Setting Up Your New Canon 7D by Guest Contributor Doug Brown
December 22, 2009 by Greg Basco
Filed under Featured
The 7D is Canon’s latest and greatest prosumer camera body; it has generated a lot of interest, heated discussion, and plenty of confusion on the internet forums. I’ve shot the 7D extensively and thought I’d share some of my initial impressions and usage settings with you. I’ll start with the body’s construction. It feels quite well built; not a 1-series body to be sure, but a definite step up from the XXD series. The 7D handles challenging weather conditions without a hiccup; I’ve used it in both the freezing cold of the Bosque del Apache and in light rain on the California coast without a single problem. The controls are substantially new, bringing added functionality at the cost of a small learning curve. The new LCD is excellent, with great sharpness and easy readability in all lighting conditions. While in California I photographed with a friend who used a Nikon D300s, and compared to the 7D his screen was very difficult to view in bright sunlight. The viewfinder is big and bright compared to the 50D’s. Other noteworthy features of the 7D include a frame rate of 8 fps, a new 19-point AF system (all cross-type) with its own dedicated processor, wireless flash control, 1080p HD video recording, a new higher capacity battery with ‘intelligence,’ and an electronic level.
So, enough of the preliminaries; let’s delve into how best to set up the 7D for bird photography, and in particular bird flight photography! We’ll start with the first red menu. If I don’t comment on a setting, assume that it’s in its default position. I almost always set ‘Quality’ to ‘RAW,’ unless I’m using ISO 1600 or greater (in which case I tend to shoot JPEG or RAW + JPEG). I always set ‘Release shutter without card’ to ‘Disable;’ there’s no worse feeling than taking a series of images only to find out that you forgot to put in a memory card. I have ‘Review time’ set to ‘Off’ to preserve battery life. On the second red menu I have my ‘Color space’ set to ‘Adobe RGB’, which has a wider color gamut than sRGB. The third red menu is set to the factory defaults. Moving to the fourth red menu I have ‘Silent shooting’ set to disable; the default ‘Mode 1′ position decreases your maximum frame rate to 7 fps.
Moving next to the blue menus, I haven’t changed the settings in the first menu. On the second menu I have ‘Highlight alert’ set to ‘Enable;’ I tend to use blinking highlight alerts rather than the histogram in the field because I find it gives the quickest feedback, allowing me to adjust my settings on the fly without missing the next bird as it flies by. I set ‘AF point disp.’ to ‘Enable;’ during image review, the focus point(s) are displayed in red.
Now for the yellow menus. On the first menu I have ‘Auto rotate’ set to monitor (the middle option); that way when I’m shooting in a vertical orientation the image won’t rotate 90 degrees when I’m trying to review it in the camera. Only when I download the file onto my computer will it auto-rotate. I leave the second yellow menu unchanged. On the third menu I have ‘INFO. button display options’ set to ‘Displays shooting functions.’ You can actually put check marks next to any and every one of the options here and cycle through them with the ‘INFO.’ button if you like. This is where you’ll find the electronic level option. I have entered my copyright information into the camera so that it is included in the EXIF data of all of my images.
Let’s move on to the orange Custom Function menus. I have ‘C.Fn I: Exposure’ set to the camera defaults. Under ‘C.Fn II: Image,’ I have ‘Highlight tone priority’ set to ‘Disable.’ It is designed to expand the dynamic range from 18% gray to the highlights. To get the benefits of highlight tone priority you must either shoot JPEG or process your RAW files in Canon’s DPP software. Programs like Lightroom ignore highlight tone priority. With HTP enabled your ISO choices becoming limited to ISO 200-6400, and you will see ‘D+’ displayed on the back LCD and in the viewfinder. Canon doesn’t reveal exactly how HTP works, but it is likely that among other things it underexposes images by a stop. The result can be more shadow noise, especially when trying to enhance shadow detail.
I’d like to address high ISO speed noise reduction (C.Fn II 2) in a little more detail, since this is a topic that generates a fair amount of confusion among Canon shooters. This camera setting is useful when shooting in the JPEG format only; you’ll notice that the default setting on the 7D is ‘Standard,’ not ‘Off.’ The ‘Standard’ setting significantly reduces chrominance noise primarily (the pastel-colored speckles of noise that you see in the midtones and shadows). Luminance noise (gray and black grain) is also reduced but not to the same extent, because image detail is a component of luminance and the camera is trying to preserve image detail. The ‘Low’ setting reduces chrominance noise exclusively, and the ‘Strong’ setting goes after both chrominance and luminance noise more aggressively (at the expense of image detail). The high ISO speed NR setting does not impact RAW images, and RAW conversion software (including DPP) either ignores or minimizes the impact of the in-camera high ISO speed NR setting. My personal feeling is that 7D JPEGs with standard high ISO speed NR look very good at ISOs 1600 and higher; this is why I prefer JPEG to RAW when I hit ISO 1600 (I will normally dial in RAW + JPEG just to be safe). On many older Canon bodies, enabling high ISO speed NR severely reduced the maximum burst rate (on the 1D Mark III, the maximum burst drops from 114 frames to only 14). With the new DIGIC 4 processor found on the 7D, the maximum burst rate doesn’t decrease until you set NR to ‘Strong.’
Next we’ll cover ‘C.Fn III: Autofocus/Drive.’ Some of these settings are among the most important of all 7D settings when it comes to getting the best possible images. I have ‘C.Fn III 1 AI Servo tracking sensitivity’ set to ‘Slow.’ If I’m tracking a flying bird and it flies behind a tree, slow tracking sensitivity means the camera will not give up focus on the bird and grab focus on the tree. This setting makes the AF much less twitchy. I have ‘C.Fn III 6 Select AF area selec. mode’ enabled. If you then select ‘Register’ you can place check marks next to the types of AF you use. Once you have your check marks finished you select ‘Apply’ to finalize your selections. To me this is probably the most critical setting of all. I have both of the automatic focus point selection options unchecked (these are the first 2 choices on the menu). If you want your images to be critically sharp where you want them to be sharp, don’t rely on the camera to choose your focus point for you. Using these 2 focus options is akin to shooting in full auto mode in my opinion, and is the cause of many out of focus images being posted on the internet forums. I have the last 3 AF options enabled (’AF point expansion,’ ‘Single point AF,’ and ‘Spot AF.’ You can cycle through the active focus modes by pressing the top right button on the back of the camera and then repeatedly pressing the M-Fn button just behind the shutter release button. I use ‘AF point expansion’ and ‘Single point AF’ for birds in flight. ’Spot AF’ is a more precise version of ‘Single point AF;’ it’s like an AF point within an AF point. I use it for perched subjects when I want to get the eye sharp. When using Single point and Spot AF, I often move the focus point around the frame in an attempt to compose correctly through the viewfinder (if a duck is moving across the water from my right to my left, I will move my focus point above and to the left of center and try to place the focus point on the bird’s eye). The next setting I alter is ‘C.Fn III 12 Orientation linked AF point.’ I have it set to ‘Select different AF points.’ With this setting, I can select both an AF mode and an AF point for the camera to use depending on whether the camera is in a horizontal or vertical orientation; the camera senses its own position and makes the adjustments automatically.
The last menu item is ‘C.Fn IV: Operation/Others.’ I have altered the default settings for ‘C.Fn IV 1′ only. ’C.Fn IV 1′ is a slick way to customize the functions of many of the buttons on the camera. I’m going to provide my settings, but keep in mind that this is an area where personal preference is important. I changed the first button (‘Shutter butt. half-press’) to ‘Metering start.’ I changed the third button (‘* AE Lock button’) to ‘Metering and AF start.’ This combination of changes turns the asterisk button on the back of the camera into my AF start button. The shutter button no longer initiates AF; it only takes the picture. I have my AF mode set to AI Servo at all times and thus I am always ready for action. If I want to use One-Shot AF I simply press and release the asterisk button with my focus point on the subject. Once focus is locked and I release the asterisk button, the camera will stop trying to focus. The shutter button will simply take the picture. If the perched bird that I was focusing on suddenly flies, I can initiate AI Servo AF by pressing and holding the asterisk button again. This button configuration also allows me to focus and recompose. I put my AF point on the subject and then press and release the asterisk button. I can now recompose. Pressing the shutter button will not cause the camera to refocus; it will just take the picture.
The green ‘My Menu’ allows you to place your commonly used menu items in one convenient menu. I’ve selected ‘Format,’ ‘Battery info.,’ ‘Flash control,’ ‘Quality,’ ‘Live View shoot., and ‘VF grid display’ for my menu items.
The ‘Q’ button is new to the 7D; it is located on the back of the camera in the upper left corner. Think of it as a souped up ‘INFO.’ button. It allows you to both view your camera settings and change them from a single screen. Changeable settings include shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation (+/- 5 stops) / exposure bracketing, flash exposure compensation, AF area selection mode, picture style, white balance, metering mode, auto lighting optimizer, image quality, AF mode, drive mode, and custom controls (C.Fn IV 1).
Enough with the settings! I’m sure you all want to know how this camera performs in the field. After 15,000 frames, I’m very impressed with the 7D. Image detail is excellent, metering is accurate, and AF is probably the best that I’ve seen in a Canon body (for reference I’ve shot the 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, and 1D Mark III). While it’s no Mark III in the noise department, it is significantly better than the 50D; noise has a much finer grain and is easily managed in post-processing until you get above ISO 800. I’ve gotten good quality images up to ISO 1600, but they require more intensive processing to look their best. The feature set is impressive, and I say that even though I have yet to use the video mode or the wireless flash control feature. The 7D is highly customizable; a positive if you’re comfortable making changes to the various settings, but a negative if you’re intimidated by all the options available to you. Hopefully the above information will help you fine-tune your new body; with the proper settings the 7D is capable of capturing incredible images!
Text and images by Doug Brown. Visit Doug’s site here to see more of his beautiful bird images. The Costa Rica bird photography tour that I co-lead with Doug is sold out for 2010 but we will be offering another fantastic trip in 2011. Be sure to keep an eye on this blog and Doug’s site for news on the 2011 itinerary!
Submit a comment or contact me with any questions.
Great Great article and simple enough for even those aproaching their dotage to grasp, that is an achievement in itself.
Thanks again Doug.
Thanks, Doug. Very well done and quite helpful.
Thanks Doug. Well done and quite helpful.
Thank you for the setup tips. That is the kind of thing one uses the manual to do, with a great deal of difficulty I might add. I understand that these are the setting you personalized, bt appears to be a great starting point. Thanks again.
I do not have the 7 D yet, but it is in my future.
Hi Doug and thankyou for this great article. I recieved the 7D just today from my dear Santa and I already am happy with it. You made the horrifying task of reading the manual ( horrifying to me at least) soo much easier and I’m going with the majority of your choice of settings. I can’t wait to get out in the field and shoot!
When I got done making all the changes, my auto focus would not work. Where did I go wrong?
PS: I reset them back to the default settings and the AF worked.
Don, if you followed carefully everything Doug explained in this beautiful tutorial, your auto-focus should be available by pressing “*” button. I personally didn’t like that, and I set my AF-ON button to do same thing instead of assigning it to “*” button. My “*” button is set to be AE Lock.
Everything works beautifully! Thanks Doug for this gem!
Hi Don. As hunt mentions above, my settings move the AF button to the asterisk button on the back of the camera. The shutter button will no longer initiate AF. I suspect that’s what happened to you. My setup has advantages (which I outlined in the guide), but it doesn’t work for everyone. It does take some time to get used to, so I suggest trying it out for a while before making a decision one way or another. Good luck!
Thanks for all the trouble you’ve gone to. I’m a new 7D owner, going from a 450D, so I’m looking for all the help I can get! Oh, minor typo: high ISO speed noise reduction (C.Fn II 1) should read C.Fn II 2.
This article has helped me a lot. I’ve always been annoyed with the AF on my old Canon, and used manual focus on my 7D exclusively. But after testing this, focusing, is so much faster and precise. Thank you very very much. You saved me a lot of time.
Thank you for a great article. I am hoping to purchase the 7D within the next month but have had a small doubt in my mind after reading post after post of negative comments. Your article has helped to confirm that the 7D is a fantastic camera when used correctly.
I’m glad you all find this setup guide useful! If you have any questions about the 7D, feel free to post them here and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Hi, Doug. Thanks again for writing the great 7D setup guide and for the offer of free lifetime tech support for everyone’s 7D!
Mark, thanks for pointing out that typo. I fixed it in the post text.
Happy New Year to everyone,
Greg
Good stuff. Thanks for posting. One question though… I thought the color space only applied to jpeg images from the camera and that if you’re shooting in RAW (which I do and which you recommended) then that setting does nothing. Is that correct?
Steve, to the best of my knowledge you are correct about the color space not affecting the RAW data. Nonetheless, like a lot of photographers, I set my camera to Adobe RGB so that I can better judge my histograms. That is, when you see your shot on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, you actually are seeing the JPEG rendering of your shot, and the histogram will be derived from that JPEG. Thus shooting in Adobe RGB rather than sRGB gives me a better representation of the full color gamut. By the way, for this reason I also generally shoot with my picture style (contrast, saturation, etc.) at neutral values. I can better judge the histogram this way, in particular knowing how far I can push my highlights without losing detail. Were I shooting in sRGB and with lots of contrast or saturation the highlights might show as truncated earlier than what is actually in the RAW data.
I’m guessing that Doug sets his 7D in Adobe RGB for the same reason.
Cheers,
Greg
Great tutorial. I have the Canon 40D and the 1Ds mkII. What would be the recommended setups for these camera bodies? I can probably figure out most of them from the info in this article.
thank you
melchor
Very useful and well written Doug, thanks. I’m anxious to get out and shoot some birds with your suggested settings.
See you in Costa Rica,
Bill
Thanks for this very informative and easy to understand guide. Neil.
Doug,
C.Fn III-3 also addresses the desired behavior when an obstacle is encountered while focus-tracking in AI Servo AF mode. This may be redundant, given your settings for C.Fn III-6. What do you think?
Bill
I haven’t done much with C.Fn III-3 Bill. It seems to me that C.Fn III-1 helps refine C.Fn III-3. I’m going to investigate.
This was really helpful…getting back into wildlife photography after 20 years and the digital revolution is wonderful but the autofocus has been giving me some headaches. Look forward to trying the settings you suggest. I am curious about the spot focus and the other focus you suggested…I had experiemented with them earlier and got great photos but the next time I used the camera the settings no longer applied….so I had to go back through the custom functions again…I have repeated the process each time and have the same results…Obviously a headache if you come across the spontaneous shot…Have you had that occur? Now I did enable all 5 focus modes when I did this…Have not yet tried with just 3.
With the focus settings you suggest, can you get the 7d to save them to use again? when I set them, I can use them for a session….Next session they must be reset again….aggravating or maybe I am doing something wrong
Hi, Steve. I actually do not have a 7D; that’s my friend Doug Brown’s department. I have never had this problem with any other Canon body. Doug is currently overseas on a family trip so I’m wondering if anyone else might have an answer for Steve.
Cheers,
Greg
Thanks Greg for following up….I continue to work with it the issue..seems that if I check only 3, I get the 3 focus modes Doug suggests on all but the point and shoot modes…which is okay I guess…but would love to hear what Doug has to say….I am liking my 7d more after making the changes above however
Hi, Steve. Glad you are liking the 7D. I will be sure to have Doug follow up in a week or so when he returns.
By the way, what mode are you shooting in most often?
Cheers,
Greg
shutter or aperture priority 90% of the time….mostly depending on motion or depth of field….occasionally light is the issue but the high ISO “crutch” of the 7d gets around that…I see most folks like 800 or less….I need to start working on lower ISO like the old film days…suggestions?
Hi Steve. I’m out of the country on a trip with my daughter and I don’t have my 7D with me. I’ve not had the problem you’re describing. Could you explain in detail the steps you are taking and the results you are experiencing? I’ll try to help.
Thanks for the excellent article. While recently shooting eagles, I wanted to produce both sharp images and motion blurs. For the former, I used aperture priority and ISO 400, while I would switch to shutter priority and ISO 100 for the latter. Changing both the ISO and the metering mode was a pain. Can I customize my 7D so that I can toggle between preset exposure settings that differ in shutter speed, ISO, and aperture?
Thanks for any help.
Hi, Jon. I don’t have the 7D but I believe you can use the My Menu settings to do this. I have something like this set on my 5D for landscapes where I can just flip to a My Menu setting, and I’m starting out in aperture priority at ISO 100, f11, and mirror lockup activated. Of course, this isn’t that big of a deal for landscapes (really no need to change so quickly) but for your situation I think this might be a solution. I wonder if anyone else does this for birds in flight.
Cheers,
Greg
Thanks for the reply Greg. I’ll have to dig into the manual and see if that works.
Jon
Actually Jon, I think what you want to explore are the Camera User Settings options on the 7D. You can find them on p.223 of the 7D manual. On the camera’s mode dial (on top on the left) you’ll see C1, C2, and C3 in addition to choices like Av and Tv. You can assign all sorts of shooting options to each of these 3 custom modes.
This is great thanks;) also how do you think the Pentax K7 fairs with the 7D?
Ok I added these settings on my 7D and set them in C1 mode, but BIF should spot metering be set? also AV or TV mode? thanks;)
Any advise on setting up a 5D MK II or can you do it basically the same way as the 7D?
Hi Chris. I have no idea about how the Pentax compares to the 7D. I would be inclined to use evaluative metering for BIF. Unless you can keep the spot on the bird, your metering can be easily messed up. I normally use manual exposure or Av mode.
Doug, thank you for the great 7D article above. I agree with what you said about managing noise more aggressively at iso 1600 and beyond with 7D. Lightroom’s NR seems to manage noise quite easily below 1600. What should you recommend that I use for iso 1600 or more? Thanks
Ian
Hi Ian. For ISO 1600 and greater I will usually shoot straight JPEG and if the in-camera NR isn’t sufficient, I will use Noise Ninja in Photoshop to further reduce noise. Although Lightroom has a noise reduction feature, you can’t apply it selectively. Using Photoshop for NR, I can apply it selectively to the background only.
The other thing about shooting high ISO is that you get your best results when you can fill the frame with your subject. It’s also important to get your exposure correct.
I noticed you mentioned you turn silent shooting off because with it on you limit your frame rate to 7 FPS.
I think that only applies when in Live View shooting, so LV FPS will be slower, but when shooting through the viewfinder, you will not be limited.
In fact, that whole menu page is specific to Live View settings.
Doug
Thanks for all this info. i’m on day 2 with my 7d coming form a 1dmkiin. I’m a “back button” shooter and had it set up similar to you except I had AF lock switched to off not *
What is the value of having it set to *?
Steve
oops! sorry Greg i dont know where i got Doug from; my bad.
Steve, you were right. My friend Doug Brown wrote the 7D setup article for my blog. Doug checks in on the comments here so since I don’t have a 7D, I’ll let Doug answer this one.
Cheers,
Greg
Hi Dan. I did some further reading and you are correct. The silent shooting modes are specific to Live View photography.
Hi
thanks for the article – good and mostly easy to grasp
got the 7D few days ago insread of the 40D and it is superb
i also hold Mark iii and hasitate whether to move to Mark iV as i do not see so much of a difference
you have changed some of my conceptions regarding the setting so i am defenetly gonna try then soonest
thanks
Doug, apparently you get a max of 3 AF methods per mode….that was what was confusing me….I get the methods you suggest on both the Av and Tv modes which is what I needed…..loving the camera with the suggestions you gave….almost all the AF issues are behind me except for getting birds in flight….not as sharp as I need yet….your pintail in flight has me inspired….In the last month I have had near misses on bald eagles, roseate spoonbills and various herons and egrets….understand there are things I need to consider with IS and such…thoughts? headed to Africa at month end so any suggestions would be welcomed
Very nice, great info
Thank you Doug for this informative set up for the 7D. I bumped up from the 40D and I found your set up information invaluable!
I can’t find that metering mode was mentioned in Doug’s setup. I have elected to use partial metering for BIF and spot metering for stationary birds. I haven’t tried this yet because of rain. I hope some of you will weigh in on what metering modes you prefer and why.
Doug, just got back from 3 weeks in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe….really enjoyed the Canon 7D after using your setup recommendations…was real pleased with my photos since I am just now revisiting an old hobby…pleased with my hobbyist shots of birds although none in flight..did catch “monkeys” in flight very well…..now just need to keep practicing and learn how to unleash the power of Lightroom
Just picked up the 7d today and am thrilled to find this helpful article/turotial on settings. I look forward to trying them for my landscape and wildlife photography.
My husband is especially interested in bird and wildlife photography, and we have an opportunity to spend a couple of days in Masai Mara in July. He will have a 50D and 100-400 lens with him. Is it reasonable to hope that applying your suggestions for the 7D to the 50D (where applicable) may alleviate some of the problems we’ve seen with noise? (It was especially noticable in photos he shot of grizzlies and golden eagles in Denali National Park with high ISO on a cloudy day – shot in RAW.)
I plan to trade camera bodies back and forth in Kenya so that he can benefit from the improved autofocus with the 7D so it should help us both to have the cameras set up in a similar way – or at least have the user preference modes identical. (Did you ever write a tutorial for setting up the 50D for bird phtography that might offer additional tips specific to that camera?)
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us all!
Excellent set up guide for the 7D. Will use this, thank you for sharing
Kev Spiers