Messages

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EOS Bodies / Re: Canon EOS 7D L Announced, Shipping in May

« on: April 01, 2013, 02:25:53 PM »

Nice april fool's day joke ! 

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Canon EOS 7D Firmware 2.0 Available for Download

« on: August 07, 2012, 08:38:04 AM »

I didn't say that.  I said a visual reference alone was pretty much worthless. .../... Get a reference peak tone from your sound mixer.  .../...It would be jolly lovely to have live VU's on the camera back, but they aren't an indication of the quality of the audio, only the strength of the signal. .../... If you are serious enough to care about any of this then I cannot accept that you would not want a way of hearing what your microphone and mixer is hearing.

Still don't agree. First of all, I have 15 years of experience recording concerts, so I am aware of what the IDEAL setup should be. But we're talking about all those events where you can't get a line from a mixing-console and you're working with an external mic, like the Rode stereo video mic. In that case, being able to monitor the audio level is a MUST. Sure, you can't judge the quality of the sound by looking at the dB meters, but at least you can make sure it doesn't clip, which means distortion, which in turn means NO QUALITY at all. So even with the ability of AGC being turned off, there is still a great risk of clipping, unless you can actually see on the screen what the audio levels are doing. So, I'd turn it around. 5% for being able to turn off AGC (with AGC on there is actually less chance of audio clipping) and 95% for being able to view the audio levels on screen.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Canon EOS 7D Firmware 2.0 Available for Download

« on: August 07, 2012, 07:06:22 AM »

If you are serious enough about audio to require constant monitoring then you will no doubt want to use a set of headphones.  Even if full time VU's were available why would you monitor with these visually alone?  Sound is audible not visual.

I totally disagree with you. The very reason you can not connect a headphone to the 7D to monitor audio levels makes a visual reference an absolute MUST HAVE !!!

At least you can see when it's peaking into the red zone, and you could then adjust the levels accordingly. But since that is not the case, this feature of the firmware update is a complete waste of time. Canon should have created the possibility to keep the dB meter on the screen whilst recording, and make it possible to adjust the levels during recording by using the main dail.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Canon EOS 7D Firmware 2.0 Available for Download

« on: August 07, 2012, 03:03:24 AM »

Big disappointment on my side. I was expecting the audio volume bars during movie recording to stay on screen, so you can actually monitor that the audio does not clip, and if so, adjust accordingly. I record a lot of music performances, and really need the manual audio controls.

I mean, why provide a feature called "manual audio control" when there is nothing to monitor or adjust when recording?

The fact that Canon now gives me a dB meter and more adjustment notches prior to recording, does not have any value at all. They may as well not have bothered!