Canon EOS Rebel T7... good?

[RandyRobbinsPhotography]

Hi all,
New guy here. Long time wildlife photographer and cheap trail cam user, first time camera trapper.
I'm building a camera trap with Camtraptions stuff (V3 wireless sensor, and wireless triggers, two Nikon SB28 flashes).

I'm a Canon guy, so I'm leaning that way just because of familiarity... shopping eBay for used camera bodies to sacrifice to the camera trap. Anyone using the EOS Rebel T7 for a similar trap set-up? It seems to check all the boxes I'm worried about checking.... but I'm not sure about sleep time/battery life/wake speed. I'm wanting to leave my trap for probably a week or so at a time... nothing too crazy extended.

Looking used, I started looking at a 60D or similar... they seem to be fairly popular... is that because of a better sleep mode or wake time or anything I'm going to regret not having with the T7?

Thanks!!

[-jeff]

Hi Randy....welcome to the forum. The T7 will be a fine camera trap camera. Battery life in the sleep mode is good and it is quick to wake. I'm not familiar with the Camtraptions wireless flash triggers, but make sure the wireless triggers will wake the camera on the first trigger.

Please share some of the results here on the forum.

[RandyRobbinsPhotography]

Thanks for the reply!

That's good to hear... wasn't sure about the "quick to wake" thing... that's my biggest concern with it.
I landed on the Camtraptions stuff because of just that.... they say their sensor sends the "half press" wake-up signal to the camera first, which will wake the flashes, and they will pop at the first camera click. the wireless receiver at the camera plugs into the shutter release socket, and the flash trigger is in the hot shoe... so if it's getting the "half press" signal, I don't see how it wouldn't work that way..... we shall see...
Digging into building housings and stuff, and wanted to get a camera body on the way in the next couple days. Thanks again...

[RandyRobbinsPhotography]

Well.... learned a thing or two yesterday.... this is why the T7 is NOT going to work as a camera trap camera body if you want to use good fast SB28 flashes... just about every remote trigger won't wake them up on the first click because of this issue also... pretty lame move of Canon in my opinion. The T6 will work because it has the center pin, but it also has a smaller sensor :(

This article explains: https://petapixel.com/2019/05/03/canon-made-its-new-entry-level-dslrs-incompatible-with-3rd-party-flashes/

[-jeff]

Wow, that's news to me. That really sucks. A couple years ago Nikon eliminated the wired remote jack on the entry level DSLR cameras. Hard to explain.

[RandyRobbinsPhotography]

OK another update... I found a couple on ebay that looked like they had the center pin, so I called Canon support.... it turns out the T7 was made without the pin until people freaked out about it enough, and then they started making it with the pin.... so T7's made after January 2020 DO have the center hot shoe pin, and T7's made pre-January 2020 do not have it. So they are great for a camera trap IF they are a newer one, manufactured after January 2020.

[-jeff]

Thanks for the update Randy.

[raynaldo]

Canon's EOS Rebel series has long been a favorite of these who want a reasonable but capable DSLR. The T7 continues to deliver good image quality for a camera in its class. Under well-lit conditions, the camera consistently produced pleasing results, almost guaranteeing success straight out of the box. Here is a source of canon stationary https://productz.com/en/canon/b/vw7/cameras-and-photo/c/1 as perfect as good I thing more than eBay you may review.