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Photo Forum / General Photo Topics / UK Photography / December 2006Canon digital advice sought
Hi, I'm getting pressure to go digital, and was surprised to see that most of the photos in this year's BBC Wildlife Photographer supplement were taken on digital equipment. We have an EOS-5 with 24-85 and 75-300IS lenses and use Kodachrome (for historical reasons, usually 200). Current subjects are mostly our children (and disappointing- I'm pretty poor at people pictures). I'm more interested in travel photography- usually landscapes and wildlife, though havn't had the opportunity recently. We have a Canon 2700 scanner, which produces decent results (on an Epson photoprinter) with some effort, but the time and hassle it takes to go from shutter release to printed enlargement means we don't do as much of that as we'd like to. I'd like to get a digital SLR body which would let us use the lenses we have, but having seen the prices (especially of the 5D, which looks nice otherwise...) and some estimates of the lifespan of digital bodies I'm reluctant to commit. I'm interested in buying secondhand, but am wary of buying something that's about to be (or is already) obsolete... Any advice? Cheers, W. > Hi, > I'm getting pressure to go digital, From who? > We have an EOS-5 with 24-85 and 75-300IS lenses and use Kodachrome > (for historical reasons, usually 200). Current subjects are mostly our [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Any advice? Yeah. Stick with film. But if you do decide to switch I wouldn't mind your scanner. That's the dilemma of digital, you buy with the expectation of whatever you have bought being superseded within 6 months. Canon are particularly keen on upgrades in that time frame. If you have lenses that will work with the Canon stick with the marqué but also look at the other cameras too. Not just Canon, but Nikon their pixel count may be lower but the technology is better so they squeeze more out of the sensor than the Canon's. Also check Pentax as they have teamed up with Samsung. Sony have all the Minolta technology and added their own patented gizmos with their Alpha. Olympus are very nice and Panasonic are teamed up with Leitz. Expect your digital purchase to be old before you buy it! So decide what you need and buy the technology that fits your use and not buying the best you can't afford that does more than you need and makes you lose even more money. Duncan > Hi, > I'm getting pressure to go digital, and was surprised to see that [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Cheers, > W. Hi again, > Expect your digital purchase to be old before you buy it! So decide what you > need and buy the technology that fits your use and not buying the best you > can't afford that does more than you need and makes you lose even more > money. That's a very good point, and posting the first message got me thinking about alternative solutions, too: maybe I should buy a decent digital "compact" for family use and stick to my existing gear for other subjects... The Canon IXUS 850IS looks handy- "stabilizer" technology, sensible optical zoom range and about half the price of the SLRs... Cheers, W. I quite agree and SLR is nice but with digital screens on compacts it can be out moded for the use. There are great compacts although my main disappointment is the lack of really wide angle digitals without vignetting. Your existing gear will take just as good images as you are able to create no matter what you take it on. Pleased to have been some help. Duncan > Hi again, > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Cheers, > W. snip >>>Expect your digital purchase to be old before you buy it! So decide what >>>you [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >>Cheers, >> W. i cheat i have both.................. -- <Quoting me> > >>The Canon IXUS 850IS looks handy- "stabilizer" technology, sensible > >>optical zoom range and about half the price of the SLRs... > i cheat i have both.................. ...and how do you find the 850IS? Have you been troubled by of any of the problems highlighted by if? Cheers, W. > The Canon IXUS 850IS looks handy- "stabilizer" technology, sensible > optical zoom range and about half the price of the SLRs... The word on the street is that the Ixus 850 has softer image, more distortion and more noise reduction (smearing) than its predecessor the Ixus 800, which got excellent review for sharp image and subtle noise reduction. I was attracted to the 28mm lens of the 850 compared to the 35mm of the 800 but people who have used both say get the 800 due to the above problems, that the 850 really is inferior to the 800, it's not just a different lens but apparently a different CCD/NR system. Shame really. In fact it sounds like with the Ixus 850 Canon have gone in the Panasonic direction, that it's very much like the Panasonic FX01, which also has excessive noise reduction (but sharp Leica lens). But the FX01 is about £80 cheaper (£170 v. 250) so I think for me it's a choice between FX01 with 28mm but some poor noise reduction, or the £225 Ixus 800 with 35mm lens but better handling of noise. However test shots of the 800 show some artefacts in smooth areas like blue sky which the FX01 doesn't exhibit, so I guess noise reduction is a case of swings and roundabouts. Maybe I'll just shelve the whole digital compact idea for another year and stick with my Olympus Myu2, when I compare the scans to stuff produced by digital compacts they just don't compare, 35mm has so much more low contrast detail (grass, foliage, clothing) compared to digital compacts, the differerence is quite striking. You'd think the act of scanning the 35mm would be something of a leveller but although it does add CCD noise to the blue skies the images are still noticeably better with a 7 mpix film scanner than a 10 mpix digital compact.  Signature_______________________________________________________ You are in a twisty maze of standards, all conflicting _______________________________________________________ I had an EOS 5 before going Digital and haven't looked back since. There are several advantages of Digital over Film. You can take as many shots as you like and it doesn't cost anything. Your skills may improve because you can try different things. You can use the same EF Lenses on most models. You dont need to scan anything. You will save a lot of time on processing especially if you shoot in RAW mode. The only downside is that Film is much higher quality depending on the Film you use, unless you are producing Billboards it wont be an issue. I bid on an EOS D60 yesterday for ?300 but lost. The D60 is a 2002 model which people will tell you is out of date but I've been using one for 3 years and would not part with it. If you prefer to buy new, the 350D is a nice camera but not the functionality or quality of the D60. What I dont like about the 350D is that it doesn't have a Thumbwheel on the back to change the F Stop, you have to do a bit of fiddling around to set up the shot, the D60 has everything at hand. On the EOS 5, the focusing system is far superior to any of the Digitals in low light. The 5 uses Infra Red, the others use Coherent light. If you attach the 550EX or 580EX Flash the focus is more accurate and faster because it uses the EOS 5 Focusing System. The one thing you have to watch for is that with the EOS 10 and 20, Canon came out with the EFS Lenses which was a total flop, your EF Lenses are not compatible with these Cameras. The D60, 350D, 400D and everything made after the 20D are EF compatible. The only other thing is that because the Imager in the digital is smaller than the 35mm Frame, there is a multiplication factor of 1.6 which gives you a bit more zoom. Go on, jump right in but hold on to your Eos5 because you wont get what its worth to sell it. W.Warburton@ed.ac.uk wrote: < snip > The one thing you have to watch for is that with the EOS 10 and 20, Canon came out with the EFS Lenses which was a total flop, your EF Lenses are not compatible with these Cameras. The D60, 350D, 400D and everything made after the 20D are EF compatible. The only other thing is that because the Imager in the digital is smaller than the 35mm Frame, there is a multiplication factor of 1.6 which gives you a bit more zoom. < snip > If the author of the above paragraph means that the .. "EOS 10D and 20D ... came out with the EFS lenses .. your EF lenses are not compatible with these Cameras.." then I'd have to disagree. I've certainly tried ordinary EF lenses on a 20D. My understanding is that the EF lenses are compatible with all EOS film and digital bodies; EF-S lenses are only compatible with EOS digital bodies using the "1.6 factor" sensors - 350D, 400D, 20D, 30D come to mind. Regards, Ian. I believe I've used EF lenses on an EOS20D body. > If the author of the above paragraph means that the .. "EOS 10D and 20D ... > came out with the EFS lenses .. your EF lenses are not compatible with these [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > lenses are only compatible with EOS digital bodies using the "1.6 factor" > sensors - 350D, 400D, 20D, 30D come to mind. My impression from what I've read is that the "digital specific" lenses are designed for a smaller frame- ie the coverage is smaller- and would vignette etc. if used on a "full frame" (How the medium format & 5x4 aficionados must laugh....) digital or 35mm body. If this is correct it would obviously make them much smaller, lighter and cheaper (less glass needed)... which is a compelling case for Canon. I presume that using EOS lenses (especially L-series) on a fractional-frame digital is a waste of 40% of the expensive optics- a bit like adapting a Hassleblad to shoot 35mm. Though presumably the quality of the bits you are actually using will often shine through! Coming back to my earlier question- is there a good candidate for a used digital body from the earlier cameras for the type of use I want- my first priority would be ease of use for family photography (low latency, fast focus, good indoor performance?). Cheers, W. > My impression from what I've read is that the "digital specific" > lenses are designed for a smaller frame- ie the coverage is smaller- > and would vignette etc. if used on a "full frame" (How the medium > format & 5x4 aficionados must laugh....) digital or 35mm body. Heh all these years 35mm users have believed they understood anything at all about focal length and suddenly have to deal with concepts such as covering power and angle of view. Perhaps it would be too harsh to introduce the ideas that "telephoto" is a design of lens not a length and that what they call "wide angle" usually denotes a retrofocus design. > If this is correct it would obviously make them much smaller, lighter > and cheaper (less glass needed)... which is a compelling case for > Canon. But, oddly, doesn't. Actually the cost of a lens, for a given quality of glass and build seem to be related directly to covering power and max aperture. Of course the need to use telephoto and retrofocus on fixed body cameras such as most SLRs pushes the price up and the quality down. > I presume that using EOS lenses (especially L-series) on a > fractional-frame digital is a waste of 40% of the expensive optics- a > bit like adapting a Hassleblad to shoot 35mm. Though presumably the > quality of the bits you are actually using will often shine through! Well sort of, but the centre of a lens' image circle is always better optically than the outer. So a lens designed with a smaller covering power is more likely to exhibit flaws off centre than one where you are using a smaller proportion of its image circle. This probably does not matter in real life. > > If the author of the above paragraph means that the .. "EOS 10D and 20D ... > > came out with the EFS lenses .. your EF lenses are not compatible with these [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > Cheers, > W. Hello W. The EF-S lenses would not vignette on a full-frame body because they cannot fit onto a full-frame body. They'll only fit onto the small sensor bodies. The EF-S lenses remind me of the Minolta Vectis APS SLR system - the lenses were designed specifically for the APS format and so were much smaller than their equivelents for 35mm format bodies. This means that an EOS digital outfit using EF-S lenses is smaller and lighter than using full frame lenses. Personally, my girlfriend and I are thinking of getting another digital body and we're debatibg the virtues of a second-hand 350D, a new 400D or a 30D. There's a lot of difference, to us, between the 30D and the others. The 30D is bigger and heaver than the others. As we don't have an absolute need for the "extra" features of the 30D it makes the choice quite hard. I suspect you'd not have a problem with the size of hte 30D given that you already have an EOS 5. The 30D is easy to find second-hand - have a look in the dealer adverts in Amateur Photographer (and you'll soon find out which dealer update those lists very infrequently). The harder choice is between the 350D and the 400D. The cheaper option is a second-hand 350D (that was what I bought). The 400D has more pixels, a larger back panel LCD and a sensor cleaning system. Try each in a shop and see which you feel is more comfortable for your hands and eye. BTW - if you are anywhere near Nottingham then do try London Camera Exchange on Pelham St. We used to buy most of our equipment from the local Jessops but LCE were better at getting equipment to order and still handle second-hand equipment. Finally - gthere is still virtue in having both film and digital bodies. We fly only very occasionally and digital equipment has to be "off" during take-off and landing so that's when we're pleased to have film bodies. Regards, Ian. Hi, Thanks to all who contributed. In the end the advice I followed was to "buy the technology that fits your use..." and I settled on a Canon A710IS. This seems to have most of what I was looking for (though not a wide angle lens) and isn't so small as to be unusable. Hopefully, in time there will be a full-frame digital SLR that I can afford and that will fit my existing lenses, meanwhile the 710 should do everyday duty and my EOS-5 high-days and holidays. Let me know if you would like feedback on the 710 when we've had some use from it. Cheers, W. |
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