Canon 7D: The LCD Is Too Good

category: Cameras • 2 min read

The Canon 7D has one of the most beautiful gorgeous LCD 3 inch screen. It has a great resolution. Compared to all other digital cameras that I’ve owned, it’s the best by far. This is the first time I can see the image on the LCD panel in the sun. A friend of mine has Nikons, both the D300s and the D3s, I like it even better than the Nikons. Somehow the Canon seems crisper than the Nikon’s LCD.

But there’s a major problem with the use of the 7D LCD it’s “too good”! What? How can it be too good?

There are 2 problems:

  1. The LCD doesn’t display the actual RAW photo. The LCD only displays the JPEG preview that’s built-in the RAW file. That’s one of the reason why the RAW files look different from what they look on the camera LCD screen.

  2. By default, the brightness of the LCD is set automatically. There’s a small sensor to the right of the LCD, at the top left of the quick control dial, that controls the brightness of the LCD if you have left it to auto.

    The problem with the auto setting and raw, is that the JPEG preview on the LCD will look different each time, you look at it, and that will depend on the brightness of the ambient light.

  • To check the exposure, you will need to view the histograms. Looking at what’s clipped doesn’t work with the JPEG previews because the clipped highlights or the black will depend on the brightness of the LCD.
  • By the way, I’d love if Canon enlarged the LCD even more to 3½ inches or even to 4 inches.

Canon 7D