Help: Cheap FF or high end Crop for next body?

[Botts]

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?

Thanks for any advice and help you can offer.

I upgraded to the 6D, and I miss my 17-55/2.8 IS.

You'll get a 1-stop advantage using the FF body from an ISO perspective, but it may take some learning to realize that you don't can't shoot at 1/8 anymore.

If you go with a f/4 IS lens, you can still shoot at the slow shutter speeds, with a stop higher ISO. That said, I'm looking at the Tamron 24-70/2.8 VC fairly closely and it might be a good fit. I'd trade some sharpness to drop a stop in ISO over the f/4 IS.

Also: noticed you're like me with the tripod habit of not carrying it. That's one of the reasons I like IS/VC/OS. I'd seriously consider IS despite it narrowing the lens options.

 

[M.ST]

The best is to have a FF and a APS-C camera body.

If you often need a focal lenght of 500 mm and higher then buy a APS-C camera. The lenses for FF are to expensive.

If you only need super wide lenses up to the medium telephoto lenses then get a FF camera.

If you have a FF camera add a APS-C camera body to your gear instead using TC´s.

 

[elflord]

For example, the minimum focus distance is the same for a given lens whether you're full frame or crop, so the mfd for a given effective focal length is generally smaller for a crop (to put it another way, at magnification of 1x, an object 36mm wide fills a ff sensor, but an object 22.5mm wide fills an APS-C)

You usually have to stop down a long way to get enough dof with macro, so the extra dof in APS is a plus.

That's having your cake and eating it, too. The 'deeper DoF of APS-C' applies when you're talking about identical framing, meaning a greater subject distance with APS-C. When you're comparing APS-C to FF at 1:1, the APS-C frames a smaller subject and gives a shallower DoF - that's two advantages to FF, right there.

I don't see how these are really advantages to full frame. Let's go through the scenarios.

(1) you are not distance limited (that is, you can compose the shot you want on full frame without cropping). On APS-C you can stand further back and get the same shot which means more DOF.

(2) you are distance limited on both full frame and crop. That is, you need to crop in both formats to get the desired composition. This is the scenario you are suggesting that you get more DOF in full frame. But actually, in both cases you need to crop to an area that corresponds to a smaller region of the sensor than APS-C. As far as DOF formulas go, the right circle of confusion to use is that corresponding to the subset of the sensor whose pixels are used for the final image. So DOF is the same for both formats in this case, and APS-C puts more pixels on the subject.

(3) in the intermediate case, where APS-C is not distance limited but FF is (and therefore has to crop), it is almost the same as case (1), except that some subset of the FF sensor is used -- so it's analogous to APS-H versus APS-C. In this case, you still get greater dof with the crop, but you also put a moderately reduced number of pixels on the subject.

So I don't see where the scenario is under which FF really wins (or really has more dof for the same composition)

 

[curby]

I upgraded to the 6D, and I miss my 17-55/2.8 IS.

Well, crap: http://www.canonrumors.com/2012/12/ef-24-70-f2-8l-is-exists-as-a-working-prototype-cr2/

I'm not sure I can wait until 2014 to upgrade.

Also: noticed you're like me with the tripod habit of not carrying it. That's one of the reasons I like IS/VC/OS. I'd seriously consider IS despite it narrowing the lens options.

Yup. If I were a pro and were paid to have "serious" equipment around, and I regularly went out with the primary goal of shooting photographs (rather than other goals such as seeing the sights or having fun with family), and I didn't have foot issues, I'd be more inclined to carry more gear. And just to be clear, it's not just the weight but the size, as well as time and floor space needed to set up/break down support equipment, that really adds up. Monopods help with some of those issues, but IMO not enough.

Thanks again for the ideas, everyone. 2013 will be an interesting year for my gear bag, I can tell.

 

[tortilla]

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?

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).