Canon EOS 7D upgrade

Honestly the 7d is a very capable camera and unless you could sell and upgrade to a newer 7dII, 5dm4, or 6d2 for not much more, I don't see any benefit. In fact I know you can't really upgrade that easy to a better camera. So unless the camera starts crapping out I would keep shooting. I still use my 5d2 even though i have 2 newer models as well.

What I can say is that your lens is very mediocre, its not one of the entry lenses that you feel are a great buy, they have been regarded a a bit soft and by the time you stop down to get better sharpness you either are happy your outside and dont need to so high on iso or too slow on shutter. Or you lost some nice bokeh you were hoping for on that wildlife shot. In short reviews of that 70-300 imply it's barely worth the $200 it was brand new.

Do you have any other closer range lenses or are you trying to do everything with a single lens (which by the way never works).

• A 70-200 2.8 would be very fast and have nice bokeh wide open. You can probably buy the older mark 2 for just under a grand.
• Sigma makes 150-500 or 150-600 models which would give lots of reach for your safari, f5/f6.3 is pretty normal in a 500 or 600mm range zoom, these would be a real nice choice for a safari lens, but leave you nothing for a wide angle option. I would probably grab a 18-55 stm cheap if you can make them both happen (should you not have any other lenses), it would give you a wide option to switch to in situations where you cant use a long zoom.
  
• 100-400 L canon is slightly faster than those sigmas, not as long a zoom, personally I would get the zoom over the half a fstop. This is probably 200 bucks cheaper than the sigmas however.

I love my 70-200 and i normally suggest everyone get one eventually, they are very nice. Normally I never need more than 200mm of zoom, but on safari i think I would hands down get the longer sigma option as you wont be close to many things your shooting. All of these suggestions are better optical and build quality lenses than that 300mm you have, and are around your budget.

Just a couple of thoughts, you can always upgrade that 7d later when you have a could lenses and budget to do so.

 

Hey so i did not suggest the RF 100-400. You need an R camera to mount an RF lens. ----- The EF and EFs lenses mount on your 7d, not RF.
The EF lenses will also mount on a newer mirrorless R camera if you upgrade down the road.
You mentioned upgrading your 7 d in the reply, which i am confused on what your upgrading. A newer body will not make your 18-135 lens more durable nor will it extend the reach. It sounds like you need a zoom lens and you don't have budget for a lens and a camera.

Simply put the 70-300 is a waste of money in my opinion, and I think you should invest in a better lens with plenty of zoom for a safari. If you go with EF mount it will work with almost any canon camera. If you get an L lenses, they are more rugged and sharper optics.

 

This could not be farther from the truth, this is a fixed lens camera which you can only replace with a newer camera. Sure it has zoom, and i am not even against these ultra zoom bridge cameras. AT one time, I had thought of getting the Nikon P950 for the extreme zoom, which would be my suggestion to you should you want something like this to get the most zoom for your buck.

• It does not replace a higher end camera with a pro grade long telephoto, but for the money you get much more reach
  
• images are good from the extreme zoom in most situations but not perfect

The rest of the camera does things "OK" as its basically the equivalent of a high end point and shoot, or a Swiss army knife. With your dslr you get to buy lenses which will excel at certain jobs, be it a fisheye, a macro, etc.

• I 100% believe he did this because he is getting some benefit from it, this camera is at least 7 years old, https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-cyber-shot-dsc-rx10-iv
• The bridge camera market is not active, and i am not even sure why the prices have held so high. They have not even decided to make a newer version since then, everyone has gone mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras the last 5-6 years.
  
• That used lens will not plummet in price, ef use lenses hold their value well, in fact the market could get a bit more scarce since the RF line is the main lens line for canon now.

Id try another sales guy or another store, it is very poor practice for them not to consider your wishes, if your invested in the EF system and want to pickup a lens, brand hopping to something very different should be a "Have you considered" not them pushing you to where they loose the sale of what you originally wanted.