Wednesday, March 24, 2010

New Camera, New Experiences

If you have been looking at the digital SLR field at all these past few months, then you have no doubt heard of the Canon 7D. The Canon 7D, along with a few other Canon DSLRs (The also new T2i (Canon EOS 550D) and the older 5d Mark ii) can do what DSLRs had previously only dreamed of, they can shoot video.

Not just any video, but film like 24fps format video, 30fps normal format, and even a 60fps format for slowmotion playback. What does this mean for microstock? It means you no longer have to decide between shooting microstock footage or microstock photos due to the investment in the camera... one camera can do both, and do both *very* well. Shutterstock allows footage sales along with istockphoto. There is also a new site: http://eosfootage.com/ that dedicates itself to EOS stock footage only. Review on that forthcoming.

But as all things, nothing is ever perfect. The Canon 7D has issues with picking up sound for microstock footage. In short, the microphone compensates for low sound by amplifying it leading to sound gains and losses that are strange and do not sound all that great. The good news is it can be fixed easily through using an external mic attached to the camera, or by using a seperate sound recorder all together and splicing the sound in post processing. Also, microstock footage is not required to have sound, and depending on what the footage is of, may be best without it.

One thing you will note with a camera such as the Canon 7D or the T2i, is the need for excellent glass. The sensors are crop sensors (APC) and due to that, the 18MP size created a sort of vacuum for information that few lenses can fully fill. In essence, a poor lens cannot provide enough information for the sensor to utilize, leading to images that at 100% (yes, pixel peeping here) are oddly soft. The images do take to sharpening very well though and with a sensor this size, you can crop considerably and still have a very useable image for microstock (and say, use only the center of the image, where it is sharpest, for example).

Here you will find discussion regarding this issue/topic/concern:

Despite these short comings, the Canon 7D is an amazing work horse with the fastest burst shot I have ever used and an impressive low light (high iso) noise quality.

Test images forthcoming along with a personal opinion review in the coming weeks! Hit the RSS feed button so you'll see it when it materializes! Also, don't forget to click some of those ads when you decide to go, keeps this place going! :)

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