The Canon 7D

Ever thought about buying a darned good still photography camera? But then, someone starts talking about shooting video for a commercial? Well look no further than the Canon EOS 7D. It does both still photography and video really well.

Unlike it’s full-framed, bigger, brother, the Canon 5DMII, the Canon 7D has an APS-C sensor, which is about the same size as a 35mm Motion Picture frame. The smaller sensor allows easier focus pulling when you’re doing video (due to the greater depth of field) than the 5DMII. But get this – the still pictures are still phenomenal!

At 18MP, this camera can attain the resolution you want and deserve. It’s slightly noisier (apparently due to image sharpening) than the 5DMII, but the average prints will not show that noise. Even more, the average photographer doesn’t really need more than 10MP photos. I know wedding photographers using the 5DMII, which shoots up to 21MP images, that shoot at no more than 10MP. Why? Because at 10MP, the image can still easily print an 8″ x 12″ image without any perceived loss of resolution. Even more, if you want to blow it up even bigger, feel free. As long as no one is looking at it with a magnifying glass, noone will know.

Honestly! For instance, today I’m giving a large 3′ x 5′ poster, from our film Hunting Dragonflies, to McDaniel College to be framed and hung up in their new studio. If you get up real close, you can see that the image isn’t perfect. But from a few feet away, you won’t notice any flaws. Most of the pictures were laid in there from 2 and 3 MP images. I have 20/20 vision and I can’t notice any issues from 5 feet back (about how far back you need to be to see the poster properly).

The Canon 7D also shoots at up to 8 frames per second in still mode. That’s pretty danged fast – faster than the 5DMII, which only does 3 frames a second. Both shoot 1080p24 (which means 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels of High Definition at 24 frames per second) and 1080p30 High Definition video.

I’m not slamming the 5DMII by any means. It’s a professional camera that does an excellent job. But so is the Canon 7D – it’s also for professional use and can also do an excellent job…

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