Canon 7D

23 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment

I have been looking at it for over a year and a few weeks ago, I finally was able to pull the trigger on my own Canon 7D through the Canon Loyalty Program. So, it essentially cost me a dead Rebel XT and $1,200. I am definitely loving this camera. I tend to do a lot of low light photography, High School Sports and theater which is where I am really finding the advantages. On Monday, I shot a performance of “Cinderella” by the Hartland Players Encore Youth Theater and the higher ISO capabilities really stood out. I shot the majority of the performance at ISO 6400 and on rare occasions, I even bumped that to ISO 12,800. Yes, the noise is significant in a non-edited file. However when I couple the RAW files with the noise reduction algorithms of Lightroom 3.3 I am able to get a usable file. If you pixel peep will you see noise and some softness from the noise reduction? Of course but when you compare the results to images that are shot at ISO 1600 or ISO 3200 where I would have gotten motion blur from having to shoot with a lower shutter speed. Here are a couple of shots that I have taken in the last few weeks with the camera that have tested its low light capabilities.