-= 7D2 owners unite! Discuss and post photos!

GregDunn wrote in post #17471016
This is kind of a ho-hum shot/subject, but I literally just pulled my 7D2 out of the box, stuck the 70-200 2.8IS on it, and walked over to the highway to test out AI Servo. I shot several moving vehicles without any special care; I just wanted to see what would happen. This happens to be the last frame of a 10-shot high speed burst, but every single one of them was in focus. The bus was keeping up with traffic, so it was likely doing about 70 MPH at the time. I think it's acceptably sharp for a hand-held shot; no in-camera or post sharpening added; no NR.

I haven't really gone out to take images purposefully yet; my first hundred or so frames were intended to get a sense of how well the camera was working and tweak any settings. I did some BIF with zone AF, a few static shots of the eagles nesting near our house using single point, a sunset, stuff like that. I got about 2-3 OOF images, which were clearly my fault - I was testing how quickly the AF would auto-switch the focus point so I could optimize the AF case. Every shot I took intentionally was in focus.

I guess I won the lottery - I didn't get one of the 'thousands' of defective bodies being lamented in the other forums. Can't wait to put this beauty to use.

yeah looks good!
Cant wait for mine - it is sitting in customs right now... hopefully by saturday!

I wonder if it was a certain batch that were a hit or miss as I have read a lot of this too and hope I get a good one. I am thinking (more hoping) Canon fixed it and newer serial number units are good!

What's your round about serial number. Sometimes knowing that can help others put a time frame on issues

GregDunn wrote in post #17471016
This is kind of a ho-hum shot/subject, but I literally just pulled my 7D2 out of the box, stuck the 70-200 2.8IS on it, and walked over to the highway to test out AI Servo. I shot several moving vehicles without any special care; I just wanted to see what would happen. This happens to be the last frame of a 10-shot high speed burst, but every single one of them was in focus. The bus was keeping up with traffic, so it was likely doing about 70 MPH at the time. I think it's acceptably sharp for a hand-held shot; no in-camera or post sharpening added; no NR.

I haven't really gone out to take images purposefully yet; my first hundred or so frames were intended to get a sense of how well the camera was working and tweak any settings. I did some BIF with zone AF, a few static shots of the eagles nesting near our house using single point, a sunset, stuff like that. I got about 2-3 OOF images, which were clearly my fault - I was testing how quickly the AF would auto-switch the focus point so I could optimize the AF case. Every shot I took intentionally was in focus.

I guess I won the lottery - I didn't get one of the 'thousands' of defective bodies being lamented in the other forums. Can't wait to put this beauty to use.

This reflects my experience as well. The focus of my unit is absolutely spot on. I've been shooting a lot with the 100-400 II and the 1.4x II recently and even with this combo it is hard to fool the camera. Having the right AI servo setting can make a big difference. I do not doubt that there are a number of defective units floating around but I find it highly suspicious that with every new release when new bodies and AF systems get put into unfamiliar hands there is a spike in the claim of defective AF components.

nqjudo wrote in post #17471644
This reflects my experience as well. The focus of my unit is absolutely spot on. I've been shooting a lot with the 100-400 II and the 1.4x II recently and even with this combo it is hard to fool the camera. Having the right AI servo setting can make a big difference. I do not doubt that there are a number of defective units floating around but I find it highly suspicious that with every new release when new bodies and AF systems get put into unfamiliar hands there is a spike in the claim of defective AF components.

Same here, I've been out with this camera and done some test shooting at home, and I'm very very happy with it so far. The AF is pretty amazing, IMO.

Mine has been awesome, its one of the first out of the box.

nqjudo wrote in post #17471644
This reflects my experience as well. The focus of my unit is absolutely spot on. I've been shooting a lot with the 100-400 II and the 1.4x II recently and even with this combo it is hard to fool the camera. Having the right AI servo setting can make a big difference. I do not doubt that there are a number of defective units floating around but I find it highly suspicious that with every new release when new bodies and AF systems get put into unfamiliar hands there is a spike in the claim of defective AF components.

I am happy you have a good copy. My personal opinion is that there may be a fairly high percentage of bodies with problems. Maybe even embarrassingly high for Canon. I've tried my copy with five lenses. Of the five I own four. None focused properly with camera out of the box. All the lenses I own work fine with my T3i. This means my 7D2 is off, the lenses and the T3i are on or they are all of by an amount that canceles out the error.

I would like to see a simple poll here. A count: good body with bullets for 1 or 2 and bad bodies with bullets from 1 to 5. I have no idea how to do this on the forum.

I would not be surprised to find the bad camera count exceeds 10% on this forum alone.

Rod

RodS57 wrote in post #17471729
I am happy you have a good copy. My personal opinion is that there may be a fairly high percentage of bodies with problems. Maybe even embarrassingly high for Canon. I've tried my copy with five lenses. Of the five I own four. None focused properly with camera out of the box. All the lenses I own work fine with my T3i. This means my 7D2 is off, the lenses and the T3i are on or they are all of by an amount that canceles out the error.

I would like to see a simple poll here. A count: good body with bullets for 1 or 2 and bad bodies with bullets from 1 to 5. I have no idea how to do this on the forum.

I would not be surprised to find the bad camera count exceeds 10% on this forum alone.

Rod

Well Rod I'd like to say first and foremost that I'm not trying to discount your personal experience or view. Furthermore this is a fine thread and it isn't my wish or intention to derail it or cause some sort of war but what I will say in response to you is this. Every time Canon releases a new body there is a flood of complaints about AF troubles. Now, Canon has been making AF systems for a long time. They know how to make them and they do a very good job at it. I've had the pleasure of visiting a Canon repair facility. Believe me when I say they have instruments and means of testing and calibrating cameras that are infinitely beyond the capabilities of a home user with any number of focus test, charts, etc. Again, I'm not saying you personally don't have an issue (because I did have one myself years ago) but I can hardly believe that every body that gets released has some kind of AF issue that gets covertly fixed in subsequent production runs. I think more often than not people believe there is an issue due to unfamiliarity, raise a stink and then disappear when they realize they just didn't give themselves enough time with the new system. Again, this isn't to say there aren't some with real issues but I would wager that if your poll as accurate and there was a 10% bad camera count, less than 1% of those cases would be the result of a legitimate hardware issue and I say that because that is exactly what I was told by Canon when I visited the repair facility shortly after the release of the 5D3.

A few posts back, TeleFragger asked me if I had a Canon 55-250 and if so, would I give it a whirl on the 7D2 to see how the combo would perfrom.

I do, so I did.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/riyG​uG

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qDkF​Ec

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qD8q​rm

A few more...

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/riEX​KP

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qD8q​z7

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/rA2g​uJ

Im gona say it worked awesome.

ditto, some of the sharpest I seen from the 7dmk2 to date

nqjudo wrote in post #17471800
Well Rod I'd like to say first and foremost that I'm not trying to discount your personal experience or view. Furthermore this is a fine thread and it isn't my wish or intention to derail it or cause some sort of war but what I will say in response to you is this. Every time Canon releases a new body there is a flood of complaints about AF troubles. Now, Canon has been making AF systems for a long time. They know how to make them and they do a very good job at it. I've had the pleasure of visiting a Canon repair facility. Believe me when I say they have instruments and means of testing and calibrating cameras that are infinitely beyond the capabilities of a home user with any number of focus test, charts, etc. Again, I'm not saying you personally don't have an issue (because I did have one myself years ago) but I can hardly believe that every body that gets released has some kind of AF issue that gets covertly fixed in subsequent production runs. I think more often than not people believe there is an issue due to unfamiliarity, raise a stink and then disappear when they realize they just didn't give themselves enough time with the new system. Again, this isn't to say there aren't some with real issues but I would wager that if your poll as accurate and there was a 10% bad camera count, less than 1% of those cases would be the result of a legitimate hardware issue and I say that because that is exactly what I was told by Canon when I visited the repair facility shortly after the release of the 5D3.

I apologize to you and anyone else who found my comments say, abrasive. I am one of more than likely many users with not a great deal of experience. My response was a partial recounting of my experience to date. I did contact canon support, did send in pictures, one of which is posted here. Although everything was out of focus I was advised nothing was wrong with my camera.

I would really like to say my camera is great but it isn't. I hope everyone who has received a camera that lives up to all the hype really enjoys using it. There are a lot great pictures from this camera being posted here and elsewhere.

Cheers
Rod

TeleFragger wrote in post #17471633
yeah looks good!
Cant wait for mine - it is sitting in customs right now... hopefully by saturday!

I wonder if it was a certain batch that were a hit or miss as I have read a lot of this too and hope I get a good one. I am thinking (more hoping) Canon fixed it and newer serial number units are good!

My honest opinion - every time a new camera comes out (and I've seen this with the original 7D, 70D, 5D3, and 1Dx just since joining here) there is a burst of people posting issues. Believe it or not, the 5D3 and 1Dx were declared "lemons" by some people and at least one online photo reviewer declared the 7D "garbage". I think in each case there were a few copies which may have gotten overlooked by the QC people due to the massive rush to get them out the door and the early adopters, the most critical of users, were of course the ones who saw them. In the online community I've seen about 10 people whose 7D2 genuinely seems to have had an issue (assuming they were describing everything accurately). Most were either trouble-free or perhaps daunted by the immense complexity of the AF customization; I know that even after understanding the 5D3 there were some things I had to think about when setting mine up.

I'll bet money (and actually I just did) that 99.9% of the cameras coming off the line at this point are spot-on. Buy through CPW or a known authorized dealer and you have Canon's guarantee to make it right.

Now, because this is a photo thread, here's another of my sample shots (again, I was more interested in testing the camera than creating art during that first hour. This is actually my very first shot, zone focus and essentially no acquisition time for the servo) :