Am I about to do something stupid..?

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shufflemoomin

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Hey all,

My primary shooting job is doing live shows. In fact, that's pretty much all I shoot. I'm currently using a 6D as my primary body with a 7D as a back up. I'm getting very, very tired of the 7D for this job. Not only is it noisy as all hell most of the time, its low light AF leaves a lot to be desired. Another photographer I talked to suggested that I sell off the 7D and pick up a 1DmkIII used for about the same price. Does anyone have experience of using both bodies for this sort of thing that can stop me if I'm about to make a huge mistake or confirm that it's a good move?
 
Hi, I shoot live music. I'm using 1d3 and have no real problem with it. Up to about 800iso it's fine.
You can go higher, but it starts to lose it a bit.
Worth a punt for the price.
The AF is so much better than the 5d2 for this stuff.
Dean.
 
I'm shooting in small to medium venues. I can't remember the last time I shot at ISO800. I'm usually starting at 1600 but usually shooting at 3200. You wouldn't recommend the 1DmIII for that?
 
there's only one way to find out, that is if you can borrow or hire a 1DmIII and try it, see what the results are like, then consider if it's worth buying.

:)
 
No, the other way is to ask people here who also use the same body for similar work. If I had access to one, why would I have asked?
 
I can't speak for live shows but I use both 7D and 1D3 for birds/wildlife and will raise the ISO to maintain shutter speeds for birds in poor light.

Whilst not perfect, In terms of noise, results at ISO 3200 & 6400 are cleaner on the 1D3.

The biggest thing for me though is that the 1D3 files are also much cleaner than the 7D at the more often used 800 and 1600.
 
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ISO 1600 is very good and 3200 quite OK, but it does fall apart at H (6400). It is not 5dIII, but light years better than 7D. AF is pretty impressive too, but then I don't own a 1Dx or D4 to properly compare

Your only other real option is 1Ds mkIII, 1D IV and 6D / 5DIII.
 
From the sounding if your opening post i am taking the assumption budget is a factor in this decision.
If the budget would allow i would really reccomend the 5d3, i use one regulary and the low light performance/ auto focus is fantastic, high iso is no issues for it either.
I looked closely at the 7d, and avoided it for exactly the same reason your getting annoyed with it for
 
Okay that's the sort of advice I was looking for. I see many advantages to the 1D over the 7D, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't losing anything of importance. I guess I won't be. Decision made, then. Thanks to (almost) everyone for the helpful advice.
 
shufflemoomin said:
Okay that's the sort of advice I was looking for. I see many advantages to the 1D over the 7D, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't losing anything of importance. I guess I won't be. Decision made, then. Thanks to (almost) everyone for the helpful advice.
Click to expand...

Oh the 7D does do Video but I guess you know that.
 
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shufflemoomin said:
I'm shooting in small to medium venues. I can't remember the last time I shot at ISO800. I'm usually starting at 1600 but usually shooting at 3200. You wouldn't recommend the 1DmIII for that?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you can push it to 1600, it's still pretty clean providing the exposures correct.
Never liked 3200, luckily never had to use it.
Guess I've been spoilt by large well lit venues too much ;0)
Dean
 
shufflemoomin said:
Okay that's the sort of advice I was looking for. I see many advantages to the 1D over the 7D, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't losing anything of importance. I guess I won't be. Decision made, then. Thanks to (almost) everyone for the helpful advice.
Click to expand...

As I said earlier - 1D3 over the 7D all day long for me - if you're keeping the full image.

What you will loose with the 1.3 crop of the 1D3 is 'reach'.

Obviously you're not really loosing reach with the 1D3 - but the 1.6 crop / higher resolution of the 7D is a huge advantage if you need to crop your images.
 
I very rarely crop images. The only situation I'll crop is if I'm capturing a moment like a jump on stage and will frame loosely to avoid anything going out of frame. Even then, we're talking about a very small crop. I'm concerned about someone saying 3200 isn't to their taste, but then again, the 7D at 3200 has never been to my tastes either and we might not have the same opinion on 'acceptable'. As long as the 1D isn't overly worse than the 7D, I think I'm still willing to take the risk. I hopefully have the option of returning the 1D to MBP if they'll let me if I don't like it before I punt the 7D onto someone else.
 
I got a 1D3 a while ago as I was having the same problems with mt 7D, I shoot wildlife mostly with my 7D and in deep shadows anything over ISO800 starts getting noisy and anything over 1600 is pretty much unusable. The 1D3 is definitely an improvement over the 7D but it does have its down side with the file size only being 10Mp and it being a 1.3 crop instead of a 1.6.

I'm decided to keep hold of both for a while until I can have a play with the new 70D to see how that handles noise and low light AF and if it's as good as it's been marketed as then I think one or maybe both will be exchanged for one.

OP, if you're anywhere near Lincoln then drop me a PM and arrange a time to come and have a play with my 1D3,
 
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