ions said:
I agree, weather sealing is important and can be VERY reassuring to have in the field. The 7D certainly is rugged; when I looked at store models they all seemed impressively solid (my 5D creaks a bit near the LCD when I grip it tight). To my knowledge, the 7D and 5D mkII have very similar weather sealing (with the exception of the optional grip for the 5D mkII, which apparently has problems in the rain) and both are vastly more protected than my 5D classic. That being said, and despite having operated frequently in the snow (there was roughly 25 feet of snow each winter where I went to school) I've never been in a situation where I was seriously worried about precipitation trashing my equipment. The situation was either so bad it would trash even a pro body like a 1D or D3 series camera or something flimsy like a Rebel/XXXD would survive. One must also consider that unless one also has lenses with weather seals too they will still be open to compromise...
That being said, the only time I've really been worried for my camera was either slipping in a stream and being completely submersed (the camera is toast no matter what you do) or being sprayed by saltwater. As a cheap "insurance" I keep a plastic bag with my camera so I can protect it if I suddenly am stuck in a rainstorm. I haven't needed it yet, but it is a reassuring thing to keep around.
Perhaps I've just been lucky, but lousy weather has yet to harm my relatively poorly weather sealed equipment. I'm sure those who have had problems will be much more paranoid.
ions said:
We can agree to disagree on AF then, in the context of landscape. When I do use autofocus, it is the single center point (the only good one) and then I recompose. For portraits focus shift would cause issues, but for landscape at f/8 or f/11 no problems are caused. Unless you are moving the focus points around constantly, the camera is probably just going to pick whatever spot has the most contrast in your scene, which may or may not be what you as the photographer actually want for the focus point. Regardless of how capable a camera's autofocus may be, it still is not clairvoyant and as such can never be fully trusted.
I have glasses too. Yes, it sucks for photography, particularly when they (or the viewfinder) fogs up. The advantage of the 5D in this respect is that the viewfinder is pretty darn big, so even if you cannot get as close with glasses, you can still work effectively. I'd guess the 5D viewfinder is twice the size as the Rebel/XXXD pentamirror viewfinders...now those are impossible to work with.
I think the biggest manual focusing problem with Canon is that the lenses are designed for autofocus first, with manual focus as a low priority. I've yet to find a autofocusing Canon lens that I like for manual focus work as the focus rings are so [list several languages worth of obscenities] imprecise. The lack of a hard infinity stop makes manual focus landscape work way harder than it needs to be.
I really miss having a tilt/pivot screen like my first camera (a Canon point-n-shoot S3 IS), that thing was downright handy for tripod work. The 60D/T3i/600D win points in the tripod-ease-of-use category. I suppose it would further your argument by telling you that my mountain shot was a composition/focus guess.
The Mountain by posthumus_cake (www.pinnaclephotography.net), on Flickr
I WAS NOT looking through the viewfinder for this shot. Nor did I use a tripod, as the hillside was sufficiently steep that the tripod would just tumble downhill. To put things in perspective, the largest/closest flower, (an avalanche lily) was about 8 inches (or 20 cm) from the front of my lens. I had to look at the scene through the viewfinder, prefocus, switch the focus to manual to keep it from moving, and lastly, point my camera at all those nice avalanche lilies without looking through the viewfinder and press the shutter while hoping for the best. I knew the composition that I wanted, but that I wouldn't be able to see it through the viewfinder (with the foreground flowers at least)...so I had to shoot this shot about 50 times until everything was lined up perfectly. This would have been much easier using a 60D/600D/T3i and that wonderful tilting LCD screen and live view.
ions said:
LOL, I don't think I've ever heard a more accurate statement about the abuse of HDR. I agree completely. HDR has a place, but most people don't use it as intended; a means to bypass the dynamic range limitations of a scene or of their camera. Most just use it as an excuse to induce a nice pleasant brain hemorrhage in anyone with a sense of taste.
By the way, I like your Banff shot of Moraine Lake...someday I'll have to go there...but for now I'll have to stick with saving up for Glacier National Park.[/list]
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And yeah, as you said, I've been pretty lucky with poorly sealed equipment too. For the longest time I shot with three older Sigma EX lenses which do not have any sealing and they were fine. There are always freak occurrences but I think for the most part the average user is over-protective of their equipment in terms or weather. A good thing. 
