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- Feb 26, 2023
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- Name
- Phil Olenick
When I upgraded from my Canon 80D DSLR to my R7 this past summer, the biggest surprise was that it felt like coming home to the Canon FT-QL 35mm film SLR I had shot with from when I was 18 years old in 1968 to when I got my first Digital Rebel almost twenty years ago.
After two decades of my cameras getting bigger and heavier with every upgrade - FT-QL to Rebel XT (EOS 350D) to XTi (EOS 400D) to T4i (EOS 650D) to EOS 70D to 80D - my new R7 was actually a little smaller than the FT-QL, while more advanced than any of my prior cameras.
Then I discovered that I could configure its controls to feel like the FT-QL
Run in Manual - check
Set my aperture on the lens itself - check (Set the "control ring" on the lens to AV)
Set my shutter speed on the top deck - check (Set the "main dial" to TV)
See my exposure and depth of field in the viewfinder - check (turn on the RGB histogram and set the screen to full-time simulation of exposure and depth of field).
So: Real-time control of all variables, with all controls live all the time.
And some things the FT and my prior DSLRs couldn't do:
Use the ring around the joystick to control ISO
Full-time manual focus without turning off auto-focus - check (This works even with the tiny RF lenses that share one ring between Focus and Control if you turn on full-time manual focus in the menus. That way the ring is switchable on the lens between aperture and focus.)
3 frame per second electronic shutter with IBIS and horizon leveling (I know it can shoot a lot faster, but I don't need that yet.)
A Live-View based viewfinder with dual-pixel AF at all locations and auto-eye tracking,
Shooting at up to 10,000 ISO with decent quality!
Bliss!
After two decades of my cameras getting bigger and heavier with every upgrade - FT-QL to Rebel XT (EOS 350D) to XTi (EOS 400D) to T4i (EOS 650D) to EOS 70D to 80D - my new R7 was actually a little smaller than the FT-QL, while more advanced than any of my prior cameras.
Then I discovered that I could configure its controls to feel like the FT-QL
Run in Manual - check
Set my aperture on the lens itself - check (Set the "control ring" on the lens to AV)
Set my shutter speed on the top deck - check (Set the "main dial" to TV)
See my exposure and depth of field in the viewfinder - check (turn on the RGB histogram and set the screen to full-time simulation of exposure and depth of field).
So: Real-time control of all variables, with all controls live all the time.
And some things the FT and my prior DSLRs couldn't do:
Use the ring around the joystick to control ISO
Full-time manual focus without turning off auto-focus - check (This works even with the tiny RF lenses that share one ring between Focus and Control if you turn on full-time manual focus in the menus. That way the ring is switchable on the lens between aperture and focus.)
3 frame per second electronic shutter with IBIS and horizon leveling (I know it can shoot a lot faster, but I don't need that yet.)
A Live-View based viewfinder with dual-pixel AF at all locations and auto-eye tracking,
Shooting at up to 10,000 ISO with decent quality!
Bliss!
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