I wanted to see if I could get some guidance on a new camera purchase I plan to get as a surprise for my daughter. She is quite interested in photography and has been using an OLD Canon EOS D30 camera for a wide range of uses, including sports (Volleyball, basketball, rodeo, football), landscapes, wildlife & portraits. She also wants to take pictures of stars, but the current D30 camera/lens just does not seem to work well at all. We have Canon gear (the D30 digital body and also an AE2 film body) with 2 or 3 EF lenses and a 550EX Speedlite flash, so would like to stay in the Canon line such that we can hopefully get some continued use from the existing gear. I know that pretty much ANY upgrade from the D30 3MP body with 3AF spots is going to be a huge improvement, but want to get her some really good gear so she can take her love for this hobby as far as she would like. I am not a camera expert by any means, but have done a fair bit of research for this purchase, and my head is spinning, so thought I would ask for opinions. I am not sure that, given the wide range of things that she likes to shoot that there is going to be any one camera that will be ideal. I have been leaning towards the Canon 6D Mark ii and the 7D Mark ii mostly; I also looked at the 5D Mark iv, but is just a bit too much $ for the body. I want to get her a good tele lens like a 70-200 f/2.8 IS or 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 that I have seen in reviews and come highly recommended, so don't want to blow more on the body unless there is a really strong reason to do so, and focus the $s on better lenses. So it is a full frame sensor on the 6 vs the crop frame sensor on the 7... I am leaning towards the 6 as it seems to have really decent lower light performance and might work better for some of the indoor events that she shoots. The 7 seems to have the focus speed and FPS that might be better for shooting barrel racing and faster moving events like that. As expected, no one camera seems to be able to tick all of the capabilities in the "Awesome" column. Just curious if I am missing something, or is my understanding about right? Would the full vs crop sensor give her more "runway" as she progresses...? I guess it comes down to whether one camera can perform more adequately in their "Less than Awesome" column than the other, making it a better overall fit? As she progresses, if desired she can get other bodies to fill a wider range of capabilities, but I am limited to getting just a single body now that will adequately cover as much as possible. Sorry if these are silly questions. My thanks for any guidance/opinions you may have on this comparison. Joe ....
I just joined today, well maybe yesterday now, and can't believe you didn't get responses to this. First, congratulations to your daughter for having character and being interested in something other than pop culture. I don't have a good answer for you and after this long I'm sure you've done something but for anyone finding this in the future I'd suggest cameradecision.com as a good site for comparing options and camerasize.com as a good way to get a close up look at various models that may be of interest. What did you finally do for your daughter?
Wow i missed this post from a few months back. Joe, there really isn't a perfect answer for your daughter. I would agree that you should focus money spent on the lenses over the body, maybe see if you can pickup a used copy a generation back of one of mid range bodies (70d 7d 6d) for a modest price. Chances are that eventually she will want to upgrade as you mentioned so no reason to invest heavy on that end. For taking pictures of the stars you will likely want to get something wide and fast, the 14mm Rokinon 2.8 I have is a good example of this, I made sure to get one chipped one so i can get focus confirmation as the lens has no auto focus.
One more thing I'll throw in, Canon is almost giving away the refurbished 80D right now, $699 for either a body and 18-55 and 55-250 lenses or the same for a body and 18-55 and Speedlite EL100. Or buy the refurb body alone for $100 more! Anyway, for $699 with two lenses it's an awfully good deal.
