Canon DSLR

[SDAztec25]

I need to upgrade my Camera... Currently have the Rebel XTi. I would love to get the Canon 5d MK II but a little out my price range. Out of these two, which one would you recommend? Canon 50d or 7d

~ Travis

[Midnight Mover]

I need to upgrade my Camera... Currently have the Rebel XTi. I would love to get the Canon 5d MK II but a little out my price range. Out of these two, which one would you recommend? Canon 50d or 7d

~ Travis

I like my 50D, but would have gone with the 7D if it was out in time for the Reno Airraces last year. I too am eyeing the 5D MkII. But same problem, budget

Don't forget about the 40D as well.

[phantomphan1974]

I have a 40D and use my wife 30D as snd one.  Works for me.  40D would be nice.  Probably good price on a used one.

[SDAztec25]

Thank You everyone for your input so far....

~ Travis

[SkyBaby]

I have a 50D but don't have any experience with any other DSLRs, so I'm not real qualified to weigh in.  I will say I love my 50D though.

[CHILIBEAN]

I have the 40D and the 7D..I must say i do like them both

[SDAztec25]

All this 40d talk, i may just have to look at the specs for that. Is that much of an upgrade to the XTi

~ Travis

[Dragonskiss]

All this 40d talk, i may just have to look at the specs for that. Is that much of an upgrade to the XTi

~ Travis

Hey Travis, I was pretty much in the same boat you are in now. I started off with a Rebel XSi; however, quickly realized that it wasn't going to be fast enough for airshows. Suffice it to say, 3.5fps is plenty for general shooting, but for action shots, it just wasn't cutting it. I researched for weeks on end looking into every single resource I could. The 40D was my ticket. Although I did lose 2 megapixels "upgrading" from the Rebel, the image quality was better, although by not terribly much, but not insignificant either. The biggest gain I got from getting the 40D was its speed. 6.5fps is a godsend compared to the 3.5 on the XSi, and in your case, 3 from the XTi. I think the 40D suits me perfectly, and I can attest to that by saying that I'm looking into buying another as a second backup body.

Going back to your original question between the 50D and 7D - if I were you, I would get the 50D and save some money. You need some pretty good glass to resolve all the detail that the 7D offers. The main reason why I've strayed away from that body is because of its ISO performance. You have a whole whopping 18 megapixels crammed into the same sized cropped sensor. As a result, each pixel or photons on the sensor, receives less light and produces more noise. I have a friend with a 7D and he loves it, but after careful inspection of his full-resolution RAWs, anything at ISO 400 and higher was unacceptable, at least to me.  Even after upgrading to the latest firmware, which supposedly addressed the noise issues, his photos were still littered with luminance noise. I actually have a few image samples, but for the sake of bandwidth and argument, I'll just include a link, when I find it. Don't let this be a deterrent to purchasing a 7D; I think Canon did pretty well integrating some powerful hardware and simplicity into a single body. There will plenty of 7D owners out there that will tell you that it's an amazing camera, but obviously, that's all subjective. It all depends on what utility you're getting out of the camera as well. In my case, I have no use for 18MP; 10MP from my 40D more than suffices for my needs.

My goal isn't to start a rant, but rather to merely provide you with an opinion and brief experience that I've had with this camera. Again, I think your money would be well spent on either body, but if you do get the 50D, save the rest and spend it on some good glass, if you haven't already.