5D Mark II or 7D?

Its been awhile since the last post – I’ve been busying away with a new site design, which will be coming shortly and along with some new photos!

Anyway back to the subject of this post…

About a month ago I started researching into which new camera to upgrade to. My Canon 400D has served me well over the last 3 years, but was starting to limit me. ISO performance was the main issue, anything over 400 had too much noise for Stock photography and the maximum ISO of 1600 meant low light photography was impossible without a tripod.

My research lead me to two cameras, the 5D Mark II and the new 7D . I had to rule out Nikon cameras due to my investment in Canon Lenses. At first I was very curious about the 7D as its features creates an impressive list.

• 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor
• 8 frames per second continuous shooting
• ISO 100 – 6400
• 1080p HD video recording with manual controls
• Wireless flash control
• 19-point AF system (all cross-type)
• 1.0x magnification and 100% coverage viewfinder
• 3.0 inch 920,000 dot LCD monitor

A brief look at the 5D Mark II offers the following specs.

• 21MP full frame CMOS sensor
• 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
• ISO 100 – 6400
• 1080p HD video recording with manual controls
• 98% coverage viewfinder (0.71x magnification)
• 3.0 inch 920,000 dot LCD monitor

I then searched the internet for photographs taken by both cameras, flickr came in very useful. I was mainly looking at low light performance in the shots. The best example I found of Canon 7D was a beta test taken at a muse gig. For the 5D Mark II I used the dpreview site examples to compare.

From this I settled on the 5D Mark II, it suits my current and future needs of a camera. The low light performance was the major factor for me to choose this camera. If I was going to shoot more sports and wildlife I know the 7D would be the best choice.

For those of you looking to buy kit soon I found this useful website for comparing prices of cameras & lenses. It also shows a graph of the price history – other the last month the 5D Mark II has come down over a £100.

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting some shots with the new camera.

Tags: 5D mk2, 7D, Cameras
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