Canon 40D to 5D Classic. Good upgrade?

[Alrik89]

I shoot classic cars, landscapes, cityscapes and people. I have shown my car images to a few galleries in the past month and have show them 12x18" images on 16x20" paper and they all told me I need to go bigger print wise. I had one person visibly disappointed saying he wish he could print one of my 40D images to 20x30" but he knows it would look like crap.

Conclusion: You've never been making a 20x30"-print
Recommendation: Make a 20x30"-print and see the result. Then make your decision.

 

[pulseimages]

I shoot classic cars, landscapes, cityscapes and people. I have shown my car images to a few galleries in the past month and have show them 12x18" images on 16x20" paper and they all told me I need to go bigger print wise. I had one person visibly disappointed saying he wish he could print one of my 40D images to 20x30" but he knows it would look like crap.

Conclusion: You've never been making a 20x30"-print
Recommendation: Make a 20x30"-print and see the result. Then make your decision.

You mean make a 20x30''print from my 40D? At that size and at 300 dpi I know it will look like crap.

 

[Alrik89]

I shoot classic cars, landscapes, cityscapes and people. I have shown my car images to a few galleries in the past month and have show them 12x18" images on 16x20" paper and they all told me I need to go bigger print wise. I had one person visibly disappointed saying he wish he could print one of my 40D images to 20x30" but he knows it would look like crap.

Conclusion: You've never been making a 20x30"-print
Recommendation: Make a 20x30"-print and see the result. Then make your decision.

You mean make a 20x30''print from my 40D? At that size and at 300 dpi I know it will look like crap.

Hmmm... i thought, only another person does know it and you don't.
And as you said: it depends on the viewing distance. They guy above mentioned, his clients are sticking their noses close to the poster.
What are your clients doing?

 

[pulseimages]

I shoot classic cars, landscapes, cityscapes and people. I have shown my car images to a few galleries in the past month and have show them 12x18" images on 16x20" paper and they all told me I need to go bigger print wise. I had one person visibly disappointed saying he wish he could print one of my 40D images to 20x30" but he knows it would look like crap.

Conclusion: You've never been making a 20x30"-print
Recommendation: Make a 20x30"-print and see the result. Then make your decision.

You mean make a 20x30''print from my 40D? At that size and at 300 dpi I know it will look like crap.

Hmmm... i thought, only another person does know it and you don't.
And as you said: it depends on the viewing distance. They guy above mentioned, his clients are sticking their noses close to the poster.
What are your clients doing?

The same thing. Even I do it when I see a photograph hanging on the wall. I can't tell you how many big printed images I have seen up close on a wall that makes me think who are they kidding with this sub par quality.

 

[Alrik89]

The same thing. Even I do it when I see a photograph hanging on the wall. I can't tell you how many big printed images I have seen up close on a wall that makes me think who are they kidding with this sub par quality.

And then you think, the 10% more pixels on the length and on the width of your poster (12.8 MP vs 10.1MP) will make you happy?

 

[dtaylor]

The same thing. Even I do it when I see a photograph hanging on the wall. I can't tell you how many big printed images I have seen up close on a wall that makes me think who are they kidding with this sub par quality.

The 5Dc is not going to provide a significant IQ boost over the 40D. It will be sharper out of camera (but not after post work), it will yield a bit more detail, and less noise at upper ISOs. But that's it. Nor does it have the pixels for a 30" print of challenging subject matter (i.e. landscape) critically viewed at a close distance. I'm not saying such a print would be bad. But if you're as picky as you claim, you will want more.

I consider Canon's 18 MP crop and 21 MP FF sensors to be 24" print sensors given those conditions. And yes, I do regularly print 20" and 24" from an Epson 3880. They're still good at 30", but at that point you start to cross over into territory where higher resolution sensors (or stitched images) are clearly better.

Again, this is for critically reviewed prints of subject matter with challenging fine detail. If you have less challenging subject matter or viewing conditions, then you can go larger. For example, even the 8 MP generation could produce great 1-2 person portrait prints at 24-30".

If you must have FF, save your pennies and get a current >20 MP FF body. If you're fine with crop, get whatever 18 MP body you can afford. (Bummer being this generation sensor is due for replacement. But it's still quite good.)

 

[paul13walnut5]

I have two 40D bodies and I'm planning on selling one of them. For lenses I have the EF-S 10-22, EF 17-40 L, EF 28-80 L, EF 70-200 2.8 L and EF 100 2.8 Macro. So I have the glass to migrate to Full Frame.

You don't. The 17-40 is just about acceptable on APS-C. I say just about because I sold mine when I got an 18-55 is kit lens that outperformed it. Seriously. I have never used it on full frame, but do read some reviews before you think it is a lens suitable for a full frame camera:

http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/427-canon_1740_4_5d?start=2
http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/31/cat/all (check out the full frame results)

Remember what I said about the 5D needing great glass, and remember that you want to print it large. You can make your own call, but I don't think these discerning clients are going to be happy with a full frame image printed very large from the 17-40.

Re: can the 40D print big enough. Print it and see. Got to be cheaper than blindly buying a new body. It's great to take opinions, but other folk, including me, aren't always right...

 

[pulseimages]

The same thing. Even I do it when I see a photograph hanging on the wall. I can't tell you how many big printed images I have seen up close on a wall that makes me think who are they kidding with this sub par quality.

The 5Dc is not going to provide a significant IQ boost over the 40D. It will be sharper out of camera (but not after post work), it will yield a bit more detail, and less noise at upper ISOs. But that's it. Nor does it have the pixels for a 30" print of challenging subject matter (i.e. landscape) critically viewed at a close distance. I'm not saying such a print would be bad. But if you're as picky as you claim, you will want more.

I consider Canon's 18 MP crop and 21 MP FF sensors to be 24" print sensors given those conditions. And yes, I do regularly print 20" and 24" from an Epson 3880. They're still good at 30", but at that point you start to cross over into territory where higher resolution sensors (or stitched images) are clearly better.

Again, this is for critically reviewed prints of subject matter with challenging fine detail. If you have less challenging subject matter or viewing conditions, then you can go larger. For example, even the 8 MP generation could produce great 1-2 person portrait prints at 24-30".

If you must have FF, save your pennies and get a current >20 MP FF body. If you're fine with crop, get whatever 18 MP body you can afford. (Bummer being this generation sensor is due for replacement. But it's still quite good.)

OK, so does the 6D have advantages over the 60D when it comes to printing big prints? I thought FF is the best way to go over APS-C when printing big prints for galleries.

 

[G-V]

The same thing. Even I do it when I see a photograph hanging on the wall. I can't tell you how many big printed images I have seen up close on a wall that makes me think who are they kidding with this sub par quality.

The 5Dc is not going to provide a significant IQ boost over the 40D. It will be sharper out of camera (but not after post work), it will yield a bit more detail, and less noise at upper ISOs. But that's it. Nor does it have the pixels for a 30" print of challenging subject matter (i.e. landscape) critically viewed at a close distance. I'm not saying such a print would be bad. But if you're as picky as you claim, you will want more.

I consider Canon's 18 MP crop and 21 MP FF sensors to be 24" print sensors given those conditions. And yes, I do regularly print 20" and 24" from an Epson 3880. They're still good at 30", but at that point you start to cross over into territory where higher resolution sensors (or stitched images) are clearly better.

Again, this is for critically reviewed prints of subject matter with challenging fine detail. If you have less challenging subject matter or viewing conditions, then you can go larger. For example, even the 8 MP generation could produce great 1-2 person portrait prints at 24-30".

If you must have FF, save your pennies and get a current >20 MP FF body. If you're fine with crop, get whatever 18 MP body you can afford. (Bummer being this generation sensor is due for replacement. But it's still quite good.)

OK, so does the 6D have advantages over the 60D when it comes to printing big prints? I thought FF is the best way to go over APS-C when printing big prints for galleries.

Of course the 6D has an advantage - it's FF plus it has a much better sensor.

 

[drmikeinpdx]

I used to use a 5D/40D pairing but replaced them last year with a 5D3/7D pairing.

Same here. I'll say that once I got the 5D, my 40D got very little use. I basically kept it around as a backup body and for any situation that required fast shooting, like sports. Unfortunately, I never shoot sports! I really did not get my money's worth out of that 40D.

Even after I got the 7D, the 5D classic was still my preferred camera until I was able to buy a 5D3. I hope to keep the Mark 3 forever.

I complained a lot about the crappy autofocus on the 5Dc. It was inconsistent and lacked AMFA. Drove me crazy trying to do shallow DOF shots with fast, non-L primes. If you generally used something like a 24-105, that would not be an issue.

 

[dtaylor]

You don't. The 17-40 is just about acceptable on APS-C. I say just about because I sold mine when I got an 18-55 is kit lens that outperformed it.

You had a bad 17-40L.

 

[dtaylor]

OK, so does the 6D have advantages over the 60D when it comes to printing big prints? I thought FF is the best way to go over APS-C when printing big prints for galleries.

At low to mid ISO with proper post processing? No. Not really. People will argue with me, but I'll take that bet any day. You're not going to be able to discern unlabeled, properly processed 24" or even 30" prints from both.

High ISO? Yes, definitely. No amount of processing will close the gap there.

T/S lenses or fast wide primes? Yes again. Those lenses work best on FF.

Outside of that? No.

 

[Sporgon]

OK, so does the 6D have advantages over the 60D when it comes to printing big prints? I thought FF is the best way to go over APS-C when printing big prints for galleries.

At low to mid ISO with proper post processing? No. Not really. People will argue with me, but I'll take that bet any day. You're not going to be able to discern unlabeled, properly processed 24" or even 30" prints from both.

High ISO? Yes, definitely. No amount of processing will close the gap there.

T/S lenses or fast wide primes? Yes again. Those lenses work best on FF.

Outside of that? No.

I agree with what you have said here 100%.

However there is another issue to be taken into account if you are wanting to achieve optimum results in certain circumstances.

Where aps and ff produce identical results ( with the exceptions you have pointed out) is when the primary subject or point of focus is large within the frame. However once you start to produce landscape pictures for example, where fine detail is very small within the frame you cannot beat the fact that the larger the size of the initial capture, the better the end result - in critical terms. This is why a 5D 'c' shooting at 100 ISO will produce a subtly better picture than even a modern aps camera such as the 650D, even though the digital image produced from the 650D s capture is larger than the 5D 'c'.

 

[paul13walnut5]

You don't. The 17-40 is just about acceptable on APS-C. I say just about because I sold mine when I got an 18-55 is kit lens that outperformed it.

You had a bad 17-40L.

So did the reviewers then. Either not a great lens for FF, or a lot of bad copies floating around.

 

[dtaylor]

So did the reviewers then. Either not a great lens for FF, or a lot of bad copies floating around.

Photozone 17-40L review on APS-C: The Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 USM L showed a very good to excellent performance in the lab as well as during the field tests. The lens exhibited very little vignetting and excellent resolution figures.

Photozone 17-40L review on FF: The lens is able to deliver a very high resolution for most of the image field but the corner performance is poor thus spoiling the game here...However, these rather critical comments apply to the 17mm setting only and from 20mm onwards it's actually a good to very good lens without any major weakness.

SLRGear.com on APS-C: The Canon 17-40mm f/4 L is a high quality lens with a full-frame image circle that showed really exceptional performance on the EOS-20D we used to test it with.

These are not "just about acceptable" results. They're good to very good on FF, and very good to excellent on APS-C. And while the 18-55 IS kit is surprisingly good and should not produce significantly worse results then the 17-40L, it shouldn't be significantly better either.

I've seen very good large prints from FF + 17-40L. Granted, it was stopped down. And granted, I believe crop + Tokina 11-16 would actually yield more detail and sharpness at the edges and corners. (Talking about 21 MP vs. 18 MP sensors.) But it's not night and day, and the 17-40L is neither a bad lens nor a lens incapable of 24" prints.

 

[tron]

I hope to keep the Mark 3 forever.

Me too but forever is too long. If 5DMkIV has the same number of megapixels, lower noise, higher DR and 1 or 2 fps more I would certainly get it. Until then I enjoy using my 5D3

 

[paul13walnut5]

I've seen very good large prints from FF + 17-40L. Granted, it was stopped down. And granted, I believe crop + Tokina 11-16 would actually yield more detail and sharpness at the edges and corners. (Talking about 21 MP vs. 18 MP sensors.) But it's not night and day, and the 17-40L is neither a bad lens nor a lens incapable of 24" prints.

Whilst I agree, please read back to the start of the answer for full context.

I had a 17-40 on APS-C for around 3 years and loved it's build, and it's af speed. We are dealing with a particualrly demanding OP here, wants to view his prints with his nose touching the print etc..

I just don't think the 17-40 is going to live up to his expectations, in that context.

Would I have a 17-40 again? probably not, I need the f2.8 for video now, and as good as it was on APS-C the 18-55 IS was better.

 

[kennephoto]

Just my 2 cents a little late but I've printed bigger than 20x30 with my 40d with a 18-55 and a 70-200 f4 and I don't notice any difference between those prints and my 5d2 prints. I no longer have the 40d as I needed a body with AFMA for use with some older lenses. Just keep saving for that 6d and keep using that 40d. 40d is an awesome camera no doubt underrated. If it had AFMA I'd still have it!

 

[jdramirez]

You don't. The 17-40 is just about acceptable on APS-C. I say just about because I sold mine when I got an 18-55 is kit lens that outperformed it.

You had a bad 17-40L.

So did the reviewers then. Either not a great lens for FF, or a lot of bad copies floating around.

soft at the corners, not sharp overall until you get to f/8. But a solid performer if tripod mounted and comparable to the 16-35 mk whatever at a fraction of the price. It is what it is... an entry level L lens.

 

[paul13walnut5]

..and what it is, is clearly not what the OP needs if he is going to print very large prints and view very close up.

I don't think the 5D is the camera either for what it's worth.

It's not that I'm down on the lens. I'm down on the OP's expectations.