Shooting 4K in Crop Mode on a Crop (APS-C) Camera! Close-Ups of Butterflies and Bees

[Markr041]

The Canon R7 permits you to shoot 4K 60P from a 4K-resolution 1:1 crop of the sensor.



If you shoot 4K 60p in crop mode you avoid line-skipping softness and you get a 2.88X crop! This makes the compact kit lens (15-150) 432mm at the long end, and 52mm at the short end. No need for that 100-400mm lens. And you still get the highest resolution - 4K (though not quite as pristine as 4K Fine, which oversamples from the full sensor but is limited to 30P).

You still get the combined IBIS and lens IS stabilization, which works really well in real life. And, for shooting butterflies, bees and other insects, which do not stay in one place long, you have to have fast and accurate AF - you need to point and shoot with instant focus. And you get it.

Finally, you get nice, smooth video at 60 fps. Here I have slowed down the 60 fps video to 30 fps (1/2X speed) so you can see better what the critters are doing.

 

[flektogon]

Very nice, just the colors are too faded.

 

[Joe Lynch]

Mark--That is certainly an interesting combination of lens and crop. What I'm seeing in my own experimentation with an Olympus body and longer lens is that the smaller and quicker the insect, the more I appreciate 1/4 to 1/8 speed to see the fine movements.

On an OM-1, I can shoot at 240 fps in 8 bit h.264 and 200 fps in 10 bit h.265, in 1080 not 4k, but without autofocus or autoexposure. IBIS and OIS still work, and I can use the one log400 profile that Olympus supports. It seems to work OK with the 10 bit, but was not good in 8 bit.

I am not a fan of 1/2 speed music, however!

 

[Markr041]

Mark--That is certainly an interesting combination of lens and crop. What I'm seeing in my own experimentation with an Olympus body and longer lens is that the smaller and quicker the insect, the more I appreciate 1/4 to 1/8 speed to see the fine movements.

On an OM-1, I can shoot at 240 fps in 8 bit h.264 and 200 fps in 10 bit h.265, in 1080 not 4k, but without autofocus or autoexposure. IBIS and OIS still work, and I can use the one log400 profile that Olympus supports. It seems to work OK with the 10 bit, but was not good in 8 bit.

I am not a fan of 1/2 speed music, however!

Here is 1/5th speed in 4K (shot at 120 fps 4K 10bit) from the Sony a7siii shot in the same garden with a long lens (no crop):



IBIS, OIS, AF all work on both cameras.

Neither video has half-speed music, just to be clear...

 

[Joe Lynch]

Yes, that looks great! More my speed for insects. And the 4k looks good, too. Thanks for posting that, and sorry about the music speed comment, my mistake. (My wife says I often listen to her at 1/2 speed!)