My Gear Is Set For The Rest Of The Year

I mentioned in a recent blog entry that I had picked up an EOS 70D and that planned modifications to the contents of my gear bag were just about complete.

My only other planned gear upgrade over the course of the summer is a better telephoto zoom lens. I'm currently thinking the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM. When that is taken care of I can sell either the 50D and the 55-250mm lens or the EOS M with its 18-55mm lens, adapter and the 55-250mm zoom. At that point, my big ThinkTank Photo backpack will be at the Goldilocks place. Not too empty and not too full.

While the 70-300mm L lens remained my main target, Canon added an instant rebate to the well reviewed and less expensive EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM lens. While the L lens has some image quality benefits on full frame bodies, the difference on crop sensor bodies in negligible. As I expect the lens to be mostly used on my 70D that's not an issue. And I think the autofocus accuracy and speed is actually superior to the L lens. With a cost only a bit over half of what a used L lens would cost it was an easy decision.

Here is a photo of both bodies and the three main lenses made with the EOS 50D, 40mm pancake lens and 270EXII flash.

As far as pairing bodies and lenses, there are three possible variations that will make sense for various occasions.

• The 5D Mark III and 17-40mm lens paired with the 70D and 24-105mm lens. The 17mm to 168mm focal range is covered, almost a 10X range.
• The 5D Mark III and 24-105mm lens paired with the 70D and 70-300mm lens. A focal length range of 24mm to 480mm (except for 106mm to 111mm) are covered, a range of 20X. I expect this will be the most common pairing.
• The least likely pairing would be the 70D with the 17-40mm lens and the 5D Mark III with the 70-300mm lens. This would cover the focal length range of 28.8mm to 300mm (except for 65mm to 69mm), a touch over 10X.

Here are some photos from the 70D and the new lens over the past five days.