Don Haines said:

jeffa4444 said:

All
Its the weekend go and shoot some photos this thread is now boring and counter productive.

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But I don't have a FF mirrorless camera! I am doomed!

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You can compromise by using your 7DII in Live-view mode.

neuroanatomist said:

Importantly, when it comes time to buy, the 6D remains a very popular choice...and the 6DII will be, as well.

Overall, Nikon and Sony have generally better specs in many areas. In aggregate, buyers consistently choose Canon. But people will continue to believe that the spec sheet is what matters most, and claim that Canon is doomed becuase Models S and N have this or that feature and that Model C is 'crippled' by the lack thereof. Well, that's what 'no room for reason' looks like, in practice.

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It's a constant that internet discussions of anything with a spec sheet will almost always come down to massive arguments about the spec sheet vs preference. It happens in cars (a Corvette is much faster than a Cayman, but a lot of people would rather have the Cayman), it happens with computers and phones (not even getting close to going into detail for fear of derailing the discussion), and it certainly happens here with cameras. The spec sheet brigade insists that the fattest spec sheet, or fastest car, is clearly best, and anyone who prefers another is a badwrong fanboy.

Meanwhile, off-forum, people seem a lot more reasonably. I know Nikon shooters and we've never once gotten snotty about each other's gear. Car guys tend to appreciate each other's cars. Spec sheets are only part of the ownership experience of a product, but it's harder to demonstrate "this feels better in my hands" online, while it's very easy to show a spec sheet comparison.

Or for a personal example, a decade ago or so I bought a GTI instead of a Mazdaspeed3. Yes, the Mazdaspeed was faster. For actually getting to work and doing errands, the GTI felt much better. If someone else preferred the Mazdaspeed, great for them! It's nice that people with different desires can purchase different products.

The strange thing is the insistence that Canon must make the product that these people want, and they don't seem actually interested in the Nikon they keep claiming is clearly superior. My assumption is that these people also actually prefer Canon, no matter what they say about Nikon (or Sony), and they want the best overall package with the best spec sheet, which almost never happens. This is why I keep asking certain people why they'd rather complain about Canon instead of switching to Nikon, because I think if they really explored that in their heads they'd come to the same conclusion, but they've never once answered me.

[email protected] said:

On the a9 possibility: if they have a native mount solution, then you can get 20fps, and that sounds pretty cool. If it is through an adapter, the AF slows and you can only shoot 10 fps.

That said, I think I'd have this lens over the Canon simply for price with roughly equal quality. I will wait on thinking about a9s and the like, though, until they work out a few things, including giving me the ability to use my glass with zippy AF and fps.

-tig
PS: I'm a believer that mirrorless versus mirrored cameras don't matter much at all. It's all about performance, and I don't care what mechanism is inside. Mirrorless makes sense to me for the future, but I'm not going to switch until it is at least as good in the viewfinder and equivalent in other key performance measures, such as AF and frames per second. To my mind that means the a9 is probably the camera just before this inflection point is reached.

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Couple of thoughts,
1) With no view finder black out, you have a chance at focus pulling in manual focus - small but a chance, I have shot w/ the a6500 that has -0- black out, focusing would be tough (as it was "back in the day" before autofocus)
2) The costs of a $12,000 ish lens that gets obsoleted in 10 years is only $1,200/year - pretty much outside the range of this enthusiast.
3) Though it is a Canon Forum, if the A-9 or its 2 years from now follow up, gets traction, then an E-mount on Sigma Art series make for a very interesting debate. I know Canon has a zillion lenses but how many are redundant consumer (still very good) versions vs. top of the heap. I don't expect anyone to have an 85 1.8 AND and 85 1.4 for example. This begs the interoperability convergence - Sony body w/ Sigma glass or will Sigma make a really top of the line body and be native?

Sony is going to get better, as will Sigma, as well Canon. As some 99+% of images are now viewed on a browser an awful of this incremental improvement is lost on an awful lot of the viewing public. 8 bit viewing w/ 14 (or 16) bit capture. If one is going to chase the hyper image quality turn it into a 8' poster use a larger format image capture. (pls recall I have done 200+ frame 5Dsr imaged stitched pano)

What I think is really cool, is that in the not so distant future, one could be truly vexed in a Brand X vs. Canon system of image capture and not have any compromise. Lastly, the hyper IQ imaging market is not expanding nearly as fast as the cell phone vid/still market, if it is expanding at all.

Dylan777 said:

Keith_Reeder said:

So nothing that's achievable only by mirrorless then.

That's fine - but it does rather confirm my suspicion that there's nothing intrinsically unique about mirrorless' capabilities.

Not sure I understand this one: "More proper exposure through EVF". Are you saying that EVF = more accurate exposure? If you are, that strikes me as being rather far-fetched.

Or are you simply saying that exposure information is visible in an EVF?

Got that on my 7D Mk II...

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Just a few years back, I was a DSLR guy owning 1dx, 5d3 and your 7d II.

The chance of me buying another DSLR/OVF is down to zero. Let me know when you get a chance shooting with EVF for few weeks or months.

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Definitely not knocking your uses. But for me as a pro sports photographer, MILC is absolutely useless. And yes I've tried many. So for that it is absolutely useless compared to current 1Dx2 offerings with big glass

I guess I should have budgeted for the Sigma dock when I bought this lens, but the combo is still only 43% of the cost of (and 90+% as good as) the Canon 100-400 II.

neuroanatomist said:

You need to work on your formatting skills...

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Thank you! It was copy and paste. And the formatting issue showed up after publication...

Extension-tubes to stack 2 TCs... Ok This is getting a bit too long-haired for my taste I think

I do have a set of extension-tubes, but after reading all this I think I'll just keep it simple and live with Canon limiting things to the 2 or the 1.4 (they seem to know what they're doing, so if they don't make it possible it's likely not really worth it )

In fact I think the 2 is bringing things up close to the max I'd like to go to anyway. 700mm is already very shaky (I've used a 700mm refractor telescope earlier. Lousy image-quality and shaking all over the place), so I can only imagine 800mm (or whatever mm a 2.0 TC actually takes the lens to, I know it's not a strictly linear relationship) is even tougher to work with

Had the 1.4 and 2 stacked in this order: lens, 1.4, 2, body, then I would obviously have tried it, but with all the trickery it seems to take to get it working I'm less tempted.

Thanks for all the good info
Happy snapping.

The reason the 12-24mm is a G rather than a GM, as well as why it isn't an 11-24mm, is likely related to the difficulty in making ultra wide angle lenses for a 135 format mount with an APS-C dimension flange distance. Without a curved sensor, ultra wide angle focal lengths cause the corner angle of incidence to become too steep.

Here's an interesting discussion on this subject:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1352641

The problem for Sony is a simple geometric problem. For Sony to design any E-Mount lens whose rear element falls at the 18mm minimum flange distance they will be limited to a maximum angle of 50° off vertical or a 100° FOV for a FF sensor. Or, the FOV of an 18mm lens @ FF.

The math for that is this...

Where X2 = Rear element distance from sensor, Y2 = 1/2 distance of diagonal measure of sensor, we can then derive the Tangent of A°2. Thusly...

Tan A°2 = Y2 / X2
Tan A°2 = ~21.63mm / 18mm flange distance = ~1.202 = ~50.2°

Therefore maximum FOV @ 18mm flange optic distance = 2 x 50.2° or ~100.4°, or, roughly, the FOV of an 18mm lens.

If the promise of the Sony a7-series is to deliver compact cameras, with compact lenses of all focal lengths then they've clearly got their work cut out for themselves on the UWA end of things.

FWIW, to achieve the 16mm FL of the Zeiss 16-35mm f/4 for E-Mount the folks at Zeiss had to both move their optics to a greater distance than 18mm and they had to incorporate a double concave lens element sensor-side to to project the image onto the sensor. Based on my perusal of online tests of this lens, this move seems to have cost them corner sharpness and introduced extra CA.

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Coming out with a 28mm L lens just makes things more expensive for lens collectors like myself. 14L, 24L, 35L, 50L, 85L, 100L, 135L, 200L, is enough for me. I only have two of those so far, so please Canon, stop it! Shoulda just stuck to zooms.

£860 compared with £715 at HDEW

justbeingmiko said:

The incremental takes an excellent camera (5d3) and turns it into an amazing camera (5d4). The focus is better, faster, more accurate. The exposure metering provides far more consistent results in all types of lighting. But the crowning glory...image quality. The raw files are so clean, so well rendered in colour and tone that they are a pleasure to work with.

The 5d3 files were good but sometimes needed some extra care and attention, to squeeze that desired quality out of them. The 5d4....no effort. Almost perfect.

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I haven't used the 5DmkIII but I can really do nothing but agree to the above: with my previous four bodies (70D, 5DmkII, 550D, 350D), I've been constantly worried about getting exposure dead-on, used nothing but sunny WB preset on camera outdoors and tungsten preset indoors, flipped AF points like no tomorrow, used my own camera colour profiles for consistent colour and even resorted to hand-held light meter for ambient when in doubt. And still had to tweak colours in post. 5DmkIV on Faithful picture style, auto whitebalance, auto ISO and auto AF point selection with face priority and I get more consistent output just taking the SOOC JPEGs.

So good and consistent it's almost ruining the fun.

What I should have asked is who would automatically--without even trying it--a lens (or body) that was clearly somebody else's return?

luckydude said:

The 5D does much better at not gathering that noise. Has anyone else noticed that?

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Well it's full frame, so that's what you'd expect.

That said - the 7DMk II is brilliant at higher ISOs (for a crop camera) if you convert the files well.

This is a 100% crop of one of my files at 4000 ISO - and it's noiseless.

And here's 6400 ISO at 100% - again, no noise.

These are straight out of the converter, with no additional PP NR applied. Admittedly the 4000 ISO one was in decent light, but the 6400 ISO crop was in very dull low light.

And in both cases, the full image is sharp, squeaky-clean, and full of detail.

The Canon 135 L is optically very good at f2 even on the 5Ds, and at f4 close to perfect across the frame. AF is fast and accurate. The Sigma is obviously even better optically, but I don't believe the difference can be sufficient enough that I would pick it over the much smaller and lighter Canon.

I would much rather have IS than better optical performance from my 135mm lens.

If I could have either one for free/same price, I would pick the Canon due to size and weight. If wide open optical performance is the one and only priority, the Sigma will be the way to go.

RGF said:

I'd gladly sacrifice pixels to get getter IQ

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The one does not result in the other.

sanjosedave said:

I can probably turn a spare light stand into a mic holder. I think the ambient noise of the fair could be a positive.

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If its general and appropriate rodeo noise, it may be fine, but you can't control what you are going to get, anything from low flying aircraft to PA's blaring to ... You name it. You can record background noise, and mix it in at a controlled level if it enhances the video. Many Many Many years ago, I rented a Sony Betamovie camcorder with the betamax casette tape (This was when the betamovie camcorders first came out around 1983. ) My daughter was in 4H and competing in the equestrian categories. I was very pleased with the outcome, but this was early 1980's. Technology is far better now. I've transferred the video to DVD, but it is definitely now looking dated. It was difficult to edit at the time, so editing had was best done by paying attention and only shooting what you wanted to keep. A few years later, I bought a editing VCR and programmable controller, they became obsolete in no time. After chasing video tech development and throwing money at it for years, I lost interest.

Nikon just announced their new Nikkor 28mm f/1.4E ED to replace the older Nikon 28mm f/1.4 AF-D and still no word from Canon. Nikon has a ton of 28mm F mount options but seems Canon has no interest.
PLEASE Canon!!

CanonFanBoy said:

AcutancePhotography said:

jolyonralph said:

I had an interesting discussion last night with a guy who has more contacts than I do in the Canon world.

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So this guy you talked to was not a Canon employee, but a guy that knows another guy that may or may not actually work at Canon? We don't know what guy at Canon would actually know about this, nor do we know if your guy's guy even knows this yet another guy.

This sounds like one step ahead of asking a random person on the street.

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Crap. Now we are in deep trouble. Ralphie said, "a guy." Now we know he meant "they". Oh nooooooooo!

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Is Ralphie sure this "guy" doesn't work for Nikon? This sounds more like their recent strategy.

As a slight divergence, here's a tip for anyone whose lens back caps and body caps become loose. With time and use, they all do. I just get a gas cigarette lighter and carefully lick the flame against the lugs inside the cap. As soon as you can see them beginning to expand with the heat, stop. Don't breathe the smoke.

Now your caps will be nice and firm for another few years. I've been doing this for decades. ;D

-pw

One of the reasons I went Canon was stability..... usually, when they release something, it works. That is one of the advantages of a conservative company...... My Oly has had a dozen updates in the time that my Canon had one.....

Re: Sony Releases a High-Speed Vision Sensor that Makes Detection and Tracking of Objects at 1,000 f

Wow - 1,0000 FPS.

FYI

https://photorumors.com/2017/05/31/report-sony-holds-50-of-image-sensor-market-in-value/#more-89501

- A

Very nice performance wide open. Which, admittedly, is not that wide in this case.

Since these Amazon lists are updated hourly, not sure exactly what good they do. At 9:45 EDT (in the USA) the top 4 on Amazon.UK are:

13. Canon 5DIV
14. Canon 6D
21. Canon 5DIII
27. Nikon D810

And now at 10:05

13. Nikon D750
24. Canon 5DIV
35. Sony A7S II
39. Canon 5DIII

The real question is, it's the middle of the night in the UK as I write this - who the heck is buying cameras?

Wizardly said:

RGF said:

Mt Spokane Photography said:

With the value of the Yen rising, and profits going up, Canon stock may be a good buy. As they said, the stock can be used for trade in the event of a future acquisition, I expect that Canon is shopping, their two big acquisitions have turned nice profits, and bigger profits may be on the way.

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Why buy stock and then use it for an acquisition. If I were to sell my company (if I had a company) I would want cash (though there might be a tax reason to take shares).

The cynical side of me thinks there is no good investment in house so they are spending this $ to avoid being a take over target. This bodes poorly for the future of photography - no big investments.

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Fun fact, Canon is *NOT* just a camera company. They are an office equipment and medical equipment company that sells imaging equipment on the side (synergies FTW). Imaging in total is less than 1/3 of the business. Your cynicism is probably better channeled to the lament that there aren't any good office or medical equipment or imaging investments that link to their existing businesses.

A stock buyback means that cash is retained in the company as value rather than distributed as dividends. New shares can always be used later if needed.

I'm optimistic. Unlike Nikon that needs to restructure, and other makers that need to change direction, or Sony that can barely stay profitable, Canon is rolling along.

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I know Canon's photo business is a small portion of their overall (imaging) business. History has shown that company that buyback their own shares on average have performed less well than those who did not.

Just wondering if a buyback is the best use of capital.