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Best time to buy Canon lenses?

Mt Spokane Photography said:
The economy has depressed prices somewhat. If things improve, prices will rise, if the economy goes South, none of use will want to spend $$$ on lenses, even on sale.
I'd buy Canon gear asap or as required, but I guess waiting won't help - that's what I observed at least in Germany. Since Canon's new gear is always priced well above the replaced items (lenses and bodies), used gear won't drop that significantly and the prices of new, original Canon gear is stable apart from promo sales. However, it's different for 3rd party manufacturers like Tokina/Sigma - but the op doesn't have these on his wishlist.
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Upgrade from 550d (t2i) to 5d II (autofocus)

Thanks everyone for their input.

It looks like the general consensus is that the AF of the 5D II is more or less (probably even exactly) equal to the 550D :)

Furthermore the 7D seems to have more 'features' - but the 5D2 has better IQ + FF.
It appears a full-frame 7D is called the 5D III ( which I cannot justify pricewise for hobby-purposes ) ^^

MK5GTI said:
my concern for you at the other hand is you are losing the reach you get from crop, how are you going to get back the extra reach? extender?
I have an 1.4 extender - together with the higher resolution (and manual cropping) on a 5D2 that should compensate it, I guess. Besides that, I noticed that I make most pictures in the wide-to-medium zoom. Also I might hang on to the 550D as a 'snapshot' camera ( I really do like it ).
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Canon Inc. DSLR Mkt Share in 2011

RuneL said:
I REALLY love that idea but it's just so stupidly limited, with the 1D X you are versatile. I'd get one if I did products or landscapes or food exclusively.

Heh. 'Limited' is relative. I can see how such a device would not be good for walking around type photography, but for anything tripod based it is more versatile then a 1Dx. It all depends on your assumed set of use cases...
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When will Canon launch the EOS 3D?

LetTheRightLensIn said:
The 5D3 is the 3D other than it fell one unfortunate fps slow.
Top AF, smaller than 1 series, 6.9fps (err 6.0 fps as it turned out), but it's basically it minus that it has no option to quite manage true action fps (6.0 is sort of there, maybe half the time, lots better than 3-5fps though which are never there).
This. The 5D Mk III is the EOS 3D. Look at the stats of the two cameras. They're very similar. In fact, the Mk III is actually superior in a number of areas. The main features of the EOS 3 that people wanted in a mythical EOS 3D were frame rate, AF and weather sealing - and that's all in the Mk III (and before anyone says the Mk III isn't fully weather sealed, it's sealed as well as the EOS 3).

Also, it's worth remembering that while the EOS 3 was capable of 6.9fps, it could only achieve that with the booster grip attached. It dropped back to around 4fps if using the basic body. So actually, compared directly side-by-side, the Mk III is faster than the EOS 3.
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Observation on the D800: Only 1 lens in Nikon's lineup can remotely resolve 36mp

Radiating said:
As an engineer I realize that there are several positive side effects to having more megapixels. However, I think the main reason people are buying the D800 would be for the resolution.

I've spent the better part of the day researching the resolving power of Nikon's entire lens lineup and I've come to an interesting conclusion.

Asside from the super telephoto primes, Nikon only has one lens in it's lineup that can actually resolve 36 megapixels, including their primes etc... the Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.4 G.

So in effect the actual resolution of the D800 is a useless figure. The biggest benefit will probably be the side effect of having enough resolution to remove the AA filter.

It will be interesting to see if the 5D3 with super sharp lenses like the new 24-70mm f/2.8 II or the D800E without an AA filter and less sharp lenses will actually be able to deliver the higher resolution. It seems to be anybody's race.

Just trying to to prompt some interesting discussion. Feel free to comment.

Show us your calculations and assumptions. I'm pretty skeptical. How did you test or get resolution figures for the lenses?
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8 channel readout

What does this mean? The 5DII has four channels, 5DIII has 8, 1DX has 16. How fast does each channel cycle?

It seems like the 5DIII can capture 6fps at full raster and that in each case a channel correlates with about 3fps. Does that mean the 5DIII reads out 1/5th of the sensor at 30fps?

How can the camera avoid line skipping if the full sensor can only read out at 6fps?

Apparently, Nikon users are switching to Canon...

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a 5d3, but not for a couple of months yet, as I want to read a few non-biased reports about it first and let Canon get some of the bugs out of it with the second or third batch they manufacture.

Some years ago I decided to go to the Canon system, mainly because I thought there was a better choice of lenses and the lenses were a bit cheaper than Nikons.
As far as the camera go, Nikon have some better features than Canon, but then again, the Canon cameras have some better features than Nikon, so it is really just a moot point as far as I'm concerned as they really are pretty equal on a model for model basis.

Hearing all these people whinging on about changing brands because this new model doesn't have what they think they need is really pretty frivolous in my opinion as wasting your investment in lenses and accessories just because one camera has a higher megapixel count, or has USB 3 instead of USB2 is just nuts.
Just as a difference of $500 on a $3K body over the 3 or 4 years you'll be using it is pretty silly too and you would lose far more than that by having to sell all your accessories and buying new ones to replace them.
You often won't find out why there is a $500 difference in the cameras until you really get to know it, and then you might realise that the extra $500 was well worth it as it is more solidly contructed, and the low light performance is spectacular, and to me, having a useable 25,000 ISO as against 6,400 would be well worth the extra $500.
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40D vs 5D3: ISO and lens question

briansquibb said:
Radiating said:
The 24-105mm f/4.0 IS would look cleaner on the 5D3 than the 17-55mm f/2.8 on the 40D, if the DOF is the same. However they would be about equal with the 5D2, with only a slight improvement.

What makes you think that? On the surface it doesn't make sense.

I would say my 40D is 2 stops worse than my 5D2

I see close to 2 stops looking at my old 40D 1600 ISO jpeg images versus my 5D MK II raw images at ISO 6400.

Unfortunately I was using jpeg much of the time with my 40D because I did not have a good processor for raw. I did look at some ISO 800 images taken using the 40D and Raw, and they are at least 2 stops better with the 5D MK II ISO 3200, maybe a bit more.

I have not tried to match my 17-55mm EF-s at f/2.8 ISO 1600 with my 24-105mm L ISO 6400 on the 5D MK II. ISO's, I don't think its worth it to track them down, and I now use primes in low light with a wider aperture than f/2.8.
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Can a full frame mirrorless be as good as a full frame DSLR?

A Canon FF DSLR with live view locks the mirror up and, in effect becomes a FF mirrorless body. The newer ones use slow phase detect AF or they drop the mirror to do a quick af anf raise it again. You must use the lcd as a viewfinder.

The image is the same quality in liveview. A mirrorless body would, be the same net effect as the mirror lockup, except we hope that there is some sort of viewfinder, and fast AF. Therein lies the problem.
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Buying from overseas

I believe that the European Union has rules regulating warranties, it can result in a better warranty than the 1 year US warranty.

Maybe someone knowledgable with the specifics can comment. If you buy from the USA, you might have to return it for repairs and pay postage both ways, but a receipt from a Authorized dealer should help get service in Europe. Its frustrating to have to deal with this.
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How many megapixels was/is the benchmark to "Equal" 35mm film?

There's actually a pretty easy answer to this question. But it takes a while to get there.

First, take into account that bayer sensors don't resolve the full resolution of the image you end up with. They resolve about 70% in each axis to nearly 100% mtf, then alias a bit, then mtf drops to zero. But with sharpening (since digital is so low noise) you can boost this up so it seems higher. Remember, perceptual sharpness is most accurately represented by the measure of the area under the mtf curve--NOT where that curve hits extinction--and sharpening can bring areas of that curve over 100%. This means 25 megapixels is really closer to 12 "perfect" megapixels, but in practice seems significantly sharper than that.

Take fuji velvia 50, the sharpest color film; it has 100% mtf up until the equivalent of 4-6 megapixels, I think, (not going to bother to look up numbers, could be more or less), then hits extinction at about 25 megapixels. And my scans back this up.

Depending on how you measure (mtf going under 100; mtf reaching extinction; area under mtf curve), you'd get something like 4, 12, or 25 megapixels from 35mm slides is my guess. I'd put APS-C digital on par with 35mm film but much faster and full frame digital on par with 645 or 6x7 but faster, just personally. I prefer 6x7 chromes to full frame digital, but once printed they look pretty similar to me!

But film also has a LOT more grain. Taking SNR into account, film takes a huge hit...

Fwiw, black and white is even sharper and c41 is generally less sharp but not bad at all!

But film, shot properly, still looks better! Love the colors and highlight roll off.
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24L II Lens Focusing Issue

neuroanatomist said:
I think so, but asssuming that Live View is accurate at all distances, the lens may need service. It's normal for different adjustments to be needed at different distances - usually, at the MFD is different than most of the focal range. I would guess that your camera and this lens are on opposite ends of the tolerance spectrum.

Thanks for responses. Yes, Live View did work at all tested distances. It was shocking the difference between phase-detection and Live View and how consistently in-focus Live View was without manual override. I'm now trying to get the purchase documentation from the Ebay seller (it's less than a year old), and if that doesn't work, I guess I'll find out how good Ebay's buyer protection program is.
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5D3suffer blackdots(EDIT:my mistake,just poorly tuned sharpening algo4incamJPGS

It does not really matter if it is showing up.
The two things to keep in mind is one, it is unfortunately part of digital photography (as opposed to film) and all cameras do it. The manufacturers do all kinds of digital artifact mapping for each sensor design. If the compression algorithm is not addressing it then Canon will fix it. Which brings us to the second, Canon tweaked the algorithm in the 5DmkII and will fix it in the mkIII - if it even actually exists beyond those early preproduction test units.

I know everyone is excited, and need something to do until the mkIII begins shipping and/or until they save up their money but this is not productive in any way. Canon has a long list of things they know to look for based on the lineage of the 5D series.
- I suggest you go outside and take some pictures.
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