Hi Pattocl,

I would recommend you the 6D. The great difference between 5DmkIII and 6D is the better AF, shutter speed and burst rate which is not your primary use. For landscape, portrait and other still subjects you won't need such features. But don't think that the 6D is unable to capture action ! ;D

Usually it is better to own good lenses and a cheaper body than the opposite, because the lens has a great impact on IQ. You can also keep lenses longer than your body. The other point is that you may spare $1500 if you get a 6D instead of a 5DmkIII. Which is a lot of money to invest in a great lens !

These lenses could be:
*24-105mm f/4L (often in the kit) or the 24-70mm f/2.8L II which is quite expensive
*50mm f/1.8. Amazing quality regarding the price. AF noise is just horrible but it is a great lens!
*Have a look at the new 16-35mm f/4L. It should be a good zoom for travellers
*100mm f/2.8L Macro. Great for various purpose including portrait and even landscape. it is quite light and relatively cheap
*I am also having a look at the 85mm f/1.8 which I could offer myself as a Christmas gift ! ;D

Regards,

Pentax really makes these colourful cameras for the Japanese market, where cheap DSLRs are virtually a throw away market and they are trying to attract young women into the hobby. The Japanese market is quite different from ours.

Back in the 60's Canon and Nikon, and others, offered silver/black as standard with all black being an option, at extra cost.
Why can't Canon offer an optional colour?
I'd love a white 5D3.

LTRLI:

Do you use Windows or Mac? If the latter - how do you even profile the wide-gamut Dell displays? My understanding was that their internal LUTs are only addressable by the included software, which only runs on Windows.

Any other third-part software (like the excellent dispcalGUI/Argyll) would, AFAIK, not have access to the internal LUTs, which means it'll be making corrections to the 8-bit data, which is, of course, not so desirable (not when you have internal LUTs anyway).

I wish more displays would have user-addressable LUTs - please correct me if I'm wrong though re: 3rd party software accessing the LUTs of the Dell displays.

Also - has anyone *confirmed* that the Retina iMac is *not* wide-gamut? If they're using similar panels to the Dell 5K monitor, how is there a difference in gamut? Is it perhaps the same hardware but with a forced, limited gamut mode?

To be honest, I'm not that surprised Apple generally chooses to go for more standard gamut monitors, although I'm a big fan of wide gamut. The problem of the wide gamut displays is that a lot of times you end up editing in colors that aren't in sRGB (especially when working from Raw), that don't then convert well to sRGB for web output. So you get this massive color change to oranges/reds especially sometimes when you convert to sRGB for web.

Also, profiling wide-gamut displays isn't so easy - if you use standard colorimeters, they need to have color correction matrices generated by a spectrophotometer to deal with the primaries of wide gamut displays (standard colorimeters expect different RGB primaries, and so can create very inaccurate profiles when profiling a wide gamut monitor). Or you *have* to use a spectrophotometer for profiling, which to me is not so ideal since they don't 'see' darks very well (unless the software is intelligent enough to increase the integration time during profiling for dark colors).

In fact, I've found that to make the best profiles for my Dell U2711, I've had to use a ColorMunki to create a color correction matrix for my i1 colorimeter, which I then use to actually profile (dispcalGUI lets you do all this). Otherwise, upping the integration times when profiling w/ the ColorMunki means it takes *forever* to make a profile. Whereas w/ the correction matrix, you just do that once, then every future profile generation step is quick w/ the i1 colorimeter.

I've verified that the results from ColorMunki+long integration times ends up creating roughly the same profile as the i1 colorimeter + the ColorMunki generated correction matrix.

How have others gotten around this profiling issue?

Apologies if I went a bit OT there...

I see no advantage in increasing megapicles without a new sensor technology with low noise. For an amateur will need more than 12 megapixels?

Be aware that people have (inconsitently) been harrassed for using a tripod in NYC. If you follow this link, there are a couple of documents that might be worth having in your bag in case of trouble.

http://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1fngs7/need_a_permit_for_photography_with_a_tripod_in_nyc/

Mr_Canuck said:

. And now it's this great looking 20/1.8. What a great astro photography lens, not to mention landscapes.

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That was my thought exactly until I read this review:
http://www.lenstip.com/index.php?test=obiektywu&test_ob=416

Distinct coma issues won't make it that much useful for astrophotography unless vortex light benders in corners are your style.

dilbert said:

dgatwood said:

tayassu said:

DominoDude said:

I can't even remember any lenses released this year besides the 400 DO...

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Ummm.... 10-18, 16-35, 55-200, 24, 24-105... makes a total of 6 lenses... in what year did Canon last release 6 lenses?

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Whee. Two L lenses, only one of which is one is in a focal range that very many folks care about (the 16–35 f/4 L IS), plus a pile of low-end EF-S lenses. Oh, and a kit-quality 24-105 lens, as though the 24–105L needed a further downgrade, rather than an upgrade. :/

Most of us expected the year of the lens to be about quality, not quantity. Where are the upgrades to the ancient lenses that people actually use with regularity? You know, like the 16–35 f/2.8 IS, the 24–105 L II, the 100–400 L II, the 70–300 L II, the 28–300 L II, the 50/85/135mm L primes.... Or the EF-S 15–85 II....

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You've got zero to no chance of seeing a new 70-300L this decade from Canon.

However the 70-300 does highlight that maybe it is time for a new version of the 70-200/f4L USM (now 15 years old) due to corner weakness, amongst other things. But it is possible that the 70-200/f4L IS USM has made that unrealistic due to the relatively small price difference between the two at present and the price change Canon would inflict on the non-IS lens if a new one were to be brought out.

The 85/1.8 is pretty damn good - only problem is CA. If Canon fixed that then they may find the 85/1.2L a harder sell, especially if they do a 85/1.8 IS USM. Thus it'll likely be a 80/2.0 IS USM to provide greater distance between the two products and lessen cannibalization. Rince and repeat for the 50. Don't know about the 135.

There won't be a successor to the 24-105/f4L.

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Fine by me, get me 50/1.8 IS USM with similar performance wide open as 35/2 IS USM and I'll happily replace my 50/1.4 (semi)USM, which I have to stop down to at least f/1.8 to get something useful.

Interesting review thanks ! 8)

infared said:

WOW...this whole thread has turned into Stephen Sondheim's song: "Send in the Clowns"...well maybe they're here.....

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+1

More can be found here -> http://www.canon.com/ir/finance/earnings/index.html
Straight to the PDF with the nitty-gritty details -> http://www.canon.com/ir/results/2014/rslt2014q3e.pdf

Operating profit down 20.7%, but at least they are still making profit.

Edit:
I'm not smart enough to drill through the data and look for anomalies in the R&D costs, and lithography related numbers to find out if they are about to make a major change in their manufacturing of sensors. Perhaps someone else have such abilities? I don't even know how far ahead such costs would show up in the reports, or how well hidden they would be among all the numbers...

plenty of tammy 150-600mm in India, even some were 2nd sale here month ago

neuroanatomist said:

sdsr said:

jrista said:

....
Then, compare the light blue swatch on the color checker card at say ISO 6400 RAW, the one just above the black swatch in the lower right corner. Also, make sure you are in print mode. I've been comparing the 7D II and the D7100. The difference should be pretty obvious.
....

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Noticeable, certainly - but again, it varies with where you look - if you move up and compare the four squares above that the relative slight advantages seem to flip - especially the pale turquoise/cyan square at the top right, which is clearly much noisier on the D7100 than the 7DII, so much so that the noise almost hides the splotchiness.

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Agreed...and that highlights the issue of personal bias in observations. If you think Canon sensors have 'blotchy' and 'nasty' noise, you'll go looking for it...and most likely find it (even if you have to ignore observations which would lead to the opposite conclusion in the process).

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As another demonstration, if you are shown what you believe to be an Exmor file, and you have a love of them, then they will exhibit 'fantastic gradation and tonal values'* even when they are Canon files. Personal bias is displayed with remarkable regularity here, often from both sides in the same thread.

What pixel peeping has done now is 'jumped the shark', which, as a saying I believe has also jumped the shark. Back in the days when we had low pixel counts and regular pixelation from sub 10mp cameras there was a genuine interest and 'need' for knowing where the pixel limits were, and pixel peeping became a quaint badge that was worn to demonstrate better understanding and knowledge to fellow photographers and anybody too immobile to move.

Well with our 1080HD displays, and even our 'I want 4K now' and 'bring on the new Apple screens' attitude, we still can't see a fraction of the pixels captured on full screen, even when we crop hard, we can print to never before printed sizes with ease, and the peepers became a bore.

Pixel peeping has lost it's relevance to the output image. The files from pretty much everything nowadays are so good, so clean, so sharp, and so rich it is obscene, put those files into a copy of any decent RAW editor and the only image limitation most of the time is you. Sure we will always have needs we can't personally meet, a single shot might need a 600 f4, or a 17TS-E, or need 1/250 sec at f4 and 10,000 iso, but we are so spoilt now it is ridiculous, worrying about the noise patterns by swatch colour is crazy.

Enjoy the tech for what it is but don't take this kind of super over analysis seriously, and certainly don't let it impact your purchasing decisions. The 7D MkII will create some world class images by people not reading gear forums but by people actually out there making images, just as the now derided 7D has.

• This is a paraphrase because the original was taken down.........

admin post it back on main page

You have the potential to be a superb bird/wildlife photographer.

neuroanatomist said:

Maiaibing said:

"The water and dust proof mechanism is explained in the below URL:
http://cweb.canon.jp/ef/technology/eflens-technology.html#tecProof

And remember: The seal at the lens mounts will only work with a select few professional Canon bodies. Canon 5Dii and below need not apply.

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Thanks for the link! The Google translation suggests that the bodies with some degree of sealing (which includes crop models down to the 50D, and all of the current/recent FF bodies including the 5DII and 6D) are dust- drip-proof compatible, although the better sealing of the 1-series bodies is mentioned in a subsequent footnote.

But there's a obvious and likely important difference in the design of the mounts on the 1-series vs. most other 'sealed' bodies. On most Canon bodies (e.g. the 5DIII shown below), the area immediately surrounding the lens mount is the same slightly textured surface as the rest of the body. That textured surface may not be ideal for sealing against the rubber lens mount gasket. The 1-series bodies have a smooth plastic ring surrounding the metal lens mount, and that may form a better seal with the lens gasket. Interestingly, the new 7D Mark II has that same smooth plastic surface surrounding the lens mount as seen on the 1D X below.

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Interesting. Being a lower-tier body user, I was unaware of that difference of texture in lens mounts. I guess I'll just have to whip out the 600 grit sandpaper!

The 16-35mm will give the equivalent of 29-56mm when used on the 70D. Together with the 70-300mm on full frame this covers most of the ground from 29-300mm. That' sounds like a pretty reasonable travel set up without even changing lenses.

Swapping lenses would cover ultra wide and ultra telephoto. That's a range of 16-480mm for a weight of under 4kg. That sounds like an excellent balance for travel, unless concerned about bokeh at the shorter focal lengths.

lay85 said:

Yes, both cameras and even other cameras I've had over the years. Tried every possible option with focus points etc. I shoot fast moving sports from a moving vehicle so not easy for the cameras just can't understand why holding the camera vertically confuses them!

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you have to check your servo tracking settings when you go vert you have less left to right spots and you need to have high sensitivity settings cant help more then that. your moving and the subject is moving 1% is all you might really hope for.

Jim Saunders said:

If it could manage studio lights too (even just manual power) I'd buy a couple.

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That would have to be Phottix's take on the B1 - those have iirc even TTL on the menu.
(I'd guess controlling other brands strobes would be difficult without standardizised ways to interact with them. Countless brands w/o clear domination, and a good part only with mechanical controls in the first place - where to start?)

gjones5252 said:

I would suggest you take another look at the Sigma 50 art. I have it and am enjoying it.

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OP just reviewed and blogged about the 50A the day before you wrote, so I doubt he needs to go back and take another look. His blog entry is here (semi-NSWF):
http://www.beyondboudoirphoto.com/blog/2014/10/outdoor-photoshoot-for-a-portland-couple

Have most other mail in rebates in the past few years been on products about to be discontinued? No.

Sportsgal501 said:

MagnumJoe said:

I’ve decided I'm ready to purchase the 7D MK II as a second camera; paired with my 5D MK III. What I don't want to get stuck in as a pre-order and not receive it Oct 31st. There's so many vendors selling it and yes, they'll promise it to you to get the sale. Does it make sense to order from Canon direct, with free overnight shipping instead or wait and buy it at your local store? We only have Best Buy and I doubt if they sell the body alone. I know it's probably late in the game to preorder, what is the best way to have the 7D MK II in hand on Oct 31?

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Check the Best Buy (in your area) website, if you click on the 7D MarkII and than hit shipping and availability. The store will say if they have them in stock, they might have one or two bodies.

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Best Buy usually gets new DSLR's 3 months after anyone else, while Amazon only lags by 2 months.

I like the lighting typical of European cinema. You used DSLR and 35mm film? I think the images of man are all digital. The plan details of the masks seem film, as well as details of the puppet. The general plan of the puppet seems like digital.

It's embarrassing to admit that digital can fool my eyes, making them believe they are seeing only film. :

No Mayo said:

I just called Lexar and was told…
1) Yes, using the firewire 800 card reader has probably already corrupted my 1000 speed lexar cards. Even though they continue to work fine for now.
2) Order the new card reader that is USB 3.0 and most importantly supports UDMA 7.
3) All card readers ordered directly from LEXAR will be REV E (revision E?). This (latest) revision addresses this latest card corruption issue.
4) Yes, I can order it from B+H for $15 cheaper and if it does not have "revE" printed in the serial/model number I can update it's firmware for free directly from www.lexar.com.
5) I can then also repair my 1000 speed cards using my new and updated card reader.
6) This will make my cards new again and remove any data corruption that is skulking on my cards.
7) The cards affected include all the 800 speed and up.
He also explained that the issue was that the new cards are sending info faster than the reader can process it. The reader then sends some of the overflow data back onto the card. (The new reader can manage the data properly with the buffer.) This is the corruption source and evidently if left unfixed it is a time bomb. While I agree that any card can fail at any time, I will be thwarting this cause by ordering the new reader and following the lexar update instructions.
8) I did not ask for a link to do the updates/repairs on the new reader (if necessary) and the cards. I told him that I would call when I had my new card reader.

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The new reader and firmware updates for the old have been around for years now. Lexar sent me a new one 6 months ago when I complained that my old one dropped off line after a hour or two. The replacement doesn't do that.

Canon already has a 4K DSLR. It's the 1DC. It costs around $10K. The C300 sets you back $12-13K. A C300 with 4K is going to cost the same or maybe even more. None of these options work all that well for the small companies and independent guys. And worse than that when you do video having only 1 camera makes for a weak production. I would need 2 or even 3 of them.

For the types of shooting we do I take all this news with unrushed interest. Prices will come down. Features and capabilities will go up. Canon's competitors will come out with new products. I believe it will happen over the next 5 years or so. Meanwhile I will shoot with the HD equipment I have.

Dylan777 said:

First, ask yourself why did you buy mirrorless camera over DSLR? I highly recommend staying with their native lenses - smaller, lighter, more balance and most important of all faster AF.

Otherwise, there is no true benefits carrying mirrorless with an adaptor and larger EF lenses.

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Oh I don't know - there are advantages to mirrorless cameras that have nothing to do with size (disadvantages too, from certain perspectives); besides, the OP may already own a bunch of EF lenses and want to start there.

Anyway, the standard Metabones adapter provides EXIF data, in-camera aperture change (crucial with EF/EF-S lenses, of course), IS support and, for some lenses, AF - but Dylan's right: if you need fast AF, let alone the astonishingly fast AF you get from EF lenses on Canon dslrs (or native lenses on the Sony), you will be very disappointed/frustrated. Speed varies (fastest in my experience is the very lightweight EF-S 10-18mm), but it's never fast enough to use on anything that moves (it seems to be accurate, though, and of course you're spared back/front focus issues). You may find MF preferable, in part because the a6000, like all the better mirrorless bodies, makes MF easy, worlds apart from any dslr (or slr, for that matter). And if you do, you may want to try a few cheap old MF lenses (there are lots of good tips online) and adapters; the focusing rings on those are in a different class from anything I've encountered on a lens made for a dslr, even L lenses.

(I've not tried any of Metabones' speed boosters, partly because I have a ff mirrorless camera, partly because for the price of one of those I could buy a handful of MF lenses.)