Your Questions About Canon 7d

rob answers:

The 7D very much requires a CF card and the rule is buy the biggest and fastest you can afford. I bought my 7D back in December and had several 4GB Delkin, SanDisk Extreme III and Lexar 233x cards that have been great and were just fine while I was shooting the 40D. However, after upgrading to the 7D, I quickly found that I needed larger cards because the near 100% increase in resolution also meant the cards only hold about 150 raw images. Now, if you shoot JPEG, you can still fit over 500 images on a 4GB CF Card and this isn’t necessarily an issue. But as I said, it wasn’t working for me as a raw shooter.

You don’t have to use UDMA enabled cards but, when you start shooting in bursts, UDMA cards will clear the buffer faster and allow you to shoot longer bursts. And fast cards are especially important if you shoot video. UDMA cards also allow you to download the pictures faster if you have the right kind of reader. I’ve simply never used Kingston or Transcend cards…Friends who were pros told me to avoid them. Lexar and Delkin have been traditionally cheaper than SanDisk while offering comparable reliability and speed so I can readily recommend them. Hoodman is another good brand but, they are actually more expensive than SanDisk which was a shock for me.

I tend to buy everything through B&H Photo. I shop at a lot of other places but it is pretty rare for anyone to beat B&H prices. Some may match them but, because they’ve been so reliable that I stick with them as a vendor. Anyway, here’s the search results I got at their site for 16GB cards, sorted from lowest price to highest.

Http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?ci=1097&N=4294538836+4294952451+4294955789&Ns=p_PRICE_2%7C0

I’m running the new SanDisk Extreme and Delkin Pro UDMA 16GB cards. Prices have been dropping fast lately. I bought those cards in December locally at Best Buy and a local photo shop for nearly $300 each and now they are barely priced over $114 at B&H.

rob answers:

Quicktime Pro is a good place to start… $30 from Apple. You can do basic editing through that software, or you can convert the video files into something the rest of the world understands.

You could start with something like Adobe Premiere Elements. Lots of features, but not terribly difficult to learn due to lots of wizards and automated features. If you are already familiar with video editing, Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas or even Avid Media Composer are very, very good. They are not inexpensive, and the learning curve is almost vertical if you don’t know what you’re doing to begin with.

rob answers:

Usually on the right hand side of the taskbar there is a an icon with a green arrow- this is for removing external devices.

In the long run it is usual to use a card reader for uploading images

rob answers:

As someone who shoots both Nikon and Canon, I know what I’d use for both and quite frankly my answer is largely the same.

For a 7D, you’ll want a fast (light sensitive) midrange zoom, a telephoto, and a normal lens. The lenses I’d use for the job are the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L or f/4L, depending on budget constraints, and finally a 35mm f/1.8. In a pinch, the 35 alone will suffice because it will, on your camera, capture effectively what your eye sees. It won’t zoom, but just move as needed; you’ll be pleased with the results that one lens alone, or with the other two, will deliver. The next person who answered recommended the 24-70. It’s a great lens, for the 5D Mark II and other full frame bodies. On your 7D, it will hardly be wide at all and it’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but at least it will work on full frame unlike the EF-S should you ultimately decide to upgrade. Hope I helped.

rob answers:

If you have to ask why on earth did you buy a 7d and not a rebel I wonder.

Ah well…. Go for 1/.250 and a fairly wide aperture