Feeling for BW. Having endured a duffer 7d for many years, I have today seen what a good 7dii can do. No tripod, no ridiculously high shutter speeds, no user error allegations... just one that works well! Good luck mate... Pete
Thanks Pete.
Let's hope I'm getting the same results before too long.
Normally when I go on a trip I spend some time each evening getting rid of the obvious duff shots (birds that flew off, too far away, flying birds partly out of frame, etc). I'd normally bring about 2,500 shots home to the UK and then set about the pleasurable chore of thinning them out to about 7 or 800, choosing which of a group of perfectly good keepers to delete when they are almost duplicates.
I was expecting an even bigger and more pleasurable chore when I came back from my first trip to India with the camera I bought specifically for that trip. Getting on for 200 lifers and photos of a lot of those and more.
Wrong.
I did the evening deleting each night in Goa and still brought something over 4,600 photos back, just short of five 32GB cards. I even bought anothe card over there in case I ran out. I was expecting difficulty in choosing which ones should go. If only. The duplicates that I would normally have difficulty choosing between choose themselves. One in focus shot (if I'm lucky), followed by one, two or three out of focus.
What should be a pleasant chore at the end of a holiday has turned into a constant reminder of how many good shots have been lost because of a duff camera that should never have left the factory. Shots I looked forward to seeing when I took the photos aren't worth a glance. All they've done is add to the shutter count on the camera, while reminding me of what might have been.
This bay-backed shrike, for instance. A lifer and the only one of that species of the trip. It's the least common of the three shrike species we saw, and this one was a star. It sat on a couple of perches, mostly the one in this photo which was against a clear sky in late afternoon sunlight and it was tame. It settled only about 10 yards away and let me edge closer. This photo isn't much of a crop.
The ideal subject. I fired off 38 shots of it, expecting difficulty in choosing which ones to keep.
No difficulty involved.
Out of 38 shots, only 9 are in focus. This is one of the better ones and I think even it's a little soft.
On other species where I only managed three or four shots, I got to keep none, or maybe one out-of-focus record shot. The 'pleasant chore' is torture. The lasting memory of my first trip to India looks like being not one of the ones I'd hoped for.
