Help with advise on 40D upgrade to 7D or 5dMKii

[dcstep]

<p>Since you mention wildlife and sports as major interests, I'd say go with the 7D if you can only own one. I've got both and use the 7D for wildlife and the 5D MkII for everything else. If I owned only the 7D I'd simply get a wide-angle wider than my 24-105mm that I use on the 5D2.<br>

The main advantage of the 7D, IME, is the larger subject size in the viewfinder makes it easier to keep the spot focus point on moving subjects. Second most important is the 8-fps burst rate. The AF improvement is not a big deal to me, since I use single-spot AF mode for almost all my wildlife shots. The other modes are useful for scenics and other shots, but the single-spot and expanded-spots seem to be best for animals, particularly fast moving ones or ones hidden in a bunch of brush or limbs.</p>

<p>Really, most of the other discussio is irrelevant. If you're going to do wildlife and sports, the 7Ds crop-sensor and resulting larger in-viewfinnder target image, make it much easier to use for those subjects. Any IQ advantage of the 5D2 is pretty well offset by missed shots or the need to crop at a much higher percentage to get the same size finished image.</p>