is one of the photos I took of the Nooksack River yesterday. It was raining pretty heavily, but my camera seems to have survived the short expedition.