Welcome to the Canon 7D / 550D / 5D Mk II Resources Site

It's been awhile since the Sept 2009 launch of Canon's EOS 7D camera, plus it's little brother the Canon 550D (Rebel T2i). Since then various fans (and haters) have posted reviews, video samples, and even full production clips online. This web site tries to bring all of those together, except the haters. No more crazy pull downs, just move the .MOV files into your favorite NLE video editor and your set to go!

Ethics statement: A lot of our work posted here is done for free and our tutorials are done for free. We love sharing our passion for photography and film. Yet the domain names, marketing work, and some of the equipment we need have to be paid somehow; hence, you may see the product links on here directly going to our partners that's asked us to be partners. This includes but not limited to Amazon, BHPhotovideo.com, and others. Thank you for helping us keep the site up!

If you are trying to go to the Camera 7D forums, please access http://groups.google.com/group/camera-7d-group-camera7dcom. It's hosted on Google Groups. We are also on Facebook, what you read here is posted on our fan page. Or you can follow Don on Twitter.

When a CPS photog travels to typhoon disaster zone!

Disaster Zone Equipment List

Don Sausa, a Camera7D.com contributor, traveled to Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City, Philippines to help document the humanitarian crisis there. Here's his quick short list of what he brought with him:

You can his stories / web galleries here:

1. Aid groups and military mobilize in relief efforts - Cagayan de Oro
2. Typhoon victims mourn and attempt to Rebuild

Camera and lens:
* Canon EOS 1D Mk II
* Canon EOS 7D camera
* Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS lens - For close-ups or hard to reach subjects
* Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens
* Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L Lens
* Vivitar 7mm fisheye lens for Canon EF

Camera storage, misc gear, tripod:
* LowePro camera bag
* Tamrac TR406 ZipShot Compact Ultra-Light Instant Tripod - For quick stability/P&S opportunities
* Manfrotto 055XPROB Pro Tripod Legs
* Camera vest
* WD 1 TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive - Backup all my images in the hotel. I don't remove them off the CF cards until I get home.
* Various 32GB CF cards + external CF card reader
* Extra batteries for cameras
* Lens cleaning kit

Videography tools:
* Stanley 3-in-1 Tripod LED Flashlight - Helpful for emergency lighting needs.
* Azden WMS-PRO Wireless Microphone
* Rode SVM Stereo Condenser Microphone
* Canon Speedlite 320EX Flash for Canon SLR Cameras - Canon flash unit with video light.
* ePhoto Shoulder Rig + Follow Focus

Special / Medical
* Press badge
* Notebook/pen
* Antibiotics
* Tylenol/fever reducer
* Class II ballistic armor for bag

Communications
* Samsung Galaxy Tab (unlocked) - I convert to a wireless Internet router using 3G networks.
* Blackberry 8900 - Work emails. Always on the go.
* Dell Studio laptop for image editing.

Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.

Software review: FolderClone a near virtual RAID solution

I experienced my worst nightmare the other day.

Recently I lost a terabyte worth of images and video on my Seagate 1 TB external USB drive. Thankfully, I have multiple copies of my media but there were still some images that I failed to properly backup. This is mainly because I forgot to copy it to my network attached storage drive (NAS). However, there's hope after this learning experience.

After I searched through the Internet and read some great reviews from CNET, I found FolderClone, which allows me to select a source directory and it will automatically copy any new data in that source directory to my target drive automatically. I can set it to run every few minutes, every hour, once a day, once a week, and everything in between. It is a virtual RAID like solution; however, without having the hassle of duplicating everything and I can selectively choose which directories to copy.

Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.

Inexpensive underwater case for Canon 7D

We have pointed out some cool underwater cases/housing for your Canon 7D DSLR in another post. But this new offering by Aquapac intrigues us and we will be looking at it in a few weeks to see if it actually works!

Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.

Review: What external hard drive to purchase for my camera?

There's a plethora of different options for external hard drives out there. But we're only going to recommend one today. So we searched the web for the most up to date, USB-powered, slimmest, cheapest, and most reliable external hard drive to purchase. The winner? The Western Digital My Passport Essential 1TB drive.

Pricing we looked at from Amazon.com on 7/31/2011:

Hewlett Packard HP Portable 1 TB USB 3.0/2.0 External Hard Drive ($125)

Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 3.0/2.0 Ultra Portable External Hard Drive ($89)

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1 TB USB 3.0 Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive ($91)

Reliability? Backed by 2 years warranty. Speed? Uses USB3.0 5gbit/sec connection -- if your computer supports it. On a regular test between our UDMA card reader and slow CF card, it was kicking in 12Mb/s transfer from the CF card to the USB 2.0 connected drive.

Here's some other pictures that we took to show you this awesome 1TB hard drive, thin as a sharpee!

We will probably update this page next year with hard drives that have bigger sizes! Who knows is 2TB self-powered external drives coming to the market soon? Let's see if Western Digital wins again.

Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.

Microsoft codec update -- supports viewing Canon RAW files natively!

Microsoft recently released Microsoft Camera Codec Pack for Windows 7 and Vista. This codec update allows your Windows operating system to natively view RAW files as thumbnails. This is helpful because you no longer need to install non-Microsoft codecs, or have to run third-party applications just to view RAW files.

Here is the link to the update:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26829

Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.

Motorized Sliders and Time Lapses

We've been very impressed lately with some of the motorized sliders (and cool timelapses out of it).

Here's a quick video of a motorized slider on YouTube:





While this isn't motorized, there is a fairly cheap slider available at Amazon:





Questions or thoughts? Join us on the forums.