Canon 7D vs 60D for sports

jmp2204

currntly using a T2i, have my sights set on a 7D (mainly for shooting sports ,hockey etc..) looking for better focus system. would this ,or the 60 d be a better choice ? not really interested in all the bells and whisltes , just better shooting and auto focus performance is key

ziggy53

It is my understanding that the Canon 7D is never worse at autofocus than a Canon 60D, but it is often much better.

In lower light the speed of autofocus acquisition slows down for the 7D, and that appears to be by design and to reduce autofocus (AF) error. There is even a vague mention of the AF slowdown in the 7D User Manual. (Bottom of page 93.)

http://media.the-digital-picture.com/Owners-Manuals/Canon-EOS-7D-Owners-Manual.pdf

"In low-light areas or indoors, the continuous shooting speed may become slower even if a fast shutter speed is set"

In other words, for indoor sports and in poorly lit arenas, there may not be too much difference in AF speed and AF accuracy between the Canon 7D and 60D bodies. In better lit arenas the 7D will beat the 60D.

Overall responsiveness is also better on the 7D, due partly to the dual - Digic IV processors, versus single Digic IV in the 60D.

On the following pages look mostly at the shutter lag and cycle-time/continuous times:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E60D/E60DA6.HTM
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E7D/E7DA6.HTM

For a sports application, I can easily recommend the 7D over the 60D.

Brett1000

jmp2204 wrote: »

currntly using a T2i, have my sights set on a 7D (mainly for shooting sports ,hockey etc..) looking for better focus system. would this ,or the 60 d be a better choice ? not really interested in all the bells and whisltes , just better shooting and auto focus performance is key

I would say a used 7D might be the best choice but the 60D is selling for less than $600 at the Canon refurbished store so that's not too bad either

jhefti

I've never used either body, but I was recently shooting a March Madness basketball game next to the AP shooter who was using a 7D, and he was really complaining about the slow AF. I was shooting at ISO=3200, 1/1250 sec wide open (f/2.8), for calibration purposes.

I did look at his take later and it was pretty poor...

ziggy53

jhefti wrote: »

I've never used either body, but I was recently shooting a March Madness basketball game next to the AP shooter who was using a 7D, and he was really complaining about the slow AF. I was shooting at ISO=3200, 1/1250 sec wide open (f/2.8), for calibration purposes.

I did look at his take later and it was pretty poor...

ISO 3200, 1/1250 sec @f/2.8 is around 650 lux, and around an EV100 value of 8, which is rather typical for an indoor sports event. The 7D AF was probably affected by that level of illumination and probably slowed in response.

Without knowing the AF setup on the 7D, and the lens used, it's a little hard to know whether the focus problem was the venue or the camera setup. Some sports areas use lights which flicker at a rate which is very disruptive to the AF of many cameras, for instance. (There is a Canon white paper for the Canon 50D/5D MKII describing the measures taken to reduce the effect of light flicker and AF in the Canon 50D and 5D MKII, so I would hope that the 7D has some flicker remediation as well.)

http://downloads.canon.com/CDLC/EOS50D_5D-MarkII-WP2.pdf
(See the bottom of page 32)

I dare to say that a Canon 60D would likely not have improved the situation, everything else being equal.

jhefti

ziggy53 wrote: »

Without knowing the AF setup on the 7D, and the lens used, it's a little hard to know whether the focus problem was the venue or the camera setup. Some sports areas use lights which flicker at a rate which is very disruptive to the AF of many cameras, for instance.

http://downloads.canon.com/CDLC/EOS50D_5D-MarkII-WP2.pdf
(See the bottom of page 32)

I dare to say that a Canon 60D would likely not have improved the situation, everything else being equal.

I didn't notice much flicker, as it was decent stadium lighting. (My kids' high school stadium is the worst: single phase sodium vapour lights with horrible cycling.) And I'm sure he was shooting with a larger aperture lens (2.8) so I suspect there were other technical issues. I've seen plenty of 7Ds in these venues, with no expletives from their users...

photodad1

I have been using a 7D for over a year shooting high school and college sports. When shooting outside in well lit conditions the 7D works well. Indoors in low light situations is a different story, the AF is more like 4-5 FPS versus the 8 FPS outdoor shooting.