Recently Canon released the 7 D Mark II. After 5 years of the production of the first Generation 7D. I bought my 7D in January 2012 - for a very special purpose: photographing hockey - and having a spare camera do my 5D MkII. And now: first experience whith the 7D MkII...

Why using a 7D

In the first round I was disappointed. The performance was fare less than the 5DMkII, especially in low lights. But there was one advantage coming from the crop factor... I got more reach with the same lenses.... The basic idea was to save the very expensive 28-300mm L-lens from Canon using the 24-105 on the 7D as 38-168... shooting hockey in the hall.. But the result was disappointing.... ISO 800 was really the max. 1600 starts to be bad...

But! Finally I bought the 28-300. I took both camera to the outdoor hockey field - on the 5DMkIII - and this did not work as well: too less reach... Luckily I had the 7D with me, mounted the 28-300 on it: the perfect combination for outdoor field hockey! great!... 

But I learned more about the 7D: It was perfect for macro: I got a 160mm lens for free. Using it on the 7D... Especially good for shooting flowers with insects... or using the 100-400mm lens with an equivalent focal length of 640mm... Shooting Ski races: amazing!!!

I learned: the 7D is a specialized camera - especially if you have a full format camera. But it is great. Shooting speed, autofocus speed was really great - and even better than at the 5DMkIII! Really a beast if you use for purpose!

The 7D Mark II First Experience

And now, just one week back the 7D Mk II was released. I had the first in my hand at Photokina in Cologne. And I knew: this Camera has to become mine. The user interface very, very close to the 5DMkIII -and even improved. The speed is great - and the first reviews have shown that the low light performance - or better: High ISO Performance has increased a lot.

One big advantage of the 7D Mk II is the extended ISO Range. It gives you one extra stop for Autofocus. The Extender 1.4x can be used on the  EF 100-400mm L.... And gives you a full format equivalent focal length of 896mm!!

It works for many things. But you need to stop the lens down to f11, otherwise the images are getting too soft. This was the experience on the 5DMkIII - and this means that you will rarely shot @ 100 ISO...

Even in the night this combination works great...

But the next advantage is for Macro: I like the extra focal length. It produces a hell of  bokeh... 

And the next thing was: using the 7D in real environment. It is named "Wild Life" Camera..  ok. Safari just on the weekend maybe difficult so I decided to go to the Zoo - In Stuttgart called Wilhelma - the get some real live experience.. not only for the reach but for the autofocus speed as well.

The speed and reactivity of the 7D Mk II is just mind blowing: First time I was able to catch a butterfly flying....

Just nice, or?

In low light conditions It is great to have the performance: even @ ISO 1250

This frog I got @ ISO 1250, f 2.8... with the 100mm Macro....

It would have been impossible to get this shot with the 5 DMkIII nor with the old 7D...

ISO Comparison between 7D and 7DMkIII

I took both images with the camera on a tripod with ISO 6400... what a difference... This is more than 1 FStop difference like CANON is telling on Seminars...

1 Extra Stop for Autofocus

The possibility to use f8 lenses to use autofocus gives me extra reach: The left image is without and the right image is with the extender on the EF 100-400mm Lens.

Summary

Canon made a great step with the introduction of the 7D Mk II. The 7DMkII is a much better Camera than the 7D:

• Much better High ISO-Performance
• Extreme fast Autofocus
• Same User Interface like 5DMkIII
• More Telephoto Reach 

I am glad that I could add it to my portfolio....

And please keep in mind: these are all .jpg. There is no RAW converter available. So far... It will be interesting to see how long it takes that Aperture and DXO will release their converters...