A Little Late to the Party Reviewing the Canon 7D

The Canon 7D is a camera that I have wanted to try out for a while now. It was a camera that I thought would be perfect for me. As a treat on the weekend after my birthday I rented it from LensRentals. To start off let me just say that I love LensRentals.com. They are very good at what they do, and the prices can’t be beat. I had the Purdue football game in mind when I rented this lens. I knew that the 1.6x crop factor would get me about 60% closer to the action. My 60D will do that as well, but this has a few features that I wanted to try out. I was also shooting volleyball that weekend for LSU and USF here in town. I didn’t think that the camera would do well indoors, but I thought that I would give it a try. I was more than pleased with the way that it handled the lower light inside of Holloway Gymnasium. It was the camera that I made the majority of my pictures with during that tournament. It greatly exceeded my expectations. After the weekend I immediately started looking to purchase one of these. I decided to wait until Photokina to see when Canon was going to release the Mark II version of this camera. I am glad that I did.

The Canon 7D Mark II

The Canon 7D Mark II seems to be everything that it was rumored to be and more. There are many features that make it a great camera for sports photos, but here are a couple that I really think make a huge difference. First of all it shoots at 10 frames per second. Now I am not one that motor drives, but there comes a time when you just go for it. Ten frames a second will get it done. The second feature that I think is huge here is the fact that camera has both an SD slot as well as a CF slot. I love this setup with my 5D Mark III. I shoot RAW because you never know what might happen. With this two card setup I can shoot RAW to my CF card, and then a jpeg to the SD card. The SD card can then be loaded onto my iPad very easily to get important images out quickly. It also helps me get photo galleries up quicker by using the jpeg files. This was going to be a major point in my new camera, and it looks like it was the feature that made the 7D Mark II the one that I will purchase next.

Canon 7D Pros and Cons

Pros

• 1.6x Crop factor gets you 60% closer to the action
• 18mp sensor
• 8 frames per second burst mode
• Great in lower light
• Very strong build
• Same battery EP-6 as my 5DIII and 60D
• Low price with new model coming out

Cons

• Only one card slot CF
• White balance issues
• Newer model just a few months away

Conclusion

A year ago I would have thought that this was the perfect camera for me. Now I know that the 7D Mark II is that camera for reaching out to get action. I think we would all like to have a Canon 1DX in our hands, but that is not always possible. If you are shooting sports on a budget I think that either of the 7D models would be great for you. The original 7D if you are on a lower budget, and if you can spare the money the new 7D Mark II would be ideal. I think that I may rent the 7D at least one more time just to play with it a bit more before its successor comes out.