R7 First Shots with RF 100-500, close-up with butterflies

I finally got to take the R7 out for some real use this morning.  It's not the type of day I would usually go out here in Phoenix as it was bright sun and hitting close to 110 degrees just before noon...but with a new camera how could I put it off?!

I went to a local indoor butterfly conservatory as it's a place where I know I'm going to be able to get a shot of something.  Normally when I go here I'm using my R5 with the RF 100-500 and RF 1.4x converter.

Unsurprisingly the R7 worked perfectly with the 100-500.  Super fast focus, so much that it almost felt a bit snappier then the R5.  I did put the 1.4x on for a bit, but as I expected it was actually a bit too much for this use case and I found not being able to back off under the 300mm mark limiting...something that I don't have an issue with then using it with the R5.

I was mainly doing a ton of focus-bracketed shots, so mostly using the 30 FPS electronic shutter.  I'm really impressed with the speed!  I normally set the bracket to around 20 shots, and the R7 just blew threw them.  The faster the camera can do this the better as it provides less time for the subject (or me) to move and potentially ruin the stack so this is really nice to have.

Also, one great thing I noticed was that the focus bracketing setting no longer automatically disabled itself after a period of time like it does on the R5.  I never had to worry about needing to re-enable it throughout the day.  This has caused me to miss shots on the R5 as it will disable that setting on it's own for some reason.

The autofocus!  Wow.  It amazes me that I can say that the R7 AF is better then the R5.  The way it works and the fact that tracking can be used in ANY AF mode (even single-point) is amazing.  I'm sure this will come to the R5 at some point with firmware, or at least I hope so because it is a huge step up.  It's also very sticky and tracks so well out of the box.

The controls certainly take come getting used to.  I don't like the placement of the * button as it's very far over and it feels like it would be easy to slip off the side of the camera if you pressed it slightly wrong.  I had no issues with the control ring around the joystick, other then remembering to use it when scrolling through and reviewing pictures...I kept trying to use the D-pad thing.

The EVF looked really nice as well.  I was concerned about the overall resolution with it being pretty low, but I had a hard time telling it apart from the R5.  That could be down to my crap vision though...so there's that.

I had no issues with any sort of pausing or lockups like some have reported with the R5s.  It had no issue being in 100+ degrees for around 5 hours.

I hope there's some sort of batter grip that is made available at some point, but the single battery lasted me all day and just over 6000 total shots.  And one interesting note is that the mechanical shutter does not seem to slow down at all as the battery drains.  The mechanical shutter sounds as fast as it does at 15% battery as it is at 100%.  A nice change from the R5.

I'm still pretty shocked that this is a $1499 body with the capabilities that it has and when using it side-by-side with my $3899 R5.

Anyway, here are a couple shots from the morning out.  All hand-held, focus-bracketed shots.  Merged in Helicon Focus and edited in Lightroom.

Wonderful captures...especially #4!

JayLT4 wrote:

I was mainly doing a ton of focus-bracketed shots, so mostly using the 30 FPS electronic shutter. I'm really impressed with the speed! I normally set the bracket to around 20 shots, and the R7 just blew threw them. The faster the camera can do this the better as it provides less time for the subject (or me) to move and potentially ruin the stack so this is really nice to have.

Thanks for doing this. Great to hear how this makes this type of photography easier

Also, one great thing I noticed was that the focus bracketing setting no longer automatically disabled itself after a period of time like it does on the R5. I never had to worry about needing to re-enable it throughout the day. This has caused me to miss shots on the R5 as it will disable that setting on it's own for some reason.

Hmmm. I am starting to wonder if there are more firmware updates for R5 in the works

The autofocus! Wow. It amazes me that I can say that the R7 AF is better then the R5. The way it works and the fact that tracking can be used in ANY AF mode (even single-point) is amazing. I'm sure this will come to the R5 at some point with firmware, or at least I hope so because it is a huge step up. It's also very sticky and tracks so well out of the box.

I have R7 on order, but just like you, would hope these small usability tweaks do make it back to R5

The controls certainly take come getting used to. I don't like the placement of the * button as it's very far over and it feels like it would be easy to slip off the side of the camera if you pressed it slightly wrong.

How good are button customization options? R5 is good in this area

I had no issues with the control ring around the joystick, other then remembering to use it when scrolling through and reviewing pictures...I kept trying to use the D-pad thing.

Good to hear it's just a getting used to issue. Looking forward to trying it myself

The EVF looked really nice as well. I was concerned about the overall resolution with it being pretty low, but I had a hard time telling it apart from the R5. That could be down to my crap vision though...so there's that.

Good to hear I'll cope with this too

And one interesting note is that the mechanical shutter does not seem to slow down at all as the battery drains. The mechanical shutter sounds as fast as it does at 15% battery as it is at 100%. A nice change from the R5.

I'm surprised by this, but good to hear

I'm still pretty shocked that this is a $1499 body with the capabilities that it has and when using it side-by-side with my $3899 R5.

Thanks for this, and sharing some great pics. It doesn't get better than this for FF is enough and APSC is dead crowd. A large part of the cost is clearly due to the form factor. There is a place for both and its not changing anytime soon

Thank you for your great review, very informative!

You're driving me back to the butterfly pavilion. Wonderful images.

Thanks so much for the initial thoughts.  Beautiful pics too!

R2

These are gorgeous shots. The more I read reviews from new users, the more enticing this camera is becoming to a once diehard Nikonian. Thanks for your comments and for posting these beautiful photos.

They are really beautiful photos. I’m really pleased to see how well it performs when focus stacking. I suspected due to the high frame rate it’ll be one of its forte’s. I had a Laowa macro on the R6 so never got a chance to try thr I’m built bracketing.

I’m curious, did you try the (new?) feature in the R7 of in camera stacking and blending? I wonder how it compares with a traditional workflow of Helicon, Photoshop etc. and if it saves all of the RAW files as well as the stack.

PicPocket wrote:

JayLT4 wrote:

I was mainly doing a ton of focus-bracketed shots, so mostly using the 30 FPS electronic shutter. I'm really impressed with the speed! I normally set the bracket to around 20 shots, and the R7 just blew threw them. The faster the camera can do this the better as it provides less time for the subject (or me) to move and potentially ruin the stack so this is really nice to have.

Thanks for doing this. Great to hear how this makes this type of photography easier

Also, one great thing I noticed was that the focus bracketing setting no longer automatically disabled itself after a period of time like it does on the R5. I never had to worry about needing to re-enable it throughout the day. This has caused me to miss shots on the R5 as it will disable that setting on it's own for some reason.

Hmmm. I am starting to wonder if there are more firmware updates for R5 in the works

The autofocus! Wow. It amazes me that I can say that the R7 AF is better then the R5. The way it works and the fact that tracking can be used in ANY AF mode (even single-point) is amazing. I'm sure this will come to the R5 at some point with firmware, or at least I hope so because it is a huge step up. It's also very sticky and tracks so well out of the box.

I have R7 on order, but just like you, would hope these small usability tweaks do make it back to R5

The controls certainly take come getting used to. I don't like the placement of the * button as it's very far over and it feels like it would be easy to slip off the side of the camera if you pressed it slightly wrong.

How good are button customization options? R5 is good in this area

I had no issues with the control ring around the joystick, other then remembering to use it when scrolling through and reviewing pictures...I kept trying to use the D-pad thing.

Good to hear it's just a getting used to issue. Looking forward to trying it myself

The EVF looked really nice as well. I was concerned about the overall resolution with it being pretty low, but I had a hard time telling it apart from the R5. That could be down to my crap vision though...so there's that.

Good to hear I'll cope with this too

And one interesting note is that the mechanical shutter does not seem to slow down at all as the battery drains. The mechanical shutter sounds as fast as it does at 15% battery as it is at 100%. A nice change from the R5.

I'm surprised by this, but good to hear

I'm still pretty shocked that this is a $1499 body with the capabilities that it has and when using it side-by-side with my $3899 R5.

Thanks for this, and sharing some great pics. It doesn't get better than this for FF is enough and APSC is dead crowd. A large part of the cost is clearly due to the form factor. There is a place for both and its not changing anytime soon

The button customization is on par with the R5, I don't think there is anything that I had mapped on the R5 that I couldn't do on the R7

FF is great, but APS-C certainly has its place and use.  For me one thing I noticed when editing was that I didn't need to add nearly as much contrast back into the shots.  The RF 1.4x extender is great for sharpness, but contrast certainly takes a hit when using it.  Not a huge deal, but certainly noticeable when comparing

Dazzla wrote:

They are really beautiful photos. I’m really pleased to see how well it performs when focus stacking. I suspected due to the high frame rate it’ll be one of its forte’s. I had a Laowa macro on the R6 so never got a chance to try thr I’m built bracketing.

I’m curious, did you try the (new?) feature in the R7 of in camera stacking and blending? I wonder how it compares with a traditional workflow of Helicon, Photoshop etc. and if it saves all of the RAW files as well as the stack.

I have not tried the in-camera stacking yet. mainly because from what I read it does not allow output as a RAW or DNG file.  For me that kind of kills it as an option.  Maybe to try and preview it to make sure it'll stack well, but that's all I might see a use for it at this point.

@JayLT4 these are great images, and a useful review. May I ask how you set up your shots? I’ve used focus bracketing on my R5 for inanimate objects with my EF100L macro so have a basic idea of how to do it. I do have the 100-500, and an R7 is on order. It requires you to start with the nearest point, and the images are then each a little further away. So what is your initial focus point on a butterfly? Or do you pull back a fraction before shooting? And what size increment do you set for the bracketing? Do you need all 20 images or are many (further away) not needed? It would really help to have some recommendations from you - thanks!

Wow.. wonderful images, thank you.

Totally agree on all your comments regarding R7 in use, though I compare it to my R6.  Two most standout points for me being the amazingly fast autofocus and it's stickiness, and the battery life is awesome.  Yes, the ae-lock button is slightly odd and yet my thumb seems to find it ok.  I've set my D-Pad up for WB/Drive Mode/ISO/Directional so far but no shortage of options for customisation, Canon did very well I think.

drsnoopy wrote:

@JayLT4 these are great images, and a useful review. May I ask how you set up your shots? I’ve used focus bracketing on my R5 for inanimate objects with my EF100L macro so have a basic idea of how to do it. I do have the 100-500, and an R7 is on order. It requires you to start with the nearest point, and the images are then each a little further away. So what is your initial focus point on a butterfly? Or do you pull back a fraction before shooting? And what size increment do you set for the bracketing? Do you need all 20 images or are many (further away) not needed? It would really help to have some recommendations from you - thanks!

For the focus bracketing I use One Shot AF, compose and lock focus (usually on the eye of the butterfly) then pull back slightly before pressing the shutter and doing my best to hold as still as possible.

I don't always use all 20 shots, usually varies on the low end to around 8 up to all 20 of them.  When I'm sorting through them I look at the shots and determine which ones start an finish in places I want.  With stacking you need to be careful not to get thing too out of focus, or focus through things as it can be a pain to fix it all after merging the shots

For the increments, I leave it at the default which I think is 4 (but I'd have to check).  On the R7 all I did for these shots was enable it and set the number of shots I wanted to take in each bracket.

jayboo wrote:

Wow.. wonderful images, thank you.

Totally agree on all your comments regarding R7 in use, though I compare it to my R6. Two most standout points for me being the amazingly fast autofocus and it's stickiness, and the battery life is awesome. Yes, the ae-lock button is slightly odd and yet my thumb seems to find it ok. I've set my D-Pad up for WB/Drive Mode/ISO/Directional so far but no shortage of options for customisation, Canon did very well I think.

I haven't done much with the D-pad yet as I still find myself moving my thumb over there expecting the wheel.  Right now I have most things the way I want, but I might try out a few options on that as well.

For the money Canon really packed this one full of features, that's for sure.  It's not a perfect camera, but it's near impossible to beat in the price range it's in!

JayLT4 wrote:

drsnoopy wrote:

@JayLT4 these are great images, and a useful review. May I ask how you set up your shots? I’ve used focus bracketing on my R5 for inanimate objects with my EF100L macro so have a basic idea of how to do it. I do have the 100-500, and an R7 is on order. It requires you to start with the nearest point, and the images are then each a little further away. So what is your initial focus point on a butterfly? Or do you pull back a fraction before shooting? And what size increment do you set for the bracketing? Do you need all 20 images or are many (further away) not needed? It would really help to have some recommendations from you - thanks!

For the focus bracketing I use One Shot AF, compose and lock focus (usually on the eye of the butterfly) then pull back slightly before pressing the shutter and doing my best to hold as still as possible.

I don't always use all 20 shots, usually varies on the low end to around 8 up to all 20 of them. When I'm sorting through them I look at the shots and determine which ones start an finish in places I want. With stacking you need to be careful not to get thing too out of focus, or focus through things as it can be a pain to fix it all after merging the shots

For the increments, I leave it at the default which I think is 4 (but I'd have to check). On the R7 all I did for these shots was enable it and set the number of shots I wanted to take in each bracket.

That’s exactly the advice I was hoping for - thank you so much!

Thank you for sharing these stunning pictures. I have been using 7D Mark II, now I am monitoring the R7 for my next purchase.

'

drsnoopy wrote:

@JayLT4 these are great images, and a useful review. May I ask how you set up your shots? I’ve used focus bracketing on my R5 for inanimate objects with my EF100L macro so have a basic idea of how to do it. I do have the 100-500, and an R7 is on order. It requires you to start with the nearest point, and the images are then each a little further away. So what is your initial focus point on a butterfly? Or do you pull back a fraction before shooting? And what size increment do you set for the bracketing? Do you need all 20 images or are many (further away) not needed? It would really help to have some recommendations from you - thanks!

Just a small note to add.  Focus Bracketing will initially Front Focus the first two frames of the series as it cuts slices through the subject.

Hand-holding macros (and even close-ups) is difficult though (kudos to JayLT4), so I too generally pull back a little initially, in order to ensure I cover all of the subject with the series.

Focus Bracketing can be very useful too even if you’re not stacking, as you can simply cherry-pick the best frame(s) to use individually.

And… still no word from B&H yet.  My bugs are waiting!!

R2

" I found not being able to back off under the 300mm mark limiting...something that I don't have an issue with then using it with the R5."  ALL Kameras have this with the Extender... Its mechanical btween lens and extender.