Hey Photographer,
I have also used Canon 5D Mark III.

Kwwund said:

I’m not a big fan of change.
For that matter, I hope Canon doesn’t launch any new cameras or lenses.

Click to expand...

A+ (humour)

nice views of water
wind by joseph kelly, on Flickr

is it out?
price?
availability?

pixel8foto said:

I was speaking in the context of your sentiment that the lens would elevate the M platform above being only a "consumer" camera, which I think is a tough sell.

Click to expand...

at the moment, with the available EF-M lenses, it is only a consumer platform and most EF and EF-s lenses are badly balanced on the M5

slclick said:

I'd love to see the 70-300 4-5.6L get a facelift. Even an incremental one like the 70-200 f/4L IS got. What are the odds?

Click to expand...

If what many of us suspect is true about the reason for recent 'incremental' updates to some lenses (i.e. the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS III), I'd say the odds are very favorable we'll see at least an incremental update of the 70-300mmf /4-5.6 L IS very soon.

Either that, or we'll never see another update such as the case with the EF 400mm f/5.6 or EF 300mm f/4.

The suspicion is that the lens refreshes are needed to add some as yet unrevealed capability the lenses will need for an as yet unreleased Canon camera body.

For example, let's say the expected new FF mirrorless body from Canon will be capable of shooting at 20 fps with AF tracking between each frame? What if most of the existing EF lens line has aperture servos that are too slow to open back up for AF and then stop back down for exposure at 20 FPS? Using the older lenses with the new 20 fps body will require the user to choose between a) 20 fps with no tracking between frames or b) 14 fps with AF tracking between frames. (Kind of like the Sony α9 forces users to choose between faster fps or AF tracking with many lenses).

Maybe these 'minor' updates include some 'hidden' upgrades that will only come to light when the new body that requires them is announced?

Canon has done this sort of thing in the past over nearly the entire life cycle of the EOS system. The first lens with IS was released in 1995. Most EOS bodies released since 1992 or 1993 already had the needed firmware to control the IS of that lens. No one buying and using those cameras knew about that capability until the IS lens was announced in 1995. The recent introduction of the new 470EX-AI with the whiz-bang self pointing bounce flash feature was announced earlier in 2018. It turns out that, other than the bargain basement xx00D Rebels, every EOS body released since 2014 has the hardware and firmware needed to use this fancy new flash feature already built-in.

neuroanatomist said:

Certainly. From the piece I wrote for TDP several years ago:

Clearly, the absolute limitation is based in the firmware. This becomes very obvious if you look at the 1D X – at launch, it was limited to f/5.6 for all AF points. Soon there after, Canon released a firmware update allowing AF at f/8 with the center point. I presume that in response to use the requests (previous 1-series cameras had f/8 capability), Canon empirically tested the performance and found it to be acceptable.

Click to expand...

The limitation is based in the firmware for many *newer* EOS models. Many older EOS models will try, and sometimes succeed, to AF with f/8 lens + TC combos.

These older models that still try to AF with f/8 lens + TC combinations don't all seem to be trying to fool the camera using the "this is an f/5.6 lens set to f/8 with a manual aperture ring" trick. When the EOS system was launched way back in 1987 it seems there were allowances made for as-yet-to-be-designed tilt-shift lenses to have mechanical aperture rings on the lens. Thus there are two apertures reported by the lens: maximum aperture and current aperture setting.

ahsanford said:

At least one of these is a fake from my eyes.

Click to expand...

They're both fake, at least insofar as the first two have the sensor cloned from the Sony and the third has the sensor cloned from the Fuji.

Still good to know how it started.

(Silly Harry, codecs are implemented on DSP parts of a chip, not on ARM cores)

If Sigma is going to sit around on the Fovion, they may as well sell it to Canon so they can expand its tech and give it a true 40+ mpixel, and shove that in the 5DmV.
Get rid of the AA limits and color. R&D the DR and bam! you have a new flagship....Oh...You will need a removable wireless EVF that converts to a eye piece like a monocle. When that is in place, we can add the revolver style lens barrel mount for 3 lenses that work like a microscope.....Then you have a REAL camera that all citizens of earth would have. Then the phrase " If you buy a camera, you are a photographer..." would be in full saturation.

Phil Indeblanc said:

I STILL have the A7RII, but the files ARE cleaner, and not just DR, its the lack of AA. Sharper, more 3D MF like, and they do have more play maybe due to mpixels. As the OP I still take the Canon on field, or anything that might move, like models and such. If its static or posed with little movement, I take the Sony in case I can use it. Often I do.

But as OP says the ergo sucks on the SOny, and it is nOT a matter of getting used to. I have had it for over a couple years, and do my best to take it on my personal and assigned work so I am fluid with it. Its just choppy waters all the way. BUT, that LCD vs EVF..there is a setting to swap between, and I find it works well for me.

I too wonder about the 5DSR, but have heard lots on the mirror slap, and its a must to use with it Up. So that and the lower light sensor, it limits the work out of studio, and if it is in studio, I use the lens to adapt to multiple lenses with the Sony. And I like that I tried a different brand. Too bad the improvements were helpful, but not address all issues on the 7R3 version.

Click to expand...

Phil, now that u mention the mirror slap. I always have trouble getting perfect long exposure night shots with my 1DX2. Even with 2 or 10 second timer shoots and the mirror up and a steady tripod. I have unbelievable night shots the other night with the Sony. I am starting to believe that mirrorless is the future. The mirror slap is and will always be a problem specially with super high MP where every detail counts.
Cheers

P

SIgma 135/1.8 by projectphoto.ch, on Flickr

fullstop said:

LOL. Mirrorslappers whistling in the dark wood.

DSLR is dead. No matter what Thom or others write. Up to now there was simply a massive supply side problem: not enough mirrorfree products. Nothing from Nikon, only crop-sensor from Canon and Fuji (not counting "Pseudo MF") plus the 7 dwarfs with their dwarf sensors. Only Sony, which is not attractive enough to switch systems for many due to various reasons.

As soon as mirrorfree supply side is fixed, and decent offerings from all 3 big players are available, DSLRs sales will plummet like a stone.

Click to expand...

I don't know if "plummet" is quite the right word to predict the transition from DSLR to ML sales volume but I think there will certainly be a transition to where most consumer and midrange-unthusiast users will buy a ML system over the next 5 years and ML will become the bulk of the sales.
I can't really think of a niche where mirror-slappers will retain a large market segment because the pure electronics advances with fewer mechanical requirements of ML will allow ML to exceed slapper-specs in the near term. ML already have taken some of the high-ground technologically.

The reason is that the camera has a DV6 processor, which has a less sophisticated hardware encoder that would enable hardware 4K in consumer cameras. The compression capabilities of the camera are baked into the hardware and can't be changed by firmware. The C200 is primarily intended as a RAW camera, with lower quality compression codecs available for quick shots. If you want high quality professional grade compression you need the C300, which gets that using the DV5 processor. The DV5 (and it's sibling, the Digic 7) get too hot when encoding 4K and consequently require a fan to be useable, which means that they can't be used for 4K in stills cameras and consumer cameras where a fan won't fly (pardon the pun). The DV6/Digic 8 family solves that problem by using a scaled back encoder for 4K to keep the thermal envelope under control. Presumably the DV6 has other attributes that makes it a superior processor for RAW shooting, and that is why it was used in the C200.

For those reasons IMO the expectations and hopes of the average user in terms of this firmware upgrade were unrealistic and never on the cards.

4K is important because it records more detail. That is not so important when recording things like people because the objects the viewer is watching are large and consequently relatively insensitive to detail. A common mistake naysayers make is to look at such videos and then claim that it is proof that you can't see the difference as if this is the only type of subject matter. But if your scene is full of small detail (landscapes with lots of vegetation in the background, or animals fur/scales, for example) then it most definitely does make a difference. You will only see it on larger screen 4K TVs though (65" and above). The basic idea is the same as Apple's retina screens, to get a truly immersive image you need resolution below the pixel resolution the eye can see and you need a screen that can substantially cover the main field of view (ie a large panel, 65" or more in a typical living room). The transition from HD to 4K is a subtle thing, but is definitely there.

The other reason for shooting in 4K rather than HD is that it gives you more information to work with in post, even if you are delivering a HD product. In addition, it also reduces a lot of the artifacts that come from trying to extract an HD image from a lot larger sensor (moire, jaggies, stuff like that). Even in cameras that do full sensor reads you generally get fewer artifacts in the 4K mode. Assuming that the processor can handle 4K properly of course - many cannot, so they have to make compromises to shoot 4K and it adversely impacts 4K quality.

Canon EF 28-135 has (wobbly) dual-cam tubus construction as well. So it does not have to be a "classical super zoom". But the Nikon lens designs per those screenshots do look quite strange to me.

This is why I always love to read Roger Cicala's blog, in particular before I decide to invest in new gear. The main message of their past teardowns of Canon lenses is that if you read a good review of a particular lens then you can expect that your own copy has this optical quality, too. That's great to know.

My experience of shooting with Canon gear in rugged environments (nature, birding, wildlife) in a nutshell is that Canon generally delivers quality, Nikon does not anymore, unfortunately. We have both an extended Canon and Nikon gear, and with Nikon we had a lot of trouble, dying camera mechanics, dying AF drives, failing camera buttons and thread mount contacts because of worse weather sealing. With Canon I only had a broken thumb wheel of my original 7D during the past 10 years, that's it. I am no fanboy, that's just our side-by-side real world experience. This reliability and quality is what keeps me to use Canon (plus Canon's nice color rendering just out of the camera). So my own experience fits well to what I read at lensrentals (I don't care anymore about dpreview & Co.).

With face tracking AF, IS, and 4k resolution, this camera could possibly outperform the M5 or M6 as a gimbal camera.

Web page here:
https://sol.lensbaby.com/

Fascinated by these 'bokeh blades'. It appears to be a permanently affixed bokeh stencil you can hinge in/out of the FOV or rotate around in the FOV as desired:



I've actually been curious to dabble with this for fun by placing bokeh templates in front of a lens, but my chosen large aperture 50 prime (ahem) is externally focusing and tends to not play nicely with things draped over the front of the lens as a result. It's also a piecy, craft-y and somewhat imperfect lens hack that lends itself to painful realities and limitations. I'm still waiting for a manufacturer to make bokeh template shooting secure, dead-center located, fast, and customizable.

This Sol is not what I am looking for, but it implies that it might arrive before too long.

- A

RF for "Rear focusing" makes sense, but odd that they did not call it the MII version.

Thanks for sharing. Great shots, Dave!!

Cool spider, great shots, Drainpipe!

Cool. Thanks for sharing, Dave.

After owning the M50 I find it very intriguing to have a Canon FF Mirror-less without the viewfinder.
It is not that impressive IMO.

Have always been well satisfied with my 100-400; and almost always grab the 70-200 f4, over the 2.8, for my walking around lens. The 2.8 is just too heavy, esp for normal [whatever that is!] light shots.