760D impressions

Continued....

The "no flash" auto mode was no use for this photo, though; it wanted to focus on the grille in the foreground.  And I can't change the focus point in that auto mode.  So I changed to "P" and selected a single centre focus point - which happens to be what my 400D was set to for most of the last decade!

I have to wonder how useful 19 focus points are, to be honest.  In this image the bee is right in the middle, but it has chosen to focus on something a bit closer.

Low light performance, though, is very impressive.  This statue was very dark; so dark that I had trouble composing the image, and didn't expect a usable result.  But it's great.

So this morning I decided to try something a bit different; the tour of Britain cycle race was passing the end of my street.  I'll say straight away that this is absolutely not the sort of photography that I ever do! (Or ever plan to do, frankly).  So it's really only a test of whether the camera's auto features can "do the right thing" in the hands of a naive user.

Cycle races are really parades of motorbikes and cars, with about ten seconds of blink-or-you-miss-it cyclists in the middle.  The camera seemed to do a good job of the preceding and following motorbikes:

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the cyclists.  In this one, it has chosen to focus on something:

In this one though, despite there being less confusion of different depths to chose between, it has failed to do the right thing entirely:

If this had been more than just a test of a new camera I could have quite upset by how bad that one is.

Perhaps the significant difference between the motorbike and the cyclist photos is that I zoomed in more for the latter.

So in summary, I'm happy with my purchase and especially with the great low-light performance.  But I continue to find that the "auto" modes are not useful to me, and wonder about the utility of having more than one central autofocus point.

More things I like about it:

- The electronic level.

- Correction for lens aberrations.

Things I don't like:

- It took me a long time to work out how to adjust the exposure compensation without using the touch screen.  It seems that the back dial changes it, but only during the 8 seconds after you've half-touched the shutter to turn on metering.  Why not let me change this at any time - especially to let me change it back to zero.

And things it doesn't do but could:

- Rotate portrait images in playback if I rotate the camera.

The date and time now asks for a time zone.  Does anyone know how that is actually used?  In the past I have tried to sync photos with a GPS track and the difficulty is that the EXIF time stamp didn't specify a time zone (and the EXIF spec didn't have a way to do so).  So I always kept my cameras on GMT.  Has that changed?

Phil Endecott wrote:

Hi everyone, here are my first impressions of my new 760D. I'm going to post this in a couple of parts, you might want to wait until I've posted everything.

I bought a 400D back in 2006 and have been happy with it, and have bought several EF-S lenses. But it's getting old: I've been aware for a while that newer cameras have better sensors (especially for low-light conditions) and some other nice features. I decided recently that this was the year to upgrade.

My first thought was that I would get a 750D, but careful reading of the dpreview review revealed that it doesn't have an eye sensor to blank the LCD! That would be a step backward for me so I looked at the 760D instead. But at £650, it's not much cheaper than the 70D (£730) so I thought I should consider that as well. For me the main benefits of the 70D would be the increased battery life (about double that of the 760D) and the weather proofing. The main benefit of the 70D's sensor seems to be for focusing for live view and video, which is not something that I'm much interested in. The disadvantage of the 70D is about 200g extra weight and the higher price. On balance, the 760D won.

My first impressions were positive. Things that I quickly noticed compared to the 400D included:

- Bigger LCD

- Touch screen, particularly useful in "playback"

- Faster paging through images in playback

- Auto ISO! Yes, the 400D didn't have auto ISO; generally I would remember to increase the ISO when it was dark, but often I would forget to change it back again afterwards and take a lot of unnecessarily grainy photos.

- A minor annoyance, which I suspect I'll get used to, is the swapped position of the power switch. I was very used to lifting the camera by the grip with my right hand and turning it on with my right thumb. Now I have to turn it on with my left hand.

Why turn it off? Let the camera go to sleep and it'll wake with a button press. You can gauge to see if that uses any noticeable battery when not in use.

- Being able to view images on my iPad using WiFi is useful - but it could be much better if Apple supported NFC pairing.

So I took it out for some test photos. I started with the "green square" auto mode, but immediately discovered one of the reasons why I had never used that on the 400D: I pointed the camera at a building facade, partly sunlit and partly shaded, and it popped up the flash! Firing the flash for "fill in" illumination in that case would have done nothing except waste battery and draw peoples' attention to me.

I'm sure the green square mode is a lot different than what you are used to. I would bet that mode forces the focus mode to ai-focus that is continuous focusing.

To be continued soon, but I need to upload some photos...

Phil Endecott wrote:

Continued....

The "no flash" auto mode was no use for this photo, though; it wanted to focus on the grille in the foreground. And I can't change the focus point in that auto mode. So I changed to "P" and selected a single centre focus point - which happens to be what my 400D was set to for most of the last decade!

I have to wonder how useful 19 focus points are, to be honest. In this image the bee is right in the middle, but it has chosen to focus on something a bit closer.

Probably the autofocus mode you are forced to use in green square mode as in my other reply. You need to get out of green square mode and take control of camera settings yo get exactly what you want. The camera cannot read your mind!

Low light performance, though, is very impressive. This statue was very dark; so dark that I had trouble composing the image, and didn't expect a usable result. But it's great.

So this morning I decided to try something a bit different; the tour of Britain cycle race was passing the end of my street. I'll say straight away that this is absolutely not the sort of photography that I ever do! (Or ever plan to do, frankly). So it's really only a test of whether the camera's auto features can "do the right thing" in the hands of a naive user.

Cycle races are really parades of motorbikes and cars, with about ten seconds of blink-or-you-miss-it cyclists in the middle. The camera seemed to do a good job of the preceding and following motorbikes:

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the cyclists. In this one, it has chosen to focus on something:

In this one though, despite there being less confusion of different depths to chose between, it has failed to do the right thing entirely:

If this had been more than just a test of a new camera I could have quite upset by how bad that one is.

Perhaps the significant difference between the motorbike and the cyclist photos is that I zoomed in more for the latter.

So in summary, I'm happy with my purchase and especially with the great low-light performance. But I continue to find that the "auto" modes are not useful to me, and wonder about the utility of having more than one central autofocus point.

Phil Endecott wrote:

More things I like about it:

- The electronic level.

- Correction for lens aberrations.

Things I don't like:

- It took me a long time to work out how to adjust the exposure compensation without using the touch screen. It seems that the back dial changes it, but only during the 8 seconds after you've half-touched the shutter to turn on metering. Why not let me change this at any time - especially to let me change it back to zero.

I bet it is described in the user manual. All Canon EOS  cameras with a rear wheel function the same way with exposure compensation.you can switch dome settings in custom functions. Again, read the manual. It's probably to avoid the wheel being bumped while strap if over your shoulder to not mess up your setting.

And things it doesn't do but could:

- Rotate portrait images in playback if I rotate the camera.

Read the manual,  I bet it'll do what you want.

The date and time now asks for a time zone. Does anyone know how that is actually used? In the past I have tried to sync photos with a GPS track and the difficulty is that the EXIF time stamp didn't specify a time zone (and the EXIF spec didn't have a way to do so). So I always kept my cameras on GMT. Has that changed?

Thanks for your first impressions.  After reading some of your initial comments, I think you need to give the camera some more time.  There's a learning curve.  The only auto function that I'll use is the auto ISO setting.  That's handy when the sun comes in and and out of the clouds.  But I wouldn't use the auto mode that you talked about; normally I use aperture or manual priority.  That gives us more control.

RedFox88 wrote:

Phil Endecott wrote:

- Rotate portrait images in playback if I rotate the camera.

Read the manual, I bet it'll do what you want

OK, I accept your bet!  How about £25?  If you or anyone else posts instructions for how to make the camera rotate images on the LCD depending on the orientation of the camera at the time of playback, I'll PayPal you £25; if no-one finds a way to do it within 14 days, you lose.

I have read the manual. Not every single word, but many of them and I've certainly looked at every page.  but I've only looked at the printed manual, not the longer PDF version.

RedFox88 wrote:

Phil Endecott wrote:

- It took me a long time to work out how to adjust the exposure compensation without using the touch screen. It seems that the back dial changes it, but only during the 8 seconds after you've half-touched the shutter to turn on metering. Why not let me change this at any time - especially to let me change it back to zero.

I bet it is described in the user manual.

The manual says that the dial can adjust the exposure compensation, but it doesn't say that it's only effective for 8 seconds after metering, despite the manual having special icons to indicate features that are active for finite periods.  It also doesn't offer a rationale for this, compared to aperture, shutter speed and ISO adjustments which can be made at any time.

Regarding wanting to avoid accidental changes, there is a big LOCK switch that is intended for this.

Digirame wrote:

Thanks for your first impressions. After reading some of your initial comments, I think you need to give the camera some more time. There's a learning curve. The only auto function that I'll use is the auto ISO setting. That's handy when the sun comes in and and out of the clouds. But I wouldn't use the auto mode that you talked about; normally I use aperture or manual priority. That gives us more control.

Oh don't worry, I know how to use it!  I'll be using it exactly how I used the 400D, normally set to "P" with just the centre focus point active.  This was really an experiment to see if the auto modes had become any more useful in the last decade.  I was actually surprised to find that these "smart" modes are still just as useless, considering how much time has passed - but it's not a problem as the camera has many improvements that make it a very worthwhile purchase, and I know I'll get lots of good photos using the less-smart settings.

Why do you use "P" mode? With that method on your camera are you allowing it to choose the aperture and shutter speed for you? You might want to consider choosing aperture, shutter or manual priority to give you more control.

I used P because it normally does the right thing.

Sometimes I want to use a particularly wide or narrow aperture, or a particularly long or short shutter speed, in order to affect depth or field or to freeze or blur motion.  In those cases I may select Av or Tv, or I may stay in P mode and use the front control wheel to adjust the aperture/shutter speed balance.

But for most of the scenes that I photograph, P makes a good choice - especially now that I have auto-ISO.

No, that feature - which is the same as my 9-year-old 400D, does not rotate based on the orientation of the camera at the time of playback.

I want to get the same behaviour that, for example, my phone and iPad have in their photo apps.  Here is a portrait photo shown on my iPad in landscape:

Now if I rotate the iPad to portrait, the photo fills the whole screen:

I don't believe that the camera ever takes into account the orientation of the camera at the time of playback.

I can see your point of why you may be using "P" mode. It sounds like that is something you are comfortable doing. I hope you continue to find that your new camera is a good choice.

I haven't decided if I want to get that camera yet or not. The three 18mp Canon DSLR cameras I have now seem sufficient, but I'm sure that I would enjoy an upgraded camera once I had it in my hands.