Messages

31

Lenses / Re: Long lens recommendation for surveillance.

« on: December 17, 2012, 04:01:44 PM »

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2007/3/8/sigma200500mm  Perfect for low light surveillance.


Note that it comes in  a discrete green colour.  Not the crowd attracting white of Canon L lenses.

32

Lenses / Re: Believe it or not, 5D3 user misses the 300D reach...

« on: November 27, 2012, 03:03:51 PM »

There's also the extra weight to factor in, there's a reason the 150-500mm is called the Bigma . [/quote]

Actually the Bigma is the 50-500mm.   The 150-500mm is the Bigmos.  The Bigma is supposed to have better IQ than the Bigmos.

33

Lenses / Re: Believe it or not, 5D3 user misses the 300D reach...

« on: November 27, 2012, 01:56:48 PM »

So the question is, should I get:

• The 1.4x III extender for my 100-400L
• The Sigma 150-500 mm lens. I intend to keep the 100-400L.

What experience do you have on the Canon 100-400L + 1.4x
                           OR
The sigma 150-500 mm Lens

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Rustom

I got a sigma 150-500mm as my first long telephoto lens.  I still have it and use it for airshows where the zoom is a big advantage, but the IQ doesn't compare to my Canon 400mm f5.6L.  I can crop to better image quality with the 400mm and  the IQ using a Kenko 300 1.4x on the 400mm is still better than the Sigma

I think you would be better getting the 1.4x converter, than the Sigma 150-500mm.

34

EOS Bodies / Re: Cards for a 5D III?

« on: October 30, 2012, 02:28:31 PM »

I've just upgraded from a 7D to a 5D III.  Will I get any noticable difference if I upgrade my 60mb/s compact flash cards to 90mb/s cards?

Here is a site that compares the various cards.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-12452
 
You will see a difference if you shoot long bursts, but it isn't going to give you 50% more.

I agree with a previous poster that having one really fast card is a good way to go if you know that you will be using it.
Note that there is no point in getting fast SD cards for the camera, the camera write speed is limited.

35

Software & Accessories / Re: Supplies for beginners?

« on: October 29, 2012, 06:21:39 PM »

You don't say which lens came with the camera.  If it is the 18-55mm then you have a good lens to to practice with out doors.

I would recommend adding either the 50mm f1.8 or the 40mm f2.8 lens for your indoor shooting. 
As others have suggested a dedicated flash would also be useful, personally I would recommend the Nissin Di 866 as a better value option to the canon 430.

36

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5D3 focus for birds in flight

« on: October 28, 2012, 10:10:37 AM »

Thanks  for the replies.

They give me a place to start from.

37

EOS Bodies - For Stills / 5D3 focus for birds in flight

« on: October 26, 2012, 12:20:49 PM »

I expect that using single point expansion is the the way to go  but what AF Case is best for birds in flight ?
And are there any adjustments to the default case setinngs that help?
 

38

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: Tripod - Help

« on: October 26, 2012, 12:07:40 PM »

I bought a Flashpoint aluminum 3 section tripod from Adorama for less than $100 .
I leave  it in the car with a cheap ball head so that I have it available even when I don't expect to be using a tripod.  It's a stable but heavy tripod compared to some of the others that have been mentioned. 

I can't recommend a video head as i don't use one, but this tripod would allow you to spend more on the head than most of the othes mentioned.

39

EOS Bodies / Re: Is 22Mpx Really Enough?!!!

« on: October 25, 2012, 01:44:12 PM »

I think that is a lot more dpi than most would could consider necessary but I am not certain since I do not convert to print my shots.  I know 600dpi is considered a high quality copy for business printing on sales brochures.

And at 600 dpi you would get :   600x8x600x10 =28.8 Mpx.


Personally  having just upgraded from a 15Mpx to a 22Mpx camera, I have noticed that lightroom has slowed down on opening the files.  I can't imagine being happy with much bigger files on my computer.  And I have a reasonable computer, a 4 core i7 at 3.4 Ghz with 16GB of ram  .

Also, most of my images end up at  1400x768 =  1.075 Mpx to fit the projector at the photo club anyway.

So yes I would say 22 Mpx is enough for most applications. 

40

Software & Accessories / Re: Need great Photo editing monitor

« on: October 25, 2012, 10:04:35 AM »

Dells are junk. Avoid them at all costs.

I am also curious as why you would say this.
I'm another satisfied Ultrasharp user.
 

41

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Full Frame Sharper Than Crop?

« on: October 23, 2012, 11:13:02 AM »

My primary interest is wildlife photography and most of the shooting that I do is hand held because I do a lot of hiking with my camera in rough country.  I recently acquired a 7D and the EF-L 100-400 to replace my T3i and a Sigma 150-500 lens.  I am astounded by the improvement in sharpness that I'm getting.  Photos at any ISO are far crisper with my 7D 100-400 package than with the T3i/Sigma combination taken at the same ISO. 

My point is that I couldn't imagine that there would be that much improvement over what I'm getting with the 7D in a full frame body.  There comes a point, and I believe that I've reached it, where my eyes are simply not good enough to tell the difference.

Since the T3i and the 7D have the same sensor, the effect you are seing is due to the change in lenses.
The 100-400mm is much sharper than the Sigma 150-500 especialy  at the long end.
I think that you will see a similar change  if you upgrade  to  FF.  particularly at ISO 800 and above, where noise impacts the sharpness of the photo.
Look at Neuro's Cardinal at ISO 6400, this is what I would expect to see from a 7D at around ISO 1600 

42

Canon General / Re: Canon vs. Nikon from Google Trends

« on: October 20, 2012, 05:35:48 PM »

World Wide Web interest in "canon" as compared to "nikon" has been dropping since 2004.
Thanks,
Drew

Canon may be dropping but Nikon isn't rising, its been pretty stagnant.  Canon is still drawing twice as much interest as Nikon.   Or am I mis-interpreting the graph?

43

Canon General / Re: How to work around Canon shipping restrictions at B&H

« on: October 20, 2012, 07:17:27 AM »

Don't know if B&H will accept Canadian Credit cards.

Until yesterday I would have said that B&H was the most canadian freindly of US camera stores.
They had the lowest  shipping using Purolator ground and you didn't get dinged for custom brokerage fees as you do with UPS and Fedex ground.  They had no problem accepting a canadian credit card.

I tried to order a canon product yesterday from B&H and got the notice that they are now restricted from selling to Canada.

Ordered the product at Adorama  and am now eagerly awaiting  a 5D3 and 24-105mm.  Cost $3749 USD vs $3350 CDN for camera alone at Canadian internet stores.  BeachCamera was also still shipping to Canada  and were a few dollars cheaper but they were using Fedex and it wasn't clear to me if it was the one that included customs fees or not.

Don't know how long Adorama and Beach will be able to continue to ship to Canada, as CR says that Canon will be restricting all its authorized US distributors.

44

Lenses / Re: EF-S 15-85mm

« on: October 20, 2012, 06:41:50 AM »

The EF-S 15-85mm turns 4 years old next year, which is quite old in technology years (in my humble opinion). n∆te

4 years for a lens is not old technology wise.  The update cycle for lenses is more like 10 years.  Many  canon lenses are  approaching 20 years since they were last updated.  The 200mm F2.8L II is one of those lenses. Optically it is about as good as it gets, the biggest changes that have occurred since its release are in IS systems
The 70-200mm lens has had two updates one was the addition of IS and the second was to the 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II, which updated the IS and the optics.  The 70-200 is now slightly better optically at 200mm  than the 200mm f2.8L II prime.  But i will emphasize the slightly.  Lens technology doesn't advance at anywhere near the speed of microchips.    The biggest changes to lenses have been  the addition of AF motors, switching to USM (and now STM), the addition of the original IS at two stops and the update to 4 stop IS.  Optically the changes to prime lenses haven't been that significant, companies like Leica and Ziess have been making amazing manual focus prime lenses for over 50 years.   I have a couple of 30 year old minolta prime lenses that i have been re-using on my m43 camera that are as good optically as the new lenses being sold by Panasonic and Olympus.  Zoom lenses are a different story, manufacturing tolerances and computer aided design have significantly improved zoom lenses compared to 30 years ago.  The 15-85 lens that you mention has a zoom ratio of 5.7 you didn,t see that 30 years ago.

45

EOS Bodies / Re: do crop sensors really add reach?

« on: October 18, 2012, 05:28:33 PM »

I currently use a T1i which has  15.1 MP sensor.  the 5D3 has approximately 47% more pixels so I would only be giving up small amount of reach but would add several stops of ISO.  I find I am more limited by noise at ISO  1600 on my T1i  than by the  reach.

I was going to wait for the  7DII but maybe the 5D3 would be a viable upgrade.
I'm mostly into bird photography so  how does the AF system of the 5D3 compare to that of the current 7D for birding?