"Catching" a bird with the 7D

Angellus said:
I was bored the other day so I took out my new 7D and slapped on the 400 F2.8 and 2 tele converter to have some fun in our garden :D I shot this clip in 1080p at 24 FPS. I think it's called a Weaver Finch.
Click to expand...
How's that lens working for you? I'm looking at either the 300mm or 400mm with 1.4 and 2x TCs.
 
Angellus said:
It's something else hey, but at the price I would hope so :D

Right, the first thing that impressed me when I got mine was just how sharp it is. It is often sharper straight out of the camera than some of my other lenses after they have been sharpened. That is wide open, for sharpness wide open only the 85 F1.2 comes close but that tends to have a lot of chromatic aberration.

Autofocus is also scary quick specially in daylight, it's pretty much instant. The IS is also fantastic.

The negatives only come in with things not related to image quality :D

First off, it's heavy.... really heavy. The 1D plus 400 is getting pretty close to 7kg, after a long day your arms will be feeling it. With the extra weight you will likely also need to get a new tripod and monopod, just keep that in mind as that turned out to be quite an expensive couple of extras.

You can hand hold it for a few shots but only if you are crazy :D

Obviously the cost is also an issue.

Then the teleconverters. The 1.4x is fantastic but with the 2x you do lose quite a bit of image quality. It's nice to have the option though and with the HD video like in the one above you can use the 2x with no issues since the video is such low resolution compared to the stills. If they are still +-R3500 I would go for one, it's a tiny difference on the price of the lens.

I'm really happy with it and from what I have read the 300 is pretty much the same.

Hope it helps a bit. PM if you have any questsions :)
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Thanks for the awesome reply! I'm going to have to think long and hard now about which one to get [first] - the 300mm or 400mm - as both get glowing reports.
 
Angellus said:
I was bored the other day so I took out my new 7D and slapped on the 400 F2.8 and 2 tele converter to have some fun in our garden :D I shot this clip in 1080p at 24 FPS. I think it's called a Weaver Finch.
Click to expand...

Angellus said:
That is wide open, for sharpness wide open only the 85 F1.2 comes close but that tends to have a lot of chromatic aberration.

First off, it's heavy.... really heavy. The 1D plus 400 is getting pretty close to 7kg, after a long day your arms will be feeling it. With the extra weight you will likely also need to get a new tripod and monopod, just keep that in mind as that turned out to be quite an expensive couple of extras.

Then the teleconverters. The 1.4x is fantastic but with the 2x you do lose quite a bit of image quality. It's nice to have the option though and with the HD video like in the one above you can use the 2x with no issues since the video is such low resolution compared to the stills. If they are still +-R3500 I would go for one, it's a tiny difference on the price of the lens.
Click to expand...

With all that kit you are out FILMING CHICKENS?????? :wtf:
 
I was playing around with the 7D's video last night and wow, colour me impressed. However thumbing through the manual I noticed that 1280x720 and 1920x1080 both produce file sizes at 330MB/min. How come? Are they using significantly different frame rates? (As you can tell I know nothing about video :))

What frame rate do I want to be shooting at?
 
Thanks. Now I've got more stuff to play with. :D
 
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