Devil's Advocate

As say 99% of the comments around the world, this camera is fantastic and will probably not be dethroned anytime soon. I use it for 4 months and have not yet exhausted its possibilities. However, nothing is ever perfect, since it is worth recalling the immense qualities 7D which are widely described in the comments of the site (image quality, speed sensor, sensitivity to low light, autofocus performance, etc, etc.), I will only play the role of devil's advocate and emphasize only the few defects / problems I discovered during these four months of happiness.

The first and most serious in my opinion, is that high lights (which is not lacking in summer ...) and measurement mode other than "spot", the 7D has a clear tendency to overexpose . On many occasions, I have found that a decrease has 1 2/3 was needed to get better exposure. This impression was confirmed by tests of 3 consecutive shots in burst mode and "bracketing" -2/3 to +2/3 of giving as the best image to -2/3. This problem does not occur (or at least is less obvious) in low and medium lights. To compensate, simply slightly reduce exposure or to use the "spot". But of course it is not always possible in case of picture "surprise". So beware beach and equivalent pictures.

Secondly, I regretted the lack of autofocus in video mode. The quality of the HD video really is excellent and can be compared to other HD cameras without blushing. But unfortunately, the autofocus does not work in video mode (unless there is an adjustment or any schmilblick I have not been able to find in the jungle capacity of this unit). So when you take a video, you need Program Presets focus on the subject to be recorded and does not change the distance shooting at risk of HD images but completely vague, frustrating paradox !!. Of course, we can also try to adjust the focus in manual mode, but turn the focus ring and the zoom, while holding the device with both hands because the viewfinder is disconnected and the we must use the monitor ... Mission impossible. I have a great HD movie my daughter running on a beautiful endless beach, very clear when it passes near me, but totally blur departure and arrival!

Then using the 15-85 objective (excellent by the way) in minimum focal, crimped vignetting, which becomes obvious when adding a filter. Especially when, as I often do, use a polarizing filter whose mount is much wider than other filters. This problem can of course be adjusted by a slight crop on the computer, but it still deserves to be mentioned.

As also noticed another user, autofocus, although very performamt is sometimes subject to hesitations in special cases where many planes are superimposed in depth, and a certain "waltz is observed in the viewfinder "of autofocus points are reluctant to wear their choice of one or the other of them. This may delay the development and possibly make a bad picture "surprise".

As also noted another user, Dial's program / priorities might be a little too easy to handle and like him, I occasionally found in shutter priority mode while I thought mode auto or aperture priority mode, or vice versa. It can be frustrating to have missed a photo to a problem as "beast" than that.

Finally and in conclusion, it should be noted consumerism pixels. In photo mode, can be managed fairly easily because the exhaustion of the memory card is still under visual control in video mode but when attention is captured by the photographer of other requirements, exhaustion of the card can occur at the worst time if it was not planned. I thus found out of memory (on a 16GB card !!!) when taking a video I would have preferred to keep. Of course, consumption depends on the quality of the image and can not therefore complain, but this is a detail that is easily forgotten in the heat of the action.

Overall, I confirm my 5 stars and my total happiness of being the proud owner of a Canon 7D.