I
’ve crossed over to the Canon camp from Sony since the Alpha DLSR series doesn’t provide a solution to my current needs. I decided on the EOS 7D and definitely believe I made the right decision. This is quite the camera. One of the primary reasons was the 8fps continuous shooting. This thing is like a machine gun on the youth sports sidelines capturing every play. I just have to work out the autofocus preferences. There are so many options to control the speed and accuracy of the autofocus for multiple moving objects, that it takes some experimentation to determine the correct setting. The 18MP CMOS sensor insures a great quality image even if I have to use a close crop. The wide ISO range was another selling factor.
With the Sony Alpha I generally only used three lenses, the 18-70mm, 70mm and a 70-210mm. I plan to use a similar strategy with the 7D. I initially purchased the 7D with two lenses. I settled on the Canon 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS as an excellent all-purpose lens and for sports shooting (temporarily), and the Canon 85mm f1.8 USM for portraits. Both of these provide excellent results, although I’ll eventually pick up the Canon 70-200mm F4 for my sports shooting. The f2.8 would be the choice in a perfect world, but is a bit out of my price range.
I took a few shots with these lenses right out of the box upon delivery. For a wide range focal length zoom the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS provides surprisingly good results at all focal lengths. This is definitely the lens that will be on the camera most of the time for any situation. The one thing I do miss from the Sony DSLR line is the Super SteadyShot that is built into the camera providing image stabilization for any lens that is attached. Canon dings you with an additional cost for the IS lenses. The image above was the first grab shot taken with the lens and was hand-held at 1/10 of a sec at f5.0. ISO was set at 100 and the focal length 80mm. This shows the advantage of IS on the lens at slower shutter speeds. I just wish I had opened the North-facing window behind me to add catch light to the eyes.
While the 85mm f1.8 lens is not IS ready it’s fast aperture allows for sharp hand holding even without the added IS functionality. The image above was another quick grab shot, and again I wish I had opened that window for a better catch light in the eyes. This was taken at 1/100 of a sec and f1.8. I do like the quality of the bokeh (background blur) this lens creates. I can’t wait to capture more portraits with this very sharp lens. I except to be very happy being a Canonite, but still wish Sony would step up to the plate and give more options to us Semi-Pro shooters who require faster capture rates, better build quality and features, but at an affordable price point.
