Curious Drake » canon 7d

Finally! my 7D on-camera flash finally gave in

Vince — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:10:47 +0000

On-camera flash on my 7D had intermittent problems, now the problem is permanent. This is a good news for me, getting even with the Canon service center; in the past rejected with a smile implying a con, failed to reproduce the problem on the spot, surely you’ve experienced this embracing feeling, I would have my satisfaction now, rejecting the repair no longer possible, proving that the con is Canon service center, set up in a way allowing them to dismiss an intermittent problem without making a proper effort in reproducing a problem, exhibiting a disturbing pattern, finally having my camera repaired and, hopefully, working properly in a few weeks.

No, it does not work

Vince — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:47:16 +0000

The Canon 7D repair saga continues. It was not fixed first time! It goes back to the shop today. My camera still has the flash miss-fire problem. Isn’t is wired? Dear Canon, do it right this time, please. Or else… I was about to switch to Nikon, but then 7D came out and I decided to stay with the brand. Canon, do not waste the last chance to keep a loyal customer that started with Canon AE-1 many many moons ago!

Curious thing about Canon 7D Service

Vince — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:31:40 +0000

Canon covers up problem with the Canon 7D camera. I came to this conclusion based on the repair report that I received with camera returned from a warranty repair. I bought the camera just before the New Year. On January 2nd it started to malfunction. I was shooting using this setup

Canon 7D Wireless Setup

It flashed a few times, but then it stopped syncing the PocketWizards. It was curious, that if I turned the camera off, it would sync once again, but then stop syncing.

After a while the camera started to make funny sound in Flash Wireless Master mode and stopped syncing the 580EX too!

At this point I took the camera to the closest service center. The camera was fixed under warranty. Everything works fine now, including the setup shown above, but Canon technician wrote “No problem found” in the repair slip. I still do not know what was wrong with the camera.

Does anybody experience a similar problem? Would not know what is going on with the camera? Why would Canon not disclose the repairs done to the camera?

Learning the ropes on the Canon 7D

Vince — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:36:55 +0000

Silent shooting mode has to be set to “disable” if you want to synchronize an external flash with a 7D (as well as 5D MK2 apparently). It is a documented, but fairly obscure feature.

Live view gives interesting advantage for manual lenses. At 10x magnification it is possible to achieve very nice focus without having to change the focusing screen on the camera. I already wrote about that in the past, but I cannot stop enjoying it and this is why I am repeating myself. It is very good for macro, but if you are planing to use external flash, it is likely that your subject will not have enough ambient light on it. It would make you live view window dark. Here comes another obscure setting called expo simulation. If you set it to “disabled” the camera would use all the light it can to show you the live preview and will not take into account aperture and shutter speed that you have dialed for shooting with external flash. BTW, the menu item controlling exposure simulation is just above the live shooting mode menu item.

So, if you are to use external flash for macro and focus using live view magnification, disable the silent shooting and the exposure simulation. It would save a few hears on your head

7d Menu Choices

Canon 7D – New Think!

Vince — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:54:04 +0000

I sold my Canon 5D and bought a 7D instead. 7D is so much more as a camera, it is so much of a “new think” that even the guy behind the Luminous Landscapes went of an a rant about absence of a dedicated mirror lock button for absolutely nothing! This great guy (I am not being sarcastic, I really respect him) absolutely missed the point that live view button does lock up the mirror and allows fine tune manual focus with 10x magnification. In this mode you can take a shot with mirror locked up. This is what I call “new think”! Great job Canon!

IMG_0272-1

This picture is shot hand held at 6400 ISO in almost dark room , so, forget about the noise, this is not the point. The point is that this is a hand held shot, using wide open Takumar 50mm f1.4 lens. I could not focus this lens ever on my Canon 5D even using an S focusing screen. I can focus it on the 7D using Live View and 10x magnification