Upgrade recommendations

[ronin8600]

I've been having a hard time deciding on what my next upgrade should be and I wanted to get everyones opinion to hopefully help me decide.

I'm primarily using a 50d with a 50mm 1.2L lens indoors which I love, but the noise performance of my camera has always been an issue for me. It's not horrible, but a little more noise than I wanted. I rented a 5d Mark II and the low light / ISO performance was so much better than than my 50d which is to be expected. I also like to do nature / sports photography were the extra reach and speed of the crop bodies would be nice. My final desired setup would be 1 full frame and 1 crop body.

Upgrade paths I'm considering
- Just upgrade my lenses, my only L lens is the 50mm. I would probably go for the 70-200 f2.8 IS lens or the 16-35 and upgrade the body next year
- Get the 5d mark II with the 24-105 lens
- Do nothing and wait for the 5d mark iii
- Replace my 50d with the 7d to hold me over to 5d mark iii. How close is the ISO performance of 7d to the 5d mark ii?

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[kubelik]

I also like to do nature / sports photography were the extra reach and speed of the crop bodies would be nice.

while compressed telephoto nature shots are nice, most folks would go with a wide angle zoom for nature photography, unless you're specifically referring to wildlife.

if you're overall happy with your 50D, and you don't have specific demands (i.e. paid gig requirements) for shooting, and you're interested in going full-frame but can't really purchase all the equipment now (all your EF-S will become useless)... then I'd say buy a 70-200. it'll work great on your 50D and on a future 5D II or III, it will let you shoot some sports, telelphoto nature/wildlife.

if you're really concerned about low-light noise there's not much difference between the 50D and 7D (at least not enough to upgrade over). the question we always pose to people who demand more low-light performance is ... why? are you shooting weddings/events in dimly lit space? are you printing/publishing in such a way that noise is actually that critical? are you relying on out-of-camera noise reduction/DPP or are you using better-equipped programs like Lightroom or plug-ins like Imagenomics Noiseware?