In my last blog post "Mostly, it's a Shutter Thing", I talked about how important shutter speed is to capture great shots of wildlife and other action genres. In this post, I will talk about how important aperture is and how it can be used creatively in wildlife photographs.

A Quick Aperture Primer

Shutter speed controls how long the shutter stays open and exposes the sensor or film to light. Aperture also controls how the light hits the sensor, and it does this by controlling the amount of light coming through the lens. Back when film was popular, the lenses had an aperture ring on the barrel measured in stops of light. The higher the f-stop number, the smaller the aperture and the smaller the amount of light getting through to the sensor.  The lower the f-stop number, the larger the aperture and the greater the amount of light getting through to the sensor.  In modern cameras, the f-stop is controlled electronically and for the most part there is no f-stop ring on the lens, but all the concepts are still the same.

  So that handles the exposure part of controlling aperture, but there is also another benefit to your photography the aperture can provide.  This benefit is called depth of field.  Put plainly, depth of field is the area in sharp focus in front or behind the subject to which you have focused the lens.  High f-stop numbers give you greater depth of field and lower f-stop numbers give you a shallow depth of field.  So that photograph of the flower you like, that has a very dreamy and blurred look on the petals, but has  a sharp center was created using a lower f-stop.  By using this f-stop, the photographer allowed the viewer to see a very small depth of field accentuating the pistil or stamen of the flower.  Conversely, that beautiful scenic you love where the entire image is in focus from the foreground to the background is using a large f-stop number like f16. 

Turning Aperture into Art

In wildlife, the primary way to artistically use your aperture is by using the depth of field to isolate the subject.  What, isolate the subject?  How does that work?  Remember the flower mentioned above and how the stamen was and the flower's petals were out of focus? The same principle applies here except you are going to use the shallow depth of field to blur out the background and remove the distracting elements.  To do this, open up your aperture as far as it will go.  On most large lenses this will be between f4 and f5.6.  Now, here is the big secret that many people get wrong.  The distance between the camera lens and the subject matters a lot, as does the distance between the subject and the background.  Let's run through a scenario...

Close Subject Less than 10 Feet Away

In this scenario, we are usually in a blind or photographing a bird or mammal who has tame qualities.  Maybe you are on your belly at the beach photographing a plover for instance.  In this case, even at f5.6, you are so close to the subject, your background only needs to be a 15 to 20 feet behind the subject and you start to see quite a bit of background blur.  This is one of the main reasons photographers, even with 600mm lenses, get as close to the subject as practical.  As the distance from the lens to the subject increases so must the distance from your subject to the background to maintain the blurred background. The house finch below was shot only 5 feet from the lens giving the background a nice gradient blur.  Even at f8 the background is blurred because of the close proximity to the subject.

What does it look like when you don't quite nail it?

Although, not a failed image by any means, this image below shows what happens when the distance from the lens, to the subject and subject to the background is too great.  Note how we have blur, but not significant enough blur to simplify the background.  In this image, I had to actually burn in the background to try to simplify.  I really did not have a choice here and often times you won't, but I always try to simplify it whenever possible.

Conclusion

Aperture can be use to control your exposure, but also to creatively control the depth of field in the image.  This is one of the oldest and most used tools in the wildlife photographer's back of tricks.  Give it and try and see what happens.  Oh and above all, have fun!

I am looking forward to great month of photography here in the Piedmont of North Carolina.  First, the Winston-Salem airshow will take place on September 13 and 14th.  This is always a good time of photography and spectating as the power of flight unfolds before my eyes  Next, the broad winged hawks will be making there annual migration throughout the month of September and often stop by Pilot Mountain or just fly over it on their way to their final destination.  This is a good opportunity to talk to other birding enthusiasts or try to capture a few photographs. Next, I just published the best of my work to Fine Art America where prints can be published without having the hassle of contacting me directly. Finally, I just posted my latest blog article on how to use "zone focusing" when photographing wildlife.  If you know anyone who would be interesting in receiving this newsletter in the future please forward this email to them and they can sign up using the link below.   My Website: http://www.mattcuda.com My Blog: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/essays/ To purchase any of my prints please use the following links: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/buy-songbird-images/ http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/order-raptor-images/ http://mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/order-waterfall-images/ http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/matt-cuda.html

With many years of photography under my belt now, and several years as a wildlife photographer, I can honestly say that shutter speed will make you or break you in this genre. In this post I will examine why the shutter is so crucial in wildlife as well as other action photography disciplines.

The shutter in your camera is quite a powerful and useful tool. From a technical perspective, the shutter mechanism is simply a set curtains that open and close for a certain period of time. This action allows light to hit the film or sensor for a measurement we call shutter speed. For example, a shutter speed of 1/500 causes the shutter to open for 1/500th of a second exposing the sensor. Essentially the shutter controls the time of exposure and the aperture controls what is in focus in the scene. OK, so that is the technical, but why is the shutter operation so vital to understand?

Stopping the Action

First, let's talk about high shutter speeds and what they can do for us. A high shutter speed, in my book, is any speed set at 1/500th or higher.  Using a high shutter speed is vital for capturing fast action shots and freezing the subject, but how can you know how fast is fast enough?  My answer to this is quite simple. Use as fast a shutter speed as you possibly can.  Generally, I keep my camera set on manual at 1/1000th of a second, aperture wide open and an ISO of 400( when it is stowed in the camera bag).  This gives me a good starting point in case I need to use my camera suddenly.  If I know before hand that I am going out to shoot birds in flight, or running deer, I will set my camera to shutter priority and start at about 1/1600 and auto ISO.  In order to stop the bird's wings, I will need at least 1/1000th, but I prefer to get as close to 1/2000th as possible.  Once I am there and shooting, I usually switch over to manual so I can fine tune the exposure better.  With my 7D, I also set the auto-ISO threshold to 1600 speed because the APS-C sensor is slightly more prone to noise problems. 

Why are my Animal Pictures so Blurry!

This is a question I get from beginning photographers, and primarily,  what they are seeing is not a focus issue ,but rather it is a problem called camera shake.  Camera shake is caused by having a shutter speed which is long enough to capture the movement caused by hand holding the camera and lens. Humans do not do very well holding something in front of them for any period of time and their muscles weaken causing the camera to move while exposing the shot.  Even tripod mounted, micro-vibrations can cause camera shake with long lenses.  Camera shake is truly the enemy all all photographers, and wildlife photographers are no exception.  In order to fully discuss this evil foe, I want to break down two scenarios to help you understand the problem.

• Low Light and Long Lens -  in this scenario, we have a subject which is in low light such as early morning and we are using a lens in the 400-600mm range.  First, I highly recommend you have your camera and lens mounted on a tripod when shooting with long lenses in general.  The tripod will help to reduce shake caused by hand holding.  Next, rest your left hand on the lens barrel between the tripod collar and the camera body.  This will keep micro-vibrations from causing camera shake. Do not press the left hand down hard on the lens as this could damage the lens or lens mount.  Just rest it gently. Finally, rest your finger on the shutter release button breath in, slowly exhale and hold your breath while firing the shutter.  The bear picture below was shot using the above technique. I had a shutter speed of only 1/100 and was mounted on a tripod.  That is a very low shutter speed and should not be attempted hand held or with a moving subject.
• Mid-morning Daylight and a Long Lens - in this scenario we have good mid-morning light and are shooting with a lens in the 400-600 range. This is the conditions I was in when shooting the osprey above. At At this point, we have stronger light which means you can shoot at higher shutter speeds, but now you have a choice. Do you shoot on a tripod or not?  For me, I am going to shoot handheld whenever possible.  Shooting handheld allows me to be faster and to frame my subject better, but it is not always the right choice.  There are variables to consider such as the weight of the camera and lens, the predictability of the subject, and what are acceptable noise levels. To help answer the tripod question ask yourself this:  Can I get a shutter speed high enough to keep camera shake at bay and freeze the action?  If you can achieve 1/1000 of a second or higher than you may be able to hand hold the lens correctly.  Remember that we are talking about big lenses here.  My 600mm becomes effectively a 960mm when used on my 7D and weights about 6 pounds when the camera is attached. That is the weight of a new born baby!  That focal length will be a huge increase in magnification over your typical 200mm telephoto.  Remember, magnification increases the movement of the camera and causes camera shake.  Honestly,  to shoot handheld even in these conditions, I am going to need at least 1/1600 for me to feel comfortable.  I am not saying you couldn't pull off shooting a bit slower, but my goal is to go home with the shot, not a bunch of blurry images.

Conclusion

This blog post gives you a quick view of how to improve your wildlife image quality and keeper rate.  As time goes on and you improve your photography, you will find your own combinations and scenarios which work best for you.  Here is a summary of my best practices....

• Keep your shutter speed high(1/500 to 1/2000) to reduce camera shake with long lenses.
• When tripod mounted, rest your left hand on the lens barrel between the tripod ring and the camera body to reduce micro-vibrations.
• Do not shoot handheld birds in flight at less than 1/1000th of a second (unless going for artistic blur, but that's another blog post).
• Big lenses magnify any type of movement more than smaller lenses so keep the shutter speed high.
• Don't be afraid to use higher ISO to get higher shutter speeds.  Of course this is within reason. I recommend capping the ISO at 1600.
• Above all, have fun!

It was a long trip and I was almost at the end of my nine hour journey to visit my family in Pennsylvania. My brother had called me and told them to meet them at a specific exit and they would take us all out to eat as part of an anniversary celebration for mom and dad. I pulled into a parking lot just off the exit and got out of the car to stretch my weary legs.  It was a typical parking lot near a wooded area and gas station.  People were milling around, buying gas and also stretching their legs.

As I leaned back against the side of the car I heard a faint call to my right.  I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I knew that it was a raptor.  I figured Rick and his family would still be a few minutes so off I went with camera in hand to investigate the activity.  I walked across a small paved road and started into a clearing just beyond the first row of trees and there they were.  Two ospreys in flight and two perched on nesting platforms. I put the camera to my eye and snapped a couple distant documentation shots in time to see my brothers car pull in near mine at the now distant parking lot.  Quite excited, I ran over and told him about the encounter.

We had a nice meal at the restaurant and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see my family once again and catching up, but nagging in the back of my mind were the ospreys.  I had determined as soon as I saw them that I was going back the next morning and capture what I could with my somewhat inadequate 70-300.  Although a good lens it is not good at tracking birds in flight or getting close to them for that matter.  My mom also loves birds so it was nice to also talk to her about them and let her know where they were.

The next morning as dawn broke I was on the road heading toward the parking lot and hoping that the ospreys were still there.  It was a beautiful morning and as I passed by the lake a bald eagle could be seen perched on a dead tree overlooking the lake.  Finally, I arrived at the parking lot, grabbed my camera and extra battery and cards and made my way through the trees and up a hill to the nesting platforms.  I worked my way up very slowly as to not startle the birds too much and finally came to a deer lay and settled in about 30 yards away.  It is important to note that it is against the law to be at close proximity to raptors and it also is stressful to be that close for any period of time.  I actually agree with this law and take great precaution to not stress the bird out and cause them to abandon a nest.  In this case they had already fledged their young and were just using the nest as a perch.

It was nice just to sit there on the side of the hill and take in all the scenery and sounds. I could hear and see the occasional tanager and gold finch and even a critter or two rustling through the underbrush.  The area was alive with wildlife.  One osprey was perched on the nesting box pole and was completely relaxed in my presence. The others flew off to do some fishing. About every 45 minutes they would return and I would snap a few photographs of those majestic birds. Some would circle, some would land and some would head back out to fish once again.  This pattern went on for several hours until the morning light was finally gone and I headed back to the car.

The experience was better by far than my photographs and my takeaway from this adventure is to always have your camera ready for the next encounter because you never know when the perfect opportunity will arise.  Now I have a location on my list where I can go back and be totally prepared. Below are a couple shots from the encounter.

Focus can be thought of in two general ways in photography. There is the idea of focusing our creativity and our energy into making a great photograph and there is the physical act of focusing the camera. Both of these concepts are intimately linked and this article is going to explore just how that relationship works. Specifically I am going to address focus in wildlife and bird photography, but it can be applied to any type of photography.

I cannot count how many times I see a great shot of a bird out on Flickr, and as I am admiring it I then realize that the most critical part of the image is out of focus. In wildlife photography this is generally the eye of the critter. The eye simply must be in focus.  I see focus problems with birds on a stick, birds flying, and birds vocalizing. It is a common mistake that can be easily avoided by knowing where to focus and then concentrating or "focusing" your eye and the focus point on the spot where you want the focus to fall.  Don't be so overjoyed with the subject that you forget your viewer.

Is it about you or the viewer?

As a photographer and an artist, I am constantly in a struggle between shooting a piece for me, or shooting a piece for the viewer or buyer.  In reality, in my case, I am usually shooting for both myself and the end viewer.  Let's be honest, if everyone was shooting for themselves and themselves alone, they wouldn't post it all over social media for likes, faves, thumbs ups or whatever other  type of encouraging gesture is available by your favorite social media outlet.  So we have established that the viewer is the target audience of most of our work, but why do we see so many awesome shots with a focus problem?

Why did you post the out of focus image?

Perhaps this question gets more into the psychological aspects of what it means to be a photographer, but I am going to look at this with logic, reasoning and experience.  It all starts on the day of the shoot.  We spend hours planning our next photo shoot.  We look on the internet at Google and Google Maps results, and pour over page upon page of the ramblings of other photographers and their photographs.  We plan to arrive at our location and spend the entire day shooting.  

The process begins when first, we wake up at 5:00 am, grab a shower, load the gear in the car and speed off down the road. After arriving at the location we quietly move into position, get set up and wait.  We wait for the perfect light, the perfect expression on the animal and the peak of action.  We have built up a fury of expectation that we will get the shot and it will be a good one.  

As we quietly wait in our blind or hidden in the woods, we see a hawk soaring above the meadow just as we had envisioned.  Quickly we raise the camera to our eyes,  line up the hawk in the focus point group and being firing off shots. It all happened so quickly and the thought keeps entering your mind, "Did I get the shot?"  We continue our waiting and it goes on for hours, but the hawk never reappears.  

Later that night, we get home and load our images into our favorite post processing software.  We quickly go through each image and then we find one.  "It isn't too bad. It's in focus", we say to ourselves.  We so desperately want the time and energy we spent on the trip to have meaning and produce a photo that we lie to ourselves.  We tell ourselves it is good enough.  Folks, if you are telling yourself that, then you may never get there! None of us will! There is no "good enough."

 Before you get too upset with what I just said,  I do want to say that everyone out there is at a different part of the learning path including myself and so I don't want to sound like I am preaching here, but there is a point where you must accept that you missed the shot.  You did your best, but it just didn't happen and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  However, it is wrong to tell yourself that you nailed it when you really know deep down that you didn't.  I have to be honest with you.  I am a terrible birds in flight photographer.  Once in a while I nail one but there are many times I go home and erase every image I took.  Don't force it.  Learn and keep practicing.  I'd rather post 3 good birds in flight shots a year than 20 bad ones.

Is it Lack of Education?

Another problem with people posting images out of focus might just be lack of education.  Ask yourself what the subject is and how can I best use focus to accentuate the subject.  If it is an animal then compose the shot and get that eye in focus.  If it is a deep scenic then learn to use hyperfocal distance and focus on a foreground object letting depth of field carry the rest of the focus.  Learn your craft and keep at it.

Conclusion

In the end have fun with your photography and stay focused on focus.  Make it part of your routine and it will start to become automatic.  The more automatic it becomes, the more you can concentrate on the peak action and the gesturing of the animal. I also want to say that when I say "in focus" I mean critical focus. I mean at 100% zoom the image is in focus.  Why does this matter?  Because there is so much competition out there, and the expectations have risen dramatically as cameras and monitors improve.  Slight imperfections are only magnified more.  I also want to say that I have been down the road of denial and being satisfied with mediocrity, and I am learning to overcome it and so I thought I would pass along what I am learning.  What will take you from mediocre photographer to a focused photographer?

Below are two critically sharp images.  You should see how many I rejected from each of these shoots.  What if I had focused on the hummers wing?  At that range the depth of field would not extend to the eye.  What if I had focused on the vulture's shoulder?  Again, the eye would be out of focus.  If the head and eye are in focus, the viewer thinks everything is in focus.

A friend of mine recently offered to let me use the EF Canon 70-200 f4L on an upcoming two day benefit photography event that I was attending so I thought I would take him up on his offer and share my thoughts on this lens. The version I borrowed is the imaged stabilized version but it also comes in a non-stabilized version for the budget minded photographer. I will conclude the review with images taken from the event so you can see the image quality for yourself in a real world shooting situation.

Build Quality

As one would expect from a high quality luxury (L) series lens the build quality is outstanding. The lens is constructed of aluminum and is sealed against rain and dust in the IS version. The focus and zoom rings are positioned well and are made of a rugged rubber coating. Arguably one of the best benefits comes from the fact that although a rugged lens, the weight comes in at only 1.68lbs making it ideal for hand holding for long periods of time. The length and width of the lens barrel is comparable to other lenses in this focal range.

Specifications

• Focal Length:  70-200mm zoom
• Aperature: f4 (constant)
• Lens Construction: 20 elements in 15 groups
• Focus Adjustment: Auto-focus with full time manual focus
• Filter Size:  67mm
• MSRP:  $1,299.00 US
• Street Price New:  $1,099.00 US (with rebate)
• Used Price:  $800.00-$1,000.00 US  (if you are going to pay this much, just buy it new with the rebate)

Features

• 3-4 Stop Image Stabilizer:   depending on when the model was created one should be able to get up to 4 stops of stabilization useful in low light situations. 
• Two Image Stabilizer Modes:  Mode 1 is designed to stabilize the both the x and y axis for full image stabilization while mode 2 is designed to be used while panning to prevent vertical camera shake.
• Full Time Manual Focus:  this is a really nice feature that most modern "pro" lenses implement.  This simply means that you can always use manual focus even if your lens is switched to auto-focus.  I use this to great effect when shooting wildlife from a blind.  If I had to reach over and switch to manual focus there is a good chance I would miss the shot because of the motion an noise of the switch.  
• Weather Sealing:  This lens is sealed against dust and rain which is mostly just comfort of mind when shooting in potentially harsh conditions.  This has never been a deal breaker for me when deciding to purchase a lens.  If it is pouring rain, I am generally hiding under a tree somewhere or in the car.  Instead of buying weather-proof lenses,  I weather-proof my backpack.

On to the Real World - How does this lens perform in a controlled field environment?

In the "field" this lens did not disappoint me, and perhaps one of the greatest attributes of this lens is the weight.  Coming in at 1.68 lbs it is a joy to hold for long periods of time as opposed to it's faster cousin the 70-200 2.8. If a compact light design is what you are looking for in a medium telephoto then look no further than this beauty.  I spoke with a woman photographer at this event who said she really missed the weight difference in her 70-200 f4.  She was using the 2.8 version and found it to be impractical for hand holding long periods of time.

Sharpness

As one would expect from Canon "L" series lenses, the sharpness is quite unbelievable, even at f4.  In my opinion there is no reason to stop this lens down to f8 unless you need to do so for artistic reasons. I took photographs ranging from hand held to tripod stabilized and tripod stabilized with image stabilization engaged. I found very little difference in the image quality in any of those scenarios.  I did also shoot a couple different species with my Kenko 1.4x TC attached and I was surprised to see only a little image degradation in sharpness and contrast.  Here is an example of the sharpness of this lens at f4 under field conditions:

The above image of the screech owl was taken in fairly dark conditions with a tripod, at an aperture of  f4, a shutter speed of 1/125, an ISO of 1200 and a focal length of 200mm.  I applied standard sharpening in Lightroom and a small amount of noise reduction during post processing. Since it is recommended by other photographers such as Art Morris, I Ieft the IS engaged.  As you can see the image is sharp and has great contrast and color. Bokeh is also pleasing and can be seen off to the left of the frame. Honestly for a lens of this caliber I did not expect poor results, but it is nice to confirm this in the field. 

Autofocus

I didn't have a great deal of subjects on which to test auto-focus but even birds perching required constant refocusing of the lens due to the bird changing its body and head position. I used ai servo mode on my 7D because of the constantly changing position of the bird.  The auto-focus was much faster than my Tamron 70-300 SP VC which is a lens of mine I have written about in the past.  I also found it to be a tad more reliable and seemed to lock in focus with better accuracy overall. I also did tests where I focused on the background and then the bird's head to see how fast it snapped back and it was extremely fast.  I don't have specific timings but I was more than happy with results.

Image Stabilization

Does image stabilization really matter?  I use image stabilization on my Tamron and I used it with this lens as well and I find it to be useful in stopping the shake caused by both hand holding and hand holding it on the tripod.  If I didn't have it, could I still get great pictures?  Yes, of course.  Image stabilization is just another tool to get your "keeper rate" higher and have more photos to post on Facebook for your buddies, but it is not a must.  Having said that, we are in the field and taking photographs of birds and they move.  In fact they move a lot even while perched.  So I find anything below  1/125 of a second is troublesome for subject blur from birds anyway.  All the image stabilization in the world won't help you if your subject is moving.  I did get some shots below 1/125 that were acceptable to me, but 1/80 was as low as I wanted to go.

The above image is an example of a shot at 1/80 of a second, tripod mounted with the IS engaged. I used fill flash also to help fill in the shadows.  Just because you have IS, don't throw away the rules of getting sharp images.  If a tripod works for you then use it.  If you can't use a tripod then rely on the IS only.

Compared to my Tamron 70-300 SP VC 

This is a tough comparison because we are not quite talking about apples and apples here.  The 70-300 is 100mm longer which means you would have to shoot it at 200mm to be fair and then you'd have to shoot under the exact same conditions, but even considering those obvious scenarios and the fact I have a great deal of experience with the Tamron lens, I feel like I can do a pretty good job comparing the two lenses.

The Tamron cost about $450.00 new and is quite sharp indeed for a lens in this price category.  Is it is sharp as the 70-200?  No, but it can hold its own for sure. Here is an image taken at 300mm by the Tamron at a similar distance.

Pretty sharp, isn't it?  Understand though that sharpness isn't everything but it does take you quite a ways down the road.  Sharpness aside, the build quality of the Canon is much better because it utilizes a metal construction, has weather sealing and the auto-focus is much faster.  Where the Tamron loses out completely is not having a fixed aperture of f4.  At 300mm the aperture of the Tamron is maxed at  f5.6 and that makes it hard to use at low light events like this one.  In the end the Canon gave me a much better keeper rate than the Tamron and that is something to think about.  

Conclusion

So the big questions after shooting with the lens is:  do I want to buy it and does it replace my Tamron?  I think long term the answer is probably yes to both questions.  As time progresses, I will eventually add longer zooms which forces the 70-300 into a secondary wildlife role.  Currently it is my workhorse lens for everything wildlife.  When that times comes, then I will probably take another look at the Canon 70-200, because it is smaller, lighter, sharper and has better construction, but I am in no hurry to make any purchase at this time.  The fact is, the Tamron remains a really nice lens that anyone should be happy owning and meets most of my needs.  That said, if you want a new lens to replace a lens you are not happy with or can afford to spend $1,200.00 on a new lens then I have no problem recommending the Canon EF 70-200 L.  It will not let you down in any scenarios where a 200mm lens is needed. I hope you found this informal review helpful.  Below are more images for purchase and a breakdown of the parameters for this field test.

Parameters for the Field Test

• Camera Body:  Canon 7D (classic)
• Lens:  Canon EF 70-200L f4 IS
• Aperture: f4
• Shutter Speeds: 1/60 to 1/800
• Flash:  Neewer TT560 Manual flash for fill
• Tripod:  Bogen 3221 with a 3030 head
• Flash support:  Stroboframe 
• Time of day:  8:00am to 11:30am EST

I have been shooting with the Canon 7D seriously for about three months now and I thought it would be a good time to offer some thoughts on the performance of this camera body in respect to primarily bird photography. In the last blog on the 7D I gave my initial impressions, but I wanted to take more time and explain the pros and cons of this camera in detail. The Canon 7D (classic) was originally launched in late 2009 and was replaced in 2014 by the Canon 7D Mark II. Packed with a ton of features for sports and wildlife, the Canon 7D was the flagship APS-C camera offered in Canon's DSLR lineup and remained in the place until the release of the Mark II. Among the features on the 7D are an 18 megapixel sensor, 19 cross type AF points and 8 frames per second continuous shooting. Canon's target market for this camera was professionals and advanced amateurs looking for "pro" features and the added reach provided by the APS-C sensor.

When I was searching for a lighter and higher megapixel camera to compliment my aging Canon 1D Mark II, this camera was at the top of my list. The purpose of this blog post is to examine overall quality, noise performance, auto-focus performance and image quality and finally cost/benefit analysis.

Overall Build Quality and Ergonomics

 Let me just say as with any higher end Canon product, this camera is rugged and ready for any outdoor adventure. It is weather sealed against dust and light rain, and is constructed from magnesium alloy. Coming from a 1 series body which are the most durable of all Canon bodies, I can say this camera is comparable, but perhaps not quite as rugged. My feeling is that the 7D will take a drop from backpack level and still be functional although I would not try this.  

 Additionally I like the button layout of this camera as well as the joystick on the back of the camera which is used for moving around the menu options and working in live view. This is the second camera I have owned with live view and I really like using this feature when in a blind photographing birds or shooting still life photographs. Sometimes, it is difficult to be at an angle to look through the viewfinder and the live view functionality makes it easy on my 41 year old neck. In live view I can also easily see my f-stop, shutter speed and histogram information thus allowing me greater flexibility in controlling exposure and previewing my image. The downside to using live view for birds on a perch is it reduces the continuous frames per second to 3 fps. It is adequate but barely. Below is an image taken with live view from a blind.

Noise and Image Quality

 The Canon 7D has been maligned across the internet for its poor image quality at higher ISO and I can verify that this camera could be better in the area of unwanted noise, but I want to look at this subject objectively and explain to you that it is manageable. 

  At ISO below 320 I would say that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Shoot away with little thought beyond achieving a good exposure. However, above ISO 320 and you need to start thinking about how to maximize your exposure to help mitigate noise. The first way to keep the noise levels down is obvious but I will mention it anyway. Shoot with the lowest ISO possible for the situation and lighting. If you are shooting a photograph of a building on a tripod with no movement then why shoot at ISO 400. Instead change your ISO to 100 and adjust your shutter speed and f-stop accordingly. Next, if you must shoot at ISO 400, 800 or 1600 you should use a process called "exposing to the right (ETTR)." I am not going into great detail about this process here but essentially you are overexposing the image by up to one stop in most cases. Later, in post-production, you bring the exposure and highlights into normal ranges.  The important consideration when using ETTR is that you don't want to blow out the highlights. You want to overexpose enough to reduce noise but still maintain the highlights. This is where practice and experience comes into play.  For more information about ETTR, navigate to this site: http://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right/ .  

 Overall, I would say the image quality is quite good and on par with my 1D Mark II. The advantage to the 7D over earlier cameras is it's ability to render backgrounds smoothly without banding. This creates a much smoother bokeh and in my opinion a much more pleasing image. 

Auto-Focus

 My thoughts on auto-focus will be brief, but hopefully will shed some light on the subject for you. Auto-focus on the 7D is quite advanced with 19 cross-type AF points from which to choose. These advanced points allow the camera to lock onto moving subjects much faster than other APS-C cameras in the past and is a big reason to buy this camera. Using the AF under normal usage such as stationary objects with my Canon 50mm 1.8 I found the auto-focus to lock on so quickly that I couldn't tell when the lens had focused. It is fast and accurate and no issues here. When using my Tamron 70-300 SP VC I found it to also lock on and focus quickly with stationary subjects. Note that live view is much slower to focus because it uses a different auto-focus technology that is not part of the SLR portion of the camera. Eventually I believe the live view focusing will catch up, but for now it is not very useful when photographing wildlife. When I use it from a blind I generally use pre-focusing techniques. In the field I was a bit disappointing in the auto-focus. I was able to get a few in focus shots of turkey vultures on a recent trip to pilot mountain but I didn't get anything good enough to post here. Hopefully I can return to this location in the future and provide some followup as to whether the problems I found were related to my lens or the body. To be fair, I am also comparing this to my 1D Mark II's auto-focus system which is very very good.

Cost/Benefit Analysis vs Canon 7D Mark II

If you are like me, you are constantly balancing cost of new equipment versus what benefit the added cost will do for you.  For me, I am always looking for cameras and lenses which are about 1 generation behind the current models.  The reason for this is because cameras are essentially computers and as such they depreciate quickly.  Currently the Canon 7D can be purchased used for about $600.00 US , but when it was introduced cost about $1,700.00 US.  In other words, buy used if you can because it will save you a ton of money and you still benefit from all the features of a modern DSLR.

It is true that the 7D Mark II has a few more bells and whistles but most "experts" are reporting only a marginal increase in image quality.  For me, I would rather put more money into glass than have a few more features on my body.  On the Mark II we pickup a couple more frames per second continuous shooting, more cross type sensors and the ability to auto-focus at f8 with the center point.  Additionally we get a duel card slot for backup.  The 7D (classic) can shoot at 8fps which is more than enough for action photography. Auto-focus is slightly behind the curve, but still very powerful.  If the Mark II had achieved remarkable increase in image quality I think more of an argument could be made to upgrade.

In conclusion, the 7D (classic) remains a great camera which will continue to provide great results for years to come.  For me it was a modest upgrade on image quality, but 18 megapixels gives me room to breathe on cropping and the live view gives me more options when photographing from a blind. I picked up more of a crop on my images so using a tele-converter is no longer necessary. The benefits from upgrading from my Canon 1D Mark II was well worth it.  If you are looking for a camera with a crop sensor for wildlife I feel I can recommend the Canon 7D.