Wildlife shooting 5DIII vs. proposed 7D II

[CarlTN]

Ishdakuteb, those are some nice portrait shots!

thanks... i am still learning and trying my best to improve my knowledge about shooting techniques as much as i can everyday after work, ignoring everything but camera 

Hahaha @ "ignoring everything but camera"...sometimes not so easy to do!

[RGF]

Trust me - I have the inside scoop on the new 7D MII.  I also sell bridges 

No one on this forum has the specs on the 7D M2, if it would ever exist.

However here are my thoughts on the matter (specs POOMA - Pull out of my A** or you call this a SWAG - Scientifically-based wide a** guess)

5DM3 - better low light performance
7DM2 - 1.6 crop so your lens are longer and you use only the center area which tends to be sharper.

Higher FPS?  May be the 7DM2
Higher resolution?  Flip a coin but I don't think there will be big difference

Best is to wait and see.  If you need to buy something today (or very soon), then the 5D M3 is your best choice because you can have it today.  What if the 7DM2 is delayed until 2014?  Could happen - a year without a camera.  In 2014 what you wait for next?

Get a camera and enjoy photography

[jrista]

I have a similar dilemma, I want to know if the 5d mkiii will be a better option than the proposed 7d mkii. I am more concerned with image quality. Having just got the new canon 300f2.8 mkii my existing 7d is found wanting. Will I get a better image with full frame or should I wait for the new 7d mkii. My main photographic needs are wildlife.

Have you tweaked AFMA? I've used the 300/2.8 L II on my 7D, tuned AFMA, and the IQ was phenomenal. That said, if you need something for wildlife, you really should trade the 300/2.8 for the 500/4. On FF, you need more reach, and the 300 just won't cut it most of the time. If you do birds, I'd recommend the 600/4 with both 1.4x and 2x TCs.

[jrista]

Even at ISO3200 my 7D usually beat my 5D3 for birds.

How so?  I have a 60D and 5D2.  Never in a million years will ANY photo that I take with the 60D at ISO 3200 even come close to the 5D2 at ISO 3200.  Not even close.  The noise and breakdown of resolution is terrible.

compare them at the same scale and not at 100%, don't just shoot two birds and compare, filter and scale the 7D bird down to 5D2 scale and then compare

the 7D sensor is a touch more efficient per sensor area than the 5D2 sensor, now if you are shooting landscapes and filling each frame the same way of course the 5D2 has less noise since the sensor is 2.6x bigger (although the 5D2 does band more in deep high iso shadows, so for particular scenes where very dark regions fill up much of the image the 7D image might look better even in this case, but that is a very special case)

The FWC of the 5D II is still three times higher than the 7D. Even though the 7D is slightly more efficient, assuming you fill the frame with the bird, the 7D will never touch even the 5D II. The scale factor is small, and the higher megapixel count of the 5D II would actually mean you get more pixels on subject than with the 7D...so the more realistic comparison is to scale the 7D image UP to 5D II size.

Assuming you only filled the APS-C area of the frame on the 5D II, scaling the 7D down to that size does improve things, but not enough to really overcome the significant full well capacity benefit the 5D II has. The 5D III is even better in this area, as it has a larger FWC thanks to an even more efficient sensor than the 7D. Even in normalized comparisons, the 7D at ISO 3200 doesn't quite hold up to the 5D II, and doesn't even come remotely close to the 5D III.