Move to 7d or stay with 5d mk2

Andy77

Andy77

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Ok guys, ive been offered a brand new 7d + Canon 15-85 IS lens unboxed, uk spec model for my used 5d mk2, the question is do i make the change or not, i do alot of portrait,landscape ect but also do a fair amout of wildlife & avaition stuff to, dont know what to do :bang: Any of you guys made this change and how have you got on??

Help Apprieciated
 
There are lots of threads from people going the other way, and they all rave about the leap in IQ and superior high ISO performance. I think you'd be disappointed with a move to the 7D, however good the AF is.. :thinking:

A.
 
only way to drag me away from full frame is a smaller and light body like a good m4/3.

why would you want to side-step with a massive downgrade in sensor. you'll loose half the photo sensing area on a crop.
 
menthel said:
Sounds like you need both. The 7D is a great wildlife camera!
Click to expand...

I see you own a 7d menthal, how do you find it for general photography, also hows it perform regarding portraits/landscapes ect, is the iso really as bad as they make out???

Andy
 
Andy77 said:
I see you own a 7d menthal, how do you find it for general photography, also hows it perform regarding portraits/landscapes ect, is the iso really as bad as they make out???

Andy
Click to expand...

It's alright. I used it quite a lot over the past couple of weeks on a trip to India. At iso 100 it shoots nice, clean landscapes with a perfectly good dynamic range, although I would have benefitted from a tripod and ND filters. The street stuff I was doing at night was a bit more challenging for it at iso 3200 but it does clean up ok. However, at these higher iso's the DR and colour starts to be affected as well. The shots are not unusuable at all and a fiddle in lightroom does them good.

Its overall higher iso performance is now lagging behind more modern sensors but the pics do clean up well enough. From iso 800+ you do start to notice noise, espsically in green shadows (look at a lot of bird shots on green backgrounds and you will see it) but this is eaily dealt with in LR. People get their knickers in a twist about the 7D's performance (either accusing it of being terrible beyond 800iso or claiming they can shoot cleanly at iso 3200) but the fact is that it is now ~3 years old and the sensor is showing its age in comparison to the newer ones. However, it is still producing great shots and is usable up to 6400 as long as you can clean up in LR and are happy with some noice in the photo!

Sorry for rambling!
 
menthel said:
It's alright. I used it quite a lot over the past couple of weeks on a trip to India. At iso 100 it shoots nice, clean landscapes with a perfectly good dynamic range, although I would have benefitted from a tripod and ND filters. The street stuff I was doing at night was a bit more challenging for it at iso 3200 but it does clean up ok. However, at these higher iso's the DR and colour starts to be affected as well. The shots are not unusuable at all and a fiddle in lightroom does them good.

Its overall higher iso performance is now lagging behind more modern sensors but the pics do clean up well enough. From iso 800+ you do start to notice noise, espsically in green shadows (look at a lot of bird shots on green backgrounds and you will see it) but this is eaily dealt with in LR. People get their knickers in a twist about the 7D's performance (either accusing it of being terrible beyond 800iso or claiming they can shoot cleanly at iso 3200) but the fact is that it is now ~3 years old and the sensor is showing its age in comparison to the newer ones. However, it is still producing great shots and is usable up to 6400 as long as you can clean up in LR and are happy with some noice in the photo!

Sorry for rambling!
Click to expand...

no worries, thanks for the heads up.
 
I've had a 7D for over a year and recently got a 5D mk2. I haven't used the 7D since, but plan on holding onto it to use for wildlife with a long(ish) lens to take 'advantage' of the crop factor. If I had to keep only one of them then it would be the 5D mk2. Overall image quality is better, image noise is greatly reduced in comparison to what I experienced with my 7D and my wider lenses are the way they're supposed to be.
 
Haven't found a problem with the 7D for landscapes, most of the time it's on a tripod so ISO100 is used with a 10-22mm lens which gives a nice clean photo

My daughter has a 5D MK2 and will say it has much less noise at high ISO, AF isn't a patch on my 7D though
 
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I went from a 5DII to a 7D. In hindsight, I think that my 5DII had a focussing fault (hence why I kept it for just 2 weeks), but I have not regretted owning the 7D one bit. It does everything I need well.

I am not sure whether I would buy a 7D now because it is 3 year old technology, and 3 years is a long time for a camera body. Perhaps hold on to your 5DII until the 7DII or 70D arrive next year.
 
I have both the 7D and the 5D2, and I had owned the 5D2 a while before adding the 7D so I feel qualified to compare the two.

The full frame camera is much more forgiving in both exposure and noise. To me the highlights clip very early on the 7D (going by the "blinkies"). I was horrified by the noise I saw initially on the 7D, but as others have said it will process out quite well in LR.

The biggest secret is to expose to the right, particularly when shooting at high ISO. If I am shooting at ISO1600, then I will dial in an extra stop. Provided you then process carefully, you will get excellent results on screen and which when printed, the noise will not be noticeable.

The 7D is a camera which needs to be learned thoroughly before you will get top notch shots. My advice is to try to keep the 5D2 and still go with the 7D.
 
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