Canon 7d indoor setting help please!

Hi,

Newbie here!

I am a Nikon girl at heart, but have been handed a Canon 7D to shoot with for a work function this weekend. Two lenses have been supplied - 85mm f1.8 and 17-55mm f2.8.

I have been playing around with the settings all day - it is quite different to the Nikon range!

Would so appreciate any advice for the settings on the Canon for the following two scenarios (which I will be shooting all weekend):

1. Indoor conference (no natural light but plenty of articificial light). Room of about 300 people, but will be concentrating on individual presenters and will be able to get quite close,

2. Indoor presentation night (stage lighting). Will have less access, but enought to be close to the stage. House lights dimmed, but stage lighting will be on (or so I am told!).

Thanks so much for any advice!

Irish

With your limited experience and the time frame involved, set your 7D on "Auto" just to get you through this. And don't worry, we all started out the same as you.

Hi James,
Thanks for such a quick response
I have been shooting with my Nikon cameras for a couple of years, so am comfortable taking a camera off the auto settings... I would prefer to actually! I have just never shot with a Canon before. My "newbie" comment was more about my presence on the forums!

Irish

Not wanting to sound rude here but if you know what settings to use on a Nikon why not use the same settings on the Canon. If your talking, shutter, aperture and ISO.

Welcome to the forums.

Like Eagle said, there's nothing about the settings on the 7D that would need to be different than you used on Nikons.

And slap the 17-55 lens on and do not worry about the 85.

leave the 85 at home, 17-55 on a 7d is magic. keep it wide open (or close to it) since the light will be low.

Hi Irish and welcome!...will you be using flash?

pdrober2 wrote in post #14709157
leave the 85 at home, 17-55 on a 7d is magic. keep it wide open (or close to it) since the light will be low.

I agree about the magic, and the suggestion on setttings. My 17-55 hardly ever leaves my 7D.

I also love my 580 exII flash on that setup.

Since you have fast lenses, I'd stay under iso 1600 and use "AF expansion" , you can use the toggle switch to move the AF cluster around. Try and keep the shutter speed a bit a higher than normal to compensate for the 7d pixel density.

For better noise performance use the "pulled" ISO's 160, 320,640, 1250 etc.

lannes wrote in post #14709438
Since you have fast lenses, I'd stay under iso 1600 and use "AF expansion" , you can use the toggle switch to move the AF cluster around. Try and keep the shutter speed a bit a higher than normal to compensate for the 7d pixel density.

For better noise performance use the "pulled" ISO's 160, 320,640, 1250 etc.

Lannes, I had never heard that those ISO's helped noise performance. Interesting.

guntoter wrote in post #14709458
Lannes, I had never heard that those ISO's helped noise performance. Interesting.

Wouldn't you get the same effect by setting ISO at X and exposing at X+1/3(with compensation in post) ?

Example: ISO 800 with exposure comp set to +1/3...Thus effectively achieving ISO 640...Then compensate for overexposure in post.

guntoter wrote in post #14709458
Lannes, I had never heard that those ISO's helped noise performance. Interesting.

This is a good blog that explains it

http://shootintheshot.​joshsilfen.com …canon-hd-dslr-native-iso/

rrblint wrote in post #14709493
Wouldn't you get the same effect by setting ISO at X and exposing at X+1/3(with compensation in post) ?

Example: ISO 800 with exposure comp set to +1/3...Thus effectively achieving ISO 640...Then compensate for overexposure in post.

This is exactly how I do it, and the results are quite good. I set all my cameras to full ISO stops, and then use EC to push to the right. This gives me the control I need without having to go through 2 more ISO values each stop.

If you're going to be focusing on individual presenters I'd go for the 85,I use my 100 f2.8, set the shutter speed to the desired speed to stop motion blur and let the camera set the apperture and iso, you could use the popup flash if you're not getting the results you're after.