Christmas 2007 sales were terrible. The worst since 2002. We are headed into a recession. The market barometers have fallen in the last couple days of trading. Stores need some money from us consumers,so get out there and buy,buy,buy! But, what to purchase now that it is early 2008? And,provided you're not in the mood to wait for the next best thing,what items can you buy right NOW,and use and enjoy even IF the next model comes out within the coming year?
Buffalo TeraStation Live network attached storage drive,1 Terabyte capacity model available for $499 from Frys.com
Nikon D40 kit $499 from many on-line retailers, $549 in-store. New stock D40 kits will soon include a VR-equipped 18-55 kit lens, the third iteration of this light,decent little zoom. An amazing little d-slr that can produce jazzy,punchy JPEG images.
Nikon D300 $1899 to $2099,when in stock. D300's are sold out at MOST larger retail and internet stores across America.
Canon EOS 40D, $1300 and available. Make sure to add the accessory grip for $199,and pick up the amazing EOS 580 EX-II weather sealed shoe mount flash unit,$450, which gives really good results.
EOS 5D $2199 or so. C'mon. You know you want a full-frame camera. And you know you do not want to pay $5,000 for it. The 5D will allow you to use millions of Nikkor lenses with adapters that cost as little as $17 (seventeen dollars!) from eBay dealers in the USA. Canon's 85mm f/1.8 lens is cheap and amazing, and Tamron and Sigma also make some sweet lenses.
Canon EOS 580 EX-II shoe mount flash. $450. Amazing unit. Well-built,good ergonomics,simple controls,powerful,battery-efficient. In a word, an excellent flash unit on the 5D,in my experience. Works great. Wonderful design.Easy to use.
Nikon 70-200 VR-G f/2.8 professional zoom lens. It's an amazing zoom lens for Nikon or Fuji d-slr cameras. If you do not own it,you are missing out on a wonderful tele zoom;good sharpness,good focusing,good ergonomics,great bokeh. This lens can be the cornerstone of a 2-lens system; if you only own TWO Nikkor zoom lenses, this ought to be one of the two zooms.
Fuji S5 Pro, apprx $1550 now. Sure it's only a 6MP camera, but so is the D40! The S5 Pro delivers beautiful color and tonality and that decidedly inaccurate but PLEASING Fuji skintone rendition. If you have F-mount lenses and want a camera for people pictures or family photography or available light portraits and many types of social photography, the S5's really worth a look. The Fuji has an image quality that's hard to define,since the S5 can be set up so,so many ways, but the best thing I can say about S5 images is that they have nice tonality,and a subtleness in the way colors are rendered--when the images are well-processed or when the in-camera settings are all appropriate to the shooting conditions and artistic intent of a capable photographer. I've also seen excess DR,like 400%, thrown at flat,low-contrast scenes or moderate contrast scenes,and have seen some drecky results where people went overboard with that type of excess DR application. I have also seem Fuji S5 film simulation results which were wayyyy overboard on saturation, resulting in heavy-handed,clownish,eye-candy images that look,well,kind of like bad 1980's photofinishing. Hopefully,the S5 is not the last d-slr Fuji releases,but if it is their last model,make sure you buy one or two before they are all gone. Now that Fuji has a D200-level body,it's a respectable,capable camera for many applications,and well worth $1500.
A fast single focal length lens for your Dx-sensored camera. Sigma 30mm f/1.4 wide angle. Or the Nikon or Canon 85mm f/1.8 telephotos. Or the Canon 100mm f/2 for $399. Something WIDE-aperture,and useful for YOUR shooting needs. But it must be a prime,and it must be a fast aperture lens. Even a 50mm f/1.8 will qualify. Fast. Prime. Light weight. Portable. Predictable. Non-threatening profile for use in social photography situations. Ya' gotta' own and use a nice prime lens or two!
That LONG zoom lens you've wanted. Two lenses spring to my mind as being the best values; the Tamron 200-500mm f/5~6.3 zoom for about $899, or the Sigma 80-400mm OS, for around the same general price. The advantage of the Tamron is its nifty build and sweet design and good handling and fair price,and the fact that it is a 200 to FIVE hundred, while the Sigma offers Optical Stablizer technology, and a versatile 80-400 FL range with acceptable weight and good handling.
Of course,all of the above stuff is what I'm giving you permission to buy. Spend freely at your local photo dealer's shop. Or at B&H,or Adorama,or KEH,or Camera World, or wherever people treat you right,and where you feel comfortable conducting business. And hey, if you've got your eyes on a 300/2.8, 400 or 500 or 600, or some other $4,500 to $7999 big lens, what the heck, buy that too! And of course, if there's something I've forgotten,like a new tripod,or a monopod,or a new small studio flash system,then why not spring for that too?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The State of D-SLR Photography as 2008 Begins
Welcome To My 2008 Digital Photography Blog! Yeah, it's January 2 of 2008 and Nikon D3 camera bodies are out of stock at Adorama, B&H,and just about every other large store. If you're in need of a D3, look to smaller stores,and secondary markets. As with several recent launches of 'hot' Nikon products like the 70-200 VR, 24-120VR,200-400VR,18-200VR,D200,and now the D300, Nikon's distribution channel is simply starved for product. Currently D300's are being scalped on e-Bay by those who have the items. Oh well...that's the way it's going to be I suppose.
PMA 2008 is when many serious enthusiasts look for Canon to announce the EOS 5D follow-up/iteration; currently, 5D body prices are reasonable at just a little over 2,100 US dollars most places,and with some rebates it's possible to get the price down even lower if you're willing to jump through some hoops. I honestly do not think we'll see $1,500 5D bodies on clearance; instead,I think the body stands on its own merits,and $1999 at retail will empty the channel of 5D's almost as soon as the 5D successor is announced.
Once Nikon D300 bodies flood the market, Nikon will have a great seller on its hands. Currently, the camera is going for $2,099 at two well-known and very large New York City retail/online/mailorder houses,which is a $200 price gouge over the MAP of $1899,but then the demand is SKY-high and D300 bodies are in short supply,so some retailers will take advantage. Right now it is a seller's market for the Nikon D300.
2008 seems like a year in which a number of enthusiasts and serious shooters will feel the need to move up to newer bodies than what they are currently shooting. And making it easier to do that will be the ever-more-favorable prices on d-slr bodies and body/lens kits. The entry level Nikon D40 and EOS Rebel XTi prices are very low compared with what we had 18 months ago at the entry level; prices since Christmas 2006 have not fallen all "that" much on D-40 kits, but still, it's now under $500 for a D40 kit with the 18-55 lens. Late in 2007, Nikon suddenly announced that they would be adding VR or Vibration Reduction to the 18-55 kit lens,which is a good thing considering the len's slow maximum aperture and target audience. Still, for serious shooters, VR is a very worthwhile feature which greatly improves most panning shots, particularly slow-speed ones like at 1/4 to 1/8 second which is where a lot of panning shots will look good. The cancelling out of up-and-down camera movement during panning shots is one of the easiest places to see the benefits of a stabilized lens.
From my vantage point, it looks like a good time to be a Nikon shooter. And a good time to be a Canon shooter. And, if one looks at the price/value proposition, Pentax is sitting very,very pretty, with a very good deal on the K10D with in-body stabilization,and the redoubtable Pentax K-mount lens advantages. I think Pentax is giving a lot of value to serious hobbyist shooters,and they have some very,very interesting and truly UNIQUE prime lens designs which other mfrs. do not offer. At pretty good prices too! If I were not tied to a system, I'd give the Pentax system serious consideration. Very serious consideration.
One interesting thing I've recently read about is a Nikon G-series to Canon EF-mount adapter ring that allows electronic control over the aperture of Nikkor G-series lenses when used on Canon EF mount bodies! That the adapter actually works has been proven.The final price and manufacturing status are uncertain. It ought to be a highly useful adapter to own.
Speaking of adapters--EOS digital bodies like the 20-30-40D and EOS 5D allow the use of pre-Ai Nikkor lenses,with no problems. And so does the Nikon D40! It can mount pre-Ai Nikkor lenses too! Useful feature if you'd like to spend just a couple hundred dollars browsing the big,on-line used departments at Adorama.com or at KEH.com. Lenses which are still pre-Ai usually have chrome and black,metal barrel designs, with the scalloped (wave-like,with deeply-cut,machined finger grooves to aid in gripping the focus and aperture rings) and they also have a narrow,metal ring that encircles the lens,near the lens mount portion,with a black dot as a lens alignment point. The front-most part of the barrel and the focusing ring area is usually a bright aluminum color,and back by the diaphragm ring, or at the back of the focusing ring, there is often also the same aluminum-colored metal on the barrel--lenses that look like that are quite often in their native state, which is now called pre-Ai. Anyhow--there are some fine lenses from that era like the 35mm f/2 O or OC, the 85mm 1.8, the 105/2.5,and 35/1.4 which are pretty good optics, with pretty good imaging characteristics. The 50mm f/2 lens of this era is also quite good. The 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor is a lens from this era that works pretty well on the EOS 20D and 5D. So,keep in mind, the D40 will mount anything in F-mount,except for a couple of very rare,esoteric ultrawide lens designs. I've almost talked myself into getting a D40.
Well, getting caught up on the camera wars...it's a changing time now in both Canon and Nikon-land. It looks to me that the EOS 40D is finally an upgrade worth getting if you've been shooting a 20D or 30D. Michael Reeichman's original review of the 40D noted that he found its performance quite comparable to that given by the full frame EOS 5D. A few of the measurebators gave him flak, but he,and some other careful testers have demonstrated that the 40D's smaller 1.6x CMOS imager delivers very rich,saturated,sharp,clear 10 MP captures,and that the tonality of the images is lush,and well, about as nice as what the EOS 5D delivers. Wow...that's good image quality from a crop-sensored camera. I looked at a 20D-40D-5D comparison test referred to by Recihman, done by veteran photographer Miles Heckler,and Heckler's sample files of a studio scene were pretty impressive. The 20D images look rather dull and washed out compared with the 40D and 5D,especially at the higher ISO settings. But most impressive is how CLOSELY the 40D mimics the 5D's color and tonality,at least on the test scene. Image sizes were kept the same,by moving the 5D back from the scene, so that scene-to-scene comparisons were with the same sized images. The 5D beats the 40D image-quality wise mostly at the highest ISO settings of 800 at 1600 ISO,and the 5D is the winner only by a smidge,which speaks exceedingly well to how much Canon has done with its 10MP imager and image processing engine and all the other associated stuff that goes into a d-slr,like microlenses,AA filter strength,fill rates,noise reduction or not and if so then,when,where; image capture and processing bit depth and when does it go to 8-bit,dynamic range expansion processing routines,etc,etc.
I think it's obvious: based on how awesome the 40D's 10MP images look at even high ISO's of 800 and 1600,expect that the 5D successor camera will have an imager that performs *significantly better* than the 5D does,especially at elevated ISO settings. The 5D's imager is amply good,and the body is amply good to continue selling well I think. I don't see a real need to eliminate the 5D from the lineup at this time, but I do think Canon has the technological prowess to have a 5D replacement camera ready to announce at PMA 2008,which will be held January 28 through February 1 if my memory serves me.
Nikon and Canon are now engaged in a period of very healthy,intense competition,and Nikon's probably going to win the Japan market in d-slr sales this year,according to an article on dPreview's news page. No surprise that, that Nikon will win sales over Canon,since the D40 kit is such a hit,and enjoys a price advantage over the Canon Rebel Xti model that my friend Steve recently bought. Nikon's lower price attracts more first-time buyers,and also the D40 boasts in-camera image editing and cropping and redeye reduction and filter effects,plus two-level d-lighting which is pretty good at salvaging accidentally underexposed JPEGs,and other types of oddly-lighted scenes where some digital fill-flash type image processing is needed to give the images more "snap". Plus the D40 has that clever "beginner mode" hand-holding interface,and it's a superior product for camera counter demonstration. THe D40 is kind of,shall we say,Apple Macintosh-like in its clever beginner mode,and I think it's superior image processing and gadgety,Japanese-fun-time-like design makes it a better demonstration camera, and thus a better seller over the Xti,or almost any other camera of the lower and mid-classes. The D40 has got a UI advantage,and its beginner modes are very,very confidence inspiring. I used to sell cameras. The D40 is a fantastic featured camera,with easy,high-impact demo features,like in-camera cropping, or redeye reduction, or BW image conversion,or d-lighting. For the computer-less kid or grandma, the D40's in-camera editing modes make it more desirable than the Xti,at least to Japanese camera buyers.
Nikon's D3 is taking the High-ISO bastion by storm. The concert shooters are absolutely grooving on the 6400,and 12,800 ISO settings. The camera is at least three stops better than the D2x at the elevated ISOs,according to concert shooter Todd Owyoung's blog,located at http://ishootshows.com/
The only direct,lens-to-lens comparison of the 5D and D3 that I have seen was done by Ken Rockwell at http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d3/vs-5d-180mm.htm
Rockwell did his head-to-head D3 and 5D comparisons using the SAME 180mm f/2.8 ED AiS Nikkor on both the Nikon and the Canon bodies. This 180mm lens has ED glass,and is a large,well-built, apprx. $650 lens from twenty years ago. I own one,and have since 1986,and it is a fine lens. Rockwell's comparisons show me that the 5D and D3 are about equal at up to and including ISO 800,and that at each progressively higher ISO beyond 800, the D3 shows an advantage. And at the ridiculous ends, the 5D tops out and post-process pushing is the only way to get to the very-highest settings of 6400-12800-25600. For those who must shoot at the very-highest ISO settings currently possible,the D3 looks to be an excellent machine. Resolution-wise, I think other cameras actually better the D3,so if ultimate resolution is a concern, the D3 is currently not the best answer. As a sports/PJ/low-light machine, the D3 looks to me to be a dream camera based on specifications and the feature set and the sensor size; the High-ISO performance of the D3 is simply amazing. Amazing.
Nikon's D300 is a highly sought-after camera. My impression is that most users will like it quite a bit. I think the pictures I have seen out of the D300 prove that it is a vastly better High-ISO camera than the D2x or D2xs,and so,it will be adopted by many D2x users as an accompanying camera that's significantly better at elevated ISO shooting than the bigger,heavier D2x body,and that it'll work quite well for newspaper/wedding/portraiture work of most types,at a fair price for a nice camera body that's got a lot of pro-grade features but in a lighter,more-configurable half-height body,like Canon has been offering for some time. I think many people appreciate a half-height body to which a motor/dual battery/booster kind of effect is added AS NEEDED or IF needed, rather than being forced to always carry the "brick" body of an EOS 1 or D-single digit body.
I think 2008 is going to be a year in which a LOT of shooters get new equipment. 2008 is poised to be a transitional year,with great new models becoming available over the year,and with prices that are favorable,I think the amateur-serious enthusiast and pro segments of photography are going to see lots of people buy new bodies,and new lenses. Nikon has made two very nice new pro lenses for full-frame, their 14-24mm and their 24-70mm f/2.8 models,and has now added VR available in 200,300,400,500,and 600mm pro supertele lenses,at supertele prices. Bu also a 16-85mm VR lens,and an 18-55 kit lens with VR,and a 70-300 with VR and a 55-200 with VR, and then of course add to this the highly desirable and much sought-after 18-200 VR,and Nikon has made some very,very shrewd lens moves in the low- and mid-market,AND some spectacular moves in the pro-glass market. All within the last couple of years.
Consumer's like,and want stabilized lenses. Nikon now has a good lineup of VR lenses,and they range in price from dirt-cheap,to moderate,to upscale, to supertele. Including one hybrid field tele/macro, the 105 VR-G,which is an f/2.8 that functions well as a field lens,and does acceptably well as a macro lens. And including the 200 f/2 VR,which is one of the most-spectacular lenses ever created. Nikon's consumer/prosumer/enthusiast lineup loooks great these days.
Nikon's recent sales successes are related in some measure to its development of a full range of soccer-mom lenses,but also to their development of a group of lenses designed for burgeoning digital photography enthusiasts,many of who will pay around eight bills for an 11x zoom lens...as well as some other highly-capable lenses in the $800-$1699 price range. Stuff like the 17-35,70-200VR,17-55 DX,12-24 DX,and the new 14-24mm and 24-70mm f/2.8 nano-coating FX pro zoom models. Nikon's lenses have just gotten better and better,and Nikon seems to love selling lenses that cost $1100 to $1699,or more. The expansion of the serious enthusiast market means that expensive lenses like the 200-400 f/4 VR-G and 200mm f/2 VR-G lenses at roughly five thousand and four thousand dollars, are selling in numbers that would have been unheard of a decade ago. I think that 2008 will be a year in which MANY Nikon enthusiasts will increase their investment in the system.
PMA 2008 is when many serious enthusiasts look for Canon to announce the EOS 5D follow-up/iteration; currently, 5D body prices are reasonable at just a little over 2,100 US dollars most places,and with some rebates it's possible to get the price down even lower if you're willing to jump through some hoops. I honestly do not think we'll see $1,500 5D bodies on clearance; instead,I think the body stands on its own merits,and $1999 at retail will empty the channel of 5D's almost as soon as the 5D successor is announced.
Once Nikon D300 bodies flood the market, Nikon will have a great seller on its hands. Currently, the camera is going for $2,099 at two well-known and very large New York City retail/online/mailorder houses,which is a $200 price gouge over the MAP of $1899,but then the demand is SKY-high and D300 bodies are in short supply,so some retailers will take advantage. Right now it is a seller's market for the Nikon D300.
2008 seems like a year in which a number of enthusiasts and serious shooters will feel the need to move up to newer bodies than what they are currently shooting. And making it easier to do that will be the ever-more-favorable prices on d-slr bodies and body/lens kits. The entry level Nikon D40 and EOS Rebel XTi prices are very low compared with what we had 18 months ago at the entry level; prices since Christmas 2006 have not fallen all "that" much on D-40 kits, but still, it's now under $500 for a D40 kit with the 18-55 lens. Late in 2007, Nikon suddenly announced that they would be adding VR or Vibration Reduction to the 18-55 kit lens,which is a good thing considering the len's slow maximum aperture and target audience. Still, for serious shooters, VR is a very worthwhile feature which greatly improves most panning shots, particularly slow-speed ones like at 1/4 to 1/8 second which is where a lot of panning shots will look good. The cancelling out of up-and-down camera movement during panning shots is one of the easiest places to see the benefits of a stabilized lens.
From my vantage point, it looks like a good time to be a Nikon shooter. And a good time to be a Canon shooter. And, if one looks at the price/value proposition, Pentax is sitting very,very pretty, with a very good deal on the K10D with in-body stabilization,and the redoubtable Pentax K-mount lens advantages. I think Pentax is giving a lot of value to serious hobbyist shooters,and they have some very,very interesting and truly UNIQUE prime lens designs which other mfrs. do not offer. At pretty good prices too! If I were not tied to a system, I'd give the Pentax system serious consideration. Very serious consideration.
One interesting thing I've recently read about is a Nikon G-series to Canon EF-mount adapter ring that allows electronic control over the aperture of Nikkor G-series lenses when used on Canon EF mount bodies! That the adapter actually works has been proven.The final price and manufacturing status are uncertain. It ought to be a highly useful adapter to own.
Speaking of adapters--EOS digital bodies like the 20-30-40D and EOS 5D allow the use of pre-Ai Nikkor lenses,with no problems. And so does the Nikon D40! It can mount pre-Ai Nikkor lenses too! Useful feature if you'd like to spend just a couple hundred dollars browsing the big,on-line used departments at Adorama.com or at KEH.com. Lenses which are still pre-Ai usually have chrome and black,metal barrel designs, with the scalloped (wave-like,with deeply-cut,machined finger grooves to aid in gripping the focus and aperture rings) and they also have a narrow,metal ring that encircles the lens,near the lens mount portion,with a black dot as a lens alignment point. The front-most part of the barrel and the focusing ring area is usually a bright aluminum color,and back by the diaphragm ring, or at the back of the focusing ring, there is often also the same aluminum-colored metal on the barrel--lenses that look like that are quite often in their native state, which is now called pre-Ai. Anyhow--there are some fine lenses from that era like the 35mm f/2 O or OC, the 85mm 1.8, the 105/2.5,and 35/1.4 which are pretty good optics, with pretty good imaging characteristics. The 50mm f/2 lens of this era is also quite good. The 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor is a lens from this era that works pretty well on the EOS 20D and 5D. So,keep in mind, the D40 will mount anything in F-mount,except for a couple of very rare,esoteric ultrawide lens designs. I've almost talked myself into getting a D40.
Well, getting caught up on the camera wars...it's a changing time now in both Canon and Nikon-land. It looks to me that the EOS 40D is finally an upgrade worth getting if you've been shooting a 20D or 30D. Michael Reeichman's original review of the 40D noted that he found its performance quite comparable to that given by the full frame EOS 5D. A few of the measurebators gave him flak, but he,and some other careful testers have demonstrated that the 40D's smaller 1.6x CMOS imager delivers very rich,saturated,sharp,clear 10 MP captures,and that the tonality of the images is lush,and well, about as nice as what the EOS 5D delivers. Wow...that's good image quality from a crop-sensored camera. I looked at a 20D-40D-5D comparison test referred to by Recihman, done by veteran photographer Miles Heckler,and Heckler's sample files of a studio scene were pretty impressive. The 20D images look rather dull and washed out compared with the 40D and 5D,especially at the higher ISO settings. But most impressive is how CLOSELY the 40D mimics the 5D's color and tonality,at least on the test scene. Image sizes were kept the same,by moving the 5D back from the scene, so that scene-to-scene comparisons were with the same sized images. The 5D beats the 40D image-quality wise mostly at the highest ISO settings of 800 at 1600 ISO,and the 5D is the winner only by a smidge,which speaks exceedingly well to how much Canon has done with its 10MP imager and image processing engine and all the other associated stuff that goes into a d-slr,like microlenses,AA filter strength,fill rates,noise reduction or not and if so then,when,where; image capture and processing bit depth and when does it go to 8-bit,dynamic range expansion processing routines,etc,etc.
I think it's obvious: based on how awesome the 40D's 10MP images look at even high ISO's of 800 and 1600,expect that the 5D successor camera will have an imager that performs *significantly better* than the 5D does,especially at elevated ISO settings. The 5D's imager is amply good,and the body is amply good to continue selling well I think. I don't see a real need to eliminate the 5D from the lineup at this time, but I do think Canon has the technological prowess to have a 5D replacement camera ready to announce at PMA 2008,which will be held January 28 through February 1 if my memory serves me.
Nikon and Canon are now engaged in a period of very healthy,intense competition,and Nikon's probably going to win the Japan market in d-slr sales this year,according to an article on dPreview's news page. No surprise that, that Nikon will win sales over Canon,since the D40 kit is such a hit,and enjoys a price advantage over the Canon Rebel Xti model that my friend Steve recently bought. Nikon's lower price attracts more first-time buyers,and also the D40 boasts in-camera image editing and cropping and redeye reduction and filter effects,plus two-level d-lighting which is pretty good at salvaging accidentally underexposed JPEGs,and other types of oddly-lighted scenes where some digital fill-flash type image processing is needed to give the images more "snap". Plus the D40 has that clever "beginner mode" hand-holding interface,and it's a superior product for camera counter demonstration. THe D40 is kind of,shall we say,Apple Macintosh-like in its clever beginner mode,and I think it's superior image processing and gadgety,Japanese-fun-time-like design makes it a better demonstration camera, and thus a better seller over the Xti,or almost any other camera of the lower and mid-classes. The D40 has got a UI advantage,and its beginner modes are very,very confidence inspiring. I used to sell cameras. The D40 is a fantastic featured camera,with easy,high-impact demo features,like in-camera cropping, or redeye reduction, or BW image conversion,or d-lighting. For the computer-less kid or grandma, the D40's in-camera editing modes make it more desirable than the Xti,at least to Japanese camera buyers.
Nikon's D3 is taking the High-ISO bastion by storm. The concert shooters are absolutely grooving on the 6400,and 12,800 ISO settings. The camera is at least three stops better than the D2x at the elevated ISOs,according to concert shooter Todd Owyoung's blog,located at http://ishootshows.com/
The only direct,lens-to-lens comparison of the 5D and D3 that I have seen was done by Ken Rockwell at http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d3/vs-5d-180mm.htm
Rockwell did his head-to-head D3 and 5D comparisons using the SAME 180mm f/2.8 ED AiS Nikkor on both the Nikon and the Canon bodies. This 180mm lens has ED glass,and is a large,well-built, apprx. $650 lens from twenty years ago. I own one,and have since 1986,and it is a fine lens. Rockwell's comparisons show me that the 5D and D3 are about equal at up to and including ISO 800,and that at each progressively higher ISO beyond 800, the D3 shows an advantage. And at the ridiculous ends, the 5D tops out and post-process pushing is the only way to get to the very-highest settings of 6400-12800-25600. For those who must shoot at the very-highest ISO settings currently possible,the D3 looks to be an excellent machine. Resolution-wise, I think other cameras actually better the D3,so if ultimate resolution is a concern, the D3 is currently not the best answer. As a sports/PJ/low-light machine, the D3 looks to me to be a dream camera based on specifications and the feature set and the sensor size; the High-ISO performance of the D3 is simply amazing. Amazing.
Nikon's D300 is a highly sought-after camera. My impression is that most users will like it quite a bit. I think the pictures I have seen out of the D300 prove that it is a vastly better High-ISO camera than the D2x or D2xs,and so,it will be adopted by many D2x users as an accompanying camera that's significantly better at elevated ISO shooting than the bigger,heavier D2x body,and that it'll work quite well for newspaper/wedding/portraiture work of most types,at a fair price for a nice camera body that's got a lot of pro-grade features but in a lighter,more-configurable half-height body,like Canon has been offering for some time. I think many people appreciate a half-height body to which a motor/dual battery/booster kind of effect is added AS NEEDED or IF needed, rather than being forced to always carry the "brick" body of an EOS 1 or D-single digit body.
I think 2008 is going to be a year in which a LOT of shooters get new equipment. 2008 is poised to be a transitional year,with great new models becoming available over the year,and with prices that are favorable,I think the amateur-serious enthusiast and pro segments of photography are going to see lots of people buy new bodies,and new lenses. Nikon has made two very nice new pro lenses for full-frame, their 14-24mm and their 24-70mm f/2.8 models,and has now added VR available in 200,300,400,500,and 600mm pro supertele lenses,at supertele prices. Bu also a 16-85mm VR lens,and an 18-55 kit lens with VR,and a 70-300 with VR and a 55-200 with VR, and then of course add to this the highly desirable and much sought-after 18-200 VR,and Nikon has made some very,very shrewd lens moves in the low- and mid-market,AND some spectacular moves in the pro-glass market. All within the last couple of years.
Consumer's like,and want stabilized lenses. Nikon now has a good lineup of VR lenses,and they range in price from dirt-cheap,to moderate,to upscale, to supertele. Including one hybrid field tele/macro, the 105 VR-G,which is an f/2.8 that functions well as a field lens,and does acceptably well as a macro lens. And including the 200 f/2 VR,which is one of the most-spectacular lenses ever created. Nikon's consumer/prosumer/enthusiast lineup loooks great these days.
Nikon's recent sales successes are related in some measure to its development of a full range of soccer-mom lenses,but also to their development of a group of lenses designed for burgeoning digital photography enthusiasts,many of who will pay around eight bills for an 11x zoom lens...as well as some other highly-capable lenses in the $800-$1699 price range. Stuff like the 17-35,70-200VR,17-55 DX,12-24 DX,and the new 14-24mm and 24-70mm f/2.8 nano-coating FX pro zoom models. Nikon's lenses have just gotten better and better,and Nikon seems to love selling lenses that cost $1100 to $1699,or more. The expansion of the serious enthusiast market means that expensive lenses like the 200-400 f/4 VR-G and 200mm f/2 VR-G lenses at roughly five thousand and four thousand dollars, are selling in numbers that would have been unheard of a decade ago. I think that 2008 will be a year in which MANY Nikon enthusiasts will increase their investment in the system.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
What's WRONG With The Canon EOS 5D?
What's Wrong With The Canon 5D? I've uncovered five weaknesses during my several months of ownership and use.
First,the accessory grip BG-4's ON-OFF switch has virtually no detent at the ON position,and in the course of very normal shooting and handling of the camera, the switch quite frequently makes its way far enough toward OFF that the grip's shutter release button is dead when I go to use it. This is a simple engineering failure; the EOS 5D grip's ON-OFF switch moves with very little force. On several occasions,over five months of use of the camera,I've gone to shoot with the vertical release,and it's accidentally slipped to OFF in the course of just handling/using the camera. It's annoying. [Nov 26,2007 Update:Since this writing, I've had three more instances of "dead release button when trying to shoot'.]
The 5D's pentaprism allows a LOT of stray dust into the viewfinder system. I have a 30-year old Nikon FM which was last serviced 1987 and it has about as much crap inside it as my months-old new 5D has accumulated. Seriously.I suspect the 5D's eyepiece window is the culprit. The 5D's viewfinder/pentaprism/eyepiece system is one dust-leakin' mutha. I read about this problem before buying a 5D,and knew going in that it allows a lot of dust to get inside the camera and onto the viewfinder screen. It's a poorly-sealed system. Here's a web article illustrated with good photos that show exactly how to remove the viewfinder screen and to clean out all the crap that'll accumulate inside your 5D's viewfinder. http://www.ascent-design.com/photo/Clean5D/
The third thing that's wrong with the EOS 5D is the autofocus system. The 5D uses a diamond-shaped AF point array that's too-centrally weighted,and which does not allow the use of off-centered AF points in the sure,positive manner that I am used to with the Nikon D2x. Also, the 5D does have some difficulties in ascertaining focus under flat,lower-contrast lighting, and also under some low-light scenarios,especially when only an outside,single AF point is in use. The outermost AF sensor brackets in the 5D simply do not meet my performance expectations under low-light or low-contrast lighting scenarios. The left and right edges of the frame are "served" by one AF point at the outermost point of the diamond; again, the 5D's main AF limitation is that it is weak when using off-center AF points. By contrast,the D2x allows you to use grouped off-center AF points, and with those groups of AF points doing the computing, the D2x is amazingly strong at nailing off-center targets. The D2x AF approach gives a higher priority to the edges of the frame,and particularly when photographing people in the portrait orientation, the D2x's grouped AF points can more-reliably pull focus under soft,low light levels like under studio flash modeling lamps. The heavily center-weighted,diamond-shaped AF point array Canon uses in its consumer and prosumer cameras is simply not as sophisticated,nor as costly, as what Canon or Nikon puts in some other camera bodies.
While the 5D's AF performance is reasonably good MUCH of the time,it does not function all that well with the side AF points indoors in a lot of my shooting scenarios using either the 50mm f/1.4 EF, 85mm f/1.8 EF, 135mm f/2 L-series, nor with the 24-105mm f/4 L-series zoom. The 5D's AF system is simply not as sophisticated, nor as user-adjustable, nor as user-controllable as the autofocusing system in Nikon's D2x. That's my take on the 5D's AF system; while the 5D has a Very Good AF system, the D2x has an Excellent AF system. Compare the price,and compare the market niche,and this all makes sense.
The 5D's fourth major flaw is a two-part problem with the viewfinder system. First problem area is the skimpy viewfinder information system. There's no information displayed except plus and minus on the exposure scale and any exposure comp dialed in,and the frames remaining in the buffer. There is NO DISPLAY INFORMATION that tells the user which exposure mode is selected! Yes,that's right: there is NO indication of which exposure mode is selected when looking thru the viewfinder! No metering pattern info, no ANYTHING, except for the exposure setting readouts and frames remaining. The 5D has minimal shooting information visible in the finder. Weird. Very,very weird.
Part Two of the fourth major flaw of the EOS 5D needs to be in all-caps: THE 5D's LCD INFO PRETTY MUCH DISAPPEARS IN VERY BRIGHT LIGHT. It's damned near impossible to see the metering readouts of the 5D when shooting under very bright outdoor lighting. The 5D's viewfinder LED's are so weak and underpowered I am amazed that this serious flaw was not found and rectified during beta testing of the bodies. Using this camera outdoors in very bright light conditions during July and August was a pain in the ass. The metering LED's are very underpowered.
The viewfinder IMAGE, of the framing and focusing of the scene the lens sees, is quite,quite good. I can see almost all of the image area,all the way out to the corners while wearing my glasses. The viewfinder screen is bright,and has a smooth texture. I wish the screen were a bit more coarse and contrasty,and thus more geared toward manual focus ascertainment, but that's just my personal preference. The screen is optimized for autofocus operation with fast prime lenses,and under ideal to good conditions the viewfinder screen allows "reasonable" manual focus ascertainment. Under more-difficult conditions, the screen is not too good for manual focus ascertainment. I've shot the 5D with the Nikkor 85/1.4, 105 DC, 50/2 HC,105/2.5 AiS,and 300/4 AF-S and 400/3.5 and a few other manual focusing lenses. Under optimal to good conditions, the 5D's screen works reasonably well with the above lenses. Good Nikon glass performs very well on the 5D's sensor.
To recap the viewfinder system's weaknesses: 1-The 5D is really is prone to allowing dust and junk into the finder system,to the point you can easily,easily see the crud as you use the camera. 2-In bright light, it can be VERY difficult/impossible to see the 5D's exposure info through the viewfinder. The LED's can virtually disappear and become virtually invisible when shooting under very bright, i.e. under "summertime" conditions. On the plus side, the finder image is large,clear,and not 'squinty' or 'tunnel-like'.
Summary: All told, what's wrong with the EOS 5D is almost all body-related stuff. The camera is generally pretty good in almost all areas,except for a few things. The body and its subsystems are really not as sophisticated as those found in Canon's or Nikon's top-grade bodies,but then the 5D does not retail for $4,500 to $7,999 as do the top-grade bodies. The 5D allows dust into the viewfinder system MORE readily than any body I've ever used. The 5D has only minimal shooting information visible in the finder. And the finder's LCD readouts are seriously underpowered,and pretty much blank out to invisibility,or near-invisibility,when using the camera under bright ambient light shooting conditions. And the 5D is fitted with an AF system that's kind of low-rent compared with what I expect these days from a "pro" body, but this is not a "pro Canon", it is Canon's entry-priced,entry-level Full-Frame digital SLR body.
On the plus side, the sensor's performance is excellent. Truly excellent. The low, medium, and high-iso ranges are all excellent performers. The frame rate is fine,and in social situations the 3FPS rate gives a nice separation between frames. I like the 5D's ability to remove the grip,and to have a half-height camera when portability or smaller profile is advantageous. Shutter lag is acceptable for social photography. Card write times are fine. There's not a lot really "wrong" with the 5D except when you try and shoot with it under bright, outdoor light conditions which make the viewfinder information display's faded-out green characters almost impossible to see without resorting to physically shrouding the area surrounding the viewfinder eyepiece. Aside from the five major flaws I point out,the 5D has a few minor flaws that are related to Canon's goofy button-and-menu control system and Canon's goofball ergonomics and camera control 'decisions'; overall, the EOS 5D is a very,very good image-maker. The 5D makes beautiful images. Across a wide range of ISO's and a wide range of light levels. The camera's sensor is MUCH, much better for higher-ISO shooting than the Nikon D2x,for example. An excellent sensor like the 5D's in a body as excellent as the Nikon D2x would make for an incredible professional camera.
Addendum, August 10,2008: See this thread detailing problems other 5D owners have found at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&thread=28908041&page=1
The 5D's pentaprism allows a LOT of stray dust into the viewfinder system. I have a 30-year old Nikon FM which was last serviced 1987 and it has about as much crap inside it as my months-old new 5D has accumulated. Seriously.I suspect the 5D's eyepiece window is the culprit. The 5D's viewfinder/pentaprism/eyepiece system is one dust-leakin' mutha. I read about this problem before buying a 5D,and knew going in that it allows a lot of dust to get inside the camera and onto the viewfinder screen. It's a poorly-sealed system. Here's a web article illustrated with good photos that show exactly how to remove the viewfinder screen and to clean out all the crap that'll accumulate inside your 5D's viewfinder. http://www.ascent-design.com/photo/Clean5D/
The third thing that's wrong with the EOS 5D is the autofocus system. The 5D uses a diamond-shaped AF point array that's too-centrally weighted,and which does not allow the use of off-centered AF points in the sure,positive manner that I am used to with the Nikon D2x. Also, the 5D does have some difficulties in ascertaining focus under flat,lower-contrast lighting, and also under some low-light scenarios,especially when only an outside,single AF point is in use. The outermost AF sensor brackets in the 5D simply do not meet my performance expectations under low-light or low-contrast lighting scenarios. The left and right edges of the frame are "served" by one AF point at the outermost point of the diamond; again, the 5D's main AF limitation is that it is weak when using off-center AF points. By contrast,the D2x allows you to use grouped off-center AF points, and with those groups of AF points doing the computing, the D2x is amazingly strong at nailing off-center targets. The D2x AF approach gives a higher priority to the edges of the frame,and particularly when photographing people in the portrait orientation, the D2x's grouped AF points can more-reliably pull focus under soft,low light levels like under studio flash modeling lamps. The heavily center-weighted,diamond-shaped AF point array Canon uses in its consumer and prosumer cameras is simply not as sophisticated,nor as costly, as what Canon or Nikon puts in some other camera bodies.
While the 5D's AF performance is reasonably good MUCH of the time,it does not function all that well with the side AF points indoors in a lot of my shooting scenarios using either the 50mm f/1.4 EF, 85mm f/1.8 EF, 135mm f/2 L-series, nor with the 24-105mm f/4 L-series zoom. The 5D's AF system is simply not as sophisticated, nor as user-adjustable, nor as user-controllable as the autofocusing system in Nikon's D2x. That's my take on the 5D's AF system; while the 5D has a Very Good AF system, the D2x has an Excellent AF system. Compare the price,and compare the market niche,and this all makes sense.
The 5D's fourth major flaw is a two-part problem with the viewfinder system. First problem area is the skimpy viewfinder information system. There's no information displayed except plus and minus on the exposure scale and any exposure comp dialed in,and the frames remaining in the buffer. There is NO DISPLAY INFORMATION that tells the user which exposure mode is selected! Yes,that's right: there is NO indication of which exposure mode is selected when looking thru the viewfinder! No metering pattern info, no ANYTHING, except for the exposure setting readouts and frames remaining. The 5D has minimal shooting information visible in the finder. Weird. Very,very weird.
Part Two of the fourth major flaw of the EOS 5D needs to be in all-caps: THE 5D's LCD INFO PRETTY MUCH DISAPPEARS IN VERY BRIGHT LIGHT. It's damned near impossible to see the metering readouts of the 5D when shooting under very bright outdoor lighting. The 5D's viewfinder LED's are so weak and underpowered I am amazed that this serious flaw was not found and rectified during beta testing of the bodies. Using this camera outdoors in very bright light conditions during July and August was a pain in the ass. The metering LED's are very underpowered.
The viewfinder IMAGE, of the framing and focusing of the scene the lens sees, is quite,quite good. I can see almost all of the image area,all the way out to the corners while wearing my glasses. The viewfinder screen is bright,and has a smooth texture. I wish the screen were a bit more coarse and contrasty,and thus more geared toward manual focus ascertainment, but that's just my personal preference. The screen is optimized for autofocus operation with fast prime lenses,and under ideal to good conditions the viewfinder screen allows "reasonable" manual focus ascertainment. Under more-difficult conditions, the screen is not too good for manual focus ascertainment. I've shot the 5D with the Nikkor 85/1.4, 105 DC, 50/2 HC,105/2.5 AiS,and 300/4 AF-S and 400/3.5 and a few other manual focusing lenses. Under optimal to good conditions, the 5D's screen works reasonably well with the above lenses. Good Nikon glass performs very well on the 5D's sensor.
To recap the viewfinder system's weaknesses: 1-The 5D is really is prone to allowing dust and junk into the finder system,to the point you can easily,easily see the crud as you use the camera. 2-In bright light, it can be VERY difficult/impossible to see the 5D's exposure info through the viewfinder. The LED's can virtually disappear and become virtually invisible when shooting under very bright, i.e. under "summertime" conditions. On the plus side, the finder image is large,clear,and not 'squinty' or 'tunnel-like'.
Summary: All told, what's wrong with the EOS 5D is almost all body-related stuff. The camera is generally pretty good in almost all areas,except for a few things. The body and its subsystems are really not as sophisticated as those found in Canon's or Nikon's top-grade bodies,but then the 5D does not retail for $4,500 to $7,999 as do the top-grade bodies. The 5D allows dust into the viewfinder system MORE readily than any body I've ever used. The 5D has only minimal shooting information visible in the finder. And the finder's LCD readouts are seriously underpowered,and pretty much blank out to invisibility,or near-invisibility,when using the camera under bright ambient light shooting conditions. And the 5D is fitted with an AF system that's kind of low-rent compared with what I expect these days from a "pro" body, but this is not a "pro Canon", it is Canon's entry-priced,entry-level Full-Frame digital SLR body.
On the plus side, the sensor's performance is excellent. Truly excellent. The low, medium, and high-iso ranges are all excellent performers. The frame rate is fine,and in social situations the 3FPS rate gives a nice separation between frames. I like the 5D's ability to remove the grip,and to have a half-height camera when portability or smaller profile is advantageous. Shutter lag is acceptable for social photography. Card write times are fine. There's not a lot really "wrong" with the 5D except when you try and shoot with it under bright, outdoor light conditions which make the viewfinder information display's faded-out green characters almost impossible to see without resorting to physically shrouding the area surrounding the viewfinder eyepiece. Aside from the five major flaws I point out,the 5D has a few minor flaws that are related to Canon's goofy button-and-menu control system and Canon's goofball ergonomics and camera control 'decisions'; overall, the EOS 5D is a very,very good image-maker. The 5D makes beautiful images. Across a wide range of ISO's and a wide range of light levels. The camera's sensor is MUCH, much better for higher-ISO shooting than the Nikon D2x,for example. An excellent sensor like the 5D's in a body as excellent as the Nikon D2x would make for an incredible professional camera.
Addendum, August 10,2008: See this thread detailing problems other 5D owners have found at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&thread=28908041&page=1
Friday, August 03, 2007
Canon EOS 5D Review: 90 Days With the 5D
Well, it's now been a little over three months that I've shot with the EOS 5D and its accessory dual battery grip. I've used the 24-105mm f/4 L zoom, the EF 50/1.4, the EF 85/1.8,and the EF 135/2 L-series on the 5D, as well as Nikon's 105mm Defocus Control lens and a few other Nikkors. Now that I've shot a few thousand frames with the 5D, I'm familiar with the kind of results it can produce. Overall, I think the 5D is a fine camera, but one which could benefit from a better body with a little bit better feature set and design. Specifically, the 5D DOES allow a TON of crap to make its way inside the viewfinder system--it's the worst SLR design I have ever shot with in terms of allowing dust to enter the viewscreen/pentaprism areas. The EOS 5D could use a pop-up flash in a major way. And a couple more control buttons. Yet still, the 5D has proven itself to be a practical, easy-to-use, versatile camera, with a great mix of value, image quality, and simplicity in use.
One of the 5D's biggest operational problems is the ultra-soft touch ON/OFF switch on the accessory battery grip. Normal use and handling of the camera can turn the ON/OFF switch slightly forward, away from the ON position by a millimeter or two, rendering the grip's shutter release inoperational. The control has far,far too light of a touch,and has an almost non-existent detent at either ON or OFF. Numerous times, I've found that the vertical grip's trigger is dead, even though I NEVER turn the grip's trigger OFF. The switch is large,and has no safety lock...it's free to move toward OFF at any time, with almost no pressure. A crappy design,really. One must constantly make sure the trigger on the grip STAYS where it was put, since it wanders to OFF of its own accord quite often.
Lens-wise, the 85mm f/1.8 Canon EF lens is a tremendous value for the money spent. The 135mm f/2 L is a good telephoto lens, on par with Nikon's 135 f/2 Defocus Control lens,with maybe a bit higher image contrast being shown by the Canon lens.
Canon's 50mm f/1.4 EF is amply sharp and contrasty ,and it focuses very quickly, but the 50/1.4 EF has had some very,very odd failures to initiate autofocus over the last few weeks. While all three of these prime lenses appear well-made and feel solid and they handle and shoot very nicely, I must confess that the operational failures I've had with the $345 50mm lens are kind of pissing me off as of late. The 50's failure to initiate AF has been when the lens got confused and went wayyyy out of focus, and would simply NOT make an effort to seek focus until manually shifted out of AF and into to Manual focus,and the lens ring had to be turned and turned and turned by hand. Perhaps this 50 is a clunker--I've had this odd AF failure happen three times,and three times it has cost me the shot. I've never had a similar experience before or since with any other lenses of any brand.
I've only recently, this week in fact, purchased the 70-200 f/2.8 IS L-series zoom and the 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus lenses, and have only shot those two lenses a little bit, and only on informal stuff. All of the Canon EF lenses I've used have been good to excellent performers, and the camera's AF performance has been MOSTLY very good, with a few occasional failures to acquire focus where more-sophisticated AF systems (like the one in the D2x) can be utilized for surer performance. But on MOST subjects I've used it for, the EOS 5D's AF system has been pretty good with the lenses I own. One thing is also clear: top-quality Nikkor lenses like the 85mm f/1.4, 105mm f/2 DC, 135mm f/2 DC, and 300mm f/4 AF-S and 300mm f/2.8 AFS-II are superb optical performers on the 5D's excellent sensor.
ISO flexibility is one area where the 5D does well; its performance at elevated ISO settings like 500,640,and 800, is noticeably better than what the D2x can do at those ISO settings. AND, and this is a big and, the 5D's sensor is more sensitive than the meter indicates in most real-world scenes I've run into. The 5D is an excellent low-light d-slr.Better than anything I've yet shot.
Keep in mind that since the 5D's design, Canon has cribbed/stolen/copycatted Nikon's "AF ON" button,and has added the AF ON button to their new pro sports/action EOS 1D Mark III and to the upcoming EOS 40D semi-pro camera. While it's a crude system compared to the two-button,user-customizable AF-AE buttons Nikon's D1 and D2 series have always offered, Canon's copycat move to add a single "AF ON" button is an excellent ergonomics example of where NIKON has long been a leader, and Canon's body ergonomics are and have been seriously lacking. Canon is adding an AF ON button, but is not adding the AE or light meter button Nikon has in its pro bodies. However, Canon engineers are willing to copycat half of Nikon's engineering and ergonomics leadership position and with the adoption of an AF ON button, Canon has finally recognized that a human's right thumb can actually serve a purpose in the control of the camera; in camera control ergonomics, Canon still lags behind Nikon in designing useful,logical camera control systems. In terms of control buttons, the EOS 5D lags behind most Nikon body designs. The 5D is a very simplified body.
Autofocus on the 5D is a mixed bag. Usually the 5D delivers very good AF, but occasionally,it stumbled and provides just the dumbest, crappiest AF performance you can imagine. Weird. I do not think that the user can assign AF points very intuitively with Canon's body controls, and I think that the tiny multi-controller "button" Canon uses is a joke. Better than nothing, but a laughable piece of crap compared with the large, positive, foolproof 4-way-controller Nikon has used for years. Again, imitation may be a sincere form of flattery, but the diminutive Canon multicontroller is VERY difficult to use when one wishes to assign AF to the two points just inside the outermost AF brackets, on either side of the viewfinder screen. Canon's multicontroller does a horrible job when trying to assign AF to any of those four total outer AF brackets,and it represents the same engineering failure on the 5D as on the 20D. If memory serves, the 20D was the first Canon to use the multi-controller "nipple",and the 5D is not far removed from the 20D,engineering-wise. Like I said earlier, while the 5D normally has excellent AF performance, at times it seems very,very "stupid" when using some pretty good Canon lenses--not slow consumer zooms, but the "good stuff". On a scale of 1-10, the 5D gets an overall AF score of 8.75 in my book.
In terms of image quality, the 5D delivers excellent image quality at all normal ISO settings. The camera is not too large or bulky,nor is it overly heavy. I like the "look" of full-frame digital captures very much. The 12.8 megapixel image sensor delivers clean,noise-free images under even poor lighting conditions. The files offer excellent workability in Photoshop. While the body controls and autofocus systems both are somewhat "simplified" and "middle of the road" compared to pro-level cameras, the price is nowhere near as high as the pro-level bodies from either Nikon or Canon. The EOS 5D offers a lot of bang for the dollar spent,and the files it produces are excellent. it is not a perfect camera, nor is it a particularly fast-handling nor a fast-reacting camera; it feels quite slow,mechanically and in terms of overall responsiveness, compared to the Nikon D1 and D2 series bodies I am used to. The EOS 5D is basically a superb image sensor enveloped in a mid-level camera body. The viewfinder information is very difficult to see in bright light. The viewfinder information is exceedingly skimpy. The body controls are rather primitive. But the pictures.....ah...the pictures; the image quality is where the 5D truly delivers.
One of the 5D's biggest operational problems is the ultra-soft touch ON/OFF switch on the accessory battery grip. Normal use and handling of the camera can turn the ON/OFF switch slightly forward, away from the ON position by a millimeter or two, rendering the grip's shutter release inoperational. The control has far,far too light of a touch,and has an almost non-existent detent at either ON or OFF. Numerous times, I've found that the vertical grip's trigger is dead, even though I NEVER turn the grip's trigger OFF. The switch is large,and has no safety lock...it's free to move toward OFF at any time, with almost no pressure. A crappy design,really. One must constantly make sure the trigger on the grip STAYS where it was put, since it wanders to OFF of its own accord quite often.
Lens-wise, the 85mm f/1.8 Canon EF lens is a tremendous value for the money spent. The 135mm f/2 L is a good telephoto lens, on par with Nikon's 135 f/2 Defocus Control lens,with maybe a bit higher image contrast being shown by the Canon lens.
Canon's 50mm f/1.4 EF is amply sharp and contrasty ,and it focuses very quickly, but the 50/1.4 EF has had some very,very odd failures to initiate autofocus over the last few weeks. While all three of these prime lenses appear well-made and feel solid and they handle and shoot very nicely, I must confess that the operational failures I've had with the $345 50mm lens are kind of pissing me off as of late. The 50's failure to initiate AF has been when the lens got confused and went wayyyy out of focus, and would simply NOT make an effort to seek focus until manually shifted out of AF and into to Manual focus,and the lens ring had to be turned and turned and turned by hand. Perhaps this 50 is a clunker--I've had this odd AF failure happen three times,and three times it has cost me the shot. I've never had a similar experience before or since with any other lenses of any brand.
I've only recently, this week in fact, purchased the 70-200 f/2.8 IS L-series zoom and the 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus lenses, and have only shot those two lenses a little bit, and only on informal stuff. All of the Canon EF lenses I've used have been good to excellent performers, and the camera's AF performance has been MOSTLY very good, with a few occasional failures to acquire focus where more-sophisticated AF systems (like the one in the D2x) can be utilized for surer performance. But on MOST subjects I've used it for, the EOS 5D's AF system has been pretty good with the lenses I own. One thing is also clear: top-quality Nikkor lenses like the 85mm f/1.4, 105mm f/2 DC, 135mm f/2 DC, and 300mm f/4 AF-S and 300mm f/2.8 AFS-II are superb optical performers on the 5D's excellent sensor.
ISO flexibility is one area where the 5D does well; its performance at elevated ISO settings like 500,640,and 800, is noticeably better than what the D2x can do at those ISO settings. AND, and this is a big and, the 5D's sensor is more sensitive than the meter indicates in most real-world scenes I've run into. The 5D is an excellent low-light d-slr.Better than anything I've yet shot.
Keep in mind that since the 5D's design, Canon has cribbed/stolen/copycatted Nikon's "AF ON" button,and has added the AF ON button to their new pro sports/action EOS 1D Mark III and to the upcoming EOS 40D semi-pro camera. While it's a crude system compared to the two-button,user-customizable AF-AE buttons Nikon's D1 and D2 series have always offered, Canon's copycat move to add a single "AF ON" button is an excellent ergonomics example of where NIKON has long been a leader, and Canon's body ergonomics are and have been seriously lacking. Canon is adding an AF ON button, but is not adding the AE or light meter button Nikon has in its pro bodies. However, Canon engineers are willing to copycat half of Nikon's engineering and ergonomics leadership position and with the adoption of an AF ON button, Canon has finally recognized that a human's right thumb can actually serve a purpose in the control of the camera; in camera control ergonomics, Canon still lags behind Nikon in designing useful,logical camera control systems. In terms of control buttons, the EOS 5D lags behind most Nikon body designs. The 5D is a very simplified body.
Autofocus on the 5D is a mixed bag. Usually the 5D delivers very good AF, but occasionally,it stumbled and provides just the dumbest, crappiest AF performance you can imagine. Weird. I do not think that the user can assign AF points very intuitively with Canon's body controls, and I think that the tiny multi-controller "button" Canon uses is a joke. Better than nothing, but a laughable piece of crap compared with the large, positive, foolproof 4-way-controller Nikon has used for years. Again, imitation may be a sincere form of flattery, but the diminutive Canon multicontroller is VERY difficult to use when one wishes to assign AF to the two points just inside the outermost AF brackets, on either side of the viewfinder screen. Canon's multicontroller does a horrible job when trying to assign AF to any of those four total outer AF brackets,and it represents the same engineering failure on the 5D as on the 20D. If memory serves, the 20D was the first Canon to use the multi-controller "nipple",and the 5D is not far removed from the 20D,engineering-wise. Like I said earlier, while the 5D normally has excellent AF performance, at times it seems very,very "stupid" when using some pretty good Canon lenses--not slow consumer zooms, but the "good stuff". On a scale of 1-10, the 5D gets an overall AF score of 8.75 in my book.
In terms of image quality, the 5D delivers excellent image quality at all normal ISO settings. The camera is not too large or bulky,nor is it overly heavy. I like the "look" of full-frame digital captures very much. The 12.8 megapixel image sensor delivers clean,noise-free images under even poor lighting conditions. The files offer excellent workability in Photoshop. While the body controls and autofocus systems both are somewhat "simplified" and "middle of the road" compared to pro-level cameras, the price is nowhere near as high as the pro-level bodies from either Nikon or Canon. The EOS 5D offers a lot of bang for the dollar spent,and the files it produces are excellent. it is not a perfect camera, nor is it a particularly fast-handling nor a fast-reacting camera; it feels quite slow,mechanically and in terms of overall responsiveness, compared to the Nikon D1 and D2 series bodies I am used to. The EOS 5D is basically a superb image sensor enveloped in a mid-level camera body. The viewfinder information is very difficult to see in bright light. The viewfinder information is exceedingly skimpy. The body controls are rather primitive. But the pictures.....ah...the pictures; the image quality is where the 5D truly delivers.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Full Frame Digital With the EOS 5D
I've gone back to full frame 35mm-style capture, but this time instead of a Nikon F-series body, I'm using a Canon EOS 5D digital SLR. After thinking about it for quite some time,and after reviewing a lot of my photos, I decided I'd had it with the small capture format of APS-C or DX-sensored cameras for my "people pictures" and social photography.
I elected to go with the 5D and 24-105mm f/4 Image Stabiliser L-series zoom lens, the 50mm f/1.4 EF USM normal lens, the 85mm f/1.8 EF USM short telephoto, my current 100mm f/2.8 EF Macro, and the 135mm f/2 L-series telephoto lens. I also have a Nikon to EOS lens mount adapter ring,which allows use of F-mount lenses on EOS bodies,and it works well.
Yesterday I shot a few images with my 180mm f/2.8 ED AiS Nikkor on the 5D,as well as a few with the 135mm f/2 L lens. The Canon has prettier bokeh,and significantly higher contrast and color saturation than the 21-year-old 180mm ED I've had since 1986. The 180 AiS's substantial weight and massiveness counterbalance the 5D body very well in horizontal and vertical modes without the grip on the body,and the old lens's slow-ratio manual focusing throw in the 30-foot to 6-foot focusing range makes it a very easy lens to focus manually, without concern for hair-trigger mis-focusing mistakes,which often are made when using AF lenses with their ultra-quick focus throws in manual focusing mode. The 180 AiS focuses very well on the 5D--smooth helicoid,long focal length,wide aperture and high magnification all together add up to easy focusing.
I shot some stuff around evening time,indoors, at f/2 and 1/40 to 1/50 second under dimmer tungsten+filtered window light,using the 135 f/2 L Canon lens and my battered 1990's 135 f/2 AF Defocus Control Nikkor lens (first version). Eh...the Canon's a slightly better lens,with less corner fall-off, but otherwise the 135 L's not all "that much better" than the 135 DC Nikkor, which I must admit is kind of disappointing. It's early,and the light has been flat here,and I've not made that many exposures, but the 135/2 L doesn't impress me "that" much,and I thought it really would blow my doors off.With the manual Nikon lens on the 5D, the 5D's focus screen and the 135 DC's focusing throw and slightly stiff action (on my old beat up copy the focus throw is a bit stiff) makes for somewhat slow,disappointing manual focusing at closer ranges under 20 feet...using the autofocus system of the Canon 135mm lens is preferrable to the 135 Nikkor in MF mode.
The camera has one stuck-on red pixel group near the far,far right lower corner of the frame,visible mostly in low (EV 4 or lower) scenes,and the sensor was _IMMACULATELY_ free of dust. The viewfinder view screen/prism was 100% free of dust yesterday. But now 24 hours later, I've gotten two dust bunnies on the viewfinder screen already...no big deal. It was nice to buy a new camera with an immaculately clean sensor.
The LCD is a weak area of this camera. It's just an average-quality screen image,and it's hard to see outdoors. The viewfinder is mostly visible to me with my eyeglasses on,and the image is quite usable for manual focusing,at least in decent light. The camera's shutter lag time and mirror return times are reasonably fast, but nowhere NEAR as responsive as the D1 or D2 series Nikons. Shutter noise is kind of dull but clattery,with nothing high-pitched or shrill in the shutter or mirror noise. Loud-ish, yet not too objectionable is how I'd describe the 5D's firing sounds. The camera and 24-105-L combo feels solid and weighty. The body has a large,chunky grip which suits my lengthy fingers well,and the body has a heft to it.
I'll know more about the 5D as I get to explore it over the next few weeks, but sufice it to say--I am VERY happy to see the background control and angles of view I can get at the telephoto end of the 24-105 zoom,as well as the wide angle looks I can get at 24 to 28mm. I'm very anxious to shoot the 85/1.4 AF-D and 105mm DC Nikkors on this camera,and to compare their performance with that of the 135mm-L Canon lens. I also look forward to seeing just how my new 85mm 1.8 EF Canon handles and performs.
I elected to go with the 5D and 24-105mm f/4 Image Stabiliser L-series zoom lens, the 50mm f/1.4 EF USM normal lens, the 85mm f/1.8 EF USM short telephoto, my current 100mm f/2.8 EF Macro, and the 135mm f/2 L-series telephoto lens. I also have a Nikon to EOS lens mount adapter ring,which allows use of F-mount lenses on EOS bodies,and it works well.
Yesterday I shot a few images with my 180mm f/2.8 ED AiS Nikkor on the 5D,as well as a few with the 135mm f/2 L lens. The Canon has prettier bokeh,and significantly higher contrast and color saturation than the 21-year-old 180mm ED I've had since 1986. The 180 AiS's substantial weight and massiveness counterbalance the 5D body very well in horizontal and vertical modes without the grip on the body,and the old lens's slow-ratio manual focusing throw in the 30-foot to 6-foot focusing range makes it a very easy lens to focus manually, without concern for hair-trigger mis-focusing mistakes,which often are made when using AF lenses with their ultra-quick focus throws in manual focusing mode. The 180 AiS focuses very well on the 5D--smooth helicoid,long focal length,wide aperture and high magnification all together add up to easy focusing.
I shot some stuff around evening time,indoors, at f/2 and 1/40 to 1/50 second under dimmer tungsten+filtered window light,using the 135 f/2 L Canon lens and my battered 1990's 135 f/2 AF Defocus Control Nikkor lens (first version). Eh...the Canon's a slightly better lens,with less corner fall-off, but otherwise the 135 L's not all "that much better" than the 135 DC Nikkor, which I must admit is kind of disappointing. It's early,and the light has been flat here,and I've not made that many exposures, but the 135/2 L doesn't impress me "that" much,and I thought it really would blow my doors off.With the manual Nikon lens on the 5D, the 5D's focus screen and the 135 DC's focusing throw and slightly stiff action (on my old beat up copy the focus throw is a bit stiff) makes for somewhat slow,disappointing manual focusing at closer ranges under 20 feet...using the autofocus system of the Canon 135mm lens is preferrable to the 135 Nikkor in MF mode.
The camera has one stuck-on red pixel group near the far,far right lower corner of the frame,visible mostly in low (EV 4 or lower) scenes,and the sensor was _IMMACULATELY_ free of dust. The viewfinder view screen/prism was 100% free of dust yesterday. But now 24 hours later, I've gotten two dust bunnies on the viewfinder screen already...no big deal. It was nice to buy a new camera with an immaculately clean sensor.
The LCD is a weak area of this camera. It's just an average-quality screen image,and it's hard to see outdoors. The viewfinder is mostly visible to me with my eyeglasses on,and the image is quite usable for manual focusing,at least in decent light. The camera's shutter lag time and mirror return times are reasonably fast, but nowhere NEAR as responsive as the D1 or D2 series Nikons. Shutter noise is kind of dull but clattery,with nothing high-pitched or shrill in the shutter or mirror noise. Loud-ish, yet not too objectionable is how I'd describe the 5D's firing sounds. The camera and 24-105-L combo feels solid and weighty. The body has a large,chunky grip which suits my lengthy fingers well,and the body has a heft to it.
I'll know more about the 5D as I get to explore it over the next few weeks, but sufice it to say--I am VERY happy to see the background control and angles of view I can get at the telephoto end of the 24-105 zoom,as well as the wide angle looks I can get at 24 to 28mm. I'm very anxious to shoot the 85/1.4 AF-D and 105mm DC Nikkors on this camera,and to compare their performance with that of the 135mm-L Canon lens. I also look forward to seeing just how my new 85mm 1.8 EF Canon handles and performs.
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