December 2009 Archives

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:-)