Canon 7d Road Test
 

Have been lucky enough to get one for a few weeks so stand by for a blitz of footage and tests!!!

Philip Bloom Blog Archive Pimp my Canon 7d: Road testing the latest Video DSLR

P.S. The UK price currently out there £1699 is too steep. List should be cheaper!

Be sure to tell us all about manual focussing (how good is the push button focus, how much do you recommend a follow focus ring, how good is the lcd screen for focussing etc.), and how good the screen is when viewed off axis.

Things that I would really like to see tested:

* HDMI resolution while recording. Does it still drop to 480p from 1080i when you hit the record button?
* Bit rate in 24p mode. Is it still 48 mbps? That would be great, since it would mean that each frame now has 25% more bandwidth.
* AGC? Still there?
* Audio monitoring on A/V jack?

Feel free to send me the camera when you're done with it for further analysis!

Sounds Great.

Yes, a test on the HDMI output, recording and not recording (live view) is top on my mind.

Clean, full 16x9 frame output, 1080p etc...

Thanks

Tramm,

Phil has already tweeted that there HDMI resolution still drops from 1080 to 480p and I've had this confirmed by Canon.

There is still AGC

Not sure about the other 2.

Dan

I want to know why the rear screen doesn't flip, flop, twist and turn. I want to use this baby high above my head and down there on the ground.

Wow, you've got that pimped out like a Red on a Soderberg shoot. I'd like to see real world stuff, cars and trucks going by, high contrast things, people interacting in normal lighting conditions, wide angle shots interior and exterior, low and high angles, etc. And, what lenses you are using for those shots.

People all over the world is waiting for your results Philipp. Good luck.

HDMI live out still 480p
AGC still there
Not tried headphone jack yet but Canon say no. Not looked at bitrate yet.

Lets see, its about 10 there now, so Phil should have his first rough shots on the time line and be color correcting. Phil... stay out of the pubs tonight... and we could see something about 5 p.m PDT. :)

Dear Phil,

I am assuming that you mean that the HDMI Out, in Live mode, is 480p, when the camera is recording.

I am assuming that it is 1080p in Live mode when you are not recording.

I am also assuming that there is a white square on the HDMI out in Live mode when you are not recording.

Please let me know if you can get a clean image out of the HDMI port, no icons.

Personally, I am interested if the Live Out (while not recording) is 1080p, full screen, no pillarbox, and is clean.

To state the obvious, I am interested in recording the HDMI output and the camera does not need to be in record mode.

Sorry, no joy for you there. Same as 5d exactly.

Dear Phill,

Thanks for your quick reply.

So, it is pillarboxed, and has icons, so it is not a clean output.

Does the output look good, looking past the above problems. In other words, if we magicly got ride of the icons, would it be worthwhile to record the image.

The 5D Mark II is HDMI output is 1080i, not p, when not recording and Magic Lantern can clean all of the extra displays off the screen.

However... while the output signal is 1080, the image region is 3:2 in the best case (no Canon info displayed, after calling lv_output_device( "1080full" )). This means there are side-pillars on both sides of the 16:9 1080i signal, and then soft-mattes to show what portion of the 3:2 is the 16:9 recorded image.

So the effective resolution is even less than the 1080i signal might suggest. I haven't measured it exactly, but my estimate is that we lose about 150 pixels per side-pillar, leaving us with a 1620x911 useful image on the HDMI. I'm still investigating to see if it is possible to get different ratios and to fill the entire screen.

Dear Trammell,

Thanks, I did not know it was 1080i.

I just assumed that since the frame rate on the 5D Mark II was true 30 frames a second, that it was 1080p30 (true 30, and not 1080p29.97).

1080i30 is very strange, in my opinion.

Since the 7D has more frame rates, with 29.97, 23,76, and 25, I thought that they would all be progressive modes and not interlaced.

Trammell, do you know if the output is PSF?

That's the HDMI monitoring output. The camera records 30p, which is 29.97, and the 7D does 24p, which is 23.98 (approximately).

I believe it is 1080i60 and is most likely PsF. I do not observe any combing in the signal when displayed on my (progressive scan) SmallHD field monitor.

Not sure where exactly to post this, but Phil Bloom just tweeted that his first 7D film is up...

Philip Bloom Blog Archive My first short shot with the Canon 7d: “Shaving it back”

Thanks! I forgot to put the link here. It as about 5am when I finished uploading it. Its now 845am and am up again!

Phil,

Thanks for the tests. I found your appletini tests informative on bokeh handling as well. Could you please post it on XR or Vimeo for download?

Thanks for doing this stuff,

Ted

Excellent film. Nothing you do is plain Phillip.

Dear Trammell,

Great, that makes much more sense.

1080psf60 would be what is required to work with the widest variety of HDMI monitors.

This is awesome Phil. Any chance we could get a night shot so we could see the low light performance?

will be doing low light and all sorts of tests asap.

On a side note, I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Chris Hurd for running the most adult and pleasant forum around. Keep up the good work. Others can learn a lot from DVInfo.

Phil,

Any chance you could take a 2 second clip in 60P and 24P just as the file comes out of the camera so we can load into our various editing suites to check for compatibility?

Thanks for the late nite clip, it was very helpful. I'm "in" if the files are compatible with Vegas Pro 8/9!

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Phil Bloom for the most rowsing version of "Hey Jude" that I've ever heard in a karaoke bar.

Chris, let me guess, you didn't have a camera handy...

The problem is that turnabout is fair play... therefore no photos.

Surely 24 fps means just that Bill? Or are you joking with me?

Hi Tom, see http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eo...l-listing.html -- the EOS 7D records 23.976 fps.

From http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...delFeaturesAct

Well I'll be blowed. Of course the PAL land model will be 24 fps on the nail, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be. Same with 25 fps.

I believe it offers 23.976, 24 and 25.

We call it 24 fps but it's always been 23.97 etc.

Strange thing to say Bill. 24 fps has been 24 fps for a 100 years now, give or take 3 or 4 fps for wavering camera and projector tolerances.

Should have been more clear, sorry, I was talking about video 24 fps. 30 has always been 29.97 and 24 is 23.98.

if you know where to look you can find it!!

Phil, I'm officially looking.

I was VERY VERY drunk...

Anyway i have footage of Chris Hurd singing YMCA at the same karaoke...he does the moves and EVERYTHING!!

Got any more good footage up yet?

What happens in Austin stays in Austin. Supposedly.