[Closed] Cameras

Thanks for all the pointers for me so far (the 60d/550d question). What is has brought up is whether it's worth going 2nd hand 5d Mark 1 and coughing for some better quality glass?

The improvements over my 300d should be massive, even though the 5d is "old" tech. Is it worth going used pro level body over shiny new consumer level?

The improvements over my 300d should be massive, even though the 5d is "old" tech. Is it worth going used pro level body over shiny new consumer level?

Not quite sure how to emphasis this enough... [b][i][u]ABSOLUTELY!!![/u][/i][/b]

Your main problem is, in time, you'll want new pro level. That's an expensive place to be...

worth going 2nd hand 5d Mark 1 and coughing for some better quality glass?

That's what I did and no regrets at all. The 5D feels very good quality and there is the full frame pixie dust magic on the images imo, when paired with decent glass anyway.

There is a lot to be said for Full Frame Pixie Dust 😆

Just bought a "L-series" 24mm 1.4f bad boy... Even from ebay it cost more than I paid for my 550D from the shop... Don't cameras have a strange habit of doing that? Next on the shopping list is a 5D mkII... And ANOTHER external hard drive 😉

External hard drive? For backup? DVDs are much cheaper you know 🙂

DVDs? Do they still sell them? With a terabyte NAS costing £80 it's hard to imagine why.

Who keeps a terabyte of photos?

Who keeps a terabyte of photos?

24MB cRAW + 24MB jpeg - that's only 20,000 photos. About 3 years worth for me.

And that would be a lot of DVDs.

i think i have about 10tb but that's actually 5 because it's backed up twice. i know photographers with 4-5 times that as i don't shoot people so usually a shoot can just be 40-100 frames.
it's not unusual for some photographers i know to shoot 1000 raws in a day.
i do get rid of a lot of the raws after a year in the archive and just keep the essentials, the accompanying layered photoshop files can easily be over 1gb though.

So you keep absolutely every shot? Even the junk?

Pros need not respond, of course 🙂

I self-edit as I go along so most that come off the camera are candidates. I then process the best ones. The best of the best get sized (and often go through Elements first producing another file) and make it to picasa which forms my candidates index for future printing (photo books, enlargements etc). All of the files get archived and cross-backed up to my PC HDD.

Obviously there's a lot of stuff that I'll probably never look at again. But given the price and convenience of a NAS it doesn't seem worth the bother to sort through the files. I found when I did use DVDs, which are a massive PITA, they'd generally get lost or thrown out.

I've read through this interesting post, but seem to be having some doubts about my own photography of late.

I've built up to what most people would probably envy (in terms of gear), to a Canon 1D3 , various primes , Pocket Wizards TT1 & TT5 ,external battery pack to fuel the flash etc.

Can't help thinking that to take an image I've got an arsenal of gear.......

Looking at the type of images that I tend to take, and those which I actually like to view , well they're a mile apart in terms of subject and content.

I'm close to selling all my gear except the tripod and buying a Fuji X100 or a Leica X1.

I just want to be able to put my camera in my pocket (or small man bag 🙂 ) and take images of places of interest. Natural light, one focal length - near dslr quality.

Anyone else on here gone back to simpler photography? could be tempted with just a 5D2 and a 35mm lens though - but that would be the extent of it.

Why not have a dabble with a m4/3 or Nex and see how you get on before doing anything drastic 🙂

Play have the Nex3 with 16mm for [url= http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/15116686/Sony-NEX-3-14-2-Megapixels-720p-HD-Movie-Sweep-Panorama-3-inch-Tilt-LCD-Compact-Digital-Camera-16mm-Lens-Silver/Product.html?searchstring=nex&searchtype=allproducts&searchsource=0&urlrefer=search ]£268[/url] at the moment.

I'd also suggest micro 4/3 cameras or the Nex. If you want fixed focal length then a Pen with the 17mm pancake is hard to beat.

Bit of looking and you can get the E-P1 or E-PL1 bodies for 199 and 239 respectively

GF1 body for 199 also

I've read through this interesting post, but seem to be having some doubts about my own photography of late.

I've built up to what most people would probably envy (in terms of gear), to a Canon 1D3 , various primes , Pocket Wizards TT1 & TT5 ,external battery pack to fuel the flash etc.

Can't help thinking that to take an image I've got an arsenal of gear.......

Looking at the type of images that I tend to take, and those which I actually like to view , well they're a mile apart in terms of subject and content.

I'm close to selling all my gear except the tripod and buying a Fuji X100 or a Leica X1.

I just want to be able to put my camera in my pocket (or small man bag ) and take images of places of interest. Natural light, one focal length - near dslr quality.

Anyone else on here gone back to simpler photography? could be tempted with just a 5D2 and a 35mm lens though - but that would be the extent of it.

Yes the x100 on paper looks decent. Question is how much better will it be than the equivalent m43 setup in reality (for which you can change lenses).

-The best camera is the one that you have on you

The e-p1 is quite an interesting one. It's got more traditional controls than the newer bodies and the new (more expensive) ones don't offer any sensor upgrades (in fact I think the e-p1 has better in body stabilisation than the e-pl series).

I'll have a look at the 4/3rds suggestions, my main concern would be the noise in the images.

A friend has a 5D2, and it's simply stunning in terms of image quality - the reviews on the Leica (in particular) and the new Fuji , appear to have very good ISO performance as well.

If you can stump up the cash and find one! theres the Voightlander Nokton 25mm F 0.95 lens (built for m43)

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_mft_lenses.htm

Which should deal with some low light concerns

This things sells out before the factory batch is done though

m4/3 can't compete with FF but they're very good given the size. The Nex's are better as they have APS sensors. We're talking about 1.5 stops worse for the m4/3 and 1 stop for the Nex so it's not night and day.

NEX controls sound a tad cumbersome and they've not made any particularly fast lenses yet IIRC

At normal ISOs and conditions the Olympus JPEG engine might take some beating.

When the NEX system gets some fast primes maybe Pana and Oly might feel the heat a bit more

I'll have a look at the 4/3rds suggestions, my main concern would be the noise in the images.

It's not that bad, seriously. If you want a simple portable small camera you are going to end up with a smaller sensor and there are going to be compromises from a pixel peeper point of view. However from a practical point of view there's no difference. See earlier in the thread for a pic I took at ISO1600 on a 4/3 camera.

NEX controls sound a tad cumbersome

See earlier in the thread for a pic I took at ISO1600 on a 4/3 camera.

Lovely image, must get back to taking more varied photo's myself.

Do any of you know if the lenses and flash from my old EOS 650 are compatible with a digital body?

Pretty sure it will, it's only FD lenses that aren't I think.

Denis99 - really lime some of your action pics. If you can afford to kep both M4/3 is great IMO for when you can't be arsed lugging loads of gear around. The GF1 with 20mm lens is a great little combo and very capable.

Cheers Grumm

GF1 with the 20mm lens does look tempting - will keep my current gear for the next 3 months just to make sure that I won't have any regrets if I decide to change etc.

could be tempted with just a 5D2 and a 35mm lens though - but that would be the extent of it.

My nifty 50 spends a lot of time on the front of my 5DII - I do like the simplicity.

Do any of you know if the lenses and flash from my old EOS 650 are compatible with a digital body?

Be very careful with the flashes - [i]some[/i] older ones can damage modern cameras. As for lenses, I had a sigma that worked fine on my EOS300, but refused to cooperate with my 450D or 5DII. Sold on Ebay in the end.

I had a sigma that worked fine on my EOS300, but refused to cooperate with my 450D or 5DII.

Really really tempted by the 5d mark 1 route, but I think what's stopping me is the fact that I'm a point and shooter at best, and I would miss having a built in flash for taking impromptu shots of my little lad. Still want to stick with DSLR though as I enjoy the tinkering!

I'm back at the 550d as the best all round v. cost solution... 🙁

You do get way way better flash pictures with a tilt and swivel flash unit though. Way better.

and I would miss having a built in flash for taking impromptu shots of my little lad.

Yes, I miss this with my 5DII over my 450D. When I'm not taking non-award winning shots of landscapes and things ( 😉 ), a bit of fill-in to light up a face under a wide-brimmed hat (quite an issue here in Oz) is a bit irritating. Such shots are hardly worth faffing with an external flash though.

Ok I need help from you camera-types. I'm doing a load of reading and my mind is just full of information, so I'm none the wiser. Currently the 550D is top of my list but it has been suggested that I will get better stills out of something like a used 50D. Afaics the 550D doesn't have very fast AF or burst mode, not sure how much of a problem this would be.. I wouldn't mind getting into doing some mtb action stills but I'm usually quite good at getting the timing right and I suppose prefocussing isn't hard.

My priority is stills but I wouldn't mind being able to shoot video as well. However if having the 550D means heavily compromosing on stills quality then I'd rather go with something else. The 60D is also on my list but for the price difference I could probably buy a nice 2nd hand lens for a cheaper body.

[url= http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en/Camera-Sensor/Compare/Compare-sensors/(appareil1)/272%7C0/(appareil2)/645%7C0/(appareil3)/663%7C0/(onglet)/0/(brand)/Canon/(brand2)/Canon/(brand3)/Canon ]DXO is handy for comparing cameras...[/url]
Looks like there's nothing between the 50d, 550D and 60D in terms of image quality.

Devils advocate:

-do you have canon lenses?
-do you need the power/bulk of a full SLR?
-would it be useful to you if the camera was weather resistant?

All these except 1 were taken on a Panasonic GF1:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&thread=35279081

I have a nice old canon FD 50mm (would need an adaptor) and can borrow a Tamron 17-50 EOS VS from work if I want to. Weather resistanace isn't a huge problem I suppose.

Have been lusting after a GF-1 for ages but I read some things on here saying it's not great for action bike shots as it's quite slow? I don't really *need* the power and bulk of a dslr as it's just for personal use, but think that I may be disappointed if I don't have all the good dslr features available. Lack of a proper viewfinder does put me off a bit as well.

Oh and can you use remote off-camera flashes with the GF1? I've never really used them so I don't know where to start.

Have been lusting after a GF-1 for ages but I read some things on here saying it's not great for action bike shots as it's quite slow?

Not saying the GF1 is for you.. but that thread shows what is possible with a body that can now be had for 199 £.

Spending less on the body means you can invest in some serious glass

Have you though about the Pentax K-r.. beats those Canons in the DXO (if that bothers you).. will probably be cheaper and it'll do 6FPS

I thought these m43 shots were also pretty impressive

taken with

Voigtlander Heliar 15/4.5 on the E-P2

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&message=37778382

I'm getting closer to SWMBO buying me the 550d and have been scouting around on the 'bay for prices and deals.

Have come across Digital-rev as a seller and the prices seem good... very good in fact! Anyone got any experience of them on here? Feedback seems good and a quick google looks ok...

Hong Kong based aren't they?
[url= http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/cat1.html ]UK Based price comparison here...[/url]

Shame it'll be obsolete in 18 months. At least it looks obsolete to start with I guess...

Some pics from the soon to be released but soon to be obsolete camera 🙂

Granted its not everyones cup of tea. It is very niche. But whats the alternative. A Leica at 8x the price?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotois/sets/72157626059913905

http://www.43rumors.com/new-fuji-x100-patch-to-open-raw-files-more-news/

But whats the alternative. A Leica at 8x the price?

However if having the 550D means heavily compromosing on stills quality

Do you realise that all these quibbles over image quality are extremely subtle and are insignificant in all practical terms?