Making The Switch - Should I do it?

[ddt0725]

Thank you for the link, Mark. Now I am leaning toward my first choice on the mirrorless ... the Sony A7 II. Eventually, I will get this figured out!

[Kayaker72]

Thank you for the link, Mark. Now I am leaning toward my first choice on the mirrorless ... the Sony A7 II. Eventually, I will get this figured out!

Lots of good options out there these days. I'll just echo what was previously said, I would recommend not deciding this on specs and reviews alone. I would get someplace and get some hands on experience.

Good luck!

[DavidEccleston]

I would recommend not deciding this on specs and reviews alone. I would get someplace and get some hands on experience.

THIS! My first DSLR was a Nikon, purchased online. It went back real quick. It doesn't matter what the IQ is like at high ISO if you can't how the camera works or feels.

Find whatever adjustments you regularly do, and see how/if they work on the new camera. If you need to go 5 menus deep to change a setting every 2 shots, you'll go mad.


For me I'd be looking at things like:

How easy is it to switch exposure compensation. Canon makes this too hard by default on the 7D, having to go into a menu. Oddly enough, this was simpler on the T1i, as it had an EC/bracketing button that the 7Ds lack. As I tend to stay in single-point AF mode, I assigned EC to the focus mode switch of the 7D2, making it very easy.

Does it do auto-ISO in M mode? Can you still apply EC when using this mode. Canon now has this working, and it's wonderful.

How easy is it to switch between tracking/burst and focus-lock/oneshot.

How does the camera transition between shooting and image review? How quickly can you go through those images?

How does the camera handle making adjustments during auto-review?


The last two are where the Nikon I tried drove me nuts. After shooting the image review was either off, 1 second, or 10 seconds. At 1 second I couldn't pull the camera from my eye and focus on the screen, and see much before it was going away... far too short. 10 seconds didn't work for me either. When it showing the auto-review image, any attempts to change the settings (aperture or shutter) would instead automatically put your in image-review mode, and start scrolling through the images, instead of changing the settings. So I'd have to take one shot, review, wait for 10 seconds to expire before I can adjust anything, and then take another shot. Auto-review off was yes another failure. In this case, pressing the button to manually review-images took several seconds to switch modes, despite the auto-review being able to do this instantaneously. There simply wasn't a good option. Well, there was... I returned it and bought a Canon.

A spec sheet won't tell you these sorts of annoyances, but 10 minutes with the camera will.