The 7D

Becky hates it when I wear my camera bag, which is a medium sized red backpack, because she thinks it makes me look like a dork (she may be right). The reason I have it on so often is that I usually want to have both my SLR and my camcorder on me, which would be difficult without a bag.

I've been itching for a new camera even though I only bought the Rebel XS back in April, so when Canon announced the 7D I zeroed in on it because it seemed like a big advance in combining video into an SLR and wasn't out of my price range.

Thanks to the extra work I've been doing lately (I love being paid by the hour) I could justify the purchase to Becky, plus I figured she'd be enticed by the fact that having a combination SLR/camcorder would mean I'd need to wear the backpack less often.

So I made my order on B&H, watched it's slow progress across the country (funny how I'll spend $1700 on a camera, but am too cheap to pay for faster shipping), and finally it arrived.

Thus far I haven't done anything too wild with it, but I'm definitely enjoying it and believe it to be a major step up from the XS. It's bigger and heavier, but that disadvantage is offset by the fact that its handle fits in my hand much better than the XS, where the handle was less substantial and gave my hand a cramp after holding it for long periods.

The video capability is great. With my 50mm f/1.4 on it I compared it side by side with my HD camcorder in low light and the picture on the 7D was far better (thanks mainly to the fast lens). I was disappointed to find that autofocus stops working after the recording begins, which can be an issue with moving subjects, but it isn't that difficult to focus manually once you get the hang of it.

Unfortunately I have to be patient to get the pictures into Aperture because Apple hasn't yet release a RAW support update that includes the 7D yet, but hopefully that update will appear soon. I guess this is the price of owning a bleeding edge camera.