I returned from a ten month round the world trip in November with a slightly battered Canon 550D that had the plastic finger grip peeling off and dust somehow inside the viewfinder (not impacting images luckily). This happened despite the fact that I am the sort of person to always put my camera away in its bag, clean it regularly and be careful when swapping lenses. Still though, I put it through its paces and got some great results in return.
However, the time has come to upgrade…I spent quite a while debating what to go for next. It had to be Canon (I’m a fan and I have a few lenses already) but which model? It came down to the 7D vs 5D Mark II for me. As you will see from this site, the majority of my photography is nature/landscapes and wildlife so I decided to go for the full frame 5D MK II with its superior image quality and low light performance. If I shot more sports or fast moving subjects then I probably would have gone for a 7D with its better autofocus and higher speed.
So, I’m now the proud owner of a new 5D MK II that I got in a kit with a 24-105 L lens and I love it. The London Camera Exchange on The Strand were very helpful and the price wasn’t far off what I could get online at Amazon. The-Digital-Picture and DPReview both have good in-depth camera equipment reviews that I found helpful.
A couple of months ago I tried selling an old 350D with kit lens on eBay and was blown away when I got £210 for it (I even got £50 for an old Nikon F60 film camera) so I’ll try and sell the 550D at some point as well to recoup a little of the cost.
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