On the 30th October I went to Castle Cameras in Winton, Bournemouth and picked up my new camera which I pre-ordered the week before. It is the new Canon 7D Mark ll that was released on that day so of course I was eager to try it out. It has many updated features and one of the things I am hoping it will do is perform well in low light, this will be especially good for me when I go out in the early mornings and I see wildlife like the Roe deer or the Barn Owl. The specification of the camera said that it produced better images at high ISO’s making it more sensitive to light.

My first test was taking it out on my early morning walk the next day. I spotted a group of deer as I was walking up to New Cross it was around dawn and not a particularly bright morning. the deer were very nervous and spotted us straight away and took flight. I took and image and on auto ISO at 2500 the camera captured the deer and I was pleased at the acceptable image I ended up with. With my 7D I didn’t like to go over ISO 800 as the image deteriorated after that.

We went into Blandford later in the day to walk along the river the same day hoping to see the Kingfisher or something else interesting to take but it was very quiet so I ended up taking a couple of Swans on the weir. I was pleased at the exposure although not the most exciting of pictures!

Our next trip out was to Arne, the weather forecast was rain but clearing up to a dry day before we got there, but when we did it just poured and poured but we braved the elements and decided to carry on with our walk! It proved to be lovely, if a little soggy. There was plenty to see the light on the trees was quite spectacular and there were plenty of Sika deer about as we were just about the only daft ones wandering about and not any one else to disturb them!

Well I certainly tried out my camera, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it out in such awful weather but it is meant to have better weather sealing and is pretty much waterproof. Once again I was pleased with the images as I would usually put my longer lenses away for the winter.

The next day the weather forecast was again for clearing rain so we decided on a trip up to Stourhead and what happened as soon as we got there? It just poured down with rain again but again we persisted and I managed to get some photos and we did see a little blue sky on the visit.

I’m looking forward to getting to know my camera, there is plenty to learn. I’ve downloaded a 26 page document just on the focussing system so I’m going to be busy for a while!