1st Fashion shoot of the year with Megan

I headed out to the open space preserve with Megan yesterday morning to keep my fashion shooting skills sharp and spend some time with my new Canon 7D.

A few observations on the camera first. Having to compare this with my old 5D is a tough standard to follow, especially considering that the 7D retails for $1,000 less.
The fact that the new 7D is not a 'full frame' camera had me kind of bummed but the decision to buy finally came down to $$. The smaller sensor in the camera means working with a 'conversion factor' of 1.6x, or basically multiplying the focal length indicated on any lens by 160%. I did my best to find the bright side of this fact and the answer was hidden in my EF 50mm f1.4. ( 50mm x 1.6 = 80mm ) I now own an 80mm lens for portraits! Of course the optics won't have the exact benefits of a real 80mm lens, but it is one way to save about $1,600 on Canon glass!
So in summary I was pleased to be working with a more appropriate focal length than my previous standard of 50mm.

Now for the bad news... I'm not the first new 7D owner to quickly realize that this camera has problems in it's redesigned auto-focus system. There is nothing worse than getting your images on a monitor and realizing that they're just barely soft enough to be unusable. The jury is still out on the nature of the problem but I've read all over the net about possible solutions involving manually tuning focus, firmware updates, and custom function workarounds.
Several buyers have exchanged their 7D bodies ( even twice ) with no improvement in the autofocus system and in the meantime Canon has yet to propose a solution ( or even admit a problem exists ) .

So the moral here is... Don't go out shooting a whole wedding on your brand spanking new camera without testing it! I have a wedding tomorrow and I couldn't be more pleased with myself that I set up a test shoot. Also, I'm not getting attached to this thing. Yes it's new and flashy and it shoots HD video, but if the AF system is shoddy I'll return this thing first thing Monday morning.

Megan was a great model and a true pleasure to work with. Being a photographer herself makes it even more embarrassing for me to have committed one of the most seemingly amateur mistakes in the book. Fortunately she was consistent and delivered her best which shows in the images that did come out sharp.