7D BIF: Belted Kingfisher

[Doug Brown]

Got to do some 7D BIF testing yesterday afternoon. I was lucky to find one of the more challenging BIF subjects, a Belted Kingfisher. Granted that this is not a varied BG, but I was quite pleased with the AF performance of my 7D. I'll be doing BIF testing all week and will be posting samples here on BPN.



Canon 7D, 500mm + 1.4x, f/6.3, 1/5000, ISO 800, hand held

[Kiran Poonacha]

Great going Doug, your sure pushing me to order mine soon, loved the pose and comp here, I think it needs a round of sharping as it looks a bit soft.

[Ed Cordes]

Glad to hear your 7D is doing fine. I have had mine for 3 days and only static testing which is also good.

RE the image, I agree a bit of sharpening will make it look better. I might also brighten the eye a bit.

[Doug Brown]

Here's a repost with some additional sharpening.

[Ed Cordes]

Doug, I like this version better. Thanks for reposting! BTW, ISO 800 looks good!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

How much of a crop is this? Looks pretty good for ISO 800 although there seems to be some color noise in the dark plumage.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Doug, glad you got good results. I love the wing position on this one, exposure is quite good too, it seems a bit soft on my screen, especially the plumage. Looking forward to more samples.

[Jim Fenton]

I'm not seeing the color noise Axel is seeing...it looks more like sunlight on the dark plumage to me.

Exposure overall looks great.

It does however look soft or lacking in detail?

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image with nice expo, looking forward to see more from 7D
TFS

[Kiran Khanzode]

Doug, this is phenomenal, care to share the AF settings ? Thx !

[James Salywoda]

Looks pretty darn good to me Doug with my experience I have to say this is one of the toughest birds to capture in flight they are fast small and very erratic flyers..... I have nothing as decent of this species to show for. Great Work!

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice light, BG, and a tough subject. The repost looks better.

[Arthur Morris]

Killer wing position. Ditto Axel's question on the crop.

[Doug Brown]

Ditto Axel's question on the crop.

More than I'd like; it's about 25% of full frame. But 18 megapixels can come in handy sometimes! :D

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Thanks for demo'ing the potential of the 7D. Now, it probably is no question that expert BIF photographers can get sharp images with (most) 7D(s) and other camera models. But how will it work for us average Joes and Janes? Does the 7D yield a higher keeper rate? Is the allegedly improved AF (and yes, I do like the sound of it) really superior? Under what conditions?

JR

[Doug Brown]

My initial thoughts are that the 7D, while not revolutionary, does improve upon the 50D's AF. I think it's better at tracking birds once you lock focus. I'm having good success with AF point expansion and I also like that you can adjust the AI Servo tracking sensitivity (I currently have it set to Slow). The keeper rate is probably a little higher. AF is best in the situations where you would normally expect it to be good, and struggles in the same challenging situations that you've encountered many times before with other bodies. I wouldn't call this the Achilles heel of the 7D, because all bodies have the same issue to varying degrees. Even the best flight photographers, Canon and Nikon users alike, see their keeper rate drop significantly when photographing fast-moving birds against varied BGs.

Image quality, build quality, and feature set are a sizable step up from the 50D.

All in all, it's a solid upgrade from the XXD bodies.