You might take a look at the Canon G15 too. A good P&S with some customizable features if the user wants to use them. Several of my pro friends, myself included [altho I'm not a pro], use them when they don't want to drag the "big one" around.

Good luck, and let us know what you decide.

Zen

So, I sent the lens into Canon, and they said there would be no cost for the repair, as it was covered by the warranty. I had purchased it refurbished and I had thought that refurbished lenses only had 90 day warranties. It was purchased in March, so we're definitely outside of the warranty coverage at least as I understood it.

Nevertheless, I didn't argue with them and after about a week and a half at their repair facility, they are now sending the lens back to me. Hopefully it's fixed up and all is well.

Thank you all again for your replies!

So..... I ordered an 8-15mm fisheye!!!!!!

B&H had a great deal ($1139+ free overnight shipping). It arrives on Christmas Eve before 1030 a.m.

Part of the problem was due to your hands were shaking up and down. You were not using an IS lens. IS lens is a must for hand-held video.

Basti187 said:

neuroanatomist said:

Basti187 said:

just calibrated my 5dm3 with focal plus as I noticed that my shots are being far from sharp.

had EV of 6-7

100-400mm W+6 T+13
24-105mm W+5 T+15

That is quite hardcore isn't it? Btw does +1 stand for 1mm or cm?

Click to expand...

First off, I'd add light and try again. Your results may be ok, but IIRC FoCal recommends at least EV 8, and they used to recommend EV 10.

Each unit if AFMA represents 1/8 of the depth of focus for that lens at max aperture, so the absolute value actually depends on the lens. So, if you need +8 or -8, you're off by a full depth of focus. Note that depth of focus is related to depth of field, but is measured at the sensor, so the units are actually down in the micrometer range of physical distance.

Click to expand...

Interesting! Well I was unhappy with the unsharp photos from my 5dm3 so as I said I calibrated it last night, but I went out today taking photos of wolves and again the photos don't come out sharp :/ it is very frustrating! I will try to calibrate again tomorrow with adding some daylight to it. What also wonders me is that for example I used my 100-400 on the t2i and got some amazing sharp shots whilst on my 5dm3 it is just not. I tried all kind of different AF settings...but I will calibrate again with more light and report back!

Click to expand...

Please read my post above...

Swiggen said:

Many thanks. Very helpful

Click to expand...

Sorry neglected to say this would be a 5D mk III......so I expect that would have a bearing on it.

My main interests are candid portraits of family and kids (hence low light uses but also interest in reach from crop) and landscapes.

So I am trying to have my cake and eat it or have my reach and high ISO!

As I have 3x origional 5d bodies which work well for my wedding photog buisness, I need to replace a 580ex flash & would like to use the new 600ex, it will be only used on the hotshoe but I am wondering if 200th flash sync & TTL ext still function as normal. This way when I update to Mk3 ext the flash will be able to be more compatable.

any advise is appreciated. I have looked online but all threads seem to refer to 5dMk2 / 600ex function compatability. Cheers Pete

mrcrsr said:

I have almost $9000 left for spending on some canon gear

what would you suggest to buy?

I have got:
2 x 1DX
5DMKII
60D
24-70 L 2.8 II
70-200 L 2.8 II IS
24-105 L 4.0 IS
70-200 L 4.0 IS
17-40 L 4.0
100 2.8 L Macro

some speedlites and some other small things.

Click to expand...

I would first sell these:

5DMKII
60D
24-105 L 4.0 IS
70-200 L 4.0 IS

and sell this when the IS version comes out (and buy the IS version as a replacement):

24-70 L 2.8 II

Then I would buy some new glass like the 300 2.8 or maybe something even longer depending on how much money you have left.

So I'll be shooting a couple weddings in March and I'm starting to think about gear for it. While the wedding I did in early December was with two full frame cameras, my wife was one of the brides maids so I was able to have both cameras with me with one having my 24-105 and the other a rented 70-200. My question is this. Do I need to rent a normal range zoom to make sure I don't miss shots? I'll give my wife the 24-105 so I'll at least have some fall back there. I normally use the 70-200 for most of the ceremony and a good part of the reception as well. The main things I'm thinking of are the cake cutting and wide shots of people dancing where you need something wide. My thoughts are either #1, use my 40 2.8 lens for this. I always have a hard time using this lens just cause of it's low price yet it's a very nice lens so maybe it's just in my head and that would a good option. The other possibility would be to rent the Canon 35 1.4 like I did for this last wedding and have that for my wider angle option. I'm only wanting to rent one wide aperture lens though and I'm trying to decide between this and the Sigma 85 1.4. Now one other thing that factors in and is part the reason I'm wondering if I can get by without renting a normal range zoom is I also still have my 50D which I can either have ready to go with my Sigma 10-20 or Tamron 17-50 as a backup as well. Full frame is obviously a lot nicer though so I wouldn't want to be using it more than I'm using the full frame or else what's the purpose in renting the full frame camera then? So any thoughts on this? Thanks

bycostello said:

unless you can get everyone to calibrate their monitors etc.. colour balance will never be 100%

Click to expand...

This is exactly right. There is nothing you can do, even with all the embedded profiles in the world, to make your pictures look the way you want them to look on other people's monitors. That is the way the internet is. Just like web pages do not define "page numbers," color on the internet is a relative thing.

There is a way that you can see how it will turn out when posted into contests, etc., at least on your own computer screen. First, make sure you export your jpegs using sRGB color. Then use something like the jpeg/png stripper: http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=30 to remove all non-image data from your exported jpegs. Use File > Open to open the jpeg files in your browser. The result, except for compression, will be same as the images will look when viewed online in a photo contest, etc.

If your pictures are looking that bad when entered into a photo contest, it would help to know what you mean by bad. Are they looking dark? Sometimes images created on Macs with a gamma of 1.8 look dark when viewed on Windows with a gamma of 2.2.

Schruminator said:

For my 14L I just picked up an ND gelatin filter from B&H. It set me back a pretty penny, but the first few shots I have done with it seem to have turned out great. The thin plastic sheet (gelatin, whatever) is large enough to cut half a dozen filters out of it. This way if you screw one up down the road, you can always make another.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=nd+gelatin&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=

Click to expand...

I will read it and see how many stops the different ones offer. Thanks

Update!

The Eye-Fi people have released a new version of their app for I-pad and related platforms. I tried it on my I-pad and found that the images from my 5D3 now display almost immediately on the full I-Pad screen.

I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate around the I-Pad app to see and manage my photos. It certainly is not intuitive!

DxO have this to say about it:

"This Sigma lens scores higher than any other lens in its focal length, including many that are much more expensive, and is among the highest, for sharpness, of any tested by DxOMark on a Canon body."

ET

1. There are a few about, some are purely landscape, others are more travel. The one that immediately springs to mind in the UK is Take a View: Landscape Photographer of the Year. While it was tarnished this year due to an apparent inability to ensure that people follow the clear rules of entry, it still remains the highest profile one I'm aware of. It is open to photographers worldwide, but the photograph must be taken in the UK. It has the added advantage if you are looking for some exposure of publishing a book with all the commended entries, with web address of the photographer.
2. You have to read the rules carefully with any competitions and then make a judgement. Some competitions (thankfully they now seem to be in the minority) state that copyright of all images is transferred or they have full commercial licencing rights, allowing them to make money out of any of the photographs without any recompense. Most of the high profile ones state that they will use images to promote the competition only. Many of these high profile ones (such as Take a View) also publish a book, with the potential of publicity for the photographers. Anyone entering has to decide whethet the potential gains are worth accepting the rules for.

color negatives are based on the very same silver halide crystals that B&W negatives are. the only difference is that in color negatives there are 3 layers of silver halide crystals suspended in gelatin dyes (Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow).

if your intent is to reclaim the silver, then theoretically color negatives would have more than B&W negatives. how much more would highly depend on how much silver remained after processing (which would also be dependent upon exposure of each frame). i imagine it may be more beneficial to try and reclaim silver from unprocessed rolls of film as all the silver would remain in those rolls of film.

on another note, i am not aware of a reliable process to reclaim silver from physical rolls of film, whether it be processed or unprocessed. the reclamation processes i was familiar with always involved extracting the silver that remained in the used chemistry after development.

furthermore, it was never described to me as a financially beneficial endeavor to reclaim the silver, rather most labs and darkrooms did it for environmental reasons. in a situation where you have a high end lab running massive amounts of film through processing, the value of the reclaimed silver could reach a significant level and thus make it financial worthwhile in some respect.

finally, the reclaimed silver (as i understand it) is still not in a state that would be of interest to most involved with precious metals. i imagine additional chemical treatment would have to take place to get the material on par with true silver prices, but i would defer to a chemists opinion on that matter.

any chem nerds on the forums that could shed some light on the different chemical states of silver and the processes involved in transforming it into something of value?

I have no problems at all has anyone ever tried to use live view and focus with the af button on an 7D?
Works with a 100-400 and a 2x converter. in poor light it will hunt some but it will focus.

don't consider shooting out of the hand btw use a tripod for the 1280mm u are using....
u can make excellent pictures of the moon like this

Dennis

Well, the OP here (me) has ordered a 6D. It arrives tomorrow. I had no real need for 61 AF points and multiple movement-type AF settings. My kids couldn't possibly move that fast or erratically, and I don't care enough about birds and stuff to spend $1,000 bucks on them. (what have they ever done for me?)
I might still have bought the 5D3 anyway but for the fact it is also perhaps worse at the one thing I know I DO care about, which would be AF and noise in dim light on the center AF point. I shoot indoors in a lattitude where the winter is fairly long. See all the posts about "5D3 + AF assist = even slower AF", etc....

I've got it, did quite a bit research between focus tune and focal...focus tune just made more sense to me since it was cheaper, and it works very very well. So far I've used it on two 7d's and my 5dm3 with fantastic results.

Gives awesome feedback, graphs and makes dialing in afma perfectly

I just got the vello battery grip for the 5d mkii and so far no problems. have not had to remove the grip for any reason.

things i did notice... the battery door can move slightly. doesn't cause a problem, just wiggles a very small bit.
also the grip doesn't fit "PERFECTLY" but again, doesn't cause a problem. moves just very slightly. I dont think the grip will last as long as the canon version, but it works and feels solid enough.

You might try squaretrade.com. I have used them for cell phone warranties before and they were great.

Enrico said:

And another thing worth pointing out (that you praobably knew) is that the DOF - Depth of Field gets alot narrower on a FF like 5D3 than on a crop body.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's only true if you have the same field of view, because then you are either using a longer focal length or are closer than if you were using a crop sensor camera. If you are standing in the same place with the same lens (which is likely in a gym/sports arena), then full frame actually has greater depth of field.

I've seen these sold as a cinema kit that usually contains:
21mm
28mm
35mm
50mm
85mm

I'd personally go:
21mm f/2.8
25mm f/2
35mm f/2
50mm f/2
85mm f/1.4
100mm f/2

I have the 21, 50 and 100 and absolutely love them. But I've heard the 25mm is one of the most impressive out of all of them, definitely worth looking at but may be a little close to 21mm for you. The 35mm f/1.4 has better bokeh than the 35mm f/2, but the f/2 is as sharp or sharper, really stellar lens. I think the Sigma 35 may be worth looking at at this point though.

If you're on a budget, I'd say the 21, 35, 50 and 85 would be a good starting point.

lexonio said:

It's awesome that you can assign the preview DOF button a function to change to AI Servo, but even when you perss it the camera remains in One Shot Mode. Is there a convenient way to immediately switch not only to the Servo, but also to a burst shooting mode?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

You have to hold down the DOF preview button to stay in AI-Servo. If you press and release it'll go back to One Shot.

And you can stay in burst mode in both, just change your setting to one of the burst mode settings, that's independent of the AF mode.

I have to say that a new update L lens within one or two year range of the current model is too fast. I just ordered Mark II yesterday and see this rumor. Of course I can sell it when a new model announced like I am selling my mark I right now. But if I have to do it within 2 years, of course I do not feel good. The good thing is it is only a rumor. We never know when until it ship. I know businessman are way smarter than I am. If you have to take pictures, buy the current model now.

curby said:

How does the noise compare on something like a 60D with 17-55/2.8 IS, vs. a 6D with 24-70/4 IS? If the 6D has to go up in ISO to compensate for the smaller aperture, will the resulting noise generally be more or less than the crop body at a lower ISO? How about a 7D instead of a 60D? In short, how does the low light benefit of going FF compare to the loss of a stop in aperture?

Click to expand...

I'm pretty much in the same situation like you and I compared test images from dpreview.com between 7D and 5D MK II. It all depends on if you shoot in raw or JPG. At low ISO the 5D MK II is in raw about one stop better than the 7D. With JPG it's about 2 stops better, the 5D MK III even 3 stops (I suppose comparing 60D and 6D will have similar results).

So in terms of noise, when you shoot raw and you'll loose one stop because of a slower FF-lens - then it doesn't matter if you shoot FF or crop. You'll gain one stop through the sensor and loose one through the lens.

But FF has still the advantage of being sharper (depending on factors like lens-quality, aperture etc). Then there are the differenes in DoF and focal length between Crop and FF, which can be a plus or a disadvantage depending on the situation. Generall disadvantages of FF are weight and cost (that said, the 6d body is by the way even lighter then the 7d body).