Canon 7D Mark II - a sincere review...

Let me put my this article in perspective by giving it a little bit perspective. I am a birder, a hobbyist at that but a serious one. I do not mind kicking the road whenever I can spare some time and be out photographing them. I am not a commercial photographer in the sense that I have not sold a picture - not that I have not tried. 

There were two reasons that I bought this camera. First was - I followed the rumours since last year that a new crop sensor upgrade to Canon 7D was on its way. I did buy a stop gap camera, Canon 70D and was quite sure about it that the purchase is stop gap only. Then I followed all the reviews that I could get my hands on and was convinced that this camera is for me and would be my companion for some time to come. Since I purchased one of those Tony Northrup's books - I was following him what he had to say for the camera. Well then the camera fell in my hands.

Now the question - is is worth it ?

Let me give a run up of the good part first. It is a good camera to feel in your hands, a solid one to be precise. The picture quality on the look of it is same as 70D but ramp up the ISO a bit and then there is the discernable difference. The much talked about Auto Focus is GOOD as in GOOD - it does have a wow factor - for the first time I got some pictures of flying birds those were acceptable. Not very good perhaps but then far better that I got with the previous cameras I held. The 10 FPS is again a WOW, the firing up does not create noise that I have seen in the older cameras and I did feel that the vibrations produced by shutter firing is far less. That should show in pictures and I might be able to fire up without IS perhaps.

There is no negatives per se - but then there are steps taken backwards. WiFi is one that I missed the first day, the touch screen that I came to like in 70 D is another. That I feel is what I will miss the most perhaps. Though I did like the GPS - I noticed that it remains on even with  the camera switched off - the GPS keeps blinking. There was also a noticeable additional drain in the battery. It also took more time to get a GPS lock than that I expected. I did click quite a few pictures with GPS turned on and am still exploring what more I can achieve with GPS turned on. The location by the way displays seamlessly in Lightroom I use.

Should anyone else upgrade - Well a personal choice per se, I would have and have - because I was waiting for this upgrade for more than a year (when the definite rumours had surfaced regarding 7D upgrade) and was sure that 70D is just a fill-up. 
Well that's that...

Two pictures of flying birds taken today (02 Nov 14) for all. Both pictures are cropped, No reduction of noise etc in Post processing.

Short-eared owl, Mohali, India

Black Shouldered Kite, Mohali, India

I intend to keep adding pictures for some time to come so that you can get better impressions as and when I click them.