The latest (but discontinued) version of the Sigma 400mm f5.6 (must be the HSM APO version) works on some EOS bodies, and is very cheap, and well reviewed.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/306-sigma-af-400mm-f56-hsm-apo-macro-test-report--review

I found one at ffordes.com and was able to try it on my 600D and 7D, the particular example wouldn't play nice with the 600D so it was a non-starter, try before you buy, but potentially a good buy.

Potentially a crap buy also of course, so check on both bodies.

AcutancePhotography said:

Go to www.youarenotaphotographer.com

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Brilliant ... looks like the stuff of the "pros" in my locale.

I use both at weddings, but mostly I'll use one or the other, I'm not switching bodies a lot. For the ceremony, I'll switch back & forth a little, maybe the first dance. But most of the rest of the time I'm using one body or the other primarily.

I do like having both because there are strengths to each camera. The 6D is lighter and more 'nimble' to use, so I like it for the reception when I've been shooting for many hours, it helps reduce fatigue. Also, the low light AF is so great, I can get accurate in-focus shots in practically no light at all. Just this weekend, I was at a reception at a private residence, people were all around the house, many in the lower level where there was little to no lights. I was following the bride and groom around using the 5D3 and it was having a hell of a time locking focus. I was finally able to switch cameras, and suddenly the 6D was instantly locking focus where the 5D3 would hunt for 5-10 seconds. It's literally night/day difference between those two cameras in that situation.

I do wish they had put dual card slots in the 6D, though, it was the one feature that made me think I didn't want to bother with the camera. I'm glad I rethought that, though, it is a great camera.

In the right hands.....the 40mm is a great lens!!

My 18-35mm f1.8 only autofocuses accurately on my 5D III, which is frustrating...

Meanwhile my 50mm f1.4 Sigma and 17-40mm L focus correctly on everything but. *sigh*

But Sigma's AF is uniquely poor. The 17-40mm L is an anomaly for Canon, usually they focus right.

I bought mine used, it was supposed to have less than 500, but when I checked it had 1300. There were two on Craigslist at the time virtually unused with about 500 actuations. Some people buy cameras they don't need, and just go back to a P&S because they feel more comfortable.

GMCPhotographics said:

tron said:

I would keep the money for the moment. That or I would get the 300mm f/2.8L IS II. It is an excellent sports lens. Also, it is much cheaper and lighter that the 200-400 zoom.

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Earlier in the year, I was on an Irish sea birds workshop. I was the only 400mm f2.8 L IS, mk I...and flippin heavy...but stunning pictures, even If I do say so myself
There was a 600 LIS II and a 500 LIS II, both very good.I think the 600 is a bit better than the mkI. The new 500 is increadibly light and easy to use. There were two 300 LIS II with TC's and again very light and easy to handle, sharp and beautiful optics. It lost a stop vs my 400 when focal matching but could move closer to the subject to get the same framing.
If I was going to do it again, it would be a hard descision between the 300II or 500II. My 400I was mroe flexible with TC's but heavier and a lot harder to handle when tracking large birds...even lugging it abot over the island was seriously hard work! I personally found the 600IIL a bit too long for my likes. I suppose I could chop my 400L in for a 400IIL

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True, the II series are lighter or much lighter! I am not interested for a 300 2.8 (I do have an excellent 300mm f/4L non-IS) or a huge 400 2.8 or 600 4

I got a 500mm f/4L IS II and indeed it is a very good and light (for what it is) lens.

Canon1 said:

I'm not sure which crop camera you currently use, but I find that when I crop a 5DIII to the same FOV as a 1DIV or a 7D that despite having fewer pixels on that same FOV, that the image quality is superior and more detail is retained at all ISO's but primarily at higher ISO's. The 5DIII high ISO noise is much more manageable as well. Crop until your heart's content.

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That was what I thought. I've made my mind now

thanks

Put the dough in the bank and wait for something really nice from Canon.

while i havent shot any firewalks

but this is what i would do

I would think the 430 is enough, use a higher iso to compensate for the flashes lower power, off camera with a remote trigger would be best. consider gels... id do a few WB checks to start to see what works best. I would think you want the overall balance to be quite warm so you dont want to balance the colours and get rid of the warmth if anything you want to punch it up.

lets say they are walking from right to left i would position myself on the left side maybe 1/3rd the way in
have the 430 on a stand to camera left above head height pointing down, and aiming along the walk
this will probably give them some quite contrasty short lighting from the flash and the spooky lighting up from the coals. you dont want to overpower the light from the coals so i'd dial the flash power down try -2 ev to start and tweak it from there i would say to do this well its gonna be iso 3200 or iso 6400 and fast glass.
as you want the amient light to do most of the work and just bring in the speedlight to accentuate things not dominate it.

alternatively a video light on very low power might work and also on very low power it might not ruin the ambiance too much

KyleSTL said:

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this opinion, but don't you think the 70-300mm IS is embarrassingly outdated, especially considering its Nikon equivalent?:

	Canon 70-300mm IS USM	Nikon AF-S 70-300mm VR
Focusing Design	Front focus, extending, rotating, no FTM	Internal focus, FTM
Focusing Motor	Micro USM, noisy, slow	Ring-type SWM, silent, fairly fast
Stabilization	3 stops	4 stops
Year	2005	2006
MSRP	$650 US	$590 US
Street Price	$360 US eBay / $650 US B&H	$420 US eBay / $587 B&H

One could say that Canon did upgrade it by releasing the 70-300mm L, but that is in a whole different price bracket, and shouldn't be compared. It would be like comparing the Canon vs. Nikon 28-300mm lenses; they are clearly in different classes. How has Canon not updated this lens in the past 7 years?

I must say, I miss the fast, quiet and accurate focusing my old 100-300mm USM and 70-210mm USM lenses had; and they were small and light, too. If either of those lenses had IS I would not have considered 'upgrading' to the 70-300mm. I wish Canon would up date this lens to be on par with Nikon and stay in the same price bracket.

I also find it funny that Canon announced this lens alongside the crowd-pleaser 24-105mm L.

By the way, I have used both, as I own the Canon and my dad owned the Nikon (on a D600). The Nikon wins hands-down in overall feel, responsiveness, build quality, etc.

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Save your money and buy a 70-300LIS, it's a fantastic lens and it'll be the last 70-300 you'll buy. It's far better than the 70-200 f4 LIS the 70-300 IS and the Nikon variant. Save patiently and get the best.

dexstrose said:

You check on ebay deals? I see that they have several android tablets for an inexpensive price.

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No, I didn't check that because given the gazillions of different phone/tablet versions and configurations I didn't know what to look for (yet) - but this thread is really helping, so keep it coming ... I won't go for an iWhatever though because I want an Android I can root and an os (Linux) I understand

But from what I've read there are differences with running EOS remote, i.e. older or slower phones stutter or are less smooth when displaying the remote picture?

K. Surapon, I just happened to try these two in a shop where I was spending my hard earned money on some new items. Being of similar size, it obviously comes down to personal preference. As such, I'd give a go to the SL1.

The M is very well build and is nicely designed BUT, for me DSLR shooter, I just can't take photos using the screen. Call me old school but I need the viewfinder to isolate myself and the subject for the composition I like. If you're used to take pix with phones, that should be fine from the screen.

Though I've got rather big hands, I find the SL1 just nice to hold. Nice touch screen, light, inconspicuous, and no need for new lenses as they are already in my bag. I'm in no hurry, but when (and if) the next version comes out (hopefully with the new crop sensor) I'll sell my 60D for this one. Lighter in my pocket and more space for my heavier gear

I copied your greatly reduced unretouched jpeg image and applied the settings you listed in lightroom and uploaded it to my smug mug account. Since this is processing a jpeg image, I'd think it would be worse. If you want to post the original raw image to drop box, I can try it and see.
Obviously, applying the settings you listed to a reduced jpeg does not give the same image.

thanks for the responses the 6d it is

J.R. said:

Canon 14-24 said:

noooo my precious 14-24!!!

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gollum gollum! ;D ;D

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Perhaps your forum handle should be J.R.R.?

My 5DIII was consistently underexposing - so it lives on +1/3 EC... Even then, I still have to give most images at least another +1/3 in post - I really should set it to +2/3... I use my 18% grey for white balance - never heard of the Canon 12% - thanks privatebydesign!

The EOS 100D should have been a mirrorless camera, in my opinion.

3.5-Inch Organic LED Touch Panel Display
Canon has produced its own OLED Displays ?

Whenever I am starting out learning something new, I find my self looking for cooking recipes. Cooking, training for a certain race, fly fishing, photography, you name it ...

But the thing is, there is only so much you can get through a recipe. It can put you on a track, in the right direction, with a fair sense of purpose etc. But when you get there, you need to figure out for yourself what it takes to get That picture taken.

f1.2, f8, f22, tilt&shift, focus stacking, shutter speeds, lighting ... they all have their benefits and issues. And for your specific challenge, the only judge is yourself. Get out there, shoot, fail, change, shoot, fail, change, shoot ... and , provided you are persistent enough, you succeed. And the feeling when you nail it ... indescribable

Yes, The accidental L Series in the world war L
Enjoy.
Surapon

สงครามกล้อง

Pi said:

Marsu42 said:

Since somehow every sensor thread seems to degrade quickly into gibberish and brand fanboyism, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I still don't get how the real world impact of a camera's read noise is.

My current understanding: traditional non-Exmor sensor designs have higher read noise at low iso which also affects max. dynamic range (but this thread isn't about dr). Also read noise doesn't equal banding artifacts, see the lower 7d figures - but this model has higher banding due to the dual readout channels.

sensorgen.info says: @iso 100 / 200 / 400 / 800:
7d: 8.4 / 4.7 / 3.3 / 2.8
60d: 13.2 / 8.4 / 4.4 / 3.2
5d3: 33.1 / 18.2 / 10.6 / 6.1
6d: 26.8 / 14.6 / 7.9 / 5.1

Question: Except for long time astronomy exposures, when (if at all) does this mean that shooting at higher iso might/will give better iq than at the lowest iso setting? Thanks for explaining!

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No. You have lower read noise at higher ISO in absolute units, electrons, not in relative ones like SNR. If you shoot at ISO 200 with the 7D, for example, the saturation level halves, but the read noise almost does but not quite. As a result, you get a slightly higher read noise relative to the signal, and still more shot noise. If the numbers were 16/8/4/..., then the read noise would be the same relative to the signal. With Canon, there are "close" to that, on a log scale, at least, so the read noise stays more or less flat at lower ISOs. With Nikon, it goes up. This does not make the Nikon worse, of course, they just start at a much lower level.

BTW, banding is due not only to multiple readout channels (and I have seen really bad one with defective units) but also to random fluctuations with no apparent pattern (yes, I am talking about pattern noise )

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I remember being frightened by the noise of Nikon D70, and at that time I decided for Canon Rebel XT. Since then, Nikon has evolved more in low ISO, and Canon has evolved at high ISO. I consider that improvements in high ISO really allows me to do some photos today, would not be possible eight years ago. The evolution in low ISO also happened with Canon, though it is not the leader in this area. Frankly, all current cameras seem capable of making great images at ISO 100 or 200. Glad to be able to use ISO 3200 today, if I need to. However, I would like to have available also ISO 50, and even ISO 25 for long exposures.

Around $1000, you can think of getting a canon 70D, see here

serendipidy said:

privatebydesign said:

Steve Erwin really was a very unfortunate accident, stingrays are incredibly docile and rarely use their stinger, even when attacked by sharks. I have taken many nervous divers right up to them and stroked their noses, but you must never, ever, swim over them. I believe that is what happened to him in murky poor visibility water.

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Yes, that was my understanding too. An extremely rare and tragic freak accident. Ironic that after being around deadly snakes and crocs so many times , he was killed by such a docile fish. I watched his show without fail. He was so enthusiastic about nature and such a wonderful person.

"Crikey"!

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Totally agree...sad that he had young kids too.

AF an tracking would have worked better, no questions that's why your keeper rate got better - not saying that you don't have good technique, but I think is safe to assume the without the servo mode and AF itself, your rate might have been lower.
The shots I took at still subjects were fine - anything that was moving or I had to take the shot with short prep time...was not
I find the Zeiss 135 f/2 to be a wonderful lens, but not for street photography - so my fault, not the lens
Yes, I would still buy if I did not have a 80-200 2.8L which for me works better in street photography.
[/quote]

I totally agree with you Phil regarding moving targets, manual focus and my experience with the 85 1.2 II. The few times that I have tried to manual focus on a moving target have usually been a disaster -- manual focus on a static subject not too bad.....getting off a shot with short prep time -- also very very difficult with MF on the 85.

I guess my main reason for considering the Zeiss would be for shots that I have reasonable time to prep for rather than the impromptu shots that are usually required in street photography