downgrading?

I thought about the same things OP. I've been battling with this for 6 months now.

nicksan wrote in post #12118609
If stuck between the 5DC and 7D, and the lenses you have, I would stick with the 7D. It's the better all around camera with the exception of it being a 1.6x crop body.

This. And note that being a 1.6x crop body isn't at an automatic disadvantage except for depth of field control on the shallow end. It depends on what you're after.

i guess you guys make sense, but what i'm missing from 7D that i don't get is the IQ that 5D have. sometimes it sucks when you put on certain lenses (like 50mm) on a 1.6crop and it end up being too long and having to work in limited space makes it even harder. and the noise as well.

p.s. i just thought i'd let you know that i mostly do landscape and fashion/portraiture.

Autonomous wrote in post #12117405
lets talk... nikon?

yah that will make the money situation or lack thereof much more easy to work with. Complete changeout of lenses too? You will be in for some serious loss of $$.

Autonomous wrote in post #12119357
i guess you guys make sense, but what i'm missing from 7D that i don't get is the IQ that 5D have. sometimes it sucks when you put on certain lenses (like 50mm) on a 1.6crop and it end up being too long and having to work in limited space makes it even harder. and the noise as well.

Your lens selection will just be different with the 7D than with the 5D. Instead of 50mm, you need a 30mm or 35mm lens. But your 50mm becomes as useful on your 7D as an 85mm lens would be on a 5D.

Noise can be dealt with in software, and the 7D has so much resolution that the noise winds up being very fine grained, such that it won't really show itself in prints (even ISO 3200 is very fine grained on 11x17 prints). There are postprocessing techniques you can use to minimize it (for instance, at ISO 100, overexpose by 2/3 of a stop and then pull it back in postproduction). The noise characteristics of the 7D don't appear to be much different from those of the 5D except at relatively low ISOs.

For landscapes, you'll want detail. The 7D will capture more detail than the 5D classic can, even though it has a crop sensor. You have to have a lens with a lot of resolving power, and you have that in some of your lenses.

The 7D is perfectly capable of delivering outstanding results for portraits. For example: http://stepheneastwood​.com/Canon/amy_7t/


Honestly, for what you want to do, I don't think your camera is a limiting factor. Your lenses might be, but your camera isn't.

If landscapes and portraits are what you primarily do, then you might consider selling your 70-200 and picking up a lens or two that would be better suited to your photography. But I wouldn't do that unless you find you don't really use your 70-200 enough to justify keeping it.

kcbrown, you've just opened my eyes in an entirely different perspective that made me realize it'd be foolish for me to "downgrade", if you will, from 7D to 5D when it has so much potential and i realize i need to maximize its potential that it is capable of.
but yeah my problem was just that FF vs crop factor, because i really hated crop factor.

so i guess, i'm just gonna have to save lots of money for the right lenses
(i'm thinking 11-16 2.8, and 35 1.4 and maybe 50 1.2)

i don't quite understand what you mean by this though.

I would never judge whether or not to move camera's from web-jpegs.

That said, I doubt the 5D would be worth much to you unless you really want the shallow depth of field. By the time you bin your 18mp 7D file to match the 5Dc you already have high-ISO taken care of.

As a fellow broke-ass student with a 7D, I would not make the switch, purely for one reason. I like wide angles and I like big tele's.

The crop factor works in advantage for the more expensive half and against the cheaper half. You won't spend more than $1k on a great wide angle for a crop but you can spend a butt-load on big zooms. With my cheap Tamron 70-300 USD, it's like having a 500mm on a FF. I haven't even bothered checking prices on a 500mm.

Autonomous wrote in post #12120029
kcbrown, you've just opened my eyes in an entirely different perspective that made me realize it'd be foolish for me to "downgrade", if you will, from 7D to 5D when it has so much potential and i realize i need to maximize its potential that it is capable of.
but yeah my problem was just that FF vs crop factor, because i really hated crop factor.

so i guess, i'm just gonna have to save lots of money for the right lenses
(i'm thinking 11-16 2.8, and 35 1.4 and maybe 50 1.2)

First, I think you made a wise decision here. The difference between crop and full frame these days is primarily in the extra depth of field latitude on the shallow end that full frame gives you. It's the only advantage that doesn't change with sensor technology.

Second, because you're budget limited, you'll want to be very careful about what lenses you choose. For instance, the 35 f/1.4 and 50 f/1.2 are both rather expensive L lenses ($1500 each!), and while nice, the real question is what specifically you want to get out of them. You can achieve very similar image quality results to the 35 f/1.4 with the Sigma 30 f/1.4, and you can get similar image quality results to the 50 f/1.2 with the Sigma 50 f/1.4, while saving yourself around $1000 for each (each is about $500, so the total savings for both compared to the L lenses would be around $2000).

Finally, don't overlook lenses that explicitly target crop cameras, e.g., the Sigma 30 f/1.4, the Sigma 8-16, etc. Not only do they work very nicely, they sometimes (as with the 8-16) give you a capability that, on a crop, you can only get with such lenses (there is no 8-16 lens that will work on a full frame camera). The Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 is also such a lens, and it's good that you're considering it.


You already have the Canon 50 f/1.8, so I'd stick with that as far as 50mm lenses go until you've got the rest of your lens lineup filled. If you're having consistent focus problems with it (specifically, if it's frontfocusing or backfocusing consistently), the 7D will let you tell it to adjust the focus location forwards or backwards a bit so that the lens will nail the focus when you use it. That feature is called "autofocus microadjustment", and it's an amazingly handy feature to have when you need it.


The range of lenses available for these crop cameras can be daunting -- it's become significantly greater than what you can get for full frame, because your crop camera can make use of any lens that a full frame camera can, but not vice versa.

If you shoot in RAW (and you really need to be if you're going to get the most out of any camera), then you can overexpose your shot by 2/3 of a stop and then, in your raw image editing program (Canon's DPP, Lightroom, etc.), move the "exposure" or "brightness" slider 2/3 of a stop towards the darker end. This will have the effect of bringing your exposure back to what you intended and it will also reduce the apparent noise in the process. It's basically a form of ETTR ("Expose To The Right"), and is a way that you can not only minimize the noise, but also improve the shadow detail.


It sounds like you've got some experimenting to do. It's part of the fun! It's also very worthwhile -- you'll eventually learn just what your camera can do. Frankly, I think you'll be astonished at just how capable the 7D really is. I like mine so much that I'm seriously thinking about just sticking with crop instead of going full frame myself, even when Canon sees fit to bring forth a full frame camera with roughly the same capabilities as the 7D. I'd like the extra depth of field latitude that full frame brings to the table, but the 5Dmk3 (or whatever Canon's going to call it) will have to be an absolute home run for me to go full frame. And I'm very doubtful that they'll make it as fast and responsive as the 7D is.

but if you overexpose, wouldn't there be some kind of blown-out areas, or something affected in it?

p.s. you're like my yoda

LOL, haha

yeah, but its the result achieved from it that will make all the differences.
say you're using 70-300 on crop and you wanna take a pic equivalent of 200mm (of a 70-200 2.8), the picture speak for itself y'know?

Autonomous wrote in post #12120565
but if you overexpose, wouldn't there be some kind of blown-out areas, or something affected in it?

Not if you're shooting raw and are properly controlling your exposures.

Remember, by "overexpose", I mean relative to the exposure you would choose. I'm assuming that you've already picked out which regions of the scene need to have highlights preserved and have set your exposure to preserve those. RAW gives you about a stop worth of additional headroom in the highlights, so if you're careful, you can intentionally overexpose your shot by 2/3 of a stop and pull the exposure back in your raw image editing program. Your highlights will remain preserved and you'll reduce your noise.

But it only works if you can nail your exposure and understand exactly how your camera's metering system works. That takes some experience.


I normally shoot in manual mode with spot metering. The reason I use manual is that is that it gives me full control over the camera, and I use spot metering because it is consistent in the way it meters things (unlike evaluative, which is something of a "magic" mode and thus can be somewhat unpredictable, particularly across camera models) and because of its precision. With spot metering, I can choose which part of the scene is most important to me, meter directly off of it, and set my exposure so that the region under the spot gets the exact tone I want it to have in the final shot. It takes some practice to figure out what meter readings get you what tones, but once you've got that figured out, you can literally point your camera at a part of a scene, set your exposure, and get exactly the tone you want out of that part of the scene.

p.s. you're like my yoda

Strong with the Force I am, but not that strong.

(I'm just a midrange padawan ... )

Well, if you're talking about comparing with a full frame shot at 200mm f/2.8, then yeah, you're not going to be able to get that with a crop camera (at least, not with a zoom lens) because that's one of the cases where full frame's extra shallow depth of field comes into play. But other than that, in terms of angle of view, you'd need to use 125mm on a crop camera to get the same angle of view that 200mm on full frame gets you. If you wanted to match the depth of field, you'd have to go wider on the crop's aperture, by 1 1/3 stops.

You can achieve roughly that with a crop camera, but you'd have to use the Canon 135mm f/2L wide open.


Full frame does have some advantages over crop, but they're typically in the extremes. The above is an example of one. If you had to stop down the full frame camera by at least a stop in order to get a sufficiently large depth of field to properly capture your subject, you'd be able to capture the same image with a crop camera. You'd be using a shorter focal length and a wider aperture to achieve it, but you'd be able to get the same shot, and in fact, if the shutter speeds had to be the same, the full frame camera would lose its noise advantage as well (you'd have to bump its ISO in order to keep the shutter speed the same as you stopped down).

i would recommend trying one, for sure. i LOVE mine. but it was quite an adjustment from my t2i. the screen is ugly for reviewing photos, no live view (still a tough pill for me to swallow as a landscape shooter). those were the only two things that really took some getting used to though. however i feel like a better pure shooter because of the switch. like i had to force myself to understand exposures and things better and rely less on the camera.

i dont know that a 7d is going to be limiting you in shooting the things you want to shoot, like the other posters mentioned. glass would probably make a bigger impact.

while i love my 5d to death, i just want to remind you that autofocus will be shockingly slow coming from your 7d. and the outside focus points in low light are aggravating as heck sometimes. i would definitely find someone with one and give it a test drive. that would probably help. maybe take a few sample shots with each and compare for yourself.

I have thought the same thing (for about 5 minutes) The 7D is a good solid camera. Save your money, buy good EF lenses and next time you upgrade (or change bodies) get a full frame if that's what you want. The 7D is more than capable of doing anything you need. People get to hung up on greener grass on the other side. All the best.

nate42nd wrote in post #12121613
I have thought the same thing (for about 5 minutes) The 7D is a good solid camera. Save your money, buy good EF lenses and next time you upgrade (or change bodies) get a full frame if that's what you want. The 7D is more than capable of doing anything you need. People get to hung up on greener grass on the other side. All the best.

I wouldn't even compromise on the full frame versus crop-only lenses. Get what makes the most sense for your photography with the camera and budget you have. If that's EF-S (i.e., crop) lenses, then so be it. You can always sell your lenses later if it comes down to it. Or you can keep them, and your crop camera, for a backup if you get serious enough about it that you start a business around it.

Keep in mind that there's some ultra sharp glass out there for crop cameras these days (such as the Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 OS), so it's possible to take full advantage of the resolution of modern crop cameras.

You have an outstanding camera body. Keep it, save your money and work on your skill. Way too many people are in that 'will the next body help my images' cycle. An artest can take a crapy camera and make art. Just my .02 cents.