topic Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon 7D Mark II

JBLawson — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 03:34:58 GMT

I am eagerly awaiting the release date for the 7D Mark II, can you please provide an ETA ?

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

Skirball — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:17:45 GMT

There isn't one. Lots of speculation, but nothing more. Many are guessing Christmas, as it's a big time for releases. I wouldn't get your hopes up. If you want to follow the speculation I recommend Canon Rumors. This place is nothing more than another forum, official Canon representatives don't come on here to give out information, it's just a bunch of fans like anywhere else.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

Skirball — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:44:15 GMT

I just checked CR. As of last week there was “zero chance of 7D2 in 2013”, and it’s currently slated for release in the second half of 2014. These things are wrong all the time, but they’re usually not wrong on rumors of things not coming out early…

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

JBLawson — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:31:47 GMT

Thank you for promt and professional reply.

Best regards,

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

Stephen — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:02:53 GMT

Hi JBLawson!

Welcome to the Canon Forums and thank you for your inquiry! In Support, we don't have information available about future releases of products until an official press release is issued to the public. Once the press release is made, we will generally post an announcement here and on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/CanonUSA).

We're all excited to see what's coming, so please stay tuned!

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

TCampbell — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 18:47:02 GMT

This is one of those "Those who are talking don't actually _know_, and those who actually _know_ aren't talking."

Canon doesn't provide any glimpses into their product roadmap prior to making official announcements. There are no official announcements around a replacement for the 7D.

It's hard to go on rumors.

Several years ago, I had planned to buy a 5D II but a photographer friend warned me to track the rumor sites because there was a rumor that the 5D III was about to be announced -- likely within 6 months. That six months, turned into another, and another, and another. After waiting 2 years because the 5D III was always "a few more months away", I gave up and bought the 5D II anyway. A month later Canon released the 5D III <sigh>.

If you need a camera, buy the gear you need when you need it. I wouldn't wait UNLESS you don't technically "need" the upgrade and it's more a "nice to have". You could always buy the current model and sell it as a "gently used" camera if the 7D II shows up sooner than expected. Sure you'll take a small loss when selling it -- you can think of that as a kind of "rental" fee because you did get the use of a very nice camera for quite a while as you waited for the camera you ultimately want.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

JBLawson — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:11:52 GMT

Good to know Thanks.Tim.

In that case, without selling the farm for a 5D III, whats your opinion on the 70D?

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

Skirball — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:36:13 GMT

The 70D looks like it has some nice improvements over its predecessor. But I’ve never been a huge fan of the xxD line, at least not the latest release. The price difference is too big compared to the Rebel line for what you get, in my opinion. But I’m in the minority on these forums. The Rebels get a bad rep because they’re the lowest on the totem pole, and the internet is all about arguing specs instead of actually using your camera. I would gladly buy an older model like the 60D, or I’d just get an older Rebel like the T3i, or wait for the 70D to trickle down to the Rebel, which seems to be the only thing Canon is punctual about.

If you were seriously looking at a 5d3, then why would you not consider a 6D? It’s been out long enough now that most of the baseless arguments from the 5d3 fan club have been debunked. There are countless threads on Canon Rumors about them.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

JBLawson — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:17:25 GMT

I'll give the 6D a closer look. Thanks.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

Skirball — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:42:00 GMT

I recommend basing your decision not so much on the model, but whether or not you want a full frame camera. They’re quite different from crop sensors, and both have their pros and cons. Once you decide on FF vs crop you can make your decision on models. Then look at the features you think you truly need, vs. nice to haves, or just marketing fluff, and the decision will usually make itself.

Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

MsDanaEMc — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 16:32:19 GMT

Hobby Photo user,, I only am a mom user, and Love taking photos of my kids, but last year I upgraded from the Rebel to the Mark 7D II . I haven't had the time to learn to use this monster,,, and boy there is so much to learn!!!! I guess I'm just used to the Rebel being to easy.. Are any of my old lenses compatible???

I have the Tamron 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 I tried to use it but and the photos were black And if s what setting.. this seems so complex and every time I turn it on all my old setting were gone!!!

and I had the Canon 55-250mm 1.1m/3.6ft

My biggest struggle is shooting Football at night still... I never know how to do it, and what setting. I try to write it down then when I get there it doesn't work.

I am trying to take online photo classes and then the editing classes too.I'm leaning to lightroom.. so much to learn so little time.. i appreciate your help.. Just wanna capture the memory.. as 15 years of his life has flown so fast...

Thank you!!

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

Waddizzle — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 18:15:19 GMT

A 7D Mark II has most of the same shooting modes as the Rebel Series of cameras. The top shooting mode dials are similar.

Your telephoto zooom lenses probably do not focus as fast as the 7D Mark II can capture photos in Continuous Drive mode. However, if you are getting black photos, then you may have another problem. Was the camera used?

To test it, put the top dial into Green A mode. Go outside on a bright, sunny day and try taking photos of stuff that is about 20-30 feet away. Test all of your lenses with it. And, of course, make sure you take off the lens cap!!!

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

ebiggs1 — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 14:55:43 GMT

Well Hobby Photo user mom, first off you may want to start your own thread, This one is years old. You will get more advice in your own"new" thread. However, that said let's talk. The &D Mk II is a fantastic camera and Lightroom is top of the pile for post editors. So, you are off to a good start.

Most of the time the camera is simply a storage device that stores what the lens sees. Your lenses are letting you down for nighttime football. Especially if it is PeeWee or high school fields where lighting may be less than spectacular. The most important thing to remember in sports photography is location. Not camera. Not lenses, it is where you shoot from that is paramount. Shooting from the bleachers and you are not likely to get Sports Illustrated quality photos. Not even if you have the top of the line Canon gear! Sidelines are best.

Now for the bad news the Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 is a poor lens. It will never be up to the great IQ photos most people want. The EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM is a good lens actually one of my favorite crop camera lenses but, it also, is not up to night time sports action as a first choice. But you use what you have, right?

As to how to set up the 7D Mk II, it works exactly the same way your Rebel did. However you set it, you can do the same for the 7D2. My preferred settings, to start, would be using Av mode and set the lens to its widest open aperture. Set ISO to 1600 and use AWB. Actually the WB doesn't matter since you will be using Raw file format. Never, never jpg. You have LR so the file conversion will be seamless and automatic when you import into LR. There you can change most settings to your liking.

The one thing you can't fix in Raw is focus. That must be spot on. Use just the center focus point and turn all the others off.

Give this a try and, please, let me know how it went.

If you need a few pointers on LR feel free to ask. I have a few years under my belt with it and PS.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

ebiggs1 — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 15:26:30 GMT

" I tried to use it but and the photos were black ..."

I am not quite understanding what you are trying to convey here. Did you mean all your shots were black? No photo at all?

A completely black photo is severe underexposure. Why is the question. At a night time football game if the SS was set too high like 1/4000 it would result in a pretty dark, black, shot for instance.

The 7D Mk II will keep your previous settings. It has a "keep alive" button battery. In order for it to "forget" your settings it and the main big battery would have to be removed or completely drained of power.

"...And if s what setting.. this seems so complex and every time I turn it on all my old setting were gone!!!""

You know the way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time, kido. Just slow down and take it easy. Most settings are exactly the same as your old camera. Do the easy stuff first and let the advanced stuff wait a while. Let's try P mode. ISO 200. Daylight WB. Center focus point. One shot not Ai-servo. Lens on AF not MF. Preferably the Canon lens not the Tammy. Nice day go outside and shoot some general shots. Maybe the kids will participate! Use Raw file format not jpg.

Now take these shots inside and import them into LR. Mess around a bit with the sliders and watch what they do. Change the WB. Do lens correction. Add sharpening. You know just try it out. Let me know how it goes.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

wq9nsc — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:54:06 GMT

Your 7D2 will do a pretty good job with high school football but your settings have to be correct. The lenses you have will work fine with the 7D2 but they aren't optimal for a typical high school field where lighting isn't great.

For football, I like to stay at 1/640 as a minimum shutter speed and for many fields at night I have to shoot at that minimum. I am using f2.8 lenses and with 1/640 shutter speed that typically results in ISO 10,000 or slightly higher at many high school night football games. With your 70-300 and 55-250 lenses, if you used the same 1/640 shutter speed at this field your ISO would be at 20,000 at the wide angle end of your lens where it is a f4 lens and 40,000 at the telephoto end. IF you select the expanded ISO option on your 7D2, it will go to ISO 51,200 but I suspect it is so noisy at the high end of the range that the images won't be very good.

With the lenses you are using, I would do the following:

1. Choose the best location that you can and with many high school stadiums the visitors' side has closer field access than the home team. Get as close as you can so that you can stay near the wide angle end of your lens more often. I have sidelines access which makes it much easier but I have advised parents to consider using the visitors side for photography no matter whether they are home or visiting because they can often get closer that way and in many cases there won't be many fans, cheerleaders, band members etc. on that side of the field.

2. My preference for sports is to set the camera to manual mode and set your shutter speed and aperture to fixed values with ISO set to auto so that it can vary for a correct exposure.

I don't own any lenses that vary aperture by the "zoom" level so someone that does will have to fill in what happens to a fixed aperture exposure setting when the lens is "zoomed" past that level. The camera aperture will change to follow what the lens provides when you go to the telephoto end but I don't know whether it will automatically return to the wide open setting when you go back to the wide angle end, I suspect that you may have to manually go back to f4 after zooming to the tele end.

However, what you are going to need to do is shoot with the aperture at its wide open setting for whatever it is at a particular focal length and then adjust your shutter speed downward to the point where you get an acceptably low ISO for the quality that you need. Some shots in high school sports can be taken at 1/250 or lower such as when the QB is frozen before throwing HOWEVER be careful that your shutter speed is fast enough that you are able to hold the camera steady enough to avoid blur from camera shake. Typically that would be around 1/250 to 1/500 at the telephoto end of the lenses you own and significantly less at the wide angle end. Of course you also have a wider aperture at the wide angle end and this is again why you want to be as close as possible.

3. I don't think either of those lenses you currently own are known for extremely fast focus and the aperture also slows down the camera AF mechanism so you need to be aimed at what you want well prior to image capture so that the camera AF system has a decent shot at achieving focus. I prefer to work with a single focus point which can help to speed focus acquisition but you may want to use a small group of focal points to make aim less critical. You want your focus points on high contrast area such as the numbers on the jersey.

In short, shoot in manual mode with the widest aperture possible with ISO set to auto and adjust shutter speed downward as needed to get a reasonable exposure. A noisy shot is preferable to a blurred shot and you can do reasonable noise cleanup in post while a blurry shot will always be blurry and virtually useles except for the rare good creative shot. So accept high ISO noise over too slow of a shutter speed. 1/500 is marginal for football action and anything below that is going to be blurry except for stationary images.

Most high school fields have very uneven lighting so your quality rate will go up if you concentrate on the best lit part of the field and for most high school fields this will either be a zone around the 50 or dual zones around the 35-40 on either end of the field. End zones are often poorly lit and many just barely meet applicable standards (and often don't because of missing/defective bulbs in some of the light stands).

Your 7D2 is a fine camera for shooting sports and besides gaining knowledge and experience, your single biggest gain in performance would be from a f2.8 lens of reasonable telephoto length. The Canon 70-200 f2.8 family of high quality fast zooms is a go to lens for sports and if needed to hit your price point, image stabilization isn't an absolute necessity for sports because you are going to be shooting at a shutter speed where it isn't needed most of the time. You can also consider buying used and at that point IS might be a minor drawback because it is one more thing to go wrong with a lens although the Canon IS system seems quite robust. I shoot with two 1DX series DSLR bodies at most events and one will almost always have an EF 70-200 f2.8 on it.

Ernie has been trying to convince me to try a Sigma 120-300 f2.8 zoom for several years and that might be an excellent choice for your 7D2, it would be a huge step up from the slower glass you are using now and will work well if you are a ways back from the sideline.

Shooting high school sports is challenging but fun and you are always going to be dealing with marginal lighting except with the rare exception of a well funded private or large city school. Choosing the best location and concentrating on the shots that you can get are key to getting good photos. Don't neglect to get shots during the pre-game warmup because often there is enough natural light then to make slower lenses less of a drawback.

And accept that the photos you get aren't going to be like photos taken during the daylight or in a pro facility. The image below is typical of the lousy lighting for high school fields, shot at 1/640 with a Canon 1DX II and EF 300 f2.8 prime wide open and it still required ISO 10,000 with the shadows heavily pushed during post. This year, high school football has been pushed to an early March start and maybe the reflective snow on the fields will improve the lighting 🙂

Rodger

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

MsDanaEMc — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 16:58:09 GMT

Thank you!!! I will try to start a New thread.. I am not good at this.. I tried to read how to post.. and I wasnt sure... ok.. I will try again.. I did get the tamron to work during the JV game the other day,,, but it was daylight... Ill start a new thread to see what I get... Thanks so much!!

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

MsDanaEMc — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:00:28 GMT

Thanks for the pointers.. and Im going to try a lew feed.. I did get the tamron to work... Iguess I had a wrong setting when I tried the one night.. but I will keep trying

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

MsDanaEMc — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:05:12 GMT

Thank you so much.. Right now I am on the visitor sidelines.. So where do you recommend getting the used lenses from?? Sorry still newbie 🙂

And Whats the average price point for a Hobby mom... I just want to capture the moment and do it all for fun.. and again this was the first ugrade in 15 years!!! But I have to learn the camera.. and I have to learn to edit as well.. I guess lightroom is my next big adventure too...

Re: Canon 7D Mark II, Sports Photos, and Will my lenses work

ebiggs1 — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:07:00 GMT

When you log into Canon Community there is a red square with the title "New Message" just click that box. Add a title that sorta describes what you are interested in.

BTW, the advice given in this thread is still valid. I would steer you away from Roder's advise at the start. He is very accomplished and has very expensive equipment. Keep it simple at first. It is easier to learn with basic steps than to jump in the deep end to see how deep it is.

Re: Canon 7D Mark II

ebiggs1 — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:35:45 GMT

I suggest you use Av mode. You select the fastest aperture possible in your case probably f5.6. This will allow the camera to automatically select the fastest SS possible for correct exposure. Always choose Raw file.
Select a pretty high ISO number. Of course this for night time games. Daylight will be different.