Ooooooh!!

Look! Look at the exif data! Where once there was 400D, there's now 7D...

No, I haven't taken the plunge... yet. I'm seriously considering buying one of these machines so ColinParte very very kindly said I could borrow his new one for a few days to test it out. Exciting!

I'm really looking forward to having a proper play with it this week, today I basically just tried to figure out how to work it. Things are in different places from my 400D, but it's fairly intuitive to a Canon user.

Things I've noticed so far:
1) Auto ISO: never thought I'd need this but I can see how it might be useful for quick shots where you might not have time to change settings. It works pretty well but I did notice when I went outside briefly that it tends to over-expose slightly, and there's no exposure compensation feature in Manual mode. I guess when you go M, you're on your own! I haven't had a look at the metering options though, that might help.
2) The viewfinder is lovely. Big and clear. One of the biggest improvements for me. It has Live View too, I've never been too bothered about that but I'll give it a try at some stage.
3) Lots of lovely autofocus spots! I almost always choose manual autofocus spots, but nine wasn't really enough to compose exactly how you'd like. This has 19, much better.
4) Very nice shutter sound, which is vitally important, I know
5) Feels nice and solid but not too heavy

So first impressions pretty positive. I'll try to test it in lots of different situations this week: high ISO, high frames per second, underwater etc... (only joking Colin!)

Today's shot is of my friend KP, who walked into my office just as I was taking test shots and got snapped. He'll probably kill me for blipping this :)