5DmkII or 7D. Jeez this is tough

[Stuart Robinson]

Update to a post I made a few post ago in ththis thread.

2 weeks ago I upgraded my old (but trusty) 10D to a 5DmkII.

I have only had one chance to use it since and was in Iceland were it was bitterly cold.

The images that I took were STUNNING in comparision to my old 10D, colours and sharpnes were spot on!! - I am using the same lens (17-40L) as i used to use on 10D

This was quite an upgrade over the 10D

 

[Stephen Locke]

Wonder what ultra wide options there are for full frames that are sharp in the corner. Probably the $2200 14mm lol.

I own this lens and use it more than any other for storm structure. It's as wide as you can go without fisheye. I love the lens but it is not sharp deep in the corners. There is always some light fall off in corners as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka_juuyoh/3268455373/sizes/o/
(not my photo)

You cannot put a protective filter on it so the front element is just hanging out there catching raindrops. If its raining I've got a swab handy and it's just a cycle of wipe and shoot, wipe and shoot. If there was ever any protective coating on that lens it's probably gone now lol. Such is life. I ask my equipment to work for a living.

I've just learned to accept and cope with the problems associated with extreme wide angle. The biggest issue for me is Wide Angle Distortion. I spend most of my effort trying to avoid that problem. (leaning phone poles).
The corners are going to be soft.

I also use this one. It is sharp enough in the corners with minimal light fall off. At 1.4 it is also extremely fast. I love the performance of this lens but it does not have the wide coverage of the 14mm. The 24mm gets most of it's usage for lightning at night. It seems to have exactly the right angle of view for that purpose.

http://tempestgallery.com/photos/8-19-09__001.JPG
Downtown Enid.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Thanks Stephen. Yeah think the plan might be to try and pick up the 24-105 and use it as much as possible. 24 is still pretty wide on full frame and it sounds sharp to corners when stopped down some. Course their ISO charts make me think of the 24-70 2.8 instead. Have always needed something between ultra wide and the 100-400 and many a times now regretted not having something. 24-105 sounds rather nice.

The 14mm 2.8 would be nice but it just isn't going to happen anytime soon. The digital picture says this about it: Full-frame corners are impressively sharp for a lens this wide.

Then you go to their ISO 12233 crop examples and the corner sharpness between the 14 and 17-40 at F4 wide angle look pretty similar. I kind of don't trust those things as it seemed in the past they were "off".

 

[Allan Jeffers]

It likely was as the vignetting on that lens was fairly strong. If not I probably did some in CS4 raw converter. Why? Strangely enough it doesn't have support for the 100-400L on that but did the 17-40L.

I asked because I had a thought that perhaps it could be the correction it self causing the soft corners. But I am not so sure because I suspect that PIC would be just a "flat frame" kind of like what astrophotographers use. Just a thought.

On another note, have you thought about getting the 24mm TS-E f/3.5L tilt shift lens? Its manual focus but I heard its sharp as hell even wide open even on full frame. The other bad side is it cost about as much as the 14mm f/2.8L II. I thought about getting the 24mm f/1.4L II to pair with a 5DmkII but looking at examples of both the tilt shift and the /1.4L, I think the tilt shift blows it away, at nearly 500 bucks more

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

If I were to spend that much it would for sure be a 14mm or the 17mm TS. 24mm is the same as 15mm on a 1.6 crop. I'm more and more tempted to get a 24-105L. Far cheaper than those primes and gives that range I have been needing since I went DSLR now lol.

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon24105mmL/page4c.shtml

Cool review between the 24-105, 24-70, and even the 17-40 in there. That is for the corner sharpness on that page....not overall image sharpness. Looks like the 24-105 is better in the corners at 24mm while the other is better at the 70mm range. So for sure seems the 24-105L would win for what I'd want. Tempted to sell the 17-40 and get that 24-105. Trying to figure out if 15mm 1.6x crop equiv is enough at 24mm full frame. It probably is. At least something I could live without till I could afford the pricey ultra wide angle prime options. Right now the corners of the 17-40L on a full frame almost make you feel like you're cropping in to 24mm anyway to get that out. Unless blue sky or storm clouds are there.


But again another lens site makes little sense to me in what they say on one page compared to another. This on their 17-40L review page:

This could be a bad 'copy' of the 17-40mm, but we have experienced the same effect with another model. Interestingly the softening issues at the edges seen below are much less apparent when the lens is zoomed-out to wide angle. Indeed you only have to look at our Gallery samples to see the 17-40mm is a superb performer at 17mm. But at the 40mm end, it doesn't appear to perform as well towards the edges

Yet where they included it on that first link, it sure doesn't look superb or even better at 17mm than 40mm.

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Well, after getting my tax refund, doing some saving, making a hand full of trips to my bank to up my POS limit for this one purchase and driving myself nuts over what camera would do good in my bag, tonight after work, I placed my order for a shinny new camera body

Its been almost 4 years since I got a camera, and that camera is my 30D.

Sorry, just kind of excited

 

[Allan Detrich]

I had a 5D Mark II and traded up for the EOS 1D Mark IV, what a camera, find the files are a tad sharper on this camera, vs the 5D. The low noise is amazing and for what I do, the 10+ frames per second are a blessing over the 3.5 of the 5D. Also for storm shooting this camera is rated waterproof at 7 inches or rain per hour. The only downside is the 1.3x crop but have a 16-35mm and don't really need much wider than that. I am looking forward to giving it a workout in the plains, will be chasing May 1-16th!!

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Status: "Shipped"

Also got my spare LP-E6 Battery and 16gig sandisk extreme UDMA CF card in today. A bit sooner then I expected, actually

 

[Allan Jeffers]

I had a 5D Mark II and traded up for the EOS 1D Mark IV, what a camera, find the files are a tad sharper on this camera, vs the 5D. The low noise is amazing and for what I do, the 10+ frames per second are a blessing over the 3.5 of the 5D. Also for storm shooting this camera is rated waterproof at 7 inches or rain per hour. The only downside is the 1.3x crop but have a 16-35mm and don't really need much wider than that. I am looking forward to giving it a workout in the plains, will be chasing May 1-16th!!

The thought of a used 1DmkII has crossed my mind a few times too. Weather The main reason is, I can find them for a good price and better weather sealing (with the right lens and filter) then say my 30D

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Well, my new camera came in today Battery is on the charger

 

[Greg Campbell]

Well, my new camera came in today Battery is on the charger

Any smoke yet?

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Any smoke yet?

Besides my smoldering checking account? Nope.

Took a couple test shots at ISO 6400 and, resized, they are useable. White balance is a bit out of whack due to the mix of CFLs and regular light bulbs. A little tweaking or custom white balance I should be ok The LCD is huge as is the view finder.

Shooting with the 50mm it felt odd being able to shot at 1/60th sec (could have used 1/60th sec instead of needing 1/80th sec on my 30D. Well using ISO 6400 was odd too, but in a good way. It came with firmware version 2.03, so I probably need to flash it soon

 

[Allan Jeffers]

An actual test shot at ISO 6400. Some minor DPP tweaking with the noise reduction and my usual CS3 processing.

I am seriously impressed. The image looks almost 3D to me

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Yeay! Congrats. Looking @ your photos of the camera in the box gives me the same excitement as when I got mine in the mail. Yes, the low-light results are exemplary with with camera. Have a blast...you've earned it.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Yeay! Congrats. Looking @ your photos of the camera in the box gives me the same excitement as when I got mine in the mail.

lol when I see them I feel like I did too, but differently. Felt soooo much like getting the new tripod. A feeling of, "Neat, but damn 99.99% of the time this is going to make no image difference of any use." Along with an overwhelming sense of, "wth did I do that for." Just sort of a sense of let down for some odd reason. I don't want to imagine what one feels buying something for more like a 1D or 1Ds. Guessing the "worth letdown factor" would be exponentially more annoying.

I wish someone would make an unbreakable cable release. I just had to order 2 new ones already as I've already broke the first one I got when I ordered the camera. Like ones that you can snag on something and they won't tear so easily. Least they have cheap ones available on BH instead of the overpriced canon ones that are just as easily broken.

Hands down the thing that has impressed me the most on the camera....battery duration. Was getting about 3.5 hours of straight star trail shooting in 0F air. Of course they dwarf the size of the ones in the rebels.

And as far as cameras and weather sealing, seems so much like a moot point to me. Great 1D can work in 7 inches of rain per hour. Does it come with a wiper for the lens too? I'd love to see what some real life shooting conditions were that took even a rebel out of business. I don't think it would be easy to do unless you plan to actually have water running down your lens itself while you are at things. Of course now I'll go and kill the 5D in some rain on the first chase.