Messages

31

Lenses / Re: 24-105L or 70-200L f/2.8?

« on: April 08, 2013, 11:06:35 PM »

Currently in the market for a 6D and was wondering which lens should I buy with it? If I were to go for the body only ($1,699) instead of the 24-105 kit ($2,329), I'd be basically getting a 600$+ head start on the 70-200 f/2.8 ($1,300). These lenses would both serve as general purpose lenses but the 70-200 f/2.8 would benefit me more in my work of field (automotive photography). Also note that right now I have exactly enough for the kit. So if I decide to get the 70-200 f/2.8 I'd still need about $600-700. Thanks in advance!

Are the cars moving or stationary, how much space is around them, and how far from them will you be?  I ask because I'm wondering why you think 70-200 would be more useful than 24-105.  (Photographing cars isn't really my thing, but I went to an outdoor vintage car show last summer with just my 24-105 and along the way rather wished I had brought a longer zoom as well; but I ended up using the 24-105 mainly at its wide end and probably could have made do with my 17-40.  The only time I wished I had a long zoom was when I wanted to do a portrait of a hood ornament with a strongly blurred background.)

But if you would prefer 70-200, and if the cars aren't moving, why not the 70-200 f/4 IS or 70-300L?  They cost around the same as the 70-200 you mention but have IS, which is almost always useful.  Both they and the 24-105 work really well on my 6D in even very low light (I've never experienced even a hint of the "struggling" another poster referred to).   

32

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon EF 35mm f/2

« on: April 08, 2013, 05:10:53 PM »

P.S. - One final note on this lens.  I am strongly considering getting the new Sigma, but the one thing that holds me back is the size.  I loved the compact size on the 35mm f/2.  The Sigma will be as big as my Tamron 24-70VC, a lens that is far more versatile.  That is the primary reason I haven't gotten one yet.  I may also consider the Canon 35mm f/2 IS, but I think it needs to drop in price by a few hundred dollars before I would strongly consider it.

As you've already been told, the Sigma 35mm is quite a bit smaller than the Tamron zoom, though it's bigger than the new Canon.  A few weeks ago I rented the Sigma and the Canon IS simultaneously and was impressed by both of them.  There is one area where the Sigma strikes me as being unquestionably superior to it rivals, including the Canon IS (though it's an area that may not matter much to most people), namely coma.  If you take photos at night or otherwise in low light and there are small points of light off to the sides and in corners, you will find that they retain their shape better at wide apertures on the Sigma than they do via just about any other fast prime (check out pertinent lenstip reviews for examples).  If you don't, it may be a pointless extravagance; it's hard to see why the examples taken with the old 35mm f/2 posted by you and others in this thread need any improvement....

33

Lenses / Re: Lenses for carpets photography

« on: April 08, 2013, 04:44:27 PM »

My hunch is that for the purpose you've described you don't need a better camera and lenses (though by all means buy some if you want), let alone full-frame + fast and/or macro lenses.  Rather, what you need is to learn appropriate techniques, including lighting and figuring out the best way to display the rugs for effective photographing (e.g. hanging them rather than laying them flat).  With suitable lighting and a tripod you don't need fast lenses, and unless you're striving for a particular artistic effect, you want deep, not shallow, focus (especially if photographing a rug from one end); to that extent a full-frame camera is NOT an advantage - a smaller sensor in such a situation might prove beneficial (micro 4/3 or smaller).  You don't need a macro lens unless you need/want, for some reason, to show individual fibers close-up (chances are a macro lens will find details you *don't* want your clients to see!); you should be able to get more than enough detail with the lens/body you have.

34

Lenses / Re: ok so i did it and bought into FF... now i need a good standard zoom

« on: April 08, 2013, 10:26:25 AM »

If you need wider than 24mm, get the 17-40 f/4.  If you don't, but need faster than f/4, get the Tamron 24-70.  Otherwise I would, like so many others have done, recommend the 24-105.  User experience around here suggests there's some variation among them in terms of sharpness.  I can't comment on that - all I can say is that the two I've tried (rented one, then bought one) are both sharp; both perform superbly even in very low light on FF (I have 5DII & 6D; at least with non-moving things, IS more than makes up for the difference between f/4 and f/2.; 105 is much more useful than 70; so I think it's a bargain for what it is, even when not acquired as part of a kit. 

(I've also tried two copies of the Tamron 24-70; I rented one, then bought one, but neither was any sharper than my 24-105, and the results I got in low light with it at f/2.8 or otherwise weren't any better than I get with my 24-105 at f/4 or otherwise.  So although it's clearly a very good lens, I returned it because it added nothing useful to me.)

PS - it's not clear why you found Mt Spokane's comments unhelpful - seems to me they were spot on.

35

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5d Mark III Shadow recovery

« on: April 07, 2013, 01:59:36 PM »

It goes back to Art_d's question: If you are in a room that is lit only by sunlight from outside, and you look out the window...does the room suddenly become black?

Obviously the answer is no. The room looks...normal. Illuminated, colorful, even "bright"...as in the examples I posted. Our eyes are capable of seeing far more dynamic range in a scene than a camera, so...if one wishes to take a photo of such a room as the one I linked, they must either take bracketed shots and blend an HDR in post...or use something like the D800 which has more DR to start with.

I wouldn't say the room looks "surrealistic", which I believe is what you are getting at. I believe it is a bit over-saturated, but other than that I think it looks how a human standing in the room would see it...diffusely illuminated...not pitch black dark.

[snip]

[end quote]

When you look out a window onto sunny exterior, no, the interior doesn't *become* black, and it doesn't *appear* to be as dark as cameras "see" it if they're exposed for the exterior; but the interior doesn't *look* as bright as it does when you're looking directly at it either, and it certainly doesn't look *brighter* than the exterior does when it's sunny outside (unless there's an unusual level of artificial light inside).  I assume that the point of the way this photo was processed was to make the exterior look as bright as it would look if you were looking through the window, and to make the interior look as bright as it would if you were looking at the darkest part of the room, simultaneously.  If *that* was the point, the result strikes me as a failure: the interior is brighter, and has more saturated colors, than the exterior.  (I don't much care for the intention either, but that's a purely aesthetic matter - I don't share the evidently rather common desire to shine lights onto every shadow.)  The end result in the example you posted today looks much more successful to me.

This, of course, is a side issue to the general points being made re dynamic range.  If you need or want more, go for it.  (I think you would find that you can push shadows better with a 6D than with a 5DIII.)   By the way, anyone who prefers APS-C and really likes being able to brighten shadows should check out, not Nikon (reviews suggest that their new APS-C sensors, which are no longer made by Sony, are noisier) but Pentax.  I used to own a K-5, which was quite amazing in that regard, and its successors may be even better (but this comes at a price - worse lenses and less accurate focusing...). 

36

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5d Mark III Shadow recovery

« on: April 06, 2013, 02:03:29 PM »

Here is an example of a scene with extreme dynamic range that perfectly demonstrates the "window test" that Art_d mentioned a page or two back:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26562595@N02/7043690229/#lightbox/

Nearly-blown highlights as well as areas that appear to be completely black, as the scene had around 13 stops of DR. I want to contrast this against the underexposed shed shot...which did not really have even moderately-bright highlights...I think pretty much every pixel was below a middle toned gray in the shed shot. That indicates it was not a DR-limited scene. The scene above, however, is definitely a DR-limited scene...you have every level from near total black to near pure white (and the pixels on the seat of the chair outside on the patio may indeed be clipped whites). This is exactly the kind of scene where having more DR than the 5D III offers is valuable.

The D800's additional two stops of DR allow both the highlights and the deep shadows to be recovered, and recovered completely cleanly, cleanly, devoid of any noise:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26562595@N02/6897594964/#lightbox/

Yes, it's clever that a camera allows you (or whoever's photo this is) to do that, but (and this is an aesthetic opinion more than anything else) I can't help noting that in this particular case it's been done rather heavy-handedly to what was evidently a botched (deliberately?) photo in the first place.  Doesn't the "correction" look disconcertingly unreal?  It's obvious from the still overblown highlights and other features of the exterior that it's bright and sunny outside, yet the exterior looks less bright than the interior (even though there doesn't seem to be any sunlight illuminating the room).  If it really was brighter inside, would the original be so dark?  (And could the horrible green and red fringing on the tree trunk not have been removed?)   

37

PowerShot / Re: SX50 outperforming 5DIII +100-400mm

« on: April 05, 2013, 11:08:06 AM »

Over the past couple of weeks I've been very impressed by how the Panasonic 100-300mm micro 4/3 lens behaves on my Olympus OM-D, though the crop factor there is only x2 (so impressed I'm wondering if there's any point keeping my Sigma 50-500 OS).  But the SX50 is even smaller and lighter and reaches twice as far and your comments/photos plus various reviews I've read make me inclined to give it a try - especially now that it's so inexpensive there's not much to lose in the experiment.

38

Reviews / Re: Most Objective and Less Objective REVIEWER?

« on: April 05, 2013, 09:58:48 AM »

I read most of those listed, along with a few others (including comments here, of course), and most of them usually seem to say something useful; reviews that provide real-world examples with comparisons of the same subject taken with different lenses are those I find the most useful (though if I'm interested in a fairly expensive lens, I'll rent a copy and try it for myself).  One reason why I like lenstip is that their reviews always include a section on coma, complete with examples, which is an aspect of lens performance that's usually ignored (Rockwell, whatever else on may think of him, usually mentions/shows it too) but can matter to those of us who like taking photos in very low light. 

Lensrentals has a huge advantage over the rest in that they get to test large quantities of lenses.  Some reviewers will mention efforts made to replace an obviously faulty copy, but often a sub-par lens won't be obviously defective; it may simply seem not very good.  Dismay has been expressed over the relative ranking at DxO of the 70-200 2.8 II, but the results may simply accurately reflect the copy/ies they had.  This, rather than bias/subjectivity, is probably the main drawback to reviews.

39

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 5D MK3 or 6D Replacements... when?

« on: April 04, 2013, 11:32:19 AM »

1. No matter when you buy a camera, it's a near certainty that something even better will be released later.
2. But it seems reasonable to believe that the closer you are to the most recent FF releases, the further you are from the next one. 
3. So unless there's some reason to believe that Canon will change its schedule other than wishful thinking, now seems a good time to buy one. 
4. (And unless you need to photograph things moving about fairly rapidly, I would have thought a 6D was sufficient - the images it creates are at least as good as (some say slightly better than) the 5DIII's.) 
5. On the other hand, if you're patient you may want to wait until later in the year in case the 7DII contains miraculous advances that somehow make it more attractive than a 6D or 5DIII
6. A used/refurbished 5DII is better than what you currently have and it doesn't seem likely that their price will go down much within a year or so; so you could buy one now and, when the 7DII comes out, buy whichever of the 7DII, 6D or 5DIII seems more appealing at the time. 
7.  Meanwhile, if this is an option wherever you are, you could rent a 6D and/or 5DIII, compare them to each other and what you presently have, and ponder whether they have any shortcomings that matter to you and that seem likely to be addressed by an upgrade.  You could also throw in a D600 to the mix and discover whether potentially superior shadow recovery is something you would ever benefit from (you may conclude, as I did, that any differences in that regard between a 6D and D600 are trivial).   

40

Lenses / Re: Advice on replacement/upgrade for my kit 18-55 Ef-s kit lens

« on: April 03, 2013, 08:00:42 PM »

Have people noticed alot of variation with Canon lenses?

Take a look at the tests done at lensrentals, where they test umpteen copies of the same lens; there's considerable variation from copy to copy across brands.  In many cases it won't be obvious and may not even be noticeable, but sometimes it is.  The second copy of the 70-300L I bought was clearly better than the first, while both 70-200 f/2.8 IIs I bought suffered from soft lower-right corners, albeit to different degrees (with the second one I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not looked for it, but I did... and am currently without a copy of that particular lens).  Judging by the comments we see here, the 24-105 seems particularly prone to variation (I seem to have been lucky with mine).  If my other lenses are not as good as they should be, it's to a degree I'm not noticing. 

Bodies vary too, in all sorts of ways - for instance, my first Pentax K-5 was part of a production batch with stained sensors, my first 5DII and Olympus OM-D had dirt on their sensors, while the AF on my very first dslr, a Nikon D3100, broke after four months (am I particularly unlucky?).  I understand that on some bodies the sensor isn't aligned quite properly; and so on.  None of this is risk-free!

41

Lenses / Re: Which Lens to buy

« on: April 03, 2013, 07:32:00 PM »

How often do you wish you had a wider lens?  If once or twice a month, or more, it would make sense to buy a 17-40.  If you want a 200mm for convenience, I would suggest that you consider a 70-300 L instead - given what you shoot you don't really need speed, in lower light your camera performs well at the required higher ISOs (it works superbly in low light on my 6D in terms of focus accuracy and speed and I imagine it does at least as well on your camera), the range is more convenient than the 200mm prime, the image quality isn't significantly different, and it doesn't weigh much more.  (All that's true of the 70-200 f/4 L IS, but it might seem a bit odd owning two lenses with exactly the same focal length.) 

As for getting a back-up body, I'm a big fan of the 6D, but how often do you wish you had a back-up?  It's a nice idea if you have a spouse etc. you like to go on photo expeditions with so you can share/fight over lenses, and it's nice to have two bodies to minimize lens swapping. 

Or to further your implied pursuit of less weight you could replace your M with an Olympus OM-D - for your $1500 you could buy one of those and a few superb but very lightweight Olympus & Panasonic lenses; I recently did so (I spent rather more than that, though...) am constantly astonished by how little the bag containing it all weighs compared to my FF camera gear - my 70-300L weighs more than all of it combined.

42

Lenses / Re: Is the upcoming 50mm F/2 IS USM for me?

« on: March 30, 2013, 07:14:50 PM »

As you do a lot of hand-held low-light photography, are you bothered by coma?  This seems to be unavoidable with 50mm lenses on FF Canon cameras (and I expect elsewhere too - it was pretty bad on the Pentax 50mm 1.4 I used to own (aps-c, where it should be much less of a problem), while the Nikon 1.8 I tried a few months ago on a FF Nikon was much worse).  Few reviewers seem to comment on this, but lenstip has a separate entry for this on each of its lens reviews, which is useful.  I'm hoping that Sigma will upgrade its 50mm 1.4, not just so that it's better mechanically - the one I bought was one of the duds; it never focused accurately on anything - but better optically too: their new 35mm lens, among its other virtues, has remarkably little coma. 

43

Lenses / Re: Which Super-Zoom is the best?

« on: March 29, 2013, 12:04:35 PM »

With the release of the Canon 100D on the horizon. I wanted to know what is the best super-zoom to buy that my girlfriend could use. She likes photography, but she hates the gear that comes along with it. I'm fine with carrying 3 lens (UWA, 50mm, Tele) but she wants to just have one lens that does it all. She does want the best quality from her gear so I wanted to know which super zoom has the best quality. I understand the negatives of a super zoom lens. So I'm asking everyone out there if they have any recommendations.

What range is included in your "does it all"?  As you doubtless know, no superzoom lens goes really wide, and the longest zooms don't go wide at all (barring point-and-shoots such as the Canon sx50).  And what does "best quality" mean?  (If she likes low light photography, aps-c + superzoom = inferior quality.)  What's more, if she "hates the gear", she should see how such a lens feels when attached to that little camera - it might be quite unbalanced and unpleasant to use....   

But are you sure she wants a dslr at all?  If she doesn't need to zoom in terribly far, a Sony RX100 might make more sense - near-dslr quality, tiny, no lenses to change and easy to use (if you like handling point-and-shoots, that is).  Or, if her dislike of the gear relates mainly to size and weight, what about micro 4/3, where the cameras and lenses are all much smaller and lighter than dslr gear?

44

Lenses / Re: small primes to go with SL1?

« on: March 23, 2013, 03:01:46 PM »

It does seem pointless to make a small camera and not provide any comparably small, high quality lenses (even if with FF, the biggest, heaviest component is often the lenses, not the body you attach them to).  It would be nice if Canon decided to make some small primes that look even half as nice as Pentax's smaller primes do (especially if they work better; e.g. the Pentax 40mm pancake is in a completely different class aesthetically from Canon's, but it doesn't make better images and doesn't focus as accurately...).  But until now, at least, Canon doesn't seem interested in APSC primes, regardless of size and weight.  And won't the target market for this camera also want zooms?  That's where micro 4/3 has a huge advantage - not only does it have an impressive array of small, light, top-quality primes, but most of the zooms are small and light too. 

45

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5D2 refurb or new 7D as backup to 5D3?

« on: March 23, 2013, 02:34:31 PM »

I gave the 6D another hard look.  Anyone who own it - is the lack of thumb-multipoint control tough to get used to?  I love the thumb multi-control.

....

I am impressed with the 6D's noise vs. 5D2.  Obviously, smokes the 7D.  The 5D2 'feels old' after using the 5D3 for almost three months now.

It also feels old after using the 6D, though I'm not sure the results do in decent light (I tend to prefer the colors conjured up by the 6D & 5DIII too, which look a bit more realistic to me, though there's not much in it).  But much of this is rather subjective - I don't love the thumb control (not wild about pushing my thumb against that hard, rather sharp-edged plastic) and probably prefer the multi-thingy control pad on the 6D (+ front wheel for moving the focus point horizontally).  You won't know until you try it; you could always rent one and find out.  Either way, you might conclude that the 6D's superlative low light performance more than makes up for it.  (That said, having recently acquired an Olympus OMD, whose focus points cover almost the entire image, I'm finding the focus points on any DSLR I've used rather limited in that regard.)