Camera Confusion

I'd recommend the full frame, as you can afford it and the prices have dropped a fair bit recently. Also, the 6D isn't so reliant on menus for changing settings, which the 7xx cameras, I 'think', are. I hate menus. 

Id id also say they the 16-35mm would be a bit of a waste on an APS-C camera. I think there is a 17-55mm ef-s lens which would be cheaper and more suitable. 

Maine thought though. The 6D isn't great for sport. Its autofocus is too slow and not accurate enough. 

Have you you looked at the 7D mkii? The best sports camera below £4k, and a real cracker in use. 

I would say it depends on what you like to photograph - if it is mainly landscapes and portraits, or you shoot in low light often, I would go for the full frame.  If it is more general photography and you shoot wildlife too or need more reach I'd consider the 7D m2 as suggested above.  Personally I would prefer to have a decent camera and good lenses that the other way around - lenses will last you a life time and hold their value whilst cameras will be changed and lose their value.  Even an older 5D II or 7D is still an excellent camera with the right glass on the front of it.  I have a 7D and for wildlife and sport it's excellent and still very good for most other  uses.

Thanks, I'll add the 7Dii to the list when I go to the shop.

I can't comment on the cameras you mention except that I like full frame. I'm told the EOS 5D mkIII focuses a lot faster than my mkII. 5D image quality is pretty good imo.

As for the rowing pics, I've found that if you get in a small boat behind and slightly to one side you can make crews look like Olympic medallists, possibly at the 200 end of a zoom and even better with an extender. I favour 1.4x, to lose as few stops as possible.

C.

If I was starting again and didn't need very large enlargements - A1 or larger, and I wasn't targeting sport to action photography then I would look at a four third system. lots of very good quality lenses available ( and of courses lenses outlive our camera bodies), and all very much more compact. 

If not four thirds, then full frame... I am Nikon man - my D3 really is too bulky a lot of the time, but I love my D810 with its 36.3Mpixels - reasonably fast, fantastic colour rendition, descent dynamic range and reasonably ok low light performance.

Simon

How about another T90? Probably cheapest option for your FD fit lenses...

If you are changing to Canon digital and EF lens range, well...I went from 7D to 5Diii. I felt full frame was superior in every way. 70-200 f4 IS is great on it.

Landscapes great with a Zeiss 21mm too!

I used large Tamron lens (150-600) for pictures of my daughter canoeing

I would also say though I have gradually moved away from Canon to using Fuji X-T1 now as something less 'large' but quite able to reproduce decent landscapes. Wouldn't use it for sports though.

The lens ring on my T90 came loose too.  Simple fix though.  I think there's something helpful on youtube. But I do have a Canon 1DS III and it is great.

If you aren't regularly using high speed films, note that the dynamic range of the Sony sensors (including Nikon and Pentax)  is better than the Canon sensors below ISO 800.  The Canon sensors are at least one stop better at ISO 1600 and above though.  Sony sensors are generally better for landscapes, Canon sensors are better for night shots and fast action (e.g. sports).

Also bear in mind that a current generation APS-C sensor (with top class lenses and a good RAW converter) will give image quality similar to a 6cm sq medium format camera using ISO 100 slide film.

Christopher_M posted:

I can't comment on the cameras you mention except that I like full frame. I'm told the EOS 5D mkIII focuses a lot faster than my mkII. 5D image quality is pretty good imo.

As for the rowing pics, I've found that if you get in a small boat behind and slightly to one side you can make crews look like Olympic medallists, possibly at the 200 end of a zoom and even better with an extender. I favour 1.4x, to lose as few stops as possible.

C.

I'm also a full frame guy.

Extenders have become an interesting proposition with high MP cameras. Without the extender, the image is often still "painted" across enough pixels that a crop in post processing will still give an excellent quality image (depending on final use). The optical loss of quality from the extra glass is replaced with lower resolution. I find there often isn't much in it with my 24MP D610. With a 36MP D810 the trade-off may even be in favour of no extender.

Another thing to consider when shooting fast action that requires panning etc. is that trying to frame a smaller image in the viewfinder is actually easier. Lots of pixels aren't much use if your subject is half missing from the frame! The viewfinder will be brighter and the AF will work better with no extender, too.

Stackman

The landscape and architectural uses certainly would benefit from a full frame camera though unless you really enlarge your prints the difference with an APS-C sensor is IMO not great; for most of us not really that noticable. But your comment on " a bit of sport " caught my attention. If that bit of sport includes auto racing, field sports like futball, American football, or indoor sports I would recommend you consider a Canon 7D mk2. Alloy case, 10 frames/second shooting rate, fast focus, and software is able to compensate for flicker that occurs with some indoor lighting. In the US it's a steal at $1400. The same thing in full frame is over $6,000. It's what I'm looking at to take to the sports car races at Laguna Seca at he end of April. Does great on your other needs as well.

Yes I am not a fan of extenders.. and the max I would use normally would be a 1.5 extender with a lens no smaller than f/2.8.  Not only is do you lose the stops of light but you loose dynamic range and there will be a slight loss of colour purity..ok it can make a difference between an image or no image but for a price in loss of quality. As said above if you use a high pixel count camera like the D810 then cropping might be a better option.

Simon

Thanks for all the replies.

I bought the T90 when I was doing a lot of sports photography, cricket, netball, rallying, stock cars and hill climbs, but now not as much, just the rowing and horse riding.  With the new camera I might get the interest back.

I will go to the local camera shop at Easter and see what they have to offer.

Chris

In defence of extenders, in action photography I've half a chance of getting a focus point on the subject if the subject is quite large in the viewfinder. My Canon 1.4x III on my 70-200 f/2.8 seems to give fine results on my 5D3. 

Chris

If you shooting buildings and the countryside, you could buy an FD to EOS converter (about £25.00) and use your existing lenses. You'd have set the aperture and speed manually, but your subjects wont be going anywhere, so you can take as many shots as you like until you get it right. 

I've noticed you haven't considered buying what people refer to as a walk about lens. I think most people buy some type of walk about lens even if not high quality and buy better quality lenses for specific applications.

Thanks Fatcat,

I've always used a 35mm as the standard lens with the telephoto zoom in a pocket if needed.  I tried a mid range zoom 35-70, many years ago and wasn't happy with the image quality or f number, so stuck with the prime lens. At the time I was shooting mainly low ISO B&W film and printing in my Dad's darkroom, that has now been sold. But I'm open to ideas. I've even looked at a Nikon D610 as they are on offer at the local shop at the moment.

Chris

A point not mentioned before is the focus point repartition in the view finder. The best recent APS-C cameras have focus point spread over most of the viewfinder. This can be very handy for sports shooting. Full frame cameras have focus points that are more gathered in the middle of the view finder.

This is obviously not a problem for still live photographer.

I'm a professional wedding photographer and use the excellent Fujifilm X-Series. The cameras are much lighter that the Canon full frame I used to use and the quality as good or better. You can also get adopters for your Canon FD manual lenses, obviously in manual focus mode.

Where can you get Canon FD adapters that actually work?

fatcat posted:

Chris

...

I've noticed you haven't considered buying what people refer to as a walk about lens. I think most people buy some type of walk about lens even if not high quality and buy better quality lenses for specific applications.

There is one exceptional lens in the Walk About category.  It uses a different optical formulation to ALL other superzoom lenses for APS-C or 35mm Full Frame.  Rather than deriving the optical formulation from the traditional superzooms and trying to improve the optimisation, this lens started from the type of optical formulation used for the current generation of wide to tele compact digital compact cameras (the so called bridge cameras) and scaling up to APS-C.  There has been a LOT of research put into these lenses and this has paid dividends, and this lens exploits all that work in an APS-C form.

The lens is the Tamron 16-300 f/3.5-6.3 model B016.  The performance is quite remarkable from 16-200 (with the exception of the corners at 35mm which are really quite soft - OK, just use 30mm and crop the image!).  From 200-300 the image quality does fall off quite significantly, and at 300 it's similar to the loss of quality you get with a tele converter!

Steve Vaughan posted:

I'm a professional wedding photographer and use the excellent Fujifilm X-Series. The cameras are much lighter that the Canon full frame I used to use and the quality as good or better. You can also get adopters for your Canon FD manual lenses, obviously in manual focus mode.

 

I fully agree. I am only an amateur photographer - but I'm a great fan of the Fujifilm X-series. Excellent lenses, and a very "traditional" feel. I'm not sure about sports photography though - besides, I've tried the  Nikon-Fuji Novoflex converter, and I'm not convinced, as it works with some lenses but certainly not all Nikon lenses. The results are far better with Fuji primes.

Yes the walkabout lens is a good term to use - I use my zoom AFS 17mm-35mm f/2.8 (the most used lens in my collection) and if I need it to be small and  light (and my iPhone 6 camera is not suitable) then my prime AFS 50mm f/1.4 G which is possibly the sharpest and one of the most dynamic lenses in my collection, These are 35mm film/full frame sensor sized lenses

Simon

Bet you wish you hadn't asked..��

I'm also a fan of Fuji. Having owned Canon fullframe SLRs with a large range of "L" series lenses for many years, after becoming inflicted with rheumatoid arthritis the system became too heavy and unwieldy. I sold my 5d Mk II & eventually settled on a Fuji X-T1 and a goodly collection of X-series lenses. The lightness and ease of use was a blessed relief and as a consequence I take far more photographs. Quality is superb, at least equal to the Canon's and to my old eyes the lenses are sharper than a very sharp thing.

tonym posted:

I'm also a fan of Fuji. Having owned Canon fullframe SLRs with a large range of "L" series lenses for many years, after becoming inflicted with rheumatoid arthritis the system became too heavy and unwieldy. I sold my 5d Mk II & eventually settled on a Fuji X-T1 and a goodly collection of X-series lenses. The lightness and ease of use was a blessed relief and as a consequence I take far more photographs. Quality is superb, at least equal to the Canon's and to my old eyes the lenses are sharper than a very sharp thing.

I'm an M8 user but got my son (who is studying photography at uni now) the small Fuji rangefinder then the X-T1 when he needed an SLR. It is a very good machine with a very well calibrated sensor to meter and nice sharp contrasy lenses. Excellent value imho.

G

You've had a lot of good suggestions here and indeed there are many great cameras out there as you already know.  I'm going to throw a suggestion out there which nobody has made yet:

Pentax.  Why? - because in the past three years they have launched an absolutely outstanding range of cameras and lenses from the medium format 645Z which smashed the medium format competition with an astonishing price/performance ratio to the K3 (APSC) which I currently use which is basically a Canon EOS 7D rival at half the price with better weatherproofing, a better sensor and better build quality.  If you want to go full frame then they're about to launch the K1 (ships end April) which is a Nikon D810 rival with 36 megapixels - it uses the same Sony sensor but is a later variant, incorporates many innovative and useful features (tiltable screen, in camera control lighting, sensor shift, GPS and wi-fi etc) and all for the price of a D750 i.e. around £800 cheaper than the D810.

Key benefits of Pentax:

1.  The image stabilisation is built into the camera (as it is on Olympus too), whereas with Canon and Nikon it's built into the lenses, so you pay for that in weight and cost with every lens you buy.  The equivalent Pentax lenses will be smaller, lighter and cheaper than Canon/Nikon equivalent.  All modern Pentax DSLR's will take every lens they have ever made (unique amongst manufacturers) and will offer image stabilisation even to a 1975 K mount or 1955 screw mount lens.  No other camera firm has supported its legacy glass like this and it opens up a world of second hand lens purchases if money is an issue.

2.  Putting image stabilisation into the body also allows you to do away with the moire filters that other cameras use which degrade image quality.   Crucially it also permits massively enhanced image quality when the pixel shift mode is used (which has been pioneered by Pentax and Olympus).  This requires the camera to be tripod mounted and the subject to be fairly static (e.g. a landscape, architecture, still life etc) so the camera can shoot several frames in quick succession and composite them together.  Finally in body stabilisation also allows some clever stuff like astro-tracking so the camera moves the sensor to compensate for movement of the stars/moon on night shots and removes star trails.

3.  The weatherproofing of pretty much all the Pentax SLR range and many of its lenses is superior to every other brand and equals (or betters) the top flight £5000 Canon/Nikon pro bodies.  Don't believe me:  Check this out:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo61t5fH6Qw    and this a funny ad for the now superseded bottom of the range Pentax K30:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...tHRlNbT9&index=9  If you're near water/sand this could be a significant consideration.

4.  Pentax, Hasselblad, Samsung and Leica shoot industry standard Adobe DNG in raw where Canon and Nikon shoot proprietary RAW.  This isn't a big issue now, but twenty years from now it could become problematic.

5.  Pentax offer an almost unrivalled range of 'Limited' prime lenses - the 15mm, 21mm, 31mm, 43mm and 77mm.  The 31, 43 and 77 are world class optics - amongst the finest consumer lenses ever made, all metal - no plastic here! - they're beautifully machined and with metal lens caps engraved 'Pentax' and lined in green velvet.  They make an outstanding compact travel system for your DSLR.

The truth is that all of the various firms make some excellent cameras and you owe it to yourself to find a dealer who stocks a wide range to try them out.  Image quality is very good across most decent modern cameras and in my view the handling and feel is thus an important element.  The Fuji retro styled rangefinders are really nice, the Olympus 4/3 system is wonderfully capable and very compact and of course Nikon and Canon offer excellent cameras and a huge range of lenses.  Where Pentax scores I believe is on build quality and bang for the buck.  Nikon and Canon charge top whack prices because as the market leaders quite frankly they can!  Pentax (once a very large camera firm) have spent most of the past 15 years slipping into the doldrums until they were taken over by the huge Ricoh organisation around 5 years ago.  Since then they have come back with some outstanding cameras and lenses to reclaim their rightful place.

Here's some info on the Pentax full frame K1:  http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.uk...PENTAX-K-1-DSLR.html

Jonathan