A few short news notices...

Canon has announced a new "Rebel" today, the EOS 550D (Rebel T2i). The most interesting thing for 7D owners would probably have been if Canon had announced a lens or two together with the new body. But they didn't...

A week ago nature photographer Ole Jørgen Liodden posted fourth part of his 7D reviews series on Canon Field Reviews. This time looking at the cameras image quality.

The "rumor" (apparently there has been an "announcement" somewhere, but I can't find it?) says that Canon is releasing a plug-in called "EOS E1 plug-in" for Apple's Final Cut Pro, which should allow "simple and easy transfer of video content from Canon's EOS DSLR cameras directly into Final Cut Pro". When available it should be downloadable at http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/finalcutstudio/.

Ever thought about taking a Canon EOS 7D underwater? Berkley White from Backscatter Underwater Video & Photo did.

The Canon 7D is quite possibly the best of both worlds for underwater photographers with an interest in video...

Read the full review:

Canon 7D Underwater Housing Review

Jean-michel Tari sent Planet 7D a tip about this nice short movie he has made. Shot with a Canon EOS 7D in one day.

Max is an unbearable and totally egocentric person. But when his girl friend asks him to pick some photos in a small shop lost in Paris, he is far from suspecting what is going to happen.

It is a very cool short movie which you should go and watch in HD on Vimeo.

Technical specs:
Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Rig: Shoulder rig, matte box and follow focus from Redrockmicro
Lenses: Canon EF 24mm USM II 1.4 / Zeiss ZE 50mm 1.4 / Zeiss ZE 85mm 1.4
Monitoring: Marshall V-LCD70P-HDMI
Editing Codec: Cineform Prospect HD

Canon HD video contest

And talking about cool videos... Are you a talented filmmaker? Check out Canon and Vimeo's new big HD video competition, "The Story Behind the Still".

Maybe the last post linking to 7D reviews, but got to mention this one. The Imaging Resource probably makes the most thoroughly camera reviews on the net, and already their "hands-on preview" posted when the 7D was announced, was larger and more informative than most later reviews I have seen. It is this preview that now has been expanded and updated to their final full review of the Canon EOS 7D:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E7D/E7DA.HTM

Be sure not to overlook all the tabs and "sub-tabs" if you want to read the full review. Though just the content of the first "overview" tab could have been a full review on other sites.

Canon has a announced a new lens, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. A new version of their fastest 70-200mm lens with image stabilization. It has revised optical design, 4-stop IS and reduced minimum focusing distance. Canon Europe press release at:

http://www.canon-europe.com/About_Us/Press_Centre/Press_Releases/Consumer_News/Cameras_Accessories/EF_70-200mm_f2.8L_IS_II_USM_Press_Release.asp

PS/Update 9th Jan 2010: Third part of Ole Jørgen Lioddens 7D review is out. This time he takes a closer look at the cameras AF performance.

Canon 7D winter test from Ole Jørgen Liodden on Vimeo.

Second part of Ole Jørgen Lioddens 7D review is up, and I like this video from it:-) Watch the video on Vimeo for best quality and read the review at Canon Field Reviews.

Oh, and in the "internal news", Planet 7D now has its own flickr group. Post your photos on Flickr to the group pool and get them featured right here on this site. Currently a "strip" on top of each Planet 7D page will automatically show the latest 50 photos added to the Flickr group pool (Requires "Hide your stuff from public searches" is set to "No" in your Flickr account settings if you want your photo included). I'm hoping to get a group pool with quality rather than quantity and there's already some very impressive shots done with the 7D in the pool. Take a look for yourself...

The currently widely running TV commercial featuring photographer Fergus Kennedy. The commercial itself was also shot with the 7D. Maybe a little bit cheesy, but I guess commercials has to be that? :-) You can also watch it on YouTube.

Watch more about Fergus Kennedy working with 7D in the French wetland Camargue at http://www.canon-europe.com/takestories/#/eos7d.

Earlier today Adobe released Lightroom 2.6 and Camera Raw 5.6. And after some time with only unofficial or preliminary support, Canon EOS 7D RAW files are now officially supported by final Adobe RAW processing software. There has been release candidates out for a month, and it is not clear if the support has been improved in the final releases compared to these, but the final versions should be a vast improvement over the beta-versions and the unofficial support found in the older Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 releases. Adobe Photoshop CS4 or Photoshop Elements 8 are required to install Camera Raw 5.6. If you have older Adobe RAW software, an option is to download the new DNG Converter 5.6 and use this to convert your 7D RAW files to DNG format. This will make the files compatible with older versions of Photoshop and Lightroom.

Download latest versions of Lightroom, Camera Raw and DNG converter from the Adobe website or use Adobe Photoshop and Lightrooms built-in update functionality. Lightroom 2.6 is a free upgrade for Lightroom 2.x users, Camera Raw 5.6 is a free upgrade for Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Elements 8 users. The DNG converter is a free tool available for all:

• Adobe updates download

Also DxO released DxO Optics Pro version 6.1 for Windows with 7D support a weeks time ago. You can download this RAW software in a trial version from the DxO site:

• DxO trial downloads

And finally Apple has released Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.7 which adds 7D support to software like Aperture 2.x and iPhoto '08/'09 for Mac. The update is available via the Software Update mechanism of newer releases of Mac OS X.

Update 19th Dec. 09: According to a little test by Secerator on the dpreview forum there's significant less noise in Lightroom 2.6 compared to the Release Candidate when using default settings without any noise reduction applied.

Related posts:

• Capture ONE 5 Pro released (October 28, 2009)

Canon EOS 7D is in many ways a camera made for action. It has high-ISO support, can shot eight frames per second and it features a brand new advanced and very configurable autofocus system. Actually 7D is the first non-1D series camera from Canon featuring double Digic-processors and a dedicated processor for autofocus. Obviously a camera of interest for sport and wildlife photographers, and more than half of the reviews in the following little collection, are "hands-on" done by wildlife photographers.

Maybe the most interesting read will be the Norwegian photographers Ole Jørgen Lioddens four-part review. He tested the camera 3,5 week in Antarctica! The subjects of the four parts will be weather sealing, autofocus, HD-video and image quality. So far only the first part has been published, but I will update this post as soon as I see the other parts.

• Canon 7D Field Review by Ole Jørgen Liodden. Part #1 Weather Sealing.
• Canon 7D Field Review by Ole Jørgen Liodden. Part #2 In cold winter
• Canon 7D Field Review by Ole Jørgen Liodden. Part #3 Autofocus
• Canon 7D Field Review by Ole Jørgen Liodden. Part #4 Image Quality
• Canon EOS 7D review by Nick at GSM Arena.
• Canon 7D review and tests by Juza Nature Photography.
• My First Evaluation of the Canon EOS 7D as Still Camera by Scott Bourne.
• Canon EOS 7D Hands-on Mini Review by Richard Winn.
• Autofocus Torture Test at Pro Photo.
• Canon EOS 7D review at Cameralabs.
• Canon EOS 7D Full "hands on" Review by Bob Atkins.

Updates 7-8th Dec 09: I have added a few more reviews to the above list.

Related posts:

• New reviews (November 8, 2009).
• Planet 7D for Canon EOS 7D users (October 30, 2009).

P.S. A working contact form has finally been implemented here on Planet 7D. So if you got any comments or tips to Planet 7D, please go ahead:-)

Screenshot from one of the Canon tutorials at Digital Learning Center.

Canon US has posted a series of 16 Canon EOS 7D tutorial videos on their Digital Learning Center site. The videos are available for download in different sizes optimized for playback on various devices, including versions for playback on the camera's rear LCD. But of course you can watch them online on your PC too. 6 of the 16 tutorials are about the camera's many AF options, but subjects also include live view, movie mode, customizing the camera, flash and the WFT-E5 Wireless File Transmitter:

• EOS 7D On-Camera Tutorial Videos at Canon Digital Learning Center

Speaking of tutorials. Especially video shooters might also find these two tutorials interesting:

• How to Setup Your 7D by Tyler Ginter
• How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range by Luka

In other news, Adobe earlier this week made release candidates of Camera RAW 5.6 and Lightroom 2.6 available for download on the Adobe Labs site. Both have official support for Canon EOS 7D RAW files, and the word is that they are doing a much better job than the unofficial 7D beta-support found in Camera RAW 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5. Being release candidates means that the software might not be completely equivalent to the final versions, but should be very close. Download from Adobe Labs:

• Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 Release Candidate
• Adobe Lightroom 2.6 Release Candidate