Messages

1

Lenses / Re: Canon EF 28mm F/2.8 IS USM $399 from Adorama !!

« on: Today at 10:00:19 AM »

I tried to resist but went ahead & picked one up.  Already got confirmation that its packed & ready to ship. 

I wasn't going to buy it since I'd rather try out the 24mm is.  But after looking up the used prices for this lens, I figured (justified?) that I could play with it for a few months (or a year or so) & then sell it for a small profit. 

If there turns out to be a problem with the lens, or the order gets cancelled or something, I'll come back & post.  That way everyone that resisted can say thank god, or "Yeah, knew it was too good to be true".  Or maybe, "HA! You get what you pay for!!"...

Mine arrived yesterday (it's nice that Philadelphia is close enough to Adorama's warehouse for even their free shipping to be next day) and, as I would expect from Adorama, appears to be a new standard US-issue lens.  I've only had a chance so far to use it around the apartment at night, but it appears to perform flawlessly on my 6D and to be an excellent lens.  A rare case of "seems too good to be true but true nevertheless."  I trust everyone else who bought one had/will have a similar experience. 

Anyway, I'm extremely grateful to the person who alerted us to this short-lived bargain.

2

Canon General / Re: When out & about, how do y'all respond to gear small talk?

« on: Today at 09:44:37 AM »

I see a lot of people who take pictures with their hoods reversed. I've been tempted to ask them what that's all about but I've resisted and just went about my business with my lens hood the right way on hoping they'll take the hint. .

I never understood why people leave the good on reversed.   At least take it off if you are not going to use it

It reminds me a bit of youngish (usually) men I see around town sometimes who are probably new to dressing a bit more formally and haven't realized that when you buy a jacket or coat with the vents sewn shut for display purposes in the store you're supposed to open them up.  If I were less shy I might say something; but I'm not, so I don't.

There are quite a few photography/art students near where I live, and if I'm wandering around with a white zoom one will usually make a brief favorable comment or point and give a thumbs-up sign with a smile etc.; they don't stop and talk and it's a nice, brief, moment enlivening an ordinary walk home.

My favorite comment was when I was at Longwood Gardens back in my Pentax days with a Tamron 70-200 2.8 zoom; an Asian tourist pointed and said with a fake complaining tone "that's cheating!"  A pleasant conversation ensued which had nothing to do with cameras, flowers or plants.

The longest conversation I've had so far was when I was crossing the local square and a little old lady walking her dog pointed at the 70-200 2.8 II I had just bought and said "what sort of lens is that?"  Her phrasing made me infer that she didn't know much about such things so I tried to give a very basic explanation.  It turned out she had been a professional photographer for 50 years (and thus presumably knew c. 70 times as much as I do about matters photographic), so I felt rather stupid and presumptuous.  She proved most engaging to talk to about all sorts of things.

3

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Is there a better time to buy a 5D mkIII?

« on: June 18, 2013, 03:33:47 PM »

No matter when you buy it, and at what price, it will at some point be cheaper later.  If you're considering waiting six months to save $400 (say), ask yourself whether being able to use the camera for the next six months is worth $400.  If it isn't, how much do you really want it?  Oh, and are you really sure that the 6D, at half the price, isn't good enough for your purposes?

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EOS Bodies / Re: SL1 as a "travel" body

« on: June 17, 2013, 11:44:50 AM »

It makes sense as a small, light travel camera only if you can put small, light lenses on it.  Very few DSLR lenses meet that description, though (Pentax probably has more than anyone else), and unless you're happy with the focal lengths they provide (for Canon the 40mm pancake is the obvious winner) you'll be rather limited.  If traveling with Canon gear I wouldn't want to be without my 70-300L; and if I'm going to carry that I might as well take my 6D.  (It's for these reasons that I bought Olympus M4/3 for a small/light system - hardly an inexpensive option, though.)

5

Lenses / Re: Canon 100mm macro L or Zeiss 50mm makro?

« on: June 17, 2013, 11:33:04 AM »

You can certainly used the 100L for non-macro photography.  I almost never use mine for true macro work.  I sometimes use it as a walk-around lens (I tend to prefer longer to shorter lenses outdoors) but mostly use it for tight portraits of smallish things - flowers, kitten faces, etc. - where its combination of magnification, focal length and fairly wide aperture etc. result in superb background blurring combined with lovely bokeh (take a look at the current thread here where members have posted photos taken with it).  I've never used the Zeiss lens you mention, but to get comparable results in such situations I would need to get closer, which is not always feasible/desirable.  (I use mine on a 5DII or 6D.)

6

EOS Bodies / Re: 6D Autofocus not impressive

« on: June 16, 2013, 04:57:03 PM »

This thread is getting a bit long and random, but I have a new & real question here. Today I had a test with the 6d (again :-)) with the 70-300L and while I still feel the 6d is overpriced (Germany: 1700€) for various reasons I ran into a real issue:

How do you manage to get something in focus in the corners?

Obviously it's me because people have been shooting with the 5d2 and thin dof lenses for years, but I cannot seem to manage - on my 60d the outer af points are further from the center, but on the 6d once I focus and recompose the focus is off most of the time. Are there any tutorials how to do it? How do you do it - trial and error, then take the in focus shots?

I understand your concern, but is there such a thing as a FF camera with autofocus points in the corners?  Every one I've tried has them all lumped together in a similar area to the 6D's - the main difference with, say, the 5DIII or Nikon D600 in that regard is density of focus points; there's still a large amount of the viewfinder that has none, including the corners.  It's not much of a problem for me with my 6D and 5DII as I hardly ever want something in a corner to be the focal point, but if it really matters to you, try an Olympus OM-D (for all I know the same is true of other mirrorless cameras) - the focus points cover the entire viewfinder, including the far corners, and are all equally accurate; I sometimes find myself using them just because I can!

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5D Mk III with 50mm f/1.8 II - bad images?

« on: June 15, 2013, 05:54:09 PM »

You bought a £2,300 camera and put a £80 on it?

Keep saving for an L lens and you'll see a big difference.

If he had taken the same photos with a 50L or 24-70 LII, what are the "big differences" we would see?  There's nothing wrong with these photos that a "better" lens would fix.

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EOS Bodies / Re: Patent: EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS

« on: June 13, 2013, 08:03:59 PM »

Pentax, for example, offers more for your dollar but if you want to use a high end tilt-shift lens or an elaborate Speedlite system Pentax may not be the best choice.

Whether Pentax offers "more for your dollar" rather depends on what you want.  If you care about accurate, really fast and quiet focusing, or a good selection of long zooms, for instance, they give you less.  Weather sealing (not many of their lenses are), great ergonomics and a superb sensor (I used to own a K-5; I gather its successor is even better) are all very well, but....

9

Lenses / Re: What would you do if you had $2000, a 5DII and no lenses?

« on: June 13, 2013, 07:02:52 PM »

But if you want to know, I like to photograph people working, not rich people, people from deep Brazil, where I live now. In the farms for example.

When you photograph such people do you like to do so from a respectful distance?  If you do, and if you tend to do so in pretty good light, I would suggest you get a 70-300 L (or 70-200 f/4 IS if you really think you don't want the extra 100mm), plus a 40mm pancake if you need something wider.  They will cost well under $2000, less if you buy a used or refurbished zoom.  But don't buy anything else yet - see if you end up with a need/want that that these two lenses don't satisfy - which may be nothing at all.  (You would probably have enough left over for a refurbished/used 100L or 135L; they would tempt me, at any rate.)  I own all five of these lenses (plus others), as well as a 5DII and 6D, as it happens....

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EOS-M / Re: Sinful thought: pairing my ancient 5D classic with a EOS M

« on: June 11, 2013, 05:13:07 PM »

If you're really serious about traveling light, there's no point getting a small body unless you can attach to it lenses that are first rate, light and small; and the best range of such lenses right now seems to be in the Olympus/Panasonic M43 camp (which is why I recently bought into it as an adjunct to my Canon FF gear).  Or get a first-rate point-and-shoot such as the Sony RX100.  As someone else pointed out, if you take a few Canon EF or EF-S lenses with you, they will weigh more than any body you take; you might as well take your 5D and be done with it.

11

Lenses / Re: Euro Trip Lens selection.

« on: June 06, 2013, 02:52:58 PM »

Most everyone here agrees that 300mm is seldom used in these citys. So the 70-200 f/4L IS is the choice for me.

I would have thought that matters isn't whether lots of other people use 300mm in those cities but whether, given your style, you're likely to want to.  For all we know, 135mm might be long enough for you (or perhaps 300mm won't be long enough; there are engaging ducks etc. in St James's Park and elsewhere...).

If you have spare room in your bag, you may want to consider taking a back-up body (if you have one) rather than yet another lens.

12

Lenses / Re: Euro Trip Lens selection.

« on: June 06, 2013, 02:40:49 PM »

All photography is prohibited in many larger churches such as St Paul's and Sacre Coeur out of respect to people during prayer

I don't know about Sacre Coeur, but the churches I entered in Paris a year ago - including Notre Dame, Madeleine, St Germain & St Sulpice - allowed cameras, but no flash and no tripods.  Have they changed their policies since then?  That would be a shame.

13

Lenses / Re: Euro Trip Lens selection.

« on: June 05, 2013, 09:41:39 PM »

Since the 70-200 f/4 IS doesn't weigh much less than the 70-300L or take up much less space, you might as well go for the latter; even if you don't need the extra reach, the 70-300 is very good at isolating subjects and creates superb bokeh at 300mm.  They're both excellent lenses, but I don't think I've used my 70-200 f/4 IS since buying the 70-300L. 

As for the rest, while your other two suggestions make a lot of sense to me, if you like photographing in low light you might want to consider increasing the proportion of lenses you have with IS (e.g., unless 17-24 matters a lot to you, the 24-105, with its good IS, might prove more useful than the 17-40) instead.  Flash and tripods are all very well, but in London and Paris I doubt there are many interiors where you will be allowed to use either, let alone both (and even if they did, they're annoying to everyone else - it's hard to avoid crowds in either city, and in Paris, at least, people actually do still use churches for their intended use and don't seem entirely delighted by those who treat them as tourist attractions). 

You could always lighten your walk-around load by taking the 40mm pancake with you as well; unless you're more of a wide-angle guy, you might find that you can happily spend all day with nothing but the 70-300L on your camera, with the 40mm in your pocket just in case.

(It probably goes without saying that no matter what lenses you leave behind you'll wish you had brought at least one of them, and that there will be at least one lens you take with you that you'll never use.)

14

Lenses / Re: What else can I do with my Canon 100mm Macro IS lens?

« on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:39 PM »

I hardly ever use mine for macro photography.  Most of the time I just treat it as a fastish 100mm prime that, among its other virtues, lets me get up close to smallish things like flowers and take portraits of them; the bokeh it lets you create is superb, probably as good as the 135L.  Sometimes I'll wander around town with only that lens.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Olympus OMD EM5 or 6D

« on: May 28, 2013, 08:02:11 PM »

Hi , if you do care about IQ , then ignore the m43 , it is a crappy system.
the 6D is a great camera but it is heavy as a system and maybe a bit too pricey for a student.
so you may want to consider the Fuji X-E1 or Sony NEX6 seriously.
or even the Fuji X100s is a much better camera than the OM-D that has extremely small old sensor.

Yeah, terrible tiny sensor, crappy lenses - can't do a thing with it:

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/09/21/olympus-60-2-8-macro/

http://robinwong.blogspot.com/2012/09/olympus-mzuiko-60mm-f28-macro-review.html

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/08/31/watch-photography-with-the-olympus-om-d-and-thoughts-on-its-use-as-a-backup-system/

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/07/22/review-the-olympus-zd-751-8-for-micro-four-thirds/

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/10/19/the-olympus-75-1-8-lens-quick-review-on-the-om-d-e-m5/

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2012/11/29/review-olympus-75mm-f1-8-lens/

etc., etc., etc.