Upgrade advice for trip to India

[mongoose0318]

My wife and I are taking a two week trip to India.  We are going to spend about half our time at national parks and the other half visiting forts/palaces and historical sites.  At home, our main camera use is for birds and nature.  Right now our setup is:
Body:  Canon 20D, 30D
Lenses:  Canon 300 2.8L, 24-105L, 100-400L
Recently our 30D has started to act up where it randomly does not save pictures to the CF card so we are going to need a new body.  Does anyone have any suggestions given our trip to India over which of these they would recommend?  We want to keep the total cost around $1500-$1800.

1.  Canon 7d body only
2.  Refurbished Canon 50d and 10-22 EF-S

Any suggestions are welcome.  We are planning to take the 300 2.8 and 24-105 with us as well.

Allen

[Bob Atkins]

It really depends on your priorities. If you want to have video capability, then the EOS 7D is the obvious route.

However you have no real wideangle capability, so if you want that and you're limited to spending $1700, then the  refurbished 50D and the 10-22 is the obvious route. An alternative would be to look for a refurbished 5D, and then your 24-105 will give you decent wideangle capability (though not as wide as the 10-22 on a 50D). You can get a 5D refub from Adorama for $1799.75

If you want both video and wideangle then you might consider the Rebel T1i. It has 720p HD video and a 15MP sensor equivalent to that of the 50D (my review is at http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/canon_digital_rebel_T1i_review_1.html).

Though it's "only" a Rebel, it might give you the best of both worlds and you can get both a Rebel T1i and an EF-S 10-22 for around $1360

A point to note is that the 7D uses a different battery from the 20D and 30D, so you'd need to take the charger and maybe get a spare battery or two. The T1i also uses a different battery from the 20D and 30D and needs SD cards for storage (though you can get 8GB SDHC cards for under $20). The 50D would give you both battery and memory card compatibility with the 20D/30D

[mongoose0318]

Bob,

Thanks for the great reply.  I had not thought of looking at the 5d or the rebels.  Given what you told me about the battery differences, I am now thinking I may want to stay with a compatible camera like the 5d.  I had not considered the rebel combo before so may look into that.  I guess my only concern (in addition to the different batteries) is that they may not be quite as rugged as the others especially given the horror stories of dust issues I have heard about India.  Thanks again for the advice and for the great web site you run.

Allen