Forgot in my haste to mention that you guys posted some nice pictures here. The beautiful picture of 100 is something that would be way cool to take. I have even dreamed about trying for a hand held megapixelish stacked photo.. Don't know if that is possible, but will be great fun to test anyway.

I remember the image. This is the camera and lens an alligator carried off (in Florida?) which was later recovered. Someone motivated to get it all correct can look it up to get the details right. Perhaps the poster wanted people to know that a body like the advertised unit made it through something traumatic...and I don't know to which body that toothy one took a shine.

However, "making it through" might be too optimistic by half.

I was on Cocoa Beach two years ago with a shooting buddy, (shoots Nikon) We were taking some shots of seagulls taking to flight. I was using my 7D paired to my 70-200 lens. The friend was using his new $2100 Nikcor lens. We were set to shoot the flock, as the took to air, they lightened their load and crapped on us. My Canon lens got hit, but the friends lens was covered on the outer element. I removed my filter and cleaned it and went back to shooting. The friend had a real problem, seems the high acid in the gull crap ate away the outer coating on the lens. But, only in spots. After got it back to the motel, and took some photos it was plain to see the effect of the coating on the outer element. Buy either a UV filter, or clear glass in filter ring, and cover your outer element. You can remove it when shooting with a CP filter to prevent possible vignetting. I did get tree sap on my EF 100mm f2.8L IS USM Macro it was on the outer element, but came off quickly, and cleanly. I was shooting a bug in a orange tree in the backyard. Thank goodness for Zeiss wipes.

Since my last post, I found a guy on another forum who specializes in only lens repair. Since my lens is actually not of "L" quality, but just a EF lens, he suggested when the lens does fail, just toss it. Why, the parts are not available from Canon, and he would have to research where to get the parts, the parts would be from a used lens. The cost of all this would more than pay for a new lens. So, I bought a new Tamron SP 24-70mm f2.8 VC USM lens. Great lens, fast focus, and about twice or more the weight and much faster. It keeps up with the focus speed of the 7D.

Arctic Photo said:

Arctic Photo said:

Actually Carl, I thought more of it as an olive branch.

Click to expand...

In my experince, when you extend an olive branch to someone with a huge chip on their shoulder, they tend to think you plan to hit them over the head with the branch and they often respond aggressively.

Click to expand...

Well I enjoy following and learning from both of you guys here.
[/quote]

Thanks, I admit my knowledge is limited in many areas. When I'm wrong, I try to admit that too...at least until it gets deleted by the thought police.

Dylan777 said:

wickidwombat said:

Dylan777 said:

Rienzphotoz said:

Dylan777 said:

It makes sense to have compact FE UWA lens instead of this.

My G.A.S doesn't call out for this lens.

Click to expand...

+1 ... the whole concept of, a7/a7R is its compactness, but the size of this lens (which is just 1 inch shorter than the 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II) defeats that purpose.

Click to expand...

My next trip to China is 2nd week of March. My co-workers and I are planning to take a trip to Yangshuo, China. Having a UWA lens for my A7r is a MUST, plus 3-4 spare batteries ;D

https://www.google.com/search?q=yangshuo&noj=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=HOr8UvGHHJTloAS2t4DYCg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1261&bih=636

Click to expand...

cool if you go to yangshou you have to go to the big performance on the river cant remember the name but its a major attraction there its at night i took the 70-200 2.8 and had it on a tripod with 5Dmk2 it was pretty good although could have done with a bit more reach a sigma 120-300 2.8 would be the perfect weapon for shooting that.

where else are you going in china, i live here now and, i'm always in and out of shanghai and dalian if you are up my way let me know and we can grab a beer or ten

or take you to photography heaven in shanghai
with absolutely everything and prices basically the same as digital rev

Click to expand...

Thanks wickidwombat, That one is on my list

We have suppliers in Dongguan & Shenzen areas. I usually land in HongKong Airport and take Ferry to Humen & Fuyang. Although I'm more like a red wine type of guy, but, cold beers in China, follow with foot massage - I'M IN ;D

shanghai-shanghai-shanghai.....I was there 3 months ago, quite a bit of traffic.

I recently got A7R + Zeiss FE 55mm as my travel camera. I do plan to add another lens(wider) to this system. I have stopped bringing my 5D III + L lenses to China last 3-4 trips.

Click to expand...

actually i'm more a red wine kind of guy too so make that a few bottles of red
if you are going to the photography shop (xingguang photographics) in shanghai book to stay at the ramada peace hotel
on xietu lu its near the intersection of xietu lu and luban lu and close to heaps of other good stuff and you can walk to the bund which takes and hour or so but its a nice photo walk on the way (the ramada is right accross the road from xingguang anyway if you wanna catch up in shanghai and go take some pics pm me and we can see how our schedules look.

That is the first small camera I would love to have. But, I stopped buying Canon products about a year ago now. IMO, they are forgetting the crop sensor crowd. Been waiting for the 7D II for two years now.
I personally am buying the Pentax K-3 and shelving my Canon gear in two months. They either get something out for us crop sensor fans. Or I will sell my Canon gear.
And I love my Canon lenses, but am tired of waiting.

The 500mm lenses are made to the highest reasonable standards. Lenses can be better, At that level, you would pay 10X the price for 0,1% improvement.

Making lenses like the 500mmL is a work of art. The lenses are made to very exacting standards, but even then, there is variability.

Here are 3 videos showing manufacture of a Canon Supertele lens.

http://youtu.be/OkWsk9rXpcU

http://youtu.be/qzpt49qq6v4

http://youtu.be/6bQ3-DWh-rA

neuroanatomist said:

RGF said:

I like to set M mode so that the main dial is aperture and the quick dial is shutter speed (similar to AV mode)

Click to expand...

So do I. But I've always shot bracketed shots in Av.

Click to expand...

Mostly shot HDRs in Av except if I plan to stitch them to make a pan

Here's a follow-up with an example of why a C-PL can be helpful for a super-telephoto lens. Here's a shot with no polarization (top) and a second shot with about 80% polarization (bottom). Were the light any harsher, the first shot would have had way too much glare on the scales to the point on being unusable, while the second would work fine. These images are unprocessed to show the full difference between the two shots:

Another vote of confidence for CPS Irvine. I've had nothing but great service from them.

scottburgess said:

Yes, but what I was more interested in was whether having tight restrictions on the process (tripod mounted, everything still for 20 seconds) was of potential interest to folks. I could see using it in some product, landscape, and architectural work, but it sounds very limiting.

Click to expand...

The first digital still camera software I used was called Snappy Video and was bundled with a capture card that captured analog video frames from a camcorder, and merged them together to produce a still frame. You could get 640 X 480 or 1024 X 768 this way from otherwise very low resolution video. This was about 1995, consumer level digital still cameras came shortly after, and then in a few years, the card was obsolete. There was and still is quite a bit of interest in it, and the price was not out of sight.

I think it used the same basic technique, each frame registered slightly differently due to movement and vibration of the analog video camcorder

http://www.saao.ac.za/~wpk/snappy/

That would be a stretch to be able to spot a new 7D Mark II on your Hi-Def TV but maybe if you are there, standing in the middle of a gaggle of pro photographers you could spot such an elusive camera. I think the arrival of the Sony alpha 6000, Fujifilm X-T1 and Panasonic GH4 have given Canon a serious pause. These are all very capable cameras being offered at a very reasonable price. The sluggish AF that used to be the achilles heal of mirrorless cameras is no longer a handicap. Repackaging the sensor from the 70D into a weather-sealed body and adding a few extra AF points and DIGIC 6 processor just won't cut it any more. Canon really needs a major technology breakthrough to re-establish their dominance in the advanced /serious amateur segment.

Very impressive. It is a way to justify the high price of modern lenses. Tamron 150-600 also seems quite well done. Actually, the litmus test would be to see a full version, but with metal parts replaced with clear acrylic to see the focus settings acting like a real lens.

JonAustin said:

Enjoy the weekend and your experiences with the 5DIII .

And, at the risk of sounding a little snarky, but how exactly is borrowing a 5DIII "taking the plunge"? ???

Click to expand...

I didn't take this as snarky - no worries. Yea, I probably should have worded that differently. Remember the quote "know thyself"? I do know myself and I've just started the countdown timer. So, in a way it was like "taking the plunge" - just without paying for it yet

Nalle Puh said:

regarding the link above

"The Canon EOS 6D may deliver lower resolution images (20mp vs 22mp), however this gives the 6D the benefit of lower noise at higher ISOs. "

NO, it means that Canon has a better way to deal with color noise and banding in 6D .

It is surprising that so many test pages do not understand the difference and think that less resolution has a positive effect on high iso

As an example, the 6D with higher resolution than 1DX has better signal/ noise ratio at 51000iso than the 1dx

Click to expand...

Well 51k look quite good in JPEG, but I'd rather see the RAWs...expsoing to the right yields usable pics at ISO 16k on the 5D3 but I hope it will improve in upcoming bodies and I strongly hope Canon keep their MPs within the 22 MP range...

5D3 ISO 16.000 color sample. by Peter Hauri, on Flickr


Z96A6118bTLKlein by Peter Hauri, on Flickr

Besides the general drawbacks of adapting such a non-native lens to a DSLR, you will have to focus it most probably manually (I don't know which Minolta/Canon EF adapters are available). The problem is that the focusing screens in modern DSLRs do not support manual focusing of such superfast lenses with paper thin depth-of-field anymore, says at least Ken Rockwell (read the paragraph just right over the lense's picture in http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/50mm-f1.htm). I don't know if he is right, but I can tell from my own practical experience with my Canon EF 85mm/1.2 that I would miss most shots wide open if I couldn't rely on the (great) AF system of my 5D3. Plus, the 5D3's VF indeed does not help me much focusing this lens manually, at least if I shoot moving objects (= people), but maybe I am not skilled enough.

Such vintage Minolta glass is really intriguing, but it may make more sense to adapt such a beast to a mirrorless body that offers manual focus peaking in its EVF, which is not (yet?) available from Canon. Plus, you won't lose focusing at infinity with such a smaller body + adapter.

Sorry, don't know how those cr1-cr5 numbers go so I hope I got it right.

Samyang is planning to release a 50/1.2 lens according to their own statement, most likely sometime in 2014.

http://photorumors.com/2013/02/12/samyang-50mm-f1-2-lens-on-the-roadmap-for-2014/

mb66energy said:

I own the 60mm and the 100 mm USM Macro-both do NOT extend and use (including the 180mm Macro) after Canon's USA home page a
"Focus Adjustment: Inner focusing system with USM"
- so I do not understand your arguments - or is there a difference between "inner focusing system" and "internal focusing"?

Click to expand...

I stand corrected, these lenses do indeed use internal focusing and lose a fair amount of focal length at minimum focus distance. The 100L goes down to 75mm. I'm not sure people would want this for longer focal length macro lenses, though. There's already enough bitching and moaning about Sigma's 120-300 and its loss of focal length at MFD.

privatebydesign said:

Glad it was a help, interesting about B&H shipping to hotels now too. Hope you had fun in Central Florida.

Click to expand...

I may help, that I have bought from them before for a good amount of money.

androiduk said:

Well, I was all ready to buy the 6D 24-105 combo next month and Tamron comes out with this. If the price is reasonable and image quality is similar to Canon...

Click to expand...

Image quality similar to the Canon 24-105 is a big if. The Canon 28-300L delivers IQ similar to the 24-105L, and the former is big, heavy and expensive - the prices you pay for not sacrificing IQ.

candc said:

I read the Sony document. It is not a highly detailed technical paper but a summary of sorts. I found some useful info in the article. What I learned is that when interpreting an mtf chart the relative closeness of a dashed and solid line pair will generally indicate the quality of the defocused areas. That is to say if the dashed and dotted lines of the line pairs are close together or superimposed then that indicates the lens will have good bokeh. I didn't know that was something that could be measured but I guess it can. Maybe its not all telling but apparently a good indicator?

Click to expand...

Aye, what Sony says is true. When the lines are on top of each other, you generally have very flat out of focus blur circles. They tend to be uniform from the center of the circle to the edge of the circle. When there is divergence, any number of alternate forms of blur circles can arise. Some even divergence and a relatively even falloff actually means the lens still has some spherical aberration, which usually results in good boke as well. When the meridional lines are all squirrely, then your boke will usually be pretty nasty.

ZimUW said:

Please report back what you think about the AW1. I'm considering that as a possible backup camera.

J

Click to expand...

Glad to, but keep your fingers crossed on my compositions. I am never underwater, so I expect to gather crystal clear shots of my flippers more than any local wildlife.

- A

Blakegard said:

I think a 70-400 f/4 would be much better for the lineup, but that's just my shooting preference.

Click to expand...

There's a 200-400 f/4 now, and it costs over $11,000…but you think a 70-400 f/4 would be better for the lineup? ???

BL said:

As long as they continue to offer MF options, sounds great!

A won't lie, a really big part of the allure are the amazing price points and solid performance.

14mm 2.8 anyone?

Click to expand...

Oh no, I already have the MF version! I really don't like having to change my lenses all the time and I'm very comfortable with MF but I'd really like an AF version of this lens. And I would probably keep my 85/1.4 instead of getting rid of it if it had AF.