20.05.10
Canon EOS 7D Review
Last year we reviewed the Canon EOS 7D as a stills camera and mentioned its video capacity. Now, with the convergence of stills and moving image work moving at an ever-quickening pace, we put it in the hands of film maker John Campbell to put it through its film star paces.
With the advent of digital SLRs encompassing film capabilities, my excitement for the new-generation of DSLR cameras has grown. As low-budget film makers are now slowly beginning to bin their low-end DV cameras for the chance to shoot short, low-budget films on affordable high-quality video-capturing DSLRs, this excitement is warranted. This, coupled with the prospect of using high- quality lenses, means that Sony should beware: if this technology continues to improve in quality at an exponential rate, the next generation of film makers will all be shooting only on DSLRs.
Measuring 148.2 x 110.7 x 73.5mm, and weighing 820g, the Canon 7D is well weighted and a good size. At first glance, the buttons and functions all seemed to be placed for intuitive reactive shooting, which is essential for film makers, especially those shooting documentaries. A good start. The video mode is accessed by a switch on the rear panel that allows you to switch between live view and movie mode. When turned to the movie camera icon, you will be able to access the video menu on screen 4 of the record menu. When you turn the switch back to live view, you cannot enter the movie menu. Underneath the switch is a start-stop button. In movie mode, depressing this button starts and stops the recording. It is well placed on the camera and makes spontaneous filming a lot easier. A really nice touch on the 7D is that you can take a still while filming. The camera stops filming for about one second, takes the still, then returns to filming. I wouldn’t recommend doing this if you need a continuous shot, as you will drop frames, but I like this feature. In the playback mode, you are able to trim your clips on the camera, either from the front or back of a scene in one-second increments. If you have plenty of space on your card, you can save the trimmed clip as a separate file, or you can overwrite the original clip.
These options are handy when faced with the limited memory available, of which more later. Now the technical bit. The Canon 7D can record true high-definition video at a maximum resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 (1080i/1080) pixels with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Both PAL (23.976 or 25 frames per second [fps]) and NTSC (23.976 or 29.97fps) modes are available in full resolution. You can down sample in-camera to 720p resolution movies. PAL uses 50fps and NTSC uses 59.94fps. You can also use a 4:3 aspect ratio if you really want to capture 640 x 480 pixel VGA movie.
The 7D records its footage as MOV files, using AVC/H.264 compression. This apparently allows the 7D to avoid some of the loss of video quality that affects other AVCHD cameras that use a subset of the H246 standard, which generally means loss in quality of images that change between frames. Unfortunately, a problem for me as a film maker is the ability to only shoot individual movie clips for 12 minutes in 1,080p and 720p modes, and 24 minutes in standard definition VGA mode. This is probably down to overheating of the camera. Overheating will also occur while shooting in strong sunlight. If the camera overheats, an icon will appear, and you have to turn it off and let it cool down. This is not a big problem when shooting short films, but if you plan to shoot documentaries or one-off events, be warned: this will cause you headaches.
On the up side, the coverage offered by the viewfinder is exceptional. All low-budget film makers are used to overscanning within the view-finder or LCD display. Overscanning is where the viewfinder or LCD does not display the full image, often being up to only 90% of the final image. Not with the 7D. It has 100% viewfinder coverage (independently measured at 98%), with 1.0 magnification. The positive implications of this excellent feature for film makers include no more boom microphones in shot. The clarity of the 3in (diagonal) 920,000 dot TFT with a reinforced glass cover LCD display is extremely impressive. Its sharpness and colour definition are as good as I’ve seen of late, giving a true reflection of what is recorded. Canon does note that, in extreme cold, the response time can be slow, but I actually used it to shoot in Norway in -10C, and had no problems with the LCD. The function readout on the display was great. Two functions impressed me on the LCD. The first was the ability to display a grid, especially the thirds grid, in which you have the ability to line up your composition accurately. This is extremely important for lining up your start and end points on a panning shot across the horizontal plain. This grid turns off the moment you hit record, so it is not recorded on your final output – it’s just a helpful tool built in to make filming that much more instinctive. The second feature I liked was the pitch and roll readout. This is a big bonus, especially for those who find it hard lining up their horizon accurately. It’s really easy to get to grips with and looks like an aircraft’s altitude indicator, displaying 360-degree roll and 10-degree pitch in one-degree increments.
Hitting the info button allows you to toggle through all the display settings. Personally, I think an articulated LCD would be better suited to film makers, but as this is probably not on the agenda at Canon, I won’t hold my breath. There is no autofocus while you shoot, although you do have the ability to use a contrast-detect AF cycle before the beginning of a recording. This will not affect most film makers, as mastering manual focus is a must. Thanks to the low resolution (2.1 megapixels for 1,080p; 0.9 megapixels for 720p; and 0.3 megapixels in VGA mode), you will find that you will get good depth of field by stopping down. You may need extra light in the scene, but when stopping it down to, say, f22, it’s worth it, as it helps reduce the need to refocus constantly.
The 7D offers both manual and automatic control over exposure in movie mode. In auto mode, the camera adjusts the shutter speed and aperture as needed for a correct exposure, allowing first-time film makers to concentrate on focus and composition. For the more experienced film maker, the need for manual control is a must, especially when dealing with depth of field, because in telling a narrative, the ability to obtain good-quality shallow depth of field is so important. This has been a problem for the lower end of the video camera market, but here we have a low-priced camera providing excellent results. Having manual control over ISO, shutter speed and aperture is essential, and the 7D delivers this. Although you have great control over shutter speed, this does not eradicate the rolling shutter artifacts when panning.
The impressive ISO range (100-6,400 in 1/3 step increments) gives the ability to shoot in extreme low light situations. This sounds great at first, but shooting with anything over ISO 800 will start creating artifacts within the image, delivering severe loss of quality. With washed-out blacks, exponential increase in snow with higher ISOs and desaturated colour, you will probably find the film is pretty much unusable except as reference footage. Another down side is the picture quality in certain situations. However, when the camera is fixed on a sturdy tripod, with a still subject matter, in a well-lit environment, picture quality is stunning.
This is great for stills, but as for us film makers, our movies would be pretty boring if no action ever occurred within the frame. We have already discussed the impact of high ISO to the image, but that is expected. The one thing I am seriously worried about is a rolling shutter issue. What is the rolling shutter problem? Well, the image is firstly captured then read off the chip in sequential rows instead of being captured all at the same time. Herein lies the problem: by reading the data sequentially, the last row is read off the chip between 1/24th to 1/60th of a second after the first row was read. This problem is most evident when subjects move from side to side or if you pan quickly. The verticals distort depending on your camera motion. For example, you are filming a street scene. The start of the pan is a building with a well-defined vertical edge in the centre. You hit record and the first few static frames look great. Then, you start to pan to the right, the moment the first line of the frame is captured. The vertical of the building is dead centre by the time the last frame has been captured; the building has shifted slightly to the left. This results in the building appearing to suddenly tilt or lean to the right.
This problem is not as bad as with some other cameras, but it is still the worst part of the image capture. I’m a film maker and I need to pan. It’s pretty much as fundamental as it gets for me. The life of the LP-E6 lithium ion battery was amazing, even at -10C. I expected it to lose charge in temperatures as low as this, but it seemed to run consistently. Nothing more to say about the battery, except excellent. Next thing to look at is the audio. Ask any sound man and they will tell you that audio is always an afterthought. Well, in this case, they are spot on. It doesn’t matter how much you improve imagery; if you have bad sound, you have a bad film. The 7D has an onboard microphone, a mono mic that is built into the camera. This only leads to endless sounds of buzzing and banging of the camera operator adjusting focus. It’s poor, but, in fairness, you would never generally use onboard sound except for syncing in post production. The great news is that you can connect a stereo mic via the external mic terminal on the camera’s left side, under a split rubber panel. I have not recorded using an external source, so I cannot comment on the quality. But there seems to be very little literature concerning the sound recorded on the 7D. Unfortunately, the audio is recorded automatically and there are no audio level readouts. I like to have full control over the audio, and have the ability to monitor it with headphones. The sound does seem to be an afterthought. I hope that this will be improved in future models.
As a whole, the Canon 7D is up there with the other DSLR movie modes I have seen so far. You can get stunning results if you can accept the pitfalls and reduce your camera movements. The rolling shutter issue is still my biggest problem and one that really needs to be sorted. The best things, apart from being able to control depth of field and creating stunning imagery, are the pitch and roll and grid functions. These are things I never would have expected from a camera such as this, but they are amazing add-on features.
A new breed of film makers are practically salivating at the prospect of being able to shoot in such high quality, and some are already leading the way. Check out the internet – more films made on the Canon 7D are cropping up each day, made by people who are aware of its bad points and work around them. The Canon 7D heralds potentially the turning point of development of film as an industry, giving independent film makers the ability to explore their art form at a high standard, but an affordable price.
www.canon.co.uk
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