topic Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Kyledubay — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 14:43:28 GMT

Hi, I was hoping for advice on which camera would be the most practical for me to aquire, I am nothing more than a amateur who has a serious interest in photography and i know the answer is based off what I will be using the body for; I work in a photography gallery in Bar Harbor, Maine not as a photographer as an employee, that being said Its wonderful terrain and I enjoy landscape photography a great deal, that being said its Maine and its not as practical in the winter in which I will be shooting sports at indoor locations. Its not so much the price difference as finding the best balance for both also i am apprehensive that the 5d mark iv may come out soon. not saying the 5d iii stops working but it might be worth holding off a month or 3. Thats my dilema any advice at all is appreciated! I would like to add for the next 6 months my focus is primarily on indoor sports.

Thanks, Kyle

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Skirball — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:38:35 GMT

What lenses do you have? How much are you willing to spend?

There's little doubt that the 5d3 will still be king of indoor sports, even with the release of the 7d2 (1dX nonwithstanding). Indoor sports is challenging for cameras/photographers. In addition to a good AF system you frequently have to shoot at high ISO and I'm not convinced that the 7D2 is going to have a marked increase in high ISO over the current crop sensors. That said, long glass for full frame is not cheap, and if you don't have the glass to reach the action then the sensor is irrelevant. Also, also the high ISO is significantly better in the 5d3, the difference will depend heavily on what type of output you expect to produce. With good technique and post processing, high ISO can look fine when just viewed on the web.

Something else to consider - although you seem bent on spending a bunch of money: professional photographers pay a lot for top of the line AF systems because it puts food on the table. Catching that one perfect shot can make or break a shoot. And coming back with a 95% hit rate versus a 50% hit rate has a huge impact. As a hobbyist, is it as crucial? Do you need 25 shots of an action sequence that lasted 2 seconds? If you get some out of focus shots does it really matter? People have been shooting sports, successfully, since the days of manual focus. They just didn't get as many keepers. You don't need the latest and greatest AF system to get great shots.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Kyledubay — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:46:25 GMT

Thank you for your response Skirball, The Lenses I will be using are the 24-105 f4L, Canon 50mm 1.4, and the 70-200 2.8 ii is, My goal here is beginning to build a high quality portfolio. I currently have a Canon Rebel T5i and understand what that is capeable of and have some good shots using the kit 18-55 and a 28-135 it doesnt have the low light performance im looking for.

Any insight is great!

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

RobertTheFat — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:37:03 GMT

@Kyledubay wrote:
Thank you for your response Skirball, The Lenses I will be using are the 24-105 f4L, Canon 50mm 1.4, and the 70-200 2.8 ii is, My goal here is beginning to build a high quality portfolio. I currently have a Canon Rebel T5i and understand what that is capeable of and have some good shots using the kit 18-55 and a 28-135 it doesnt have the low light performance im looking for.

Any insight is great!

I understand where Skirball is coming from, and her concern for the integrity of your wallet is commendable. But given the lenses you have or plan to get, I'm tempted to recommend that you spring for the 5D3 if you can afford it. (I wouldn't worry about the 5D4. It might be different if you were planning to buy a camera and flip it in a year, but you're not going to outgrow the 5D3 anytime soon.) I bought my 5D3 earlier this year (to go with my two 7D's) partly because I do a lot of event photography in a room in which the 70-200 is a trifle long and partly to get the more elaborate and reliable autofocus. And I haven't been sorry. Like you, I'm not really a professional photographer, but photography is sometimes part of my job. And when I'm photographing awards ceremonies or the inaugurations of elected officials, there are shots I don't dare miss. Also like you, my primary interest runs to landscapes and such, and I have an eye on building my portfolio. (I get to do some of that for our Web site, but not enough.)

The 7D2 figures to be a fine camera, and under slightly different circumstances I might have waited for it (or wished that I had). But I'm comfortable with my decision to get the 5D3, and I suspect that you would be as well.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Skirball — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:50:46 GMT

@Kyledubay wrote:
Thank you for your response Skirball, The Lenses I will be using are the 24-105 f4L, Canon 50mm 1.4, and the 70-200 2.8 ii is, My goal here is beginning to build a high quality portfolio. I currently have a Canon Rebel T5i and understand what that is capeable of and have some good shots using the kit 18-55 and a 28-135 it doesnt have the low light performance im looking for.

Any insight is great!

There's plenty of people here that will tell you what you want to hear; I'll let them tell you to get the 5d3. If you currently own a T5i and kit lenses then certainly either of the mentioned cameras and the above mentioned lenses will be a huge step up in performance. But there's more to photography then running out and spending $6k+ on a new kit.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Kyledubay — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 17:00:44 GMT

Thank you Robert and Skirball, I appreciate the points that have been made up to this point and personal expierences provide an excellent opinion when trying to negotiate a decision as well as contrasting the positives vs negatives between the bodies. Those are the lenses in my current set up and I am aware that profressionals in the past have had a much lesser degree of equipment availible to them and they made do just fine. I am looking to best take advantage of the equipment I have availible to me for purchase short of the 5k 1dx body which.

Thanks!

More insights are great!

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

cale_kat — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 19:03:31 GMT

When combined with a APS-C format sensor, the lenses you identify to match with the new body, 24-105, 70-200, 50mm, aren't going to provide a particularly wide angle of view. If I were photographing Bar Harbor, I'd want to also have the capacity to take in a wide view.

That sort of leaves FF as a natural choice, though I really wonder if you will ever approach needing (as opposed to wanting) the feature-rich 5DMIII.

Because your "needs" are pretty broad and driven by personal as opposed to professional interest, I think you'd be wise to consider a wider range of camera and I would recommend you research the Fujifilm X-T1 as a potential candidate. Good luck.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Kyledubay — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 19:13:23 GMT

Thank you for your response cale_kat, the 5d iii is not as robust as you are making it out to be. Its a great camera but the features are not mind blowing the 7d mark ii has superior FPS and focusing comperable to that of the 1dx the 5d iii is 3-6 FPS and the focusing is only slightly worse. The 7d mark ii also has a much more extensive lense selection. For all of my intents I would like to stick with the focus of the next 6 months being indoor sports and the advice being geared towards that with landscapes as a sidebar, if need be I will be able to adjust when I am back in Bar Harbor where I have access to a wide varitey canon of lenses.

Thanks!

All input is great!

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Skirball — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:01:02 GMT

@Kyledubay wrote:
Thank you for your response cale_kat, the 5d iii is not as robust as you are making it out to be. Its a great camera but the features are not mind blowing the 7d mark ii has superior FPS and focusing comperable to that of the 1dx the 5d iii is 3-6 FPS and the focusing is only slightly worse. The 7d mark ii also has a much more extensive lense selection. For all of my intents I would like to stick with the focus of the next 6 months being indoor sports and the advice being geared towards that with landscapes as a sidebar, if need be I will be able to adjust when I am back in Bar Harbor where I have access to a wide varitey canon of lenses.

The 5d3 is spectacular at what it was designed to be: an event camera. It’s arguably one of the best out there. Most people who use it don’t need or want 12 FPS, certainly not for a wedding. It becomes too cumbersome with minimal benefit. Those that want high FPS are usually BIF and sports photogs, and that’s not who the camera was design for. Hence, you have cameras like the 7D and 1D series. BIF photogs want crop sensors anyway, as do most other types of wildlife photographers.

As to the 7D having a wider lens selection: While it’s technically true, what lenses were you hoping to get that wouldn’t work on full frame? You have a 24-105 and 70 – 200 II. There are better options than the 24-105, but not EF-S. And the 70-200 II is one of the best lenses out there, what would you replace it with? You want to go wider? I think the new 16- 35 f/4 can match (and beat) anything the 10-18 or 10-22 can do. Except IS I guess. Having more options for lenses isn’t the same has having more lenses you need.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

RobertTheFat — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:43:24 GMT

Skirball wrote:

I think the new 16- 35 f/4 can match (and beat) anything the 10-18 or 10-22 can do. Except IS I guess. Having more options for lenses isn’t the same has having more lenses you need.

The 16-35 f/4 has IS. And contrary to some pre-launch reports, it does have a switch to turn the IS on and off.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

Skirball — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:16:46 GMT

@RobertTheFat wrote:

@Skirball wrote:
I think the new 16- 35 f/4 can match (and beat) anything the 10-18 or 10-22 can do. Except IS I guess. Having more options for lenses isn’t the same has having more lenses you need.

The 16-35 f/4 has IS. And contrary to some pre-launch reports, it does have a switch to turn the IS on and off.

Even better. I really need to get around to selling my 17-40 and upgrade.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

ScottyP — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:57:20 GMT

The indoor sports need shouts "full frame"! The low light makes you stretch the high ISO beyond what you would probably like to see in image quality, unless you will be viewing at small sizes.

Your lens collection is all full frame compatible, which is almost unheard of for a crop shooter. Another plus for full frame. Most people thinking of going from crop to full frame have a lot of EF-s glass on their hands.

Your lack of any glass that would be even slightly "wide" on a crop camera adds to the logic in going full frame, since you want to do some landscape, and your 24-105 will actually be 24 at the wide end on a full frame, whereas it is nearly 40mm on a crop.

I would ask how serious you are about the indoor sports, because fast movement in low light is what is expensive. Perhaps the way to economize (if doing so is desirable) is to go full frame, but go with a 6d. The AF is not terribly complex but it can work if you don't need a 95% keeper rate. Use the $1,000 you save for glass.

Or just go with the 5d3.

I just don't hear you saying that you'll be doing a whole lot of OUTDOOR SPORTS, which would be the bread and butter of a crop camera like a 7d or 7d2. Other than AF speed, your T5i would be just about as good at indoor sports, as I don't think the low light performance will be improved more than perhaps a fraction of one stop?

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

cale_kat — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 03:04:40 GMT

Too much discussion of bodies and not enough attention to lenses for this thread. Considering a "starting from scratch" scenario here, I'd suggest that the OP consider the lens situation. The 24-105mm f/4L is a nice lens, not great, but very nice and affordable. Paired to a 5DMkiii, it is under-classed. But a 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM is a spectacular lens. It's the choice of the OP, of course, but were it mine, I'd buy the glass now and let it assist the collection and organization of light because in the end, that's all that matters.

Camera bodies come and go but good glass lasts.

Full disclosure: I own a 24-105 f/4L and lust after the 24-70 f/2.8L II USM.

Re: Canon 7d mark ii Vs 5d mark iii purchase

ScottyP — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 09:52:11 GMT

Me too.