September 2, 2009

Revolution vs. evolution


I won't talk about politics but about digital photography. As many of you know, I'm a amateur photographer with permanent aspirations to improve. I will go some day over the topic of why I changed to Canon after all my life shooting with Nikon, not today.

Today is a great day. Today Canon has changed again the landscape of photography. Over the years, we've been used to see it:
  • They launched the first digital SLR
  • They launched the first full frame, affordable SLR (5D ... what a great camera!)

and today they launched the definitive non-full frame SLR: The canon 7D. Why am I so excited about this particular camera? There are too many reasons to fill this post, but let me highlight the key ones:
  1. It brings a new AutoFocus system to the EOS family that looks amazing on paper
  2. It includes a remote control for Canon Flashes so you can fire your flash without connecting it to the camera - key for portraits among other things
  3. It promises amazing levels of iso sensitivity without too much noise - pictures at 1600 seem usable, not bad for an ASP-C camera with 18 Mpixels
  4. It includes (not new as Nikon already have it) flexible focussing screens without changing physical parts - by interpolating a LED layer
  5. It provides 100% viewfinder - on a cropped SLR
  6. It records HD video at 24, 25, 30 fps and HD 720 video at 60 fps
  7. 8 fps
  8. ...
It is a great camera. In a lot of aspects it is even better than the 5D Mark II - in particular auto focus and ergonomics. I was thinking about moving to FF at some point, now it is not that clear that I should do it. This camera looks like the perfect companion for a father with twins that don't stop providing perfect moments to capture. Time will tell...

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