I own a 5D MkII and love it for most of my shooting (scenics, people, travel, archetectural, etc.); however, I took up bird photography last summer and a couple of shortcomings were exposed:
- Focus is slow and hard to control, particularly for birds coming straight at you at low altitude
- The FF sensor, while providing great high ISO performance, limits the reach of my lenses.
After looking at the prices of 500mm Canon and Sigma lenses, I went into shock over the $5000++ prices and started thinking seriously about a crop sensor body. Since I tend to shoot at dawn and dusk, I was worried about most crop-sensor bodies' poorer high-ISO performance, finding that I need at least ISO 1600 right at dawn to get enough shutter speed and enough light for birds in flight with a f5.6L lens.
As I was bemoaning the crop-sensor ISO performance, the 7D was announced and some beta reports came out showing very good performance up to ISO 1600, so now I'm pretty well committed to buying a 7D as soon as I see a report of a production model. For bird in flight, here are the advantages I see:
- Decent high-ISO performance to 1600
- Great autofocus scheme
- 8-fps burst rate
- 1.6 crop ratio, making my 400mm lens a 640mm-equivalent
- Adding my 1.4 TC makes my 400mm lens almost a 900mm-equivalent, but requiring manual focus and full light
Is anyone else considering the 7D? Am I smoking dope, or does my logic make sense for a birding camera?
Dave