New Camera and Losing my Memory

2010 was my fourth year at the Bonnechere Cup in Eganville, the first with my new 7D. The images that came out of my 30D for the the first 3 years were very good, in fact good enough to win competitions at the RA Photo Club.

The 7D was definitely a different game, in more than one way.

First, the new focusing system meant that the focus was much faster, and much more accurately. The result was a much higher percentage of keepers. In past years, getting one of three images sharp and clear was a good ratio considering how fast the machines move, and the snow in the air.

With the 7D it went from one in three, to four of five being good. The result, of 4,000 images taken, I now have more than 3,000 keepers.

The 30D did a blistering (at the time) 5 frames per second. The 7D is 9 frames per second, so in the same time I can take almost twice as many images. The saving grace was that the focus was so good, and with improved techniques I as able to shoot on single shot reducing the number of burst images.

The larger sensor meant that the 4,000 images worked out be almost 84Gb of files. Even with an extra 16Gb card, it was still not enough to keep me going and I ran out of memory space around 15:00 each day. Backing up the files took 56 DVDs (including the off site backups) and a few days to accomplish.

Better, you betcha.