How to decrease rolling shutter effect on your 7D Mark II

Canon’s top APS-C camera has a ton of features that can help you create compelling videos. The two most important ones are, without doubt, the ability to record at 60 frames per second (fps), and the brilliant Double Pixel AutoFocus functionality (DPAF) that works with most lenses but really shines with the newer STM and Nano STM glass.

The 7D Mark II is a very good camera and a capable video camera, but, as with most DSLRs it has atrocious rolling shutter effect (also called jello effect) at certain frame rates.

If you decide to make a video with this camera be sure to avoid the 1080p 24fps option, either IPB or All-I, it makes no difference. Stick to either the 30fps or 60 fps options to avoid that nasty jello effect. If you want the least amount of RS simply choose the 60 fps option.

A couple of years ago, everyone started shooting at 24 fps to make videos more “cinematic”. It also helped the sensor gather a bit more light when following the global shutter rule: placing your shutter speed at double the frame rate for smooth and fluid motion: on Canon cameras, 24fps should be used with 1/50 shutter speed; 30fps at 1/60 and 60fps at 1/120. Arguably, 24fps was less taxing to edit on older computers.

But this no longer holds up today since computing devices have advanced considerably. Yet despite those advances, Canon has not delivered a better 24fps on most consumer and prosumer cameras (the higher end C-line is another story).

So, in summary: avoid the dreaded rolling shutter effect by recording at 60fps. Just remember that you will lose your continuos auto-focus when recording at 60fps AND 1080p.

For static shots that’s not a problem. However, it you need to move a lot and let the camera do the autofocusing for you, select 60fps and 720p recording options. For web videos, there is little to no resolution difference between both and your files will be lighter with the latter option.

Technical data of the video I made above:

Camera: Canon 7D Mark II
Lens: Canon 17-55mm F2.8 (for this videos I used it at 17mm and 55mm at F4 only)
Edited on: FCX Pro