Maybe back to a 7d

Has a 7d a while ago that had focus issues (actually 2 of them) Went over to Nikon and have been pretty happy with my d300s, that is until basketball season. I have to shoot at iso 3200 and I am not overly impressed with the noise or detail depth. The d700 while superb, is out of my price range and I stand to lose the "reach" for my field sports. So I'd look at a plus $900 bump on camera plus another $300 for a tc...Anyway - though about trying out the 7d again.

I don't know what to do....

There's plenty of stuff written about the 7D on this forum, so I'd do some research. Some like the 7D while some others don't, perhaps because they can't get used to the focusing system.

David

Don't worry most of us upgrade at tome point. Some upgrade from crop to full grame, some from Nikon to Canon

The 7D has such a complex AF system that it requires some setting up in the custom functions for the way you shoot. I am not saying you didn't do this, but there are people out there that overlook these options and wonder why they have focus issues. It really does take a little getting use to and learning the camera to fully leverage the capabilities. The 7D is a great camera and there are many times I grab it over my 5DII. Good luck on your decision!

So what's wrong with the D7000?

dave kadolph wrote in post #11938209
So what's wrong with the D7000?

Hadn't really explored it. Have been trying to read up on the AF system for sports since it's different than my d300s (AF on d300 is great). The other compelling reason is the cost of lens...

I think you've pretty much nailed the differences between 7D and D300s.... The Canons do high ISO better, the Nikons focus better. Until recently, Canon lenses - for the large part - were a little more favorably priced. Recent increases might wipe out that advantage, though, depending upon which lenses one needs.

I really struggled with the 7D AF system for the first few months... Once I stopped trying to make all the "gee whiz" stuff work and got back to basics, my hit rate rebounded very nicely. So now most of the time I pretty much use my two 7Ds the same way I use 50D, 5DII and earlier: AI Servo, Back Button Focusing, Single Point (manually selected, usually the center one).

There are occasions when the fancy 7D AF modes work well, but they are fewer and farther between than I'd thought at first. The All Points, Zone Focus and Expansion Points modes are variants on the same idea... Let the camera pick the point of focus. They can work well when shooting with wide angles and lots of DOF to cover any errors when the camera picks a point of focus different from what I would have chosen. They can also work pretty well if shooting something moving against a plain background, such as a bird in flight against a fairly featureless sky. Spot Focus is a more useful mode, IMO... But slower, so not very useful for moving targets.

I tried the trick of dialing down AI Servo response, so that AF won't jump to an objustruction that comes between me and a moving subject. But I found that slowed AI Servo response, and using Back Button Focusing I could more easily just lift off the button momentarily if I had to track a subject past an obstruction.

I'm still fiddling around a little with some of the other tweaks, but there's no substitute for the photographer's input to get AF to work well on 7D. It's a bit disconcerting that there's no focus confirmation or signal that an AF point is working, but once I learned to trust the camera... and myself... my keeper rate is at least as high as it's been with any Canon (due to focus accuracy).

I haven't compared the D7000. Nor have I shot with 60D, but it's AF seems similar to 50D, which were fine for sports. 60D shares nearly the same sensor, high ISO and image quality. Lower frame rate than 50D and 7D, though. And no AF Microadjust.