Proud owner of a "new to me" 7D

I have just played around with it for a couple of hours and all i can say is "wow". Coming from a t2i, i thought it both share some features. But at first use, 7d is a whole another beast. I even got confuse with all the extensive menus! Lol. Can somebody please give me some tips or tricks to using this? Maybe a shortcut that other 7d owners are doing. Also thing to do or not to do. Right now im only comfortable using single spot af and just move it around when needed. Im still trying to learn the other af modes. Maybe ilmpost some more questions when i get home. I already read the manual but i just didnt understand most of it. I will give it another reading tonight while getting help from here.

Congrats!

Try out the CF that allows you to set a unique AF point and AF mode based on orientation. If you turn this on, you get to set 3 different modes/AF points, one for each of the portrait positions, and one for the landscape.

You can also set the DOF button so that when you press it, you can go to a registered AF mode and point (maybe just mode, cannot remember if you register a point as well) for that one shot, so you don't have to keep changing modes the normal way.

You are off to a good start by reading and re-reading the manual. When I got mine I would read a section of the manual, try out those features, and repeat until I understood. Not that I claim to fully comprehend everything about the 7D but that certainly helped me and then let me narrow it down to the things that I just didn't get. Those were the things that I then asked about on the forum. As you have probably gathered if you have been reading the forum for very long, you will spend a good amount of your time learning the AF system and what settings work best for you. I have had mine for a year and I'm still learning.

Congrats on the purchase.. I just got mine a little over a month ago, and my head is still swimming with all the available features of this body... It surely is overwhelming, but fun in a challenging way. Good luck with it.

Stamp wrote in post #11187317
Congrats on the purchase.. I just got mine a little over a month ago, and my head is still swimming with all the available features of this body... It surely is overwhelming, but fun in a challenging way. Good luck with it.

thanks! when i started reading the manual, on chapter 11 i think its discussing about the custom functions, i was like, "what the f*** is this" i have to reserved a whole just for that chapter alone so i can understand it better. if i still dont get it, well thats why POTN is here!

I just ordered mine. I new to photography (a year or so), but have been shooting video for nine years. I upgraded from the XSi to the 7D to take advantage of the HD video capabilities. I mainly shoot concerts, so will need a lot of gear for audio and camera support. Still trying to figure out what to get. I ordered David Busch's manual and a Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 3" and am considering upgrading to the Zoom H4N for audio. I have the H2 but it doesn't have XLR capabilities.

This is going to be expensive....but fun!

With the 7D just get a good lens (or two) at first. I had to learn this. You have a killer camera....may as well go all the way. The 17-55 id the best thing I have purchased in a long time. The 24-105 isn;t bad either and the 10-22 rounds out the collection. I have learned since I got my 7D that glass matters...a lot.