I shoot mostly nature shots, usually birds, although I'll photograph whatever is around really. I've enjoyed my T2i, but I've outgrown it somewhat. I'm trying to decide between a Canon 70D, and the 6D. I eliminated the 7D from consideration as it's about 5 years old at this point, and just can't match the features of the 70 or 6.
What's hard for me is that both crop & full frame have their advantages. Crop body is almost like having an extender built in to the camera, and has that 'pull' effect to make smaller subjects larger in the frame. I use a 400mm 5.6 lens, so I can't use an actual extender without losing AF (for canon anything above a base of 4 loses AF with an extender). So that's a huge plus for the crop body.
But then the other issue is that full frame usually has much better performance in low light, on account of light sensors on the larger chip or something. This is also a huge issue for me. It's great when a bird sits out on an exposed branch on a sunny day, but honestly with the birds I'm going for (song birds, migrants) that rarely happens. I'm usually in the underbrush, or shooting into the undercanopy of trees. With the T2i, anything above 400 iso starts to look really grainy. I can salvage an occasional 800, but it's rare, and 1600 is pretty much going to be a shot I can only use for ID'ing the bird later, but never posting it or printing.
So therein lies the problem. A lot of the subjects I'm shooting aren't THAT far off, the typical bird I'm getting is between 20' and 25' away from me. With the crop body there's ample 'bird' in the picture for me to work with, I'm just scared that if I step up to a full frame, will there still be enough? But then I think that with the higher iso I could shoot SO much better in the dappled light and shade that I'm usually in, and my shutter speeds would increase as well.
So that's it in a nutshell. Any thoughts?
What's hard for me is that both crop & full frame have their advantages. Crop body is almost like having an extender built in to the camera, and has that 'pull' effect to make smaller subjects larger in the frame. I use a 400mm 5.6 lens, so I can't use an actual extender without losing AF (for canon anything above a base of 4 loses AF with an extender). So that's a huge plus for the crop body.
But then the other issue is that full frame usually has much better performance in low light, on account of light sensors on the larger chip or something. This is also a huge issue for me. It's great when a bird sits out on an exposed branch on a sunny day, but honestly with the birds I'm going for (song birds, migrants) that rarely happens. I'm usually in the underbrush, or shooting into the undercanopy of trees. With the T2i, anything above 400 iso starts to look really grainy. I can salvage an occasional 800, but it's rare, and 1600 is pretty much going to be a shot I can only use for ID'ing the bird later, but never posting it or printing.
So therein lies the problem. A lot of the subjects I'm shooting aren't THAT far off, the typical bird I'm getting is between 20' and 25' away from me. With the crop body there's ample 'bird' in the picture for me to work with, I'm just scared that if I step up to a full frame, will there still be enough? But then I think that with the higher iso I could shoot SO much better in the dappled light and shade that I'm usually in, and my shutter speeds would increase as well.
So that's it in a nutshell. Any thoughts?