Hi James,
I bought the Sony on impulse; I had been concentrating on video for a few years and was wondering whether I wanted to get back into still photography. The relatively cheap Sony was a way of finding out.
I must stress that I had no issues with the body, only with the Chinese built lenses. The “kit” lenses I bought may not reflect the build quality of their other lenses. It might be worth checking where the lenses you are interested in are manufactured.
With regard to batteries for the Canon, I have one Canon battery and one cheaper battery. I estimate that I get around 450 photographs from the Canon battery, less from the cheaper battery.
I don’t use a lot of flash, almost always use the eye piece and don’t shoot video. But I do download directly from the camera to a computer which takes power from the battery.
However, I have been photographing in Sicily, Malta, Italy, Morocco and India which are notably warmer than Iceland! I am off to Harbin for the ice festival in January and will be interested to see how the low temperatures affect battery life.
I carry the spare battery and a spare card in a Black Rapid sling and have never had to stop shooting because I have flattened both batteries or filled both cards.
Since getting the Canon I’ve taken in excess of 6,000 photographs and I’m more than pleased with the results. There is a fairly steep learning curve with the 60D, I found Charlotte Lowrie’s “Digital Field Guide to the 60D” invaluable. It now lives in the bottom of my camera bag.
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