GEAR GRINDING - or, what bug's you about your equipment

[Aglet]

It doesn't look unpleasant to me .... I really don't get this 'bokeh' stuff. I agree in the picture of the berry  the out of focus bits detract ... but it's ok

I think it's another internet photography meme ... bokeh, sharpness, megapixels ...

Still, you've got to be happy with your own photos. But I'd suggest no one would care too much about your fuzzy bits ;-)

Well, the photo of those berries (crabapples, actually) is only a test shot of sorts, altho I've got similar shots which have much greater visual appeal.  What it does is show that if you are counting on this lens to provide a smoothly burred out of focus area it may not always be able to provide it.

Sometimes we want or need to have the busy, finely structured portion of a composition deliberately blurred by the lens in such a way that it becomes part of the overall composition, and as such, you may want more control over how it will look.  This is just one of the reasons for using fast, large aperture lenses.

I wish I had my old 200mm prime with me at the same time for the same shot.
I can describe how it would have rendered the same scene.  Using the same shallow focus zone, the prime would have been slightly softer.  Foreground and background elements, as you move farther away from the focal plane, would progressively and smoothly get more blurred until they disappeared into each other and the backlight, adding only a hint of tone or shading.
That would have left the cluster of apples almost floating in space in appearance.  Which was the effect I was hoping the EF 70-200 2.8 L IS 2 would have provided.  The lens renders the focus area with tremendous accuity, but I am not satisfied with the out of focus part of the image.
Unfortunately, i need to be satisfied with the whole image to find it useful.  This is actually something that older lenses are often better at; what they lack in sharpness is offset by often smoother bokeh.
Actually, some cheaper lenses will also do this in a more balanced way too.  There are a lot of variables.

[smithy]

The 5D3's flash sync limitation of 1/200th bugs me a lot.  It's irrelevant when I'm shooting with my Yongnuo HSS flash, but when I'm using my studio strobes, 1/200th just isn't fast enough - and it limits the DOF I can achieve.  I realise I could add ND filters to my lenses, but that only does so much and isn't always practical.  I could post several images with the DOF I want, but overexposed, but you can imagine them can't you?

And I really dislike the fact that when I remove and reinsert the CF card in my 5D3, it switches over to the SD card and I have to manually select CF storage again to get it saving to the correct card.  I want it to have a persistent setting that always chooses the CF card if it sees that it is inserted and has free space.  Surely it can't be that difficult to program.  It doesn't stop me from taking a photo, but if I'm in a hurry and need to photograph long bursts of action with high FPS, having the camera save to the SD card produces slower frame rates.

[sandymandy]

I like wideangle and got an APS-C that bugs me. Solution? Get FF body ....uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 

[RLPhoto]

That my 135L isn't half a stop faster and isn't IS. 

[RMC33]

Nothing TBH. I hate the Cstraps I bought instead of black rapid but that was my own mistake.

[twcull]

I wish that there were more options for people such as myself who seem to have monstrous hands. It makes it hard to want to carry a camera all day thats just wayy to small.

[Don Haines]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

[RMC33]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

Yes~

[tron]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

Well if she were lucky there would be a storm and maybe a lightning during the time she was pressing the button...

Now, that would be a little more powerful flash     

[Sporgon]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

  reminds me of the days when I used to give / attend lectures with a projector onto a White screen. People would try to take pictures of the image on the screen with flash and were later dumfounded to find they had a picture of a White screen ! 

Biggest grip I have with gear is the dreadful build quality of an otherwise great lens like the 50 mm 1.4. The manual focus on it really winds me up when I have to use it. 

[tron]

I have witnessed  people using flash to shoot the Total Solar Eclipse ...      

Fortunately my telephoto lens had a hood...   

[RMC33]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

  reminds me of the days when I used to give / attend lectures with a projector onto a White screen. People would try to take pictures of the image on the screen with flash and were later dumfounded to find they had a picture of a White screen ! 

Biggest grip I have with gear is the dreadful build quality of an otherwise great lens like the 50 mm 1.4. The manual focus on it really winds me up when I have to use it. 

I like my (close to dead) nifty fifty. The USM motor is starting to die so it will focus to a point and then just give up. I think 6 years isn't bad=). Trying to decide now between a Zeiss manual 50 f/1.4, since I am now used to manual focus, or a Canon 50 f/1.2. I just feel bad for the little lens as it used to nail focus 95% of the time.

[florianbieler.de]

I am kinda satisfied with anything. Sure, a 1DX would be nice, but that won't be happening anytime soon.

I would really love an affordable ultra wide prime or zoom instead of my manual Samyang, which I am satisfied with by the way, but just to scratch off that manual focussing. Sadly there is no real alternative qualitywise other than the Canon 14mm L II prime itself which is way too expensive. Tamron 14mm, Sigma 12-24mm, Sigma 14mm all are while being affordable far away from reaching the Samyang's image quality.

[Aglet]

I wish that there were more options for people such as myself who seem to have monstrous hands. It makes it hard to want to carry a camera all day thats just wayy to small.

Used to be a time, back in film days, that there were some interesting add-on accessories that would be helpful.
There sure did add a lot to the overall bulk of the system tho.
Friend of mine with big hands has similar complaints with his 7D, even with a grip it's kind of small for him.  Kinda funny to see him try use a little Rebel.

[Aglet]

The lady sitting beside me in the plane..... As we are passing over Winnipeg, at night, at 35000 feet, the pilot announces "and if you look out of the windows on the right side of the plane you can see the lights of Winnipeg". She whips out a DSLR and starts taking flash pictures of Winnipeg.

Why isn't my flash bright enough to light up a city from 35,000 feet? Why won't my camera magicaly cancel out the reflection of the flash off of the window? Does this mean I have to upgrade to FF and the new magic super sensor?

egads, some Co. I don't remember even has a MODE for this on some of their small cameras!