Raw CR2 Processing for the Canon 7D
Update 3/26/2010: Lightroom 3 Beta 2 processes Canon 7D RAW images MUCH better!
Update 3/23/2010: Adobe has just announced the availability of Lightroom 3 Beta 2 which adds additional noise control and ability to manage video files, both of which should be very useful. It can be downloaded immediately but must run on Mac OSX 10.5 or newer. Since I have been somewhat dissatisfied with Lightroom processing Canon CR2 RAW files, I am really looking forward to checking it out.
Update 3/13/2010: This is the most popular post on my blog so there must be quite a few people searching for information regarding RAW photo processing on the Canon 7D. Please leave a comment below with questions that you have or contact me privately and I will be happy to address them. I'm looking for information regarding a follow-up post.
Currently I am using Lightroom 2.6 to process Canon CR2 files but they require more post processing than I have become accustomed to with my three prior Canons, the 20D, 1D II & 1D III.
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Update: 11/19/2009: Less than 24 hours after publishing this post, it is now obsolete with the release of Lightroom 2.6 and Adobe Camera RAW 5.6 for Photoshop each offering RAW support for the Canon 7D. Since this is a recent development I have not had a chance to try either yet.
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I'm fielding a lot of questions about the Canon 7D and image quality (or lack there of) which I am largely attributing it to the lack of a compatible 3rd party RAW converter from Adobe or one of the other similar image manipulation software companies.
Thought it may be useful to post two images side-by-side so you can see for yourself the differences between RAW run through Lightroom 2.5 and a high quality .jpg from the camera. At first glance the flaws in the RAW photo may not be too obvious but click on the photo to see the full resolution version (converted to .jpg to conserve file size) which you can inspect on your own hard drive. If you zoom in you'll see considerable noise and lack of sharpness.
First the Canon 7D RAW file from Lightroom:
