Messages

46

Lenses / Re: Canon 6D (Body Only) which lens to purchase?

« on: February 26, 2013, 10:01:46 AM »

Your 35+135mm idea sounds very reasonable to me. The 24-105 I would only recommend if you can budget the kit together with at one fast prime. Yes, it's versatile and nice but f/4 can be quite a limitation (and no, the silly ol' IS doesn't change that).

47

Lenses / Re: Best lens for baby portraits?

« on: February 25, 2013, 08:40:46 AM »

I second the 50 1.4. Safe the rest of the money for diapers and supermarket delivery service...

48

Software & Accessories / Re: I'm not much of a techie, need some advice on my iMac...

« on: February 22, 2013, 02:13:52 PM »

I don't have a Mac (yet) and I obviously don't work with Aperture. But I follow these discussions since I'm planning on moving to the Mac platform at some point this year.

What I can offer though is that I'm on a ancient Thinkpad laptop as my main photo editing computer (because those had really good high resolution screens that are surprisingly true to colors when calibrated). It's a Dual Core Pentium with 4GB memory - make that 3GB since it's running on XP. That thing handles raw files from my 5DII under both Lightroom 3 and PS CS5 pretty well as long as I don't open too many at once (5 or so is totally fine).

So, more memory is always a good thing but I also find that newer computer with "modern" operating systems are not necessarily much faster. For instance, my work-work computer is an HP Elite Book with i5 and 4GB Ram. Give it a little more complex stuff to do and it caves in.

The other thing to consider are speedier drives. That made a difference for me also in the past when I installed fresh 7500rpm drives in my old Windows machines. On an iMac that is obviously difficult to do but you could hook something up via firewire or thunderbolt, e.g. an SSD drive, and see if that helps. I don't know how Aperture manages it's files but CS5 uses a "scratch disk" and you want that to be in a fast place with enough room also.

49

Lenses / Re: What are Canon's sharpest lenses?

« on: February 21, 2013, 10:37:30 AM »

As a rule of thumb primes are usually sharper than zooms. Thought there are some examples these days where that is not necessarily true anymore - though it's also a question what is a fair comparison.

I'm not surprised that your 100L is sharper than a 24-105. In my line-up the 135L is probably the sharpest. The other question however is why that is important. Sharpness is only one factor in what people like about lenses. There are lots of camera/lens combinations that will deliver sharpness but may lack in other areas.

The 24-105 I find surprisingly sharp by the way for what it is. Maybe I'm just lucky that I have a "good copy" (as there are always variations for each lens it seems), maybe I'm jut not too picky when it comes to sharpness. The weakness -if any-  of the 24-105 is not sharpness as far as I'm concerned. I have no issues using it for indoor portraits with controlled light at f/8. And even at f/4 for general use it's totally fine. I go for the primes for a general different look and feel and not so much out of concerns for sharpness. It's all good really.

50

EOS Bodies / Re: guess the spec

« on: February 20, 2013, 10:27:15 AM »

I'm guessing iPhone at the equivalent of about 40mm.

51

Lenses / Re: Sigma 50 1.4 or Canon 85 1.8 OR 100 2.0 for 5d mark ii

« on: February 19, 2013, 10:15:11 AM »

If I could have only one lens for my 5DII it would be a 50mm. Doesn't matter which one really. In fact, I'd rather get the best 50mm for my needs that I could afford before looking into anything else. Doing everything with a 50 prime is about as much fun as photography gets in my book.

If you need a bit more variety I second the idea of the new 40mm plus the 85mm. Should be in the budget.

52

Lenses / Re: Which canon macro lense 60mm, 100mm, 100mmIS, 180mm

« on: February 17, 2013, 05:53:23 PM »

Another option I'd consider -depending how close you really need to get- is the TS 90mm. Not officially a macro lens but it's on my short list of future purchases as both a portrait and "macro" lens. Minimum distance is 0.5m and that's without any macro extender. The great thing is that in addition to that you can adjust the focal plane which is a handy thing in macro photography I suppose.

53

Canon General / Re: Do you see lenses when you check the time?

« on: February 17, 2013, 05:42:30 PM »

No. Doesn't seem to happen to prime users with a mechanical watch... ;-)

54

Lenses / Re: Is your midrange gear insured?

« on: February 16, 2013, 08:40:11 PM »

Good question. I have to admit that I still don't have insurance. I simply haven't found any insurance company yet with reasonable rates. I live in Massachusetts and the regulated market here leads to a lot of insurance companies not doing business here. So all the great and cheap plans such as the one through State Farm are simply not available here. Tagging my stuff to my home insurance is a problem as well since I'd never be able to claim anything really without risking the rates for my house that is close to the coast and almost nobody offers insurance for houses here (and being forced to buy insurance from the state is very costly).
Still thinking about joining one of the professional photography organizations and buy insurance through them. But that's not cheap either. I'll have to see how much income actually comes in from photography over the next few months and then see.

55

Lenses / Re: Sigma 35 or 135L??

« on: February 16, 2013, 08:33:26 PM »

Both good choices obviously. Necessary for your kit? No, not really. So either safe the money or buy what itches you most or would lead to more inspiration.

I personally find 35mm on full frame to be the most boring focal length. Not really wide, to wide for portraits in my book. And the shallow depth of field look is not that easy to get to unless you go in close - which for people photography is problematic with a wide angle lens (any lens really but let's not get into the physics here).

The benefit of the 35 is that you could use it on your 7D as a 50mm substitute which I personally find more useful than real 35mm. The 135L is a lovely lovely lens. Good point though that you 85mm kind of covers that focal length already (and becomes kind of a 135 2.0 on a crop camera anyway).

That being said, the 135 on FF is one of my favorites for those environmental candid shots in crowds. If you had two full frame bodies it would be a no brainer. With your setup I'd say don't spend the money right now - or see if there is anything else you need for these kind of jobs such as insurance (including liability!), back up flash, enough batteries, a sturdy case, whatever.

56

Canon General / Re: Bag question

« on: February 15, 2013, 10:17:44 AM »

I am looking for suggestions to carry some of my gear. Specifically:

Canon 7D, 60D, 70-200 f/2.8 L II, 24-70 f/2.8 LII, 85 f/1.2, Speedlite 600, Extra batteries, cables etc.

I was thinking about: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/169546-REG/Tamrac_560301_5603_Camera_Bag_Black_.html

I am not sure if that bag can hold the two bodies & the rest of the gear. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I have a larger version of that Tamrac. It's excellent. For the days where you want to take all your gear above and a few other items I'd go a bigger than the one you list there.

I also like the Retrospective bags and I'm thinking about getting the 7 or 10 for the days where I just want to take a body, two lenses and a flash.

I personally don't like photo backpacks.

57

Lighting / Re: Speedlite ST-E2 v's ST-E3-RT

« on: February 14, 2013, 04:45:35 PM »

I'm trying my hand at flash photography at the moment and I'm looking to expand my flash gear range, I started looking at slave units such as the ST-E2 and ST-E3-RT. I have access to 2 x 580EX II units (one is mine, the other, from a friend) and a 5D m3.

Perhaps I'm having a blond moment here, but what's the (notable) difference between the two ST units?

For your 580EXII: neither of them really. The new one is radio only. The old ST-E2 cannot trigger group C in case you ever need that.

There are plenty of good and affordable radio triggers now available, both ETTL and manual. At this point I'd stay away from the optical stuff. One thing that works pretty well is having a long ETTL cable connected to your master and set other Canon flashes as line of sight slaves. See the Syl Arena book and his web site. He's selling those cables (or somebody he knows is or so). I have the 10m version and it's great.

And for the price of the ST unit you can find a used 430EX or some compatible third party and use one 580 as master on camera. More flexibility, a third light if you need and option to trigger group C.

58

Lighting / Re: Weird ettl ec behavior - is this just me?

« on: February 14, 2013, 04:38:23 PM »

With daylight fill/bounce flash I'm mostly shooting Av mode with fixed iso 800-1250, min. shutter speed set (1/60s - 1/250s on my 60d) and a little negative flash ec to prevent overflashing the subject or positive flash ec because the diffuser eats too much light. I'm also often using camera ec to control the subject-background relation, so most of the time it's set between +1/3 and +1 to allow for a natural background.

The weird behavior I am experiencing: When changing *camera* ec a little from 0 to +-1/3 the background exposure changes a *lot*, while the following 1/3 steps are relatively minor - so on my 60d+600rt camera ec is not a constant, gradual scale. Is this just me, my camera or my flash? Is the flash exposure depending on the camera body used, or do all the ettl2 Canon cameras meter the same?

There are a few things that can make ETTL act a little weird or even inconsistent. Not sure about that specific camera-flash combination but I've done a bunch of testing a while ago together with some folks over at dpreview. I'd have to go back and look at the details but two things stood out when using a 5DII with a 580EXII: one was that ETTL behavior when the flash head is straight or angled came in different (less so with my 430EXII). The other one was that it can vary with which lens you use. Some lenses transmit their distance settings, others do not. The ones that do become part of the "TTL" calculation - and sometimes that's weird. In a way you could even say that these lenses (my 24-105 for instance) under some circumstances actually leads to a calculation in camera that is not really "TTL" but rather the good old GN/distance thing. Lenses without the transmission of this information came in a lot reliable.

So when you're compensating these factors may throw things off a bit. Ultimately, that is one reason why I've started to use manual settings a lot more instead of relying on ETTL all the time; at least in environments where light doesn't change that drastically.

When using ETTL I also find that Av is not the best mode but that manual camera setting are really the best for that. Syl Arena mentions that in his book also - something to the extent that M is really the default "automatic" ETTL mode. I know that Av is always said to be for daylight/fill flash. May be worth testing if other settings work better for you.

59

Lenses / Re: Starting Lens Recommendation

« on: February 14, 2013, 01:20:20 PM »

Hello, I'm a student interested in photography. The reason I'm writing this is because I really need some advice on the lenses (my teacher uses Nikon only). I have Rebel T3i but I would like to have an ef lens rather than an ef-s lens because it'd be really nice to be able to share the lens with my fathers' film camera (eos 2000 i assume and it's lens is currently broken). My maximum budget is about $850 (i saved this for about 2 years, if you ask). I'm thinking about buying second hand gears at KEH.com as I live oversea and heard they have some good reputation.

So here are some lens I've looked up. They are about or under $850 second hand.
1. EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM
2. EF 17-40 f/4L + EF 50 f/1.8 II
3. EF 24 f/2.8 + EF 28-105 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM +EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM
4. EF 24 f/2.8 + EF 50 f/1.8 II + EF 100 f/2 USM

I know that 24mm isn't that wide on a crop camera but I'm fine with that. Please put some comments suggest which combo should i get. I really appreciate your help.

P.S. I'm currently living in Bangkok and will move to Seoul next year. So, I'd love to have lens that can be used for travel as well.

I'm a traditionalist with this kind of question and others will disagree. I would always get a 50mm focal length and stick to that for a while. On your crop body the equivalent would be any 35mm lens. Any of them will do. The faster (=wider aperture) the better but that's a matter of budget also. The basic Canon 35 2.0 (non IS) should be fine. Any of the Sigma lenses are nice as well. The 30mm 1.4 is a steal for instance.
And then there is always the Canon 40mm 2.8 pancake lens.

Once you're getting good results with any of those you can then make a more educated decision as to what else you need and what your style of photography is.

If I had to chose one of the combos above I'd personally go with #4.

60

Lenses / Re: lens recommendation soccer

« on: February 14, 2013, 01:08:19 PM »

I was looking for advice on what lens camera combination to use:

subject:  11 yo soccer match (outdoor) .  I will have moderate access to the field...that is I can likely stand along one sideline. 

cameras:  6d (For which I do not have any focus issues in younger kid sports) or t2i
lenses:70-300 IS 4-5.6,
            70-200 2.8 is Mk II

I assume that 6d plus 70-200 is better than 6d 70-300 because cropped I would still get a better picture.  Therefore the main question would be is 6d + 70-200 better than t2i 70-300.  I'm giving up a lot of reach for the IQ of the 6d 70-200.   

Indoors the 6d 70-200 has been great for soccer and basketball.

thoughts

I don't have any of the tele zooms and stick to primes for the most part. For local youth soccer I found that the 200 2.8L II works very well. I also bring along my 24-105, 135 and a 500 but find that with the 200 I get the best results in that setting. And it's much much cheaper than any of the big white zooms for the same kind of optical quality.