1st shots with the 7D

David-Stallard

This weekend was my first outing with the new 7D & 100-400, yesterday my wife and I went to Colchester Zoo and when I processed the shots I binned the lot of them due to awful focusing / lack of shapness and was within 10 minutes of pulling my sony gear from fleabay. . . . spent more than a few hours scouring the interweb thingy (do techy me) and found a few sites / posts / blogs etc with different settings for the 7D so I reset the camera and applied the most logical (to me anyway) determined that one bad day with a totally new camera / system was not going to put me off - checked the Brands website YES racing is on, only have a few hours to spare in the morning but I have to try again. . . .

So determined to give it another try (I had just paid a small fortune for it after all) Started with a clear head and a new set of setting's I also removed the Hoya pro filter off the lens (read a few stories about these on the 100-400 causing problems and as I always use the hood anyway thought I would give it a go) took around 400 shots playing with focus points and shutter speed's etc throughout the morning, I am in the middle of processing them now and so far I have kept half - the binned half were bad setting choices which I expected as that was the whole reason for going BUT the ones I did keep whilst still not 'perfect' have blown my old shot's out of the water in terms of sharpness / focus and colour.

Few examples REMEMBER I am going for settings here and NOT composition:

Towards me fast


Panning - sun directly on one of the brighter cars


Sun above and directly in front of me (I was stood under a tree)


Panning with tyre wall in front to check focus 'lock'


Away from me hard on the power


Just because it's stunning


All in all I am very pleased with results especially seeing as it was the first try with a totally alien system for me, I have finally found a great set of 'base settings' so I can hopefully build from here.

So come on then boys n girls. . . . what do you think?

.DAVID.

Jeffro

I think the 7D is amazing...way better than my 20D. I did have to set the micro adjustment for my 300L f/4 as it was back focusing just a bit.

Oh, and your pics look good to.

nipprdog

David-Stallard wrote: »

So come on then boys n girls. . . . what do you think?

.DAVID.

#1 is sharp. The rest aren't. You should bump your SS while you practice your panning.

1/250 is a little slow for cars at that speed unless you have a lot of experience at panning.

Scott293

David.......I think they look great for the first time using that camera,all I think is when you figure out a few tweaks and get it set up the way you want your going to get some great shots. And I beg to differ 1/250 is not slow at all for panning cars I shoot from 1/80 to 1/125.

Scott

nipprdog

canon400d

nipprdog wrote: »

Nipper is quite correct in what he says about panning. The lower the shitter speed comes with a lot of practice. I get my best results around 1/125 but I did start with a much higher shutter speed and slowly worked my way down.
Cheers
Bob

Glort

Well they look shap enough to me!
Spoilers and things do move on cars and may appear blurred but if you were shooting at 250th, it's more like a DOF issue than anything else.
Overall I would say a great set of shots with little to improve other than perhaps the cropping on one or 2 but that's easy fixed and not a camera/ shooting technique issue anyway. I think these are a very decent set of pics that would be entirely saleable to either the drivers and fans or publications.

As for the 250th, I wouldn't dream of panning at that speed!
Way too fast.
Last time I shot race cars, the best shots came late in the afternoon when I was down to 1/30th. A Mate and I ended up having a competition who could get down the slowest and shooting off monopods, that's what we both were able to get sharp shots at so had to call a tie. Our respective clients also loved them and bought several as the background was totaly and completely blurred like an oil painting.

For mine, 1/60th is more where it is at and if up are in teh right spot on an overcast day, it picks up all the blue exhaust flames and glowing brake disks.

I'd say a job well done on these shots.
Be happy with them and don't get into the forum nitpicking mentality that takes away from the achievements you have made .

austinado16

Super nice shots. #3 is bay far, my favorite...excellent composition. Personally, I think you did a fantastic job on the panning shots. The cars look good, and you've got some wheel spin, so they don't look parked.