Messages

46

Third Party Manufacturers / Sigma 70-200 OS

« on: September 25, 2012, 08:33:40 PM »

Probably most of you here swear by Canon's 70-200L IS II, and for excellent reasons. From numerous forum posts here I can understand this is one of the best zooms produced, period. But I am not looking for any more info about Canon's offering. What I am looking for is personal experience of those of you who might be using the Sigma 70-200 OS. It would be great if any of you actually used both the Canon and the Sigma. Would you please care to share your opinions and experiences? I am not a professional photographer, so justifying buying the Canon is almost impossible for me. The similar offering from Tamron does not yet have OS/VC/IS. So it would be a great help to learn from your opinions and experiences about the Sigma lens. Thank you all in advance.

47

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Chasing exposure

« on: September 25, 2012, 12:25:09 PM »

If you have the time and inclination the this book might be of some use (I benefited from it tremendously).

"Perfect Exposure" (no kidding, you just used this phrase) by Michael Freeman, Focal Press, 2009.

Some people may recommend Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure", but I think your questions are better answered in Freeman's book.

48

Lenses / Tamron 60mm macro

« on: September 25, 2012, 11:57:34 AM »

Anybody has used this lens? On paper it is 1 stop faster than canon's equivalent, and on APS-C has a nice 90-95mm equivalent field of view for portraits. Any experience?

49

Lenses / Re: 70-300mm For my 5DM2

« on: September 25, 2012, 12:03:10 AM »

Another point, you already have some part of the 70-300 range covered with your 70-200. But you do not seem to have anything on the wider side of the focal length other than the motley 50 1.8.

I do not know what is your photographic style or interest, but still I believe 24-105 will serve you better over all than spending everything that you have on duplicating a focal length that you have already covered to some extent.

Ok, I just read it, you like aviation photography. What do you mean by that? You photograph flying aeroplanes or static aeroplanes? If it is flying then you will need the 70-300 L. I do not think tamron 70-300's AF will do the trick. But if it is standing planes that you photograph and also want something on the wider side, then go for 24-105 (both wide and general purpose zoom, according to some best general purpose zoom on full frame) and Tamron 70-300.

50

Lenses / Re: 70-300mm For my 5DM2

« on: September 24, 2012, 09:58:56 PM »

I cannot comment on the 70-300L.

But I tested both the 70-300 non-L and Tamron 70-300 VC before my purchase. I personally thought the Tamron to be a better lens and so purchased that (and returned the non-L 70-300). I fully realized that what I was buying was not going to be able to compete with 70-300L, but the L was out of reach. With fulltime manual focus (more so with back button focusing), non-rotating front element, and a fantastic VC this Tamron 70-300 has made me pretty happy.

51

Lenses / Re: Old manual focus 50mm: Sharpness

« on: September 24, 2012, 10:04:14 AM »

Thank you everyone for chiming in.

52

Lenses / Re: Vintage Lenses: Any Advise?

« on: September 24, 2012, 10:02:38 AM »

Canon FD lenses cannot be mounted on an EOS (EF mount) body without corrective optics OR modifying the lens mount using the EDMIKA lens mount changing kits. For EDMIKA you need to check for which FD lenses they have created the kit and selling it (or plan to make), as (if I remember correctly) all FD lenses are not adaptable. The corrective optics adapter will however reduce the image quality. Nikon F mount, Pentax K and Screw Mount, Olympus OM can be adapted with a simple adapter without the need of corrective optics.

53

Lenses / Re: Old manual focus 50mm: Sharpness

« on: September 23, 2012, 07:35:29 AM »

I've used a 50mm Pentax SMC Takamur 1.4 on my 50D, there are some issues using this lens on FF, but it can me made to work It is incredibly sharp, just as much as any new Canon glass.  IT's actually just a great lens, one of my favorite, it has just great colors. It can be had for about 100 on ebay.

To confirm: Which version of 50mm Pentax SMC Takumar did you use? was it the metal focusing ring SMC Tak or rubberized focusing ring SMC Tak. Thank you.

54

Lenses / Re: Old manual focus 50mm: Sharpness

« on: September 23, 2012, 07:31:34 AM »

Thanks to both of you. I completely agree with your suggestion that a dedicated macro lens in EF mount would be best for macro work. I rented the 100mm L macro and it was awesome. And next I want to rent the Sigma 150mm OS macro (whenever it is available at my local lens renting shop). They the are perfect solution for macro for sure. No doubt.

But for the time being I am just looking for some "fun" with the entire reversing thing and at the same time do not want to loose on sharpness. I asked for the advice as I was pretty sure many of you have been photographing from the manual days and know almost all there is to know.

@Paul thank you for reminding me the aperture pin thing and the MD rokkor reference.

55

Lenses / Old manual focus 50mm: Sharpness

« on: September 23, 2012, 06:59:29 AM »

I am planning to buy an old manual focus (with aperture control ring on the lens) 50mm lens for basically reverse lens, and extension tube+manual lens based macro work. I am specifically not looking to buy any of the current auto focus macro lenses (or the non auto focus Zeiss glasses). The first reason is of course price (for the time being) and the second reason is I pretty much like the whole ritual of macro photography using the above two methods.

Those of you who have used the different manual focus 50mm lenses produced by different manufacturers (Canon FD, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, and others) during the film era (or may be even today) could you please share your comments about the sharpness of the lenses that you have used. I am trying to figure out which one out there might be the sharpest (if there is any specifically).

If you think a different lens of a different focal length would be better for my intended purpose then also please share your thoughts.

Any help is most heartily welcome.

56

Lenses / Re: Manual Focus Lenses: Smarter in F-Mount?

« on: September 22, 2012, 04:11:37 PM »

what about Zeiss 21mm?

http://diglloyd.com/ has a comparative review of all the Zeiss lenses. But the reviews are for paid subscribers only.

57

Lenses / Re: Manual Focus Lenses: Smarter in F-Mount?

« on: September 22, 2012, 09:49:30 AM »

OP, I see your point. The message is kind of sad . You are loosing long term faith in canon. You are basically half expecting to move to Nikon may in 5 years, or in 10 years, or in 15.

The opposite, I'm thinking of going Nikon now and leave the door open if in the future Canon will be best choice again.

My bad, that was another possible interpretation of your statement.

You are quite right in your arguments. And as my long and convoluted reply earlier tried to make this point "I do not see any problem with your plan."

The lenses will be of great quality and in any case you would be doing everything manually with Zeiss, whether you buy in canon or nikon mount. Just that you might not be getting lens info on the EXIF data (if that is an issue at all).

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Lenses / Re: Manual Focus Lenses: Smarter in F-Mount?

« on: September 22, 2012, 09:13:37 AM »

OP, I see your point. The message is kind of sad . You are loosing long term faith in canon. You are basically half expecting to move to Nikon may in 5 years, or in 10 years, or in 15.

Once you are going the path of manual focus definitely you have precluded fast moving subjects. However, if you are very efficient in manual focusing then probably you can still do those objects. (as from reading other posts of other posters here it appears to me that many of them actually prefer to do manual focusing with fast moving objects). But for getting the focus confirmation you would need to buy the Nikon-EOS adapters with focus confirmation chips. Other than that I do not foresee any problem with using Nikon mount lenses with Canon. In fact I want to buy the Nikon 50mm 1.2 lens in near future (as the canon version is out of my reach) which is a complete manual lens even in Nikon mount (so technically in your situation). You are already willing to forgo AF and going for the high quality glass of Zeiss (just read about it, never used myself), therefore, I am not sure how you would not be able to take the benefit of DSLRs (as the other replier has said), especially when canon can do stop down metering. To add from personal experience, I sometimes use a Pentax manual lens with adapter on my canon bodies, never faced any problem till now. Even the cheap non-chipped adapter is well machined and a snug fit to both the lens and the camera mount. Everything is manually controlled - aperture and focus. Added a ebay dual 45 degree split microprism focusing screen (brightscreen and katzeye too costly, at least now). I guess if you are buying Zeiss you wll definitely buy brightscreen or katzeye focusing screens which will perform even better than my cheapo focusing screen (not that mine is doing badly for me). So I do not see your problem.

But, die hard canon fans may not be happy at your decision, given that you are standing at the door between Canon and Nikon rather than strengthening the ranks of the Canon users . I would say smart move.

59

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon EOS 4D reference in Wifi remote app video

« on: September 20, 2012, 07:21:58 AM »

Why is not there a 2D?

Absence of 3D and 4D may be explained. But what explains the absence of 2D?

And what should the features be of 8D and 9D, if they ever come to the world?

1D-5D-6D are full frame.

7D is crop.
10D (and onwards) are crop too.

So 8D and 9D should logically be crops. How should/would they be different from 7D and 60D/70D?

for fun.....

60

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Photokina 2012: Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 VC & 90mm F/2.8 Di MACRO 1:1 VC Development

« on: September 14, 2012, 02:34:32 PM »

I own the current version of the Tamron 90mm Macro. It is pretty sharp. It suffers from some CA at 2.8 but still sharp and easy to fix in post. It would be nice to have VC so those hand held shots of bugs or flowers could be stopped down a little more.

The 70-200 upgrade will be interesting. Here is hoping they try to compete with Canon's 70-200L IS II in terms of image quality.

if the new 24-70 vc is representative, I am not too worried about their glass, which I think will be pretty good. I hope the AF and QC issues are fixed, because they really do offer great glass for 50% of Canon price.

+1
........ However, I am not got to buy it because I don't believe it will be as good as my Canon 70-200 F/2.8 IS MK2.

I do not think anyone expects that either. However, there are tons of photographers in USA and in every other country who cannot afford MK2 and for them it might be a very good option. I myself am quite interested. Let's see how it does in comparison to Sigma's OS offering. I am already very happy with their 70-300, let's see, I might finally decide to buy a 70-200 f/2.8......