My first few weeks with the R7

They need to put this review on the homepage!

I've said before the R7 is probably the most compelling RF body below the R6 IMO. They just need the general purpose crop glass to support it!

Great review, best I have read. Great pics too!

Greg, Thank you for your considered opinion on the R7. Now we shall see how durable the shutter mechanism is with heavy usage as well. Love all the photos and wish we could go to CR with you again.

Great post, and very well done and so useful. Highly recommend those interested int eh R7 read this post several times.

I also have an R7, but I am not a bird or nature photographer, I am using it for soccer and other sports. Simply put, it has exceeded my expectations. I was using a Canon 7D MKII and a Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 MK II and moved to the R7 and got a new Canon EF 70-200 f28 MK III.

I may cause comments, but I found the RF 70-200 f2.8 unsuited to my style of taking sports pictures. The zoom ring takes too much rotation for a comfortable sports experience. I am sure it would be good for portraits and other settings. The EF 70-200 f2.8 MK iii has been spectacular, with fast focusing and a great look to my pictures. Its heavy, and I don't care. It feels right in my hands. I have found the controls easy to get used to. I have yet to deplete a battery. In one game, I took 852 pictures and could have kept going a few more, it never gave up. The max fps rate did drop, but no matter.

My results have been stunning. Many people have already asked what I am doing now. My pictures are just that much better looking. The focus system has taken a bit to get used to, and sometimes I fear I do not have it set up just right, but when it locks on, the camera just stays with a subject quite aggressively well.

I have always shot in raw, and to see how fast I could shoot.  I switched to Canon Compressed Raw. There seems to be no limit to the number of pictures I can take in a burst. At least 80, and I gave up. I am hard-pressed to see significant differences in quality to raw until I push to 3200 ISO and have some shadows. Overall I am impressed, never used it before. I will use it when need lots of shots I think.

I am using the PNY Elite X-Pro 90 64 GB cards in the camera. This card is fast and does a great job for me. Have 4 of them. A fast card is needed for the best performance. The card holds a lot of images in CRAW, even more images for the card I record JPG to.

I own the R7 and R5 but I continue to use my R5 for soccer games. I'm not sure my R5 setting would apply to the R7 but I'll share them with you anyway. I use dual back-button focus with one button set to spot focus and the other to eye recognition. I disable subject tracking since it tends to cause problems with target acquisition in groups (i.e. corner kicks). I use the spot focus function when capturing images with a lot of players involved like corner kicks tracking the ball. I will use eye AF when trying to get a player dribbling or defending. I occasionally hit the spot focus to 'help' the camera figure out whose eyes I want in the viewfinder.

Other than that, it's just a matter of taking a lot of shots and culling through rejects. I've been the team photographer for my son's youth team for the last 4 years. It has become more challenging as they've gotten older (U19 now) since the action is much quicker. The change to my R5 AF system was a major game changer in helping me capture better images once I got used to focus methods in various situations. I have noticed when birding with my R7 that it is 'stickier' once you do acquire an eye but the focus box will alternate between the eye and the head. This happens with my adapted EF 100-400 II and my RF 800 f/11 (don't use that one for soccer). That head/eye issue does not happen on my R5.

AnfaengerFotograph wrote:

jromer79 wrote:

The focus system has taken a bit to get used to, and sometimes I fear I do not have it set up just right, but when it locks on, the camera just stays with a subject quite aggressively well.

Coming from a 70D where I always used centre point focus and recompose, I’m having a very difficult time getting used to the focus system. I also shoot soccer and other sports, and it’s been a real struggle for me with many frustrations. I know it’s possible and that my struggles are due to user error.

I would love to be able to really get into the nitty gritty with someone on how to set it up and why, the difference between subject tracking and eye detect, etc. Sadly, I’m the only camera enthusiast in my regional area. Would love to hear more about your set up.

I have used Canon EF SLRs since the early 90's and 5 DSLRs starting in 2003. I was a big focus and recompose with my EF lens cameras. When I moved the R series with the R5 for the first 3 months I was very unhappy with my focus results. After listening to several good posters here and and watching videos I gave up focus and recompose and I am very happy with my results. The R series is great, but there is a learning curve. For many of my images (non action), I compose and then use my thumb to move the focus point to the location I want to focus on. Works great for my images.

I shot indoor basketball this year and I used subject tracking and personally I found it spot on. My bad images were few. My lens for basketball is a EF 70-200 f/2.8 II. I don't use a 70-200 for anything but sports so I am not really interested in the RF 70-200 2.8.

I'm out, but give me a day, and I will follow-up. Sorry. Just crazy, but wanted to acknowledge you!