please critique my gear plans and aspirations :/

Good day to you all. After much deliberation, i think i have decided on the set up that would best suite me. I have nowhere near enough money so it is something to work towards one step at a time.

At the moment i have what i shown in my sig, and while many will say the best thing to do is to upgrade the glass before the body.. I have made up my mind that my next puchase will be a new body, and i have chosen the 7D. The urgency is because the video capability will certainly help my music career im trying to get off the ground, with promotional videos and music videos being a step easier and cheaper. Other reasons I want this camera include the high iso performance, liveview and the wireless flash transmitter which will help me discover the joys of my 430 ex. I have been wondering however, about how well the transmitter works - i have heard mixed reviews. also, as soon as i buy a 580 ex i wont need it. In that case, would the 5d II be a better choice? I enjoy wildlife photography so crop also just seems like a good option to save me money on expensive long lenses..

lens wise: i want to sell my 17 - 85mm IS and buy the ef 24 - 70 f/2.8L. I would like a lens that performs well in low light and even though IS can help, the shallow d.o.f. and amazing bokeh make for some amazing images. i also considered the popular EF-S 17 - 55 f/2.8 IS but i dont feel that i need the IS at these wide angles and i think the 24 - 70 would definitly be a better tool for portrait photography. As i do also love my landscapes i will also have to save up for a lens to give me some wide coverage. I intend on getting the 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM. I really love landscapes, especially with huge skies and although a full frame body would help with this, i think the relative 13mm achievable with this lens on a aps-c sensor will be good enough Also, i dont think it would drop below f/8 very often with this lens so that not an issue.

Then i want to save up for a 70 - 200mm f/2.8mm IS and a 1.4 teleconverter. Since this is the action lens, it will need to be fast and imho the IS makes for a much steadier telephoto experience, which will also be very handy for handheld videos.

I feel pretty confident about all of that but i have concerns..
- is there any chance i would miss the 16 - 24 gap between lenses? (not that a prime wouldnt fix that)..
- would the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM perhaps be a better telephoto? sacrificing shallow depth of field as well as speed for range? given that i enjoy wildlife photography, especially of small animals but then i would have a gap from 70 - 100mm (again, maybe a 85mm prime is the solution).

and from earlier..
- is the wireless flash transmitter not worth counting on? (sorry, not lens related)..

Thanks for reading this long post. tell me if i'm over looking something please. :

so you have a 30D, 17-85mm, 50 f1.8, 70-300IS...and you want to go to a 7D 8-16mm, 24-70L, and 70-200 f2.8 or 100-400mm...

sounds like you've got most of it already figured out except for the telephoto end of things...honestly when i think of wildlife photography a 70-200mm lens doesn't even enter my brain, i'd go for the 100-400L...you can get shallow DOF as long as you are able to get close enough...

well yes, that sums it up. perhaps i went a bit overboard in the first post haha - i just thought id would provide my reasoning to make sure it is sound and rational. Thanks for your advice - I am very tempted by the 100 - 400L and the 640mm that gives me. I've just so many great reviews about the awesomness of the 70 - 200 variants. is the 100 - 400 L also a gem?

First of all, the 100-400 is awesome. If you do wildlife, I highly recommend it over the 70-200 + teleconverter option. And in my experience the 70-100mm gap isn't a big deal. Especially for wildlife which you'll be shooting at the long end anyway.

Second, regarding the 16-24mm gap... well, it depends. Based on my own shooting experience, I find that using the 10-22mm lens, most of my shots are in the 15-22mm range. For all practical purposes, I've never really shot below 15mm. But again, this is based on my own use and experience and yours may be different.

An alternative would be something like the 17-40 or 16-35. This would give you wide angle on a crop, some overlap with the 24-70 (another awesome lens, albeit heavy) and still be usable on a FF body as an UWA lens since you mentioned that's your intention. IIRC, Sigma DC lens are designed for crop sensors, so I'm not sure if they'd be usable on a FF body. Probably way too wide to be practical.

The danger with a concise first post is that many wont bother reading it

Generally I think your ideas are sound. I think you're worried about gaps in focal lengths for the wrong reason though - it's not a big issue to not have something in the 16-24mm rang IMO, but what can turn out to be a real pain in the backside is having to regularly go between 16mm and 24mm and you can find yourself switching lenses a lot (and often just using the wrong FL instead).

If money is no object then your lens selection sounds fine with the 100-400 instead of the 70-200. There are other ways of going about your goals however that can mean more lenses and/or less money spent:
- There are good alternatives to the 24-70, for example.
- There are other ultra-wides that although not as wide are still very wide themselves - as wide as 8mm for landscapes is not my cup of tea, so one of the ultra-wides starting at 10mm or 12mm would be fine.
- The 70-200 versus 100-400 is a simple debate of speed versus length. The 70-200 IS (or Sigma equiv) is the only real fast lens in that range with IS, so not too many alternatives, but if the TC is likely to live on it then consider the 300mm F/4 IS as well. I wouldn't purchase any of these options though without first trying your current 70-300 IS for video, it should help you make your decision on speed, IS, and focal length.

Hopefully I've helped a little.

Thanks, you guys are really helping indeed. I am tempted to buy a 16 - 35 L or 17 - 40 L instead of the ultra wide sigma but i think perhaps, il get the sigma only usable on crop bodies for now and then when i get a FF camera oneday, ill replace it with one of the above alternatives
Im starting to think the 100 - 400 L will also be a better option for my tastes. I wanted the speed of the 70 - 200 but i can always increase the iso. whereas the limit in range is harder to work around.

So regarding the wide lens, I have heard good things about the 8 - 16mm but it may be too wide. in that case i would go for one of the sigma 10 - 20 alternatives ( although maybe i should overlook the ef-s 10 - 22?)
either way, i heard that the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM actually performs better than the constant f/3.5 version. anyone agree with this statement?

Is 17mm really not wide enough for you? I'm asking because people get the false idea that you must have an UWA...you don't, not even for landscapes.

A 24-70 is a better "portrait" lens, but you trade off a useful portion of the wide end to get there, and it's not like the 17-55 is bad for portraits. I think the 7mm loss on the wide end is more significant than the 15mm gain on the long end. Moreover, if you get a 5D, the 24-70 will be less useful as a portrait lens than a 17-55 on a 7D.

Forget the 70-200. Get a 100-400.

Regarding the wireless commander, it triggers flashes optically. This is unreliable outdoors, requires line-of-sight, and the slave flashes can be triggered if there are other people with flashes. Most people buy radio transmitters.

Finally, from what I've seen, the Sigma 10-20/3.5 is better than the 4-5.6, which is as good as the Canon 10-22, just with different strengths/weaknesses.