upgrade to a 7D?

[erakepio]

Hi All,

I had been thinking about upgrading to a 5D mkIII from my 550D but it's a little out of my price range even body only. So I figured I'd look at the 7D as a few of my colleagues have it and love it. I can get it for £870 delivered body only, however just a couple of things from me pushing the "checkout" button on the site.

I do a lot of night time, night time HDR, panoramic photography and just wondered if the 7D would be up to the job for this. I often do long exposures, in a few shots i've done 20-30 minute exposures on a beach at night and while the 550D was good it wasn't quite perfect, so I wouldn't want to upgrade and lose that performance i have currently.

The one area where I know it will help is my sports photography. I shoot most sports, football, rugby, golf, motor racing, aqua sports (kite surfing, jet skiing, motor boat races)..So I'm 100% it will fulfill it's purpose on that front.

Was just wondering about the low light. These are my 3 main lenses...

Sigma 10-20mm f3.5
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L
Canon EF 70-200mm F/4.0 L IS

Anyone using a 7D who maybe can advise?

 

[Loswr]

I do a lot of night time, night time HDR, panoramic photography and just wondered if the 7D would be up to the job for this. I often do long exposures, in a few shots i've done 20-30 minute exposures on a beach at night and while the 550D was good it wasn't quite perfect, so I wouldn't want to upgrade and lose that performance i have currently.

The one area where I know it will help is my sports photography. I shoot most sports, football, rugby, golf, motor racing, aqua sports (kite surfing, jet skiing, motor boat races)..So I'm 100% it will fulfill it's purpose on that front.

Anyone using a 7D who maybe can advise?

The 7D and 550D use the same CMOS image sensor - you'll get exactly the same low-light performance from the 7D as your current camera (but yes, the 5DII/5DIII would be better).

For sports, the 7D is the way to go...

 

[LikeBreathing]

For sports, the 7D is the way to go...

Agree with this, especially if you're after FPS.

However, for better low light (high ISO) performance a 5D2 would be better, but you don't get the FPS. Depends on your priorities. Decisions, decisions!

 

[RLPhoto]

Hi All,

I had been thinking about upgrading to a 5D mkIII from my 550D but it's a little out of my price range even body only. So I figured I'd look at the 7D as a few of my colleagues have it and love it. I can get it for £870 delivered body only, however just a couple of things from me pushing the "checkout" button on the site.

I do a lot of night time, night time HDR, panoramic photography and just wondered if the 7D would be up to the job for this. I often do long exposures, in a few shots i've done 20-30 minute exposures on a beach at night and while the 550D was good it wasn't quite perfect, so I wouldn't want to upgrade and lose that performance i have currently.

The one area where I know it will help is my sports photography. I shoot most sports, football, rugby, golf, motor racing, aqua sports (kite surfing, jet skiing, motor boat races)..So I'm 100% it will fulfill it's purpose on that front.

Was just wondering about the low light. These are my 3 main lenses...

Sigma 10-20mm f3.5
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L
Canon EF 70-200mm F/4.0 L IS

Anyone using a 7D who maybe can advise?

You will not see any IQ improvement over your 550D. What you will see is than the performance of the 7D is much more adequate.

 

[bdunbar79]

Hi All,

I had been thinking about upgrading to a 5D mkIII from my 550D but it's a little out of my price range even body only. So I figured I'd look at the 7D as a few of my colleagues have it and love it. I can get it for £870 delivered body only, however just a couple of things from me pushing the "checkout" button on the site.

I do a lot of night time, night time HDR, panoramic photography and just wondered if the 7D would be up to the job for this. I often do long exposures, in a few shots i've done 20-30 minute exposures on a beach at night and while the 550D was good it wasn't quite perfect, so I wouldn't want to upgrade and lose that performance i have currently.

The one area where I know it will help is my sports photography. I shoot most sports, football, rugby, golf, motor racing, aqua sports (kite surfing, jet skiing, motor boat races)..So I'm 100% it will fulfill it's purpose on that front.

Was just wondering about the low light. These are my 3 main lenses...

Sigma 10-20mm f3.5
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L
Canon EF 70-200mm F/4.0 L IS

Anyone using a 7D who maybe can advise?

I agree with the other posters. One of my biggest regrets was selling my 7D. Some days I wish I still had it. Since you are shooting outdoor sports, it'll be great. Overall, it is Canon's best APS-C sensor camera.

 

[Wideopen]

For sports, the 7D is the way to go...

Agree with this, especially if you're after FPS.

However, for better low light (high ISO) performance a 5D2 would be better, but you don't get the FPS. Depends on your priorities. Decisions, decisions!

I got rid of my 550D once i saw the performance of the 7Ds 8 fps and autofocus points. Definately a + for sports and anything else when you need the extra reach with the crop sensor. When i upgraded to a 5dmarkiii i still kept the 7d rather then selling it because of the extra reach and higher fps over the 5d. Anything low light or high iso the 5d will serve you well. The 7d is a little machine gun and the 5d is a low light monster. I love them both. I agree with the other people depends what your needs are will help you decide what you want. Decisions decisions.

 

[SambalOelek]

I do a lot of night time, night time HDR, panoramic photography and just wondered if the 7D would be up to the job for this. I often do long exposures, in a few shots i've done 20-30 minute exposures on a beach at night and while the 550D was good it wasn't quite perfect, so I wouldn't want to upgrade and lose that performance i have currently.

One thing that may be worth mentioning is that the 7D LCD is slightly inferior to the 550D's in terms of resolution and aspect ratio. That said, the 7D LCD is of course very good.

On the other hand, the 7D viewfinder is a huge upgrade. Once you've grown accustomed to pentaprism viewfinders, the entry-level OVFs seem tiny in comparison.

 

[paul13walnut5]

7D is a different planet from Rebels and 5D2 for sports.

It will not work exceptionally out of the box, but spend a little time setting up the AiServo behaviour (shoot, change, shoot, change, shoot, change) and it really is superlative.

It has the same sensor as the 550D, I get good results at night so long as I use common sense. I keep my exposures long with in-camera darkfield NR, and the ISO's low.

At night your exposures are always going to be longer, and if you add ISO's your images are always going to be noisier.

So accept these basics, get a sturdy tripod, a cable release and have fun.

The 7D benefits from RAW shooting and sensible RAW conversion. JPEGS fine in good light. If you are shooting in low light then shoot RAW and post-process. I like 0 NR on Luma channel and about 75% NR on chroma channel. Some very slight unsharp masking helps too.

A lot of folk bash the 7D, but then a lot of folk think that by spending more money they automatically get better pictures. It's a typical upgrade camera. By that I mean, the pros use 1 series and always have and always will.

I would guess that a sizable proportion of 7D sales are to former x0D and rebel class users, and the 7D is a camera that you just cannot approach with a x0D or rebel head on. Rebels are really designed to make life easy. the 7D needs a more considered approach.

None of this is to put you off, I don't want to come accross as in anyway patronising, just that you will read some bad press on the 7D, it's not my experience at all, but I knew what I was getting into.

If anything the 7D makes life more difficult, but if you work with it then it also makes much better pictures.

 

[Dylan777]

For sports, the 7D is the way to go...

Agree with this, especially if you're after FPS.

However, for better low light (high ISO) performance a 5D2 would be better, but you don't get the FPS. Depends on your priorities. Decisions, decisions!

with 5D III you can do both sports(6fps) + night photography. Yes - little pricy ;D

 

[bdunbar79]

For sports, the 7D is the way to go...

Agree with this, especially if you're after FPS.

However, for better low light (high ISO) performance a 5D2 would be better, but you don't get the FPS. Depends on your priorities. Decisions, decisions!

with 5D III you can do both sports(6fps) + night photography. Yes - little pricy ;D

True. I guess the reason I miss the 7D is for the 1.6x crop factor. Imagine being at a track meet with poor seating and no press pass with a 300mm f/4L lens on a 1D4. Pretty good, yes. But 480mm vs. 390mm does give that extra reach, in those cases.