New Toy...

So as I mentioned in my Frugal Friday post, I've recently become the owner of a new Canon 80D DSLR. This becomes my second camera body, alongside the 7DMk2 and replacing the 40D I've had in my kit since 2009. The 40D has been brilliant - I've used it for speedway, rugby and aviation stuff, and even a few weddings! It's been to the Hebrides about 7 times, and lots of other places besides. It's been drenched numerous times, and been "round the clock" in terms of shutter clicks, having to have its shutter mechanism replaced back in about 2012 I think it was. To be honest I'm quite sad to see it go, BUT it had just reached the point where its age was starting to show - in digital camera terms the 40D was positively ancient, and switching mid Reds display from the 7MK2 to the 40 I was really noticing its limitations.

By way of comparison - I've swapped out a 10.1mp sensor for a 24.2mp one. 9 autofocus points for 45. Strangely the shooting speed is pretty much the same - maximum 6.5fps on the 40D, and just half a frame quicker pm the 80D. The new one feels a LOT closer to the 7Mk2 - but it's still taking some getting used to. I took it to the Hebrides at christmas, thinking that I'd have lots of time to get to grips with it, but the weather was such that it barely left the bag! So far the only flying things it's been pointed at are birds, but so far I've been pretty impressed with the results.

The autofocus is fast and the tracking in servo mode nice and smooth, and the detail it captures is exceptional. Another feature that was a real selling point for me was the built in wifi - meaning that I can upload photos from the card in the camera to my phone. Might be nice come airshow season to be able to fill quiet moments between displays with a quick bit of processing and social media posting - and as I have apps on my phone for both processing RAW files and copyright marking the processed shots, that's very achievable.

It handles colour well too - as these sunset shots show

Those colours are accurate to what I could see at the time of shooting. All the shots on this post have minimal processing - quite simply they've needed almost nothing. Sharpening only on the two Robin shots, and a bit of levels and highlights, plus sharpening on the sunsets. I used a little noise reduction on one of the Robin ones.

It's no slouch when the daylight fades away entirely either. Remember that supermoon last month...?

That was with the camera mounted on a monopod. It had no issue getting or maintaining focus, and happily gave me a shutter speed of 1/1000th at ISO 400. (If I'd had my tripod handy I would happily have dropped both ISO and shutter speed further.) Again I'm pleased with the detail, and once again relatively little processing was needed.

So - the verdict so far? Impressed. Hoping to get the chance to shoot some Little Red Jets with it  next week - I'll be interested to do a straight comparison with the 7MK2 and really get to grips with how they perform against one another. Fingers crossed for some nice blue skies!

Robyn