Slight upgrade from 7D?

How solid is your tripod and head? Are you using mirror lockup and a remote/timer on the shots?

On long shutters yes. I want to try shooting JPEG and see what happens. I've only been doing RAW only.

What's long? I consider anything under at least double the focal length worth doing, and unless it's a snapshot I basically won't shoot without a tripod at the very least.
Landscapes can really clean up as stuff in focus far away is more susceptible to the blur due to the distance from the pivot point of the sensor traversing an arc that only gets bigger the further away stuff is. Unless you are shooting wide at something ridiculous like 1000th/sec the image will benefit from a tripod and still more from the mirror lockup. Then if the images are blurry it's time to look elsewhere at other possible issues.

My 2 cents.

Same 'battery cannot communicate' message with my 7D. Took it to a local guy yesterday who has been working on cameras out of his basement for years. The fix was exactly what was shown in the video. Ground screw had worked itself loose from the power board. Got the 7D back today and was charged just $50.00 for the repair plus he tightened all other screws and checked out functions. I'm a happy camper.

Glad it helped you too!

As for my situation I was able to sell my entire gear setup for $650

Found a Nikon D3300, 18-55, 55-200, 50mm f/1.8, bag 3-64GB sds, multiple batteries and a few other accessories for $425. Did a little shuffling around and trading and spent a little more of my leftover money. So now I have the D3300, 35mm f/1.8, sigma 17-70 Contemporary, and Tokina 100mm f/2.8 MACRO. Cannot be more happier with this setup. Way lighter obviously. And sharpness is alot better. The Tokina really works great for my work as well.

Had this same experience on the battery with my 7D, and it's caused by a less robust circuit board commection where the battery interfaces to the camera. I had to send mine in to Canon to repair it. Evidently, this is a modestly common situation when the the 7D has increased usage. The 70D and 7D Mark Ii (and presumably other cameras) have a mechanically stronger battery connection circuit board within the camera. Having gone through all this caused me to always install the battery in any of my cameras so that it slides in very gently in the horizontal, rather than dropping it in on the vertical.

I see this thread is a bit dated, but want offer that the Diffraction Limited Apeture on the 7D is f/6.9. Stopping down more than that will increasingly go beyond the camera's diffraction limit. The Digital Picture explains the effects of DLA:
https://www.the-digital-picture.com …ion-Limited-Aperture.aspx

I have reviewed a lot of my work over the last 15 years and found that I liked the best the fotos done with either a 1D series or a 20D camera, but not nearly as much that which was done with a 7-series camera (7D, 70D, or 7D Mark II). After researching further, what I discovered was that large DLA is in common with fotos I liked less, typified by a 7-series camera.

With digital processing like focus stacking, this can mitigated some, with differing planes of focus that can be combined together algorithmicially, each taken above the DLA (e.g. at wider aperture).

But this is hardly practical for studio or location shoots of moving dancers, which is what I do. Learning this has pushed me toward revamping my art, buying obsolete 1D-series cameras.