Camera body for wildlife/sports photography

john starkey

john starkey

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Hi all,I have been thinking of getting the canon 7D for my wildlife/sports photography but there still seems to be a lot of uncertainy about how good it really is,so exluding this one and full frame bodys what else would be a good choice,50D ?,i am using a 450d at the moment but I would like to upgrade,
any advice would be appreciated,
regards john.
 
I have seen many reviews where people have stated that their 7D is fantastic.........................................apart from 1 thing: sharpness. I don't know what the guys on here think, but that is what they say...

You need a NIkon D3s :D

Oscar ;)
 
I'm not a sports shooter, but I tried my hand at basketball for the first time a few weeks ago. I was at 6400 ISO all night, using my 7D and 70-200/2.8 IS. I did not take a flash gun and began shooting with ambient light only. Later on I did try the popup flash, to add a little fill, but it's made the WB look a little odd and I've not bothered to fix it as these are just roughly processed. They really need more work, including cropping/straightening and fixing the WB. Editing was minimal - set WB = tungsten, picture style = standard, sharpening = 3. The only individual tweaking was to adjust brightness by up to +/- 0.5 stops. NR was left at defaults.

Here is one example from the set...

20100115_195834_2032_DPP.JPG


and the full set as a slideshow....

http://picasaweb.google.com/EezyTig...gCJGDtoWQ_YjmAw#slideshow/5437796181716438898

I was only there as a paying spectator. The official tog was using a 1 series something or other with pocket wizards and a pair of Speedlites to light his end of the court.

I've posted a few wildlife examples in the 7D ISO thread - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=199754
 
The 7D is much better than the xxD's for sports. Nearly everything a 1D is for a quarter of the price... I say *nearly*... unless you are planning on making a living with it, it will do you more than fine.
 
happy with the sports side

IMG_7990.jpg


But I got to get better at landscapes

_MG_6921.jpg
 
For birding the 7d for the crop factor.

For Sports the 1d, for AF and ISO performance in low light.

Motorsports you can use almost any body. The 1d 7d and 50d will all be fine.
 
1-series autofocus is clearly better than anything xxD. If 7D AF is anywhere near as good and very high iso is not a requirement then go for it; it should give room for cropping. 1-series are HEAVY! You wouldn't want to take 1D as a walkabout camera.
 
Have a 7, and 2 40d's the 7 is great, and you would not be sorry I don't think, have had mine since launch day (first one my local jessops had in, it was in store for all of about an hour I think), cheaper options for me would be the 40D, had the chance to use one side by side with a 50D and preferred the 40 personally.
 
As has been said the 7 is ALOT of camera for the money. Apart from basketball and football, I've not shot a great deal of fast moving stuff since I got it 3 weeks ago, until today. There were hundreds of geese flying around at quite a rate of knots.
So I though I'd try my hand at a bit of the BIF lark that people seem to rave about quite a bit. I only had my 70-200 but boy oh boy was it fast. It locked onto a moving bird in under half a second or something ridiculous like that. I was amazed quite frankly.
It's given me a bit of a taste for shooting BIF more often.

Tom N.
 
As much as I would like to agree with grumpybadger and suggest you buy my 1D MKII ;) , I think a 7D would suit you better, you probably don't need the tank-like build quality of a 1 series camera, or the lightening fast a/f tracking-although I understand the 7D is no slouch in this department.

You have to factor in the 1.6x crop of the 7D against the 1.3 crop of the 1D series also.

Obviously a 1D MKIV would be ideal, but monopoly money prices, with a 7D you get a hell of a lot of camera for your money.
 
I have a 7d and its a superb camera, not done any sports with it yet but I know it will be good for it.
 
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