What To Do???

Dogdots

I'm looking for a new camera. Not right away tho, but within a year or two. My thoughts have always been towards the 5DMKii. I want a camera where the ISO can be pushed up and the photos look good.

Then I've wondered about the 7D and I've heard that a 5dMKiii might be out soon. Not that I would get the 5DMKiii as I'm sure it's way more then I want to spend. No .. I know it will be way more then I want to spend

What camera do you suggest for working in low light and pushing the ISO up and getting good results? Right now I have two 40d's and they are terrible in low light situations.

My fear is if the 5DMKii is the camera to get ... I need to get it before the new one comes out. I've been looking for a used one, but haven't seen anyone I trust to buy it from nor really seen any for sale. Might not be looking in the right place either.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

divamum

How high do you want/need to push the ISO?

If you want the absolutely best high ISO performance from a sub-1-series Canon camera, the 5dII is for sure the current model to get. No doubt about it - you can push it to 3200 and even 6400 and get great, useable shots.

Among the crop-cameras, however, the 7d does extremely well. I use my 7d at 1600 and 2000 for theatre shoots and as long as the original shot is well-exposed (and doesn't need much boosting afterwards, something which is guaranteed to introduce noise), it's entirely useable after I've run it through LR3's (excellent) noise reduction. I've even done some at ISO3200, although I converted them to BW and adopted a kind of "artistic" way of using the grain rather than trying to minimize it; that wouldn't be my choice for a clean, naturalistic shot, although it is useable with some work.

One thing to consider if jumping to full-frame is if you are using EF-S (crop sensor only) lenses. EF lenses work on everything, but there are a few - eg the Canon EFS17-55is, the Tamron 17-50 and a few others - which are designed for and only work with a crop sensor.

I'll let 40d owners help with getting the best out of your current bodies, but ask what processing software you're using? LR3's noise reduction is nothing short of amazing - very effective. Since I upgraded from LR2 to LR3 I don't think I've even opened Noiseware (although that is still a program to recommend - the"Community" edition is free for personal use, too!)

Dogdots

divamum wrote: »

How high do you want/need to push the ISO?

If you want the absolutely best high ISO performance from a sub-1-series Canon camera, the 5dII is for sure the current model to get. No doubt about it - you can push it to 3200 and even 6400 and get great, useable shots.

Among the crop-cameras, however, the 7d does extremely well. I use my 7d at 1600 and 2000 for theatre shoots and as long as the original shot is well-exposed (and doesn't need much boosting afterwards, something which is guaranteed to introduce noise), it's entirely useable after I've run it through LR3's (excellent) noise reduction. I've even done some at ISO3200, although I converted them to BW and adopted a kind of "artistic" way of using the grain rather than trying to minimize it; that wouldn't be my choice for a clean, naturalistic shot, although it is useable with some work.

One thing to consider if jumping to full-frame is if you are using EF-S (crop sensor only) lenses. EF lenses work on everything, but there are a few - eg the Canon EFS17-55is, the Tamron 17-50 and a few others - which are designed for and only work with a crop sensor.

I'll let 40d owners help with getting the best out of your current bodies, but ask what processing software you're using? LR3's noise reduction is nothing short of amazing - very effective. Since I upgraded from LR2 to LR3 I don't think I've even opened Noiseware (although that is still a program to recommend - the"Community" edition is free for personal use, too!)

Hi,

I'd like to have the option to push the ISO up as high as it can go. Right now I'm optionless which really hinders shooting or wanting to shoot knowing it's a waste of my time.

I don't have LR. I use CS5 and then use Imagenomic Noiseware Professional. I like the software since I change the opacity on it when using it.

Looked at BH to purchase the 5DMKii and they are out right now. Hope that changes.

Edit ... Forgot to mention .. my lenses are fine with the full frame. I'd need to get a new wide angle tho. My 10-22 wouldn't work on it.

Richard

Dogdots wrote: »

I don't have LR. I use CS5 and then use Imagenomic Noiseware Professional. I like the software since I change the opacity on it when using it.

CS5 has the same noise reduction capability as LR, and Noiseware rocks. But a 5DMkII will give you the best results. The price should come down when the III is released, and I'm hoping to get one myself then.

Dogdots

Richard wrote: »

CS5 has the same noise reduction capability as LR, and Noiseware rocks. But a 5DMkII will give you the best results. The price should come down when the III is released, and I'm hoping to get one myself then.

How much to you think the price reduction will be? You don't foresee them not making it anymore do you?

Noiseware is good ... always worked well for me when needed.

Richard

Dogdots wrote: »

How much to you think the price reduction will be? You don't foresee them not making it anymore do you?

My plan is to look for a used II, not try to find a new one. Lots of people will automatically want to upgrade, which means the supply will be high and the price will come down. I have no idea how much. You will probably also find new ones at clearance sale prices when the III comes out, but I'm guessing that's still going to be more than I will be able to afford.

ThatCanonGuy

I would get the 5D3. The center AF point is very good, but the outer ones aren't as great (so I hear). Why do you want to get it before the mk3 comes out? If you're willing to wait a year or so (I'm not sure when the mk3 will come out), then you can get a really nice deal on a used mk2. The 5D2 was released in Aug 2008, so check the prices of used 5D1's on FM back in early 2009. They seem to be about $1200. That's what I'm hoping will happen to the mk2 when the mk3 comes out. There are plenty of used 5D1's, so Canon making the camera isn't an issue. Since you want to buy used, I'd wait until the mk3 is available and everone will sell their mk2's for cheap. Like Richard, I may pick up a used mk2 for cheap after the mk3 is available.

Edit: I see Richard beat me to it

insanefred

Does it have to be Canon?

Dogdots

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

I would get the 5D3. The center AF point is very good, but the outer ones aren't as great (so I hear). Why do you want to get it before the mk3 comes out? If you're willing to wait a year or so (I'm not sure when the mk3 will come out), then you can get a really nice deal on a used mk2. The 5D2 was released in Aug 2008, so check the prices of used 5D1's on FM back in early 2009. They seem to be about $1200. That's what I'm hoping will happen to the mk2 when the mk3 comes out. There are plenty of used 5D1's, so Canon making the camera isn't an issue. Since you want to buy used, I'd wait until the mk3 is available and everone will sell their mk2's for cheap. Like Richard, I may pick up a used mk2 for cheap after the mk3 is available.

Edit: I see Richard beat me to it

I can wait. In no hurry, but it's one of those things where 'I really wish I had one'

Are you saying the auto point system on the 3 will be better then the 2? Wonder what else they'll throw in on the 3???? Doesn't matter tho .. that is going to be really expensive. I'm sure I could get a used 5DMKii and new lens for the price the 5DMKiii price.

Dogdots

insanefred wrote: »

Does it have to be Canon?

Are you thinking Nikon

Canon only because I have the lenses. Some days tho I wish I had went Nikon in the beginning.

Dogdots

Richard wrote: »

My plan is to look for a used II, not try to find a new one. Lots of people will automatically want to upgrade, which means the supply will be high and the price will come down. I have no idea how much. You will probably also find new ones at clearance sale prices when the III comes out, but I'm guessing that's still going to be more than I will be able to afford.

New ones at clearance prices .. dang I never thought of that. Good idea. You can be my point man. When you find one .. email me please

ThatCanonGuy

I do think that the 5D3 will have a better AF system... everybody wants it and I don't see how Canon could introduce a 5D3 with the same AF and sell it. How good it will be, I don't know. I am pretty sure that the price will be $2800-$3500 though. I think it will be much better than the 5D2, but the 5D2 will get much cheaper

ziggy53

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

I do think that the 5D3 will have a better AF system... everybody wants it and I don't see how Canon could introduce a 5D3 with the same AF and sell it. ...

Sadly, in an interview* in 2008 regarding Canon's decision not to greatly improve the 5D MKII autofocus system, Masaya Maeda, Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, said;

"Firstly the market's evaluation of the 5D's AF system has been very positive; there have been no complaints from users, with everyone saying it's very good. Given that, to a certain extent, we think we shouldn't change it. And also there's some limitation with size; the AF sensor in the 50D is very big; the one in the 5D is much smaller. If we wanted to have all cross-sensors in the 5D Mark II, it would mean we might have to sacrifice the compactness of the body. It's all a question of balance of features and benefits."

Unless Canon has done some more serious "listening" since, the AF section of the 5D MKIII may not change much from the 5D MKII.

*Source: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0810/08100302_canoninterview.asp

Dogdots

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

I do think that the 5D3 will have a better AF system... everybody wants it and I don't see how Canon could introduce a 5D3 with the same AF and sell it. How good it will be, I don't know. I am pretty sure that the price will be $2800-$3500 though. I think it will be much better than the 5D2, but the 5D2 will get much cheaper

That price is way over my budget. If I were to spend that much money I'd get the 300mm lens.

Looks like I'm going for a used 5DMKii or new if the price is right.

ThatCanonGuy

ziggy53 wrote: »

Sadly, in an interview* in 2008 regarding Canon's decision not to greatly improve the 5D MKII autofocus system, Masaya Maeda, Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, said;

"Firstly the market's evaluation of the 5D's AF system has been very positive; there have been no complaints from users, with everyone saying it's very good. Given that, to a certain extent, we think we shouldn't change it. And also there's some limitation with size; the AF sensor in the 50D is very big; the one in the 5D is much smaller. If we wanted to have all cross-sensors in the 5D Mark II, it would mean we might have to sacrifice the compactness of the body. It's all a question of balance of features and benefits."

Unless Canon has done some more serious "listening" since, the AF section of the 5D MKIII may not change much from the 5D MKII.

*Source: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0810/08100302_canoninterview.asp

Hmm. Given that this was during Photokina 2008, a month or two after the release of the 5D2 in August, it may not have been in many hands. If so, the reaction would have been pretty positive to everything, with everone waiting to get their hands on one. However, if they had started to ship it yet, then there were probably complaints about pretty much everything. That seems to be the case with new cameras: according to Thom Hogan, the D7000's had a lot fewer problems after a few months of release... or rather, their were a lot fewer internet complaints

Yeah, if I had $3000 to spend I'd buy a 300 too. Or maybe a 70-200 II

Matthew Saville

Honestly, start watching the used prices on 1Ds mk3's. Same sensor as the 5D mk2, but flagship quality body! Shockingly, you can sometimes find a used 1Ds mk3 for about $3000 or so, if you're willing to accept a little wear and tear. And honestly, a flagship Canon could live for a decade if you just replaced the shutter every few hundred thousand clicks.

I say this even as a Nikon user who sings praises of the D700, etc... The bottom line is, it just doesn't make THAT much sense for a 5-series Canon shooter to jump ship to Nikon, not when used 1-series cameras are about the same price... (Nor when a decently improved 5D mk3 is surely on the horizon. I'm betting August-October of this year)

=Matt=

Dogdots

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Honestly, start watching the used prices on 1Ds mk3's. Same sensor as the 5D mk2, but flagship quality body! Shockingly, you can sometimes find a used 1Ds mk3 for about $3000 or so, if you're willing to accept a little wear and tear. And honestly, a flagship Canon could live for a decade if you just replaced the shutter every few hundred thousand clicks.

I say this even as a Nikon user who sings praises of the D700, etc... The bottom line is, it just doesn't make THAT much sense for a 5-series Canon shooter to jump ship to Nikon, not when used 1-series cameras are about the same price... (Nor when a decently improved 5D mk3 is surely on the horizon. I'm betting August-October of this year)

=Matt=

I didn't know the 1DMK3's had the same sensor. Never even thought of that. Thank you for this information. Has me thinking differently now

I'm betting around the same time your thinking for the new camera to come out. I read somewhere yesterday where it mentioned Sept. sometime.

ThatCanonGuy

1D Mark III's don't have the same sensor... they have a 10mp APS-H sensor. 1Ds Mark IIIs have the same sensor as the 5DII... but then again, if I wanted one I'd wait for the 1Ds4 to come out

Dogdots

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

1D Mark III's don't have the same sensor... they have a 10mp APS-H sensor. 1Ds Mark IIIs have the same sensor as the 5DII... but then again, if I wanted one I'd wait for the 1Ds4 to come out

If I keep waiting I'll never get one

Does the 's' mean 1/3 crop or full frame?

ziggy53

Dogdots wrote: »

If I keep waiting I'll never get one

Does the 's' mean 1/3 crop or full frame?

The Canon 1D series have an APS-H sensor, between the FF and APS-C series like all of the Rebels and the xxD Canon series.

Canon 1Ds series have a FF 135 format sensor.

ziggy53

This is a pretty good description of the different imager sizes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format

20DNoob

If your going to wait to get a 5D2 I'd get one just prior to or at the release of the 5D3. That way you'll benefit from all the "gotta have the latest" crowd(or as I like to call them, Beta testers) flooding the buy and sell boards with the 5D2. After the initial rush the prices seem to come up a little and level out.

As for where to get one most of my used shopping goes to another site where the feedback system is awesome, but I have picked up a few inexpensive items here and elsewhere so if I were to take a hit it wouldn't be a bad one.

Good luck.

Dogdots

ziggy53 wrote: »

This is a pretty good description of the different imager sizes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format

Thank you Ziggy for the link. I'm losing out on a lot of 'photo' with my 40d's. Not saying that's bad, but for landscape it can make a difference.

Hmmmm....I thought picking a lens was hard ... camera is even harder to decide.

Dogdots

20DNoob wrote: »

If your going to wait to get a 5D2 I'd get one just prior to or at the release of the 5D3. That way you'll benefit from all the "gotta have the latest" crowd(or as I like to call them, Beta testers) flooding the buy and sell boards with the 5D2. After the initial rush the prices seem to come up a little and level out.

As for where to get one most of my used shopping goes to another site where the feedback system is awesome, but I have picked up a few inexpensive items here and elsewhere so if I were to take a hit it wouldn't be a bad one.

Good luck.

Thanks for the info on 'when' to buy. That helps out a lot

chrisjohnson

Dogdots wrote: »

Thanks for the info on 'when' to buy. That helps out a lot

I am in a similar quandry as a 40D owner. I have to lug my tripod around increasingly when I want to take serious landscape photos. Right now the 5D2 seems to be the way to go although as a hobbyist I can't really justify the cost. Whatever and whenever the 5D3 is, it will be more expensive even.

One thing I do like about 40D is that is stays sharp up to f11, about the same as the 5D2. In the industry there has been a trade-off for higher ISOs on products like 7D that result in a worse performance for small apertures. I think 7D is around f8. From memory I think 5D1 achieved f16 before things started to go slowly downhill. As an old-style analogue camera guy I would not object to a system that stayed sharp up to f32 but I suppose 5D3 will not be it. Why do I like the high f numbers - depth of field. With better DOF you don't need to worry about the sophistication of your AF system too often.

Dan7312

Smaller aperatures limit sharpness because of diffraction. Cambridge in Colour has a handy calculator to figure out when the diffraction caused by smaller aperatures affects the image.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm

It depends on a bunch of factors, the size of the print being one. Depending on the factors you chose a 7D may be diffraction limited at as little a F5.6 or up to F13 for an 8x10.

One of the things that I don't understand in practice about this diffraction stuff is that even though the problem is due to the fact that the "circles of confusion" get bigger than the pixel in the sensor, it still the case that the diffraction is modulating the light signal. Why doesn't the processing the the camera remove at least some the affects of it? The real "raw" data in the sensor isn't useful until the processing in the camera turns it into pixels anyhow.

goldenballs wrote: »

One thing I do like about 40D is that is stays sharp up to f11, about the same as the 5D2. In the industry there has been a trade-off for higher ISOs on products like 7D that result in a worse performance for small apertures. I think 7D is around f8.

Dogdots

goldenballs wrote: »

I am in a similar quandry as a 40D owner. I have to lug my tripod around increasingly when I want to take serious landscape photos. Right now the 5D2 seems to be the way to go although as a hobbyist I can't really justify the cost. Whatever and whenever the 5D3 is, it will be more expensive even.

One thing I do like about 40D is that is stays sharp up to f11, about the same as the 5D2. In the industry there has been a trade-off for higher ISOs on products like 7D that result in a worse performance for small apertures. I think 7D is around f8. From memory I think 5D1 achieved f16 before things started to go slowly downhill. As an old-style analogue camera guy I would not object to a system that stayed sharp up to f32 but I suppose 5D3 will not be it. Why do I like the high f numbers - depth of field. With better DOF you don't need to worry about the sophistication of your AF system too often.

Never thought about this when picking out a camera. One thing I always wondered was ... where's F12?

codrus

goldenballs wrote: »

One thing I do like about 40D is that is stays sharp up to f11, about the same as the 5D2. In the industry there has been a trade-off for higher ISOs on products like 7D that result in a worse performance for small apertures. I think 7D is around f8. From memory I think 5D1 achieved f16 before things started to go slowly downhill. As an old-style analogue camera guy I would not object to a system that stayed sharp up to f32 but I suppose 5D3 will not be it. Why do I like the high f numbers - depth of field. With better DOF you don't need to worry about the sophistication of your AF system too often.

The performance is only "worse" when you go to the pixel-peeping level. Diffraction is physics, and it's related to the physical size of the aperture, the wavelength of light, and the physical size of the optical resolving elements, be they CCD sensors or grains of whatever it is that reacts to light in film (silver iodide?). You'll get the same diffraction effects on a 7D as you do on a 40D, it's just that you can see them more easily on the 7D because it's got higher resolution, same with a 5D3 and an old film camera. The cameras are not getting worse, it's just that advances in sensor technology are making it possible to see the limitations of physics that were there all along.

(FF vs crop body has the same effect here too, it's just that since it's the physical size of the sensor that matters you need to divide the area of the sensor by the pixel count to get a comparable number).

--Ian