Canon 7D Vs 70D

Hi all,

I wanted to upgrade from T1I to semipro category cameras. as per my budget, 7D and new 70D are in range.
I am mainly in bird photography and having canon 100-400 L lens with T1I.

I have seen lot of comparisons and most of the places these 7D and 70D are matching however i wanted to understand the exact opinion from actual photographers.
The major difference is 1 fps difference, body built (plastic for 70D) and still counting this as entry level camera. It does have latest processor digic 5 but 7D has dual digic 4.

I am not sure whether 7D/70D has two rings similar to 1DMKIII has like to adjust shutter and aperture & any other differences which 7D called as semi pro as compared to entry level.

Please share your thoughts & suggestions as i mentioned i am mainly interested in bird & wildlife photography.

Thanks,
Yogesh

The 7D is the best choice for the money and investment. and that's how you should see it...an investment into your art form. Then after that purchase, consider some better glass. However the 100-400 L is a good lens in its own right. Just look at Daniel Cadieux's work.

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Originally Posted by Grady Weed

The 7D is the best choice for the money and investment. and that's how you should see it...an investment into your art form. Then after that purchase, consider some better glass. However the 100-400 L is a good lens in its own right. Just look at Daniel Cadieux's work.

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Im not sure how you can suggest the 7D is the better option without backing it up?


After owning a 7D and now owning a 60D when I switched back to Canon from Nikon, Im looking to upgrade to the 70D so I've read many reviews and had a look at images and Raw files from the camera. I can safely say that ISO performance is an improvement over the 7D, the files have more exposure latitude, and sharpness is a bit better too.
The 70D has many features that sets it up as a fantastic camera, and if your doing video too then the new Liveview AF system is fantastic and it also has a 3x sensor cropped ( no loss of quality) video mode which will help with wildlife.

The 7D's key advantages are build quality, AF modes ( though the 70D has essentially the same AF system just with a few modes cut out), 1fps difference, 7D has less shutter lag, 7D has a slightly bigger buffer and uses CF cards.

It's a choice you have to decide on but remember that the 7D is 4 years old now, and the 70D has many great features, like the duel pixel CMOS AF for fast AF in liveview and video and also it has Wifi for remote shooting, just use a smartphone and you can remotely trigger the camera and see the image on the phones screen.

There's quite a bit to consider with both cameras.

thank you Grady and Ashley. Yes as per my research these are the points & advantages however i still wanted to understand why 7D is called as semi pro & 70D still enthusiastic camera? Are there are any other ergonomics and other advantages?
I am not sure whether the CMOS AF will be useful for still photography through view finder. I am not more interested in video rather wanted good quality images.
Is the sensor of 7D and 70d is different? any other points?

Good Questions. the Reason why the 7D is classed as Semi Pro comes down mainly to build quality. It's a metal body while the 70D is a plastic Body. Weather sealing also plays a part as the 7D will be a bit more weather sealed though the 70D is still very good too from what I hear. The feel of the buttons and the ergonomics are better on the 7D too. Having owned the 7D and own the 60D I can base it off that as the 70D is very similar in design. The 7D also has a joystick which is handy for switching AF points quickly I found, the 60D's Dpad isn't as good but then you only have 9 AF points the 70D might fair better with having more points to select.

The CMOS AF is only for liveview so although this is a big feature of the 70D it may not have much merit to yourself, though the use of it and the swivel screen could be very handy when trying to photograph birds from a low position. not having to get right down low to use the view finder would surely be an advantage and I also forgot to mention the touch screen of the 70D will also come in handy for that with touch to focus and easy browsing of images.

The sensor in the 70D is completely new. It's a 20megapixel sensor thats better at High ISO and Noise. on the 7D I didn't like to shoot above ISO 1600 as colour noise became an issue at 3200 and above. Looking at the Raws from this camera I'd say Colour noise is hardly an issue and 3200 would be perfectly useable with some NR applied in Post to backgrounds. Your still good to go above that especially in fairly bright conditions if your after a high shutter speed. For image quality alone the 70D beats out the 7D. The only reasons I think the 7D would be worth getting is for it's build quality if your shooting in harsh environments, if you really need the 1fps more and the slightly better buffer. My advice is try out both cameras in a shop, take a long a memory card and have a look at the files ( RAW or jpeg which ever you shoot) on the computer at home to make up your mind which you like. Set the camera up as you would your own to gauge it better. The 7D will feel better to shoot with but the 70D's files are better, they've had 4 years to improve the sensor.

To understand why the 7D is called a semi-professional camera is to realize that the 7D was released Sept 2009, at that time compared to the other cameras in the Canon line up and cameras on the market, it was a notch above the competition. The metal body as mentioned, improved autofocus and weather sealing are some of the high points. The camera is now 4 years old and in desperate of a new sensor. Trying to compare a 4 year old camera to a new camera will produce unequal results because a new sensor should tip the scales in favor of the new camera since image quality will usually negates the better body build of the old camera unless you envision using the camera in rugged conditions on a regular basis.

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Originally Posted by DickLudwig

To understand why the 7D is called a semi-professional camera is to realize that the 7D was released Sept 2009, at that time compared to the other cameras in the Canon line up and cameras on the market, it was a notch above the competition. The metal body as mentioned, improved autofocus and weather sealing are some of the high points. The camera is now 4 years old and in desperate of a new sensor. Trying to compare a 4 year old camera to a new camera will produce unequal results because a new sensor should tip the scales in favor of the new camera since image quality will usually negates the better body build of the old camera unless you envision using the camera in rugged conditions on a regular basis.

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Completely agree with your comments :)

thank you all for response. These are very useful inputs.

Another question does it makes any difference if we have CF card as compared to SD cards? Is buffer of these CF cards are faster?

If anyone else bought 70D recently & have some reviews, pls. share those.

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Originally Posted by yogesh_puranik

thank you all for response. These are very useful inputs.

Another question does it makes any difference if we have CF card as compared to SD cards? Is buffer of these CF cards are faster?

If anyone else bought 70D recently & have some reviews, pls. share those.

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CF Cards tend to be faster than SD Cards, and it's perhaps Reason why the 7D has a better Buffer than the 70D though Im not entirely sure thats true myself. But I would say that browsing images on a camera with a CF card in is much faster. SD Cards do have one big advantage though.. they are much cheaper! Fast and big SD Cards at least in the UK can be as much as half the cost of a CF Cards of a similar spec. One thing I do know from reviews of the 70D, don't go faster than 45Mbps cards if your getting one as there's no speed boost in the faster more expensive cards, you'll still get the same number of shots in a burst.