Here's the situation. I'm upgrading camera soon, as I'm shooting a lot more paid jobs and I want to deliver a better product to my customers. I'm currently shooting a Nikon D200, which is ancient by today's standards. I'm switching to Canon because some of the jobs I've booked are video jobs, and Canon is really excelling in that department. I'd also like to shoot more with primes, and canon has a bigger selection of primes at better prices than Nikon.
So here's my conundrum. I had all but decided to buy the following kit:
5d2
35L
100 f/2
580 EX
Once the wedding season picked up, I would buy a used 40d and another flash for backup.
However, I've read that the 5d2 struggles in low light AF using the outside sensors. I almost never use the center AF point when I'm shooting so that concerns me. The 7D appears to have solved that problems, so I began to think about replacing the 5D2 and 35L in my planned kit with a 7D and 24L II. It would offer me the same FoV, but I would benefit from a faster AF system and could purchase a 5d classic for backup and replace it down the road with the 5d2s successor.
I'm pretty sure both cameras will offer a significant imporvement in image quality over the d200 I'm shooting now.
I have a feeling I'm over-thinking all of this, but I just wanted to get your collective opinions :-)
In low light, AF wise, the 7D is better (peripheral AF points only). IQ wise the 5D2 is better (noticeably so at ISO 1600 and above). Pick whichever is more important to you.
JoshGTL wrote:
5D2's outside points are all clustered close to the center of the frame and aren't all that great.
If you never use center focus, you don't want the 5D2, that's my opinion.
That helps quite a bit. Having the AF function quickly in low light outside the center point is really a high priority. I would even sacrifice some high ISO performance for it.
Oh and for weddings, seriously consider a 1D3, especially with the current used prices. The 1D3 is probably one of my favourite wedding photography cameras. Great AF and 10mp is good enough (maybe use a 5D2 for the formals and some of the posed bride & groom stuff which might get blown up real big and where the light should be good enough that the peripheral points are useful).
mjmetts wrote:
That helps quite a bit. Having the AF function quickly in low light outside the center point is really a high priority. I would even sacrifice some high ISO performance for it.
Then you will want to go with the 7D. I have both cameras and the 7D's outer focus points are much, much better than the 5DII's.
Then you will want to go with the 7D. I have both cameras and the 7D's outer focus points are much, much better than the 5DII's.
+1
I have both cameras also and have had the same experience. The image quality of the 5D2 is still very very good, but if it is out of focus it won't matter.
When light is really low I prefer the 7D. No banding.
But for me, this mainly hinges on my preference for manual focus. I often shoot in circumstances where AF is more of a hindrance than a help, and my last resort is always MF. With a properly shimmed/calibrated S-type manual focus screen the 5D2 is a pretty good tool for manual focus. The 7D is appalling for manual focus: the obligatory focus screen isn't even flat.
The ideal camera would be a 5D2 with decent AF and no banding, and a 7D with manual focus, but Canon won't supply us those because its no. 1 goal in the market is to rape us. No other brand does less customer-raping though. Other brands rape to survive, Canon rapes for profit.
brainiac wrote:
When light is really low I prefer the 7D. No banding.
But for me, this mainly hinges on my preference for manual focus. I often shoot in circumstances where AF is more of a hindrance than a help, and my last resort is always MF. With a properly shimmed/calibrated S-type manual focus screen the 5D2 is a pretty good tool for manual focus. The 7D is appalling for manual focus: the obligatory focus screen isn't even flat.
The ideal camera would be a 5D with decent AF and no banding, and a 7D with manual focus, but Canon won't supply us those because its no. 1 goal in the market is to rape us. No other brand does less customer-raping though....Show more →
Right. I'm sure it's a compromise between AF and IQ, and I'd rather have my shots in focus than have an extra stop in the noise dept. I'm pretty sure the 7D will be an improvement on the D200 I'm currently shooting as far as IQ goes.
Manual focus isn't too much of a concern. I use it pretty rarely.
brainiac wrote:
When light is really low I prefer the 7D. No banding.
But for me, this mainly hinges on my preference for manual focus. I often shoot in circumstances where AF is more of a hindrance than a help, and my last resort is always MF. With a properly shimmed/calibrated S-type manual focus screen the 5D2 is a pretty good tool for manual focus. The 7D is appalling for manual focus: the obligatory focus screen isn't even flat.
The ideal camera would be a 5D2 with decent AF and no banding, and a 7D with manual focus, but Canon won't supply us those because its no. 1 goal in the market is to rape us. No other brand does less customer-raping though. Other brands rape to survive, Canon rapes for profit....Show more →
I'm only responding to the raping for profit and survival.
Microshaft and Adobe both rape for profit.
Look at Nikon's lens costs! Ouchies in the pooper!
RobertLynn wrote:
Look at Nikon's lens costs! Ouchies in the pooper!
One of the other reasons I'm switching. If I want to build a collection of primes, it's going to cost me a lot less on the Canon side of the fence. Nikon's recently announced 24 1.4 is $2200.
RobertLynn wrote:
I'm only responding to the raping for profit and survival.
Microshaft and Adobe both rape for profit.
Look at Nikon's lens costs! Ouchies in the pooper!
The reason I get irritated by this issue is that it seems that Canon consciously refuses to produce a D700 equivalent in an effort to persuade people who have invested in Canon lenses to buy more cameras. Maybe the 5D3 will break this mould and be the lightweight all-rounder.
brainiac wrote:
The reason I get irritated by this issue is that it seems that Canon consciously refuses to produce a D700 equivalent in an effort to persuade people who have invested in Canon lenses to buy more cameras. Maybe the 5D3 will break this mould and be the lightweight all-rounder.
The 7D makes me think the 5d2's replacement will have similar AF features, but maybe I'm just convincing myself to buy into Canon :-) Gotta love Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
thedigitalbean wrote:
In low light, AF wise, the 7D is better (peripheral AF points only). IQ wise the 5D2 is better (noticeably so at ISO 1600 and above). Pick whichever is more important to you.
and both are better than the D200 in both sets of respects
yeah that says it all
the 5D2 outerpoints are actually reasonably precise though, just sometimes slow and sometimes they need to hunt a lot when it's dark
only side additional note is the 7D has less high iso banding, however most wedding shots would not have enough of the image near the noise floor to make the 7D actually do better than the 5D2 (in those rare cases the 7D can actually be better, but for most high iso shots I take the 5D2 is a lot better)
mjmetts wrote:
That helps quite a bit. Having the AF function quickly in low light outside the center point is really a high priority. I would even sacrifice some high ISO performance for it.
you will lose a good stop of iso performance by going wiht the 7D (compared to the 5D2 NOT D200 hah, D200 was a bit nasty at high iso) but yeah if the lighting is poor the 7D outer points remain quick while the 5D2 may slow down and occasionally even get into hunting, whether your subjects or lighting would be poor enough to make it an issue or not i can't say
coming from a D200 you might be used to having AF points close to the borders, with FF you'd need to adjust though
i think most people stll prefer 5d2 for weddings than the 7d though
it can be a bit disconcerting to use the 7D with the stock screen (i think there is now a slightly tricky self-install replacement VF screen for the 7D) shooting under f/5.6 since basically it looks like everything is in focus even when it's mostly not, even the special screen from canon for the 5D2 makes things look to have a bit more DOF if you shoot under f/2.5 or so than they really do but it does help a lot (even if you don't use MF it feels a lot more natural to see something much closer to the actual DOF you are really shooting at, assuming you are shooting close to wide open on a fast lens)
I really want to thank everyone for their input. At this stage, the 7D sounds like the right camera for me to move up to. I can save to complement it with a 5D3 some day which will hopefully have similar speed features, but it seems like the right fit for my style of shooting.
I just posted a low light comparison on another thread, but they are relevant here. Note the banding in the 5D2 shadows, which is effectively impossible to remove. The 7D has much more random, and therefore removable noise. As a result, if you need to shoot in really low and difficult light, notwithstanding the need for manual focus, which the 7D can't do, then the 7D actually delivers better results than the 5D2.
