Samyang is the only one with an aperture ring,but I'd really buy one lens than an array of primes
Just a personal choice

Absolutely nothing with regards to the 20mm on Voigtlaenderrumors.com

TexPhoto said:

The 600 II includes feet? Not just foot? Who knew?

If one of you guys owns a camera, why not post a photo. It's worth 1000 words from what I've been told.

Click to expand...

The TDP review of the lens mentions the monopod foot, and even has a nice picture of it...

RustyTheGeek said:

Well, if I count just the 2012 images, I get 27, 053. Wow. No wonder the wife has been bitching at me to get more done around the house! I guess it's possible she's right! Grumble.....

On the positive side, at least I have a few more years left on the shutters!

Click to expand...

Funny stuff Rusty

LetTheRightLensIn said:

dilbert said:

Many people (including myself) thought that the 5D3 would use 3x3 binning for video.

It doesn't.

Click to expand...

Then how come it doesn't have the nasty moire of the 5D2 and 6D?

It is a bit soft, but I'm guessing that is because the AA filter was designed for 1x1 single photosite sizes for stills and doesn't help any for 3x3 blocks so they do a little AA in software to mush away some of the aliasing from that??? Not really sure though.

Click to expand...

As a bayer sensor has 2x2 blocks to give the full colour info - one red, one blue and the two green, a 5D mk III 3x3 block downsampled into one video pixel, while better than what could be downsampled from a 21 or 20MP sensor (hence their use of pixel binning), it's not ideal. A multiple of 2x2 is theoretically much better, such as the 39.3MP 4x4 downsample.

I would have guessed some sort of of merging of the resulting pixels occurs in software, probably to do with compensating for the inconsistent colour info across each 3x3 block.

We have 2 5d2 bodies - love and will use them until they die

This isn't the sort of thing you hear every day. Surprise us big time, Canon!

Nice, considered review Ramon. I have the 85 f/1.2 II and had the 135 f/1.2 at the same time for a couple of years. My impression of the two was that the 85 had a little more "magic' that is hard to define, but that the 135 had a kind of relentless sharpness that was quite good for its speed and focal length.

As to build, my 85 came flawless out of the box and I haven't noticed anything negative - no mechanical weakness, unintentional disassembly or dust problems. As to focusing, yes, it's slow, but, as others have mentioned, the focus motor has to move a group of very heavy lens elements. In any case, hardly anyone seriously buys this lens for fast-moving low light sports (a few diehards to the contrary). Its best use is for slow considered portraiture and even some specially rendered product shots and other miscellany, all done in a style where ultimate focus speed is almost irelevant.

I find its bokeh to be impeccable, but I hardly ever shoot this lens tight at f1.2 (maybe for an occasional half- or full-body shot), due to its insanely narrow depth of focus; if your subject so much as twitches, your f/1.2 shot will be a mess of misplaced focus. I find that f/1.6 is a great aperture for my purposes with f/2.0 being not much less attractive. At f/2.8, you might as well be using less expensive glass, although this lens is still quite amazing through f/4.0, compared to most others. It's not just sharpness, it 's also the "character" of the image: a combination of designed-in flaws and aberrations from the purposeful trade-off demanded by such a wide maximum aperture, its bokeh, its color, its contrast and the super-high center resolution along with dimiinshed edge and corner results. This is supposed to be, above all else, a portrait lens, and all these characteristics make it a great one. For instance, when taking a good head and shoulders picture, it is the central area of the subjects face, around the eyes, that benefits from great sharpness, not the tips of the subjects' shoulders on the edge of the picture.

When I have to quickly shoot a lot of portraits of a lot of people, as in a day of corporate "gang" shooting on location at some headquarters conference room, I always use my brilliant 70-200 f/2.8 IS II. It get's the job done perfectly, and you can somewhat make up for f/2.8 bokeh by using a longer focal length when possible. But for those occasions when I can take my time to get a really impressive single "portrait" picture, I like to use the 85, and slowly vary the focus to see what I can make of the very narrow band of focus that it affords me. For this, there is absolutely no substitute.

All in all, a terrific lens I will keep indefinitely.

Regards,
David

Expect some new equipment announcements on the 8th. Their announcement of a presence at CES is carefully worded to avoid tipping off anyone about new products.

expatinasia said:

gkaefer said:

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A3PDXmYoF5U#

Click to expand...

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Must be one of the very best marketing videos I have ever seen. It is long, but I watched it all, and I want one!! I have no idea what I would do with it, but it definitely has that cool factor! I am really looking forward to GoPro 4 coming out I can watch that marketing video.

Click to expand...

lol +1 - sure would have liked to have a gopro3 back when I was young enough to do crazy things rather than just document them
Granted, the OP might be trolling and granted, the GoPro is a one trick pony, but what a trick...
Only little more than 10 years ago, a 10$ dispossable camera seemed like such luxury faced with the alternative of absolutely NO way of documenting our epic failings in the alps...
oh well.... blabla and then some, when one resorts to reading these posts its too late or too bored better put the cap back on the bottle and hit the sack

Viggo said:

Well, it's not exactly the same, but I had decided I wouldn't buy another lens for quite some time, but saw a a 70-200 f2.8 L for $360 and just bought it, who would pass? ;D

Click to expand...

Where exactly did you find that deal? I'd cal that a "once in a lifetime" find.

Videoshooter said:

Then I'll see a tourist shooting video with their camera sideways, and I realise that everything is going to be fine!

Click to expand...

LOL

Axilrod said:

Use ISO's in multiples of 160 when possible

Click to expand...

I seem to remember something about this NOT being a fully reliable rule of thumb?
Anyways, Consider getting a picturestyle profile for video as well. When/If you get into more serious PP, you can benefit greatly from shooting with a flat profile (such as the CineStyle). Others (like the Marvell profile) are less flat and give a more pleasing result out-of-camera while still retaining some room for grading. It can be a little discouraging at first though, to browse through endless flat footage that youøll never bother grading
One of the perks of the Magic Lantern is that it alows you to use 2 profiles: 1 for what you see on the LCD, the other for the actual file. This can be very handy for ppl like me who lack visual imagination
Other than that, IS is great, simple accessories like shoulder rigs & LCD-VF Loupes are dirt cheap, ML rocks, convertible non-AF primes are cheap and so on and so forth - happy shooting!

dswatson83 said:

I just felt like Canon didn't even challenge themselves with the 35mm f/2. What prime doesn't look good at f/2, how hard is it to put IS in a prime if you can easily do it in zooms, and then lets charge double the amount as typically charged for this type of lens.

Click to expand...

How did they not "challenge themselves" with the 35/2 IS? The new lens is dramatic improvement over the original 35/2 —
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=824&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=122&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

What prime lens doesn't look good at f/2? How about the original Canon 35/2? How about the Canon 28/1.8? How about the Sigma 20/1.8? How about the Nikon 35/2? Just look at the fuzzy corners on those lenses. The new Canon 35/2 IS is a dramatic improvement over those lenses.

The new Sigma 35/1.4 looks outstanding, but it's a much bigger and heavier lens that offers an extra stop of light. It's a direct competitor to the 35L, not to the new 35/2 IS. Not everyone is looking for the biggest, heaviest 35mm lens they can find. Canon has a unique offering with the 35/2 IS.

My 1D X came with Canon's 'randomly-distributed narrow aperture diffraction test pattern', and they didn't even charge extra. A blower didn't help, but my Arctic Butterfly 724 Super Bright removed the 'feature'.

lifilmmaker said:

Has anyone ever experienced a grinding sound when shooting video with the T3i?

Click to expand...

I have shot video with the 60D and the 5DII. On both cameras you can hear the IS. My solution is to turn off IS if using the internal mic, or the better solution, get an external mic. Just about any external mike will beat the in-camera mic. The key thing to look for is some form of isolation from the mic stand, or if hotshoe mounted, from the camera body. The lower picture shows details of a hotshoe mount... the green line points to the hotshoe mount, the red lines point to the elastics used to isolate the microphone from the mount, and the blue lines point to hair shed by Fluffy the cat. (cat hair is optional).

HoneyBadger said:

I am not going to put much faith on that test. First, both lenses need to be taken at the same focal length. Second, they should use a full frame so corner sharpness can be determined

Click to expand...

they have tested at the same focal lengths. of course they included the 105mm too.
you have to watch and understand the review video.

if you read the website, they are working on a FF review.

Who legitimately tests an L series lens on a cropped sensor anyways...?

Click to expand...

photozone for example.. and i did not hear complains about it.... :

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos

i think they may had a bad sample. but that gives me not much faith either.
as roger mentioned the 70mm end showed quite a lot of variation.

SDHC Cards seldom write at more than 10 MB/sec once they have been used. The figures on Roger Gailbrathe's page only apply to a newly erased card, and that is not the same as a formatted card, its a low level format that can take 30 minutes or more. The 5D MK III can do a low level format on a SD card, but its a battery eater.
On the other hand, CF cards will write much faster, even if they have been used and filled with data.
Since the slowest card to write is going to limit you when writing to both cards, except for the unusual case of totally blank cards, 10 MB/sec is the most common limit.

Right from the beginning my 7d, 2 months old with firmware 2.0.3 had the freezing problem. No action possible after it went in sleep mode. Have to take the battery out. Is in repair now. So it is not true that the newest firmware tackles this problem, although canon claims that the version 2.0.3. "fixes a phenomenon in which the camera stops working when the auto power off setting takes effect.". No way!!! I think it is about time that canon solves this problem now for once and for all. It's really annoying that I had tot take back my 7d after 2 months.

Thanks for your input! I'm gonna either stick with center point or setup orientation-linked for portrait & landscape which both are NOT center. I'll compare my images over the w/e. But i definitely agree with u regarding having enough to worry about, LOL! My prob lately (& not even sure if it is one) but i actually FORGET that my camera has any other mode than M....i used to always shoot on AV or TV & since M i NEVER switch! Maybe ill try this too?

I've never used the MkI, but the MkII is stellar. TDP's charts show that I can put a 1.4x extender behind the MkII and still have better IQ than the MkI.

Also, I really like the convenience of being able to change the tilt and shift axes relative to one another on the fly. Having used it, I would not want a TS-E lens without that capability.

bdunbar79 said:

Oh lighten up everybody.

Click to expand...

Ha. Not a good idea unless we own Nikons, apparently....

I guess I'm lucky that my aesthetic preferences prevent me from pushing the dark areas of photos I take with my 5DII to the extent that I can see banding. (Nor could I see any difference in this regard between the 6D and D600 when I rented them last weekend.)

See the comparison in features
http://t4ivst3i.com

I remember us hoping that canon would use some line skipping tech in the 5D3 to make the video sharp like picture...too bad that never happened.

Thanks guys, both things worked.

Great low angle light this time of year for several hours. Hope you enjoy!