New Lens, Or Upgrade Camera?

I'm a Real Estate photographer, I shoot nothing but real estate for business and landscape for fun. I'd like to see some crisper photos and after working through plenty of settings and techniques I'm starting to wonder if I'm at the limit of my equipment. I shoot with a 6D and I use a 12-24 Sigma lens. I'm eyeing the Canon 16-35 f4 L lens in hopes that maybe it would give me more crisp photos. But then I got to thinking maybe I should be entertaining moving to a 6D Mark II or even up in the 5D line. What say you guys? Lens or New Body?

I use a 12-24 Sigma lens

Which one? The older variable aperture one (12-24/4.5-5.6 EX DG IF HSM) or the newer constant f/4 12-24 Art DG HSM? The former doesn't have a good reputation whereas there's hardly anything better than the latter.

Which one? The older variable aperture one (12-24/4.5-5.6 EX DG IF HSM) or the newer constant f/4 12-24 Art DG HSM? The former doesn't have a good reputation whereas there's hardly anything better than the latter.

It's the former. Perhaps updating to the new Art series would be a better choice?

Perhaps updating to the new Art series would be a better choice?

Can't say - there's a substantial difference in FOV between 12mm and 16mm; if you need 12 having only 16 available might be limiting (and there's always the Canon 11-24/4 if you want/need even wider:)). There should be plenty of lens tests and reviews available that allow a comparison between the Sigma 12-24/4 Art and the Canon 16-35/4. The former weighs almost twice as much as the latter, costs some $600 more and has a large bulging front element that precludes the use of normal filters. Sigma's 14-24/2.8 Art might be worth considering as well, or the Tamron 15-30/2.8.

 

According to this comparison, the Canon comes out ahead in comparison with the two Sigma 12-24 lenses: Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM on Canon EOS 5D Mark IV vs Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM II Canon on Canon EOS 5D Mark IV vs Sigma 12-24mm F4 DG HSM A Canon on Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | DxOMark

There are actually two versions of the variable aperture Sigma 12-24/4.5-5.6 EX DG IF HSM, the original one without a version number, and the later one with a Roman II added. The original version shows less sharpness, but also less distortion than version II. To me, neither seems ideal for architectural photography, so that upgrading your lens seems more important than a newer camera. You can look at the DXOmark results for all three 12-24mm Sigmas here.

Difficult to say. Yes, a better lens will give you sharper images in the camera, especially in the fine details. A better camera sensor will have higher resolution and a better Dynamic Range, especially in low-light conditions.

 

It's perhaps worth breaking down what you mean by "more crispness" and how better gear might contribute to that (and by how much). Sharpness? Colors? Contrast? On this thread at DPReview (scroll down) most people thought 'crispness' was just a trendy synonym for 'sharpness'. But someone made the point that "crispness" has more to do with how an image (whatever the measured sharpness/resolution) is perceived by the viewer. IMHO good postprocessing is as important as (even more expensive) gear. It's just worth checking (and pixel peeping) whether your gear really is the limiting factor in 'crispness'.

 

I don't know anything about real estate photography but a couple of 'how to' sites recommend using a tripod and a remote shutter to prevent movement during longer exposures at low ISO (100) with smaller apertures. They also suggest using HDR in PP to blend multiple exposures where applicable.

 

I did look at a few real estate photos on your website. These are of course low resolution and highly compressed files. I guess you may want crisper photos in print to hand out to prospective clients. Just from the website photo's I noticed that:

- interior photos tend to have a lot of detail which is often handled less well in high compression than photos with large simple shapes

- the high compression may make edges and details less sharp than they would be at a higher jpeg quality level (with a larger file size). This is not really noticeable on the website but it may influence the viewer's perception of 'crispness'. IMHO, photo's taken with better gear wouldn't necessarily look any sharper on the website unless the jpeg quality is higher.

- just based on the website photos, there are perhaps still things you can do in PP that might make your photos look a bit crisper, for example:

* adjusting levels to use a wider tonal range (where applicable)

* increasing contrasts, especially in the mid-tones

* sharpening edges/details (I do this by overlaying a 'High Pass Filtered" copy of the photo but there are other ways of sharpening)

 

These kinds of adjustments applied at somewhere around 20%-30% can make a photo look that touch crisper without being too obvious or unnatural

 

But the 6D (which I have too) is now an 'old camera' compared to the 6D mk ii and especially to the 5d mk iv. And Canon's 11-24mm f/4L beats the sigma. A good source for comparisons between cameras and between lenses is Imageresourcing.com. The problem is predicting how much difference a better camera and/or lens might translate into 'crisper' real estate photos.

 

I would take some test photos in a store with the prospective cameras (with current lens) and lenses (on the 6D). But it's worth considering the whole 'image quality/crispness process' into PP and publishing (web/print) too.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Mike

 

PS. please delete my (registered) e-mail address from your website visitor mailing list :)

Would be helpful if you posted examples, along with EXIF data, so that we could look for other reasons for a lack of sharpness. I am not going to look at them on your website because it requests an e-mail address.

 

Re replacing your camera body: IMHO, forget about it. That body is capable of very sharp images. Unless you are printing very large or cropping severely, I doubt you would see any appreciable improvement from replacing it. Some of my images that get good responses were shot with a 50D, which is far inferior to the 6D.

 

Three other sources of lack of sharpness: insufficient depth of field, insufficiently long shutter speed, and poor processing.

It's probably best to try a new lens. The older Sigmas are not as good as the current crop of ultra-ultrawides such as the Canon 11-24 or 12-24 ART. The 2 current 16-35 EFs are also excellent (f4 IS and f2.8 III). I think you need to think whether you need the <16mm coverage. A fast lens is not usually required in real estate shooting, so the 12-24 ART or the 16-35 4 IS seem reasonable choices. The 16-35 f4IS is a better price. I have this lens and it is excellent. The 6D is just fine and I don't think there is much to be gained by replacing this.

Just a plug for a lens really made for architectural photography: the Canon TS-E 17mm (or for less $, the 24mm TS-E).:cool:

TS-E17mm f/4L - Canon Camera Museum

 

 

My report at Perspective Control Lenses since 1971 and counting

Depending on the exposure, and how steady you are, you might benefit from the use of a tripod. After all, your subject is not moving.

, member: 10977170"]I'm a Real Estate photographer, I shoot nothing but real estate for business and landscape for fun. I'd like to see some crisper photos and after working through plenty of settings and techniques I'm starting to wonder if I'm at the limit of my equipment. I shoot with a 6D and I use a 12-24 Sigma lens. I'm eyeing the Canon 16-35 f4 L lens in hopes that maybe it would give me more crisp photos. But then I got to thinking maybe I should be entertaining moving to a 6D Mark II or even up in the 5D line. What say you guys? Lens or New Body?

 

I say neither lens nor body for the moment.

 

It’s difficult to judge whether or not you’re at the limit of your equipment without a range of samples to assess, perhaps you might avail? Though the one sample in your Portfolio seems quite 'crisp' to my eye: perhaps the mix of Colour Temperatures is aggressive to your eye and that is annoying - it is to my eye, there are a few edge sharpness/acutance artifacts, which I think are Post Production induced. It's not a critique, but rather trying to establish and identify what you define as lack of crispness. those main two points aside, that image look reasonably clean for an A4 print in a brochure.

 

IME there’s much to making Real-Estate Photos really ‘crisp’: a large proportion of which is in the Lighting Equipment and the Lighting Techniques used for that Lighting Equipment; a second large percentage of what constitutes ‘crisp’ is the Post Production Techniques.

 

On the balance of probability, based solely on the number of photographers that I’ve crossed paths with over the years who register that they need better camera or lens – and they don’t; and also the fact that you’ve got more than a reasonable Camera and Lens to make good quality Real Estate Photos, I’d advise looking at: Photographic Technique; Lighting and Lighting Technique; and Post Production Technique, first.

 

In any case, FL = 12mm is more useful than 16mm for Real Estate work, IME.

 

WW

Real estate & ultra wides aren't my field of serious interest. Looking at my own, by now surely outdated, Sigma wides: 14/3.5 manual focus and 24/1.8 (both k-mount, most likely made film in mind) I can say: They don't knock my socks off.

My approach to blaming a lens is comparing results to those from another that should be sharp and fits the same camera. <- Yes, apples and oranges! Take a (borrowed?) 50 or 100mm macro, to see what your camera should be able to deliver. If that looks good enough, follow the links others provided above, to determine if any other super wide comes significantly closer to the results you are expecting.

DxO tested a lot of stuff and I'd expect their PMP ratings to be quite consistent and able to serve as a shopping guidance (especially where things like AF performance don't matter at all, like in your case).

 

AFAIK better camera bodies demand good lenses to really shine. Once again: DxO provide numbers to quantify things and I guess they tested enough lenses on 5D IV & SR + your 6D. Maybe a high res camera gains more PMP, even behind a really bad lens but my dominant amateur side would not be happy with that compromise.

 

I don't advocate buying a new camera and hoping for miracles. - Yes, the 6D series doesn't get recommended to serious landscape photographers due to its limited dynamic range (I just read dpreview's utterings on 6DII & EOS RP) but hey, you are an established business! - I guess you learned to light rooms, bring a tripod to do your HDR stuff and get your exposures right? - It is easier for you to figure out what the dynamic range difference might mean for your work, be it in the field or post processing.

 

Elephant in the room: Does the absent sharpness have any impact on your business? - I'm clueless. The real estate photography I see is done to support online marketing and looks like a playground for APS + bread & butter zooms, if not even smart devices' cameras. But maybe you are (or could be) selling huge prints too? - Then go ahead and splurge. - I'd buy glass first since camera prices will come down.

An obvious question I should have asked: how big do you display images? On Zillow, for example, the images look like they are less than 1100 pixels on the long dimension. At that low resolution, you won't see much benefit from better equipment, unless your lens is really lousy. (I don't know that lens.) Do you display much larger than that, either on your own site or in printed materials? If not, I would focus on technique, including processing techniques.

 

I recently was in the property market, and I relied substantially on posted photos. It was definitely the case that some photos did a better job of others in terms of creating appeal, but the issue for me--despite the fact that I am very fussy about sharpness in my own photos--was literally never sharpness. Rather it it was usually composition, choice of lighting, and the quality of processing (in particular, exposure and color balance). Just my two cents.

Comment re a plug for a TS-E lens:

 

IME "Real Estate" Photography is different to "Architectural" Photography, the former (where I work) is very highly competitive and mostly on price. Time taken to shoot is at a premium and a rapid turn around time is highly valued. That isn't to say that there is a market for high quality work - there certainly is: but IME the cost of time taken to set a TS-E Lens correctly for each of spread of ten different photos would severely reduce the Gross Profit. Additionally buying a TS-E Lens would be a poorer ROI compared to using a good UWA Zoom. 17mm is nowhere near as wide as 12mm.

 

TS-E Lenses are great specialty lenses, I have a 90 and a 17.

 

WW

Difficult to say. Yes, a better lens will give you sharper images in the camera, especially in the fine details. A better camera sensor will have higher resolution and a better Dynamic Range, especially in low-light conditions.

 

It's perhaps worth breaking down what you mean by "more crispness" and how better gear might contribute to that (and by how much). Sharpness? Colors? Contrast? On this thread at DPReview (scroll down) most people thought 'crispness' was just a trendy synonym for 'sharpness'. But someone made the point that "crispness" has more to do with how an image (whatever the measured sharpness/resolution) is perceived by the viewer. IMHO good postprocessing is as important as (even more expensive) gear. It's just worth checking (and pixel peeping) whether your gear really is the limiting factor in 'crispness'.

 

I don't know anything about real estate photography but a couple of 'how to' sites recommend using a tripod and a remote shutter to prevent movement during longer exposures at low ISO (100) with smaller apertures. They also suggest using HDR in PP to blend multiple exposures where applicable.

 

I did look at a few real estate photos on your website. These are of course low resolution and highly compressed files. I guess you may want crisper photos in print to hand out to prospective clients. Just from the website photo's I noticed that:

- interior photos tend to have a lot of detail which is often handled less well in high compression than photos with large simple shapes

- the high compression may make edges and details less sharp than they would be at a higher jpeg quality level (with a larger file size). This is not really noticeable on the website but it may influence the viewer's perception of 'crispness'. IMHO, photo's taken with better gear wouldn't necessarily look any sharper on the website unless the jpeg quality is higher.

- just based on the website photos, there are perhaps still things you can do in PP that might make your photos look a bit crisper, for example:

* adjusting levels to use a wider tonal range (where applicable)

* increasing contrasts, especially in the mid-tones

* sharpening edges/details (I do this by overlaying a 'High Pass Filtered" copy of the photo but there are other ways of sharpening)

 

These kinds of adjustments applied at somewhere around 20%-30% can make a photo look that touch crisper without being too obvious or unnatural

 

But the 6D (which I have too) is now an 'old camera' compared to the 6D mk ii and especially to the 5d mk iv. And Canon's 11-24mm f/4L beats the sigma. A good source for comparisons between cameras and between lenses is Imageresourcing.com. The problem is predicting how much difference a better camera and/or lens might translate into 'crisper' real estate photos.

 

I would take some test photos in a store with the prospective cameras (with current lens) and lenses (on the 6D). But it's worth considering the whole 'image quality/crispness process' into PP and publishing (web/print) too.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Mike

 

PS. please delete my (registered) e-mail address from your website visitor mailing list :)

Mike you signed up on my Real Estate Website... my real estate photography website is www.KCHomePhotography.com

You have given me a ton of great information, but with the website you registered on sadly you weren't seeing my work :(

I'll absolutely delete you & I'm sorry it took me so long to see your reply here. My email quit notifying me of responses and now I'm having a great learning lesson reading through all of these.

Would be helpful if you posted examples, along with EXIF data, so that we could look for other reasons for a lack of sharpness. I am not going to look at them on your website because it requests an e-mail address.

 

Re replacing your camera body: IMHO, forget about it. That body is capable of very sharp images. Unless you are printing very large or cropping severely, I doubt you would see any appreciable improvement from replacing it. Some of my images that get good responses were shot with a 50D, which is far inferior to the 6D.

 

Three other sources of lack of sharpness: insufficient depth of field, insufficiently long shutter speed, and poor processing.

I'm very sorry I didn't share my website on the post. I didn't know so many people would be this helpful.

There are two sites that I use for my real estate photography, www.KCHomePhotography.com and gallery.kchomephotography.com The second is a Pixieset gallery with about 40% of my work. Not all clients like their delivered photos through Pixieset.

Depending on the exposure, and how steady you are, you might benefit from the use of a tripod. After all, your subject is not moving.

Absolutely, I use a tripod and remote. I'm not that steady especially in some of the lower light conditions I deal with :)

I say neither lens nor body for the moment.

 

It’s difficult to judge whether or not you’re at the limit of your equipment without a range of samples to assess, perhaps you might avail? Though the one sample in your Portfolio seems quite 'crisp' to my eye: perhaps the mix of Colour Temperatures is aggressive to your eye and that is annoying - it is to my eye, there are a few edge sharpness/acutance artifacts, which I think are Post Production induced. It's not a critique, but rather trying to establish and identify what you define as lack of crispness. those main two points aside, that image look reasonably clean for an A4 print in a brochure.

 

IME there’s much to making Real-Estate Photos really ‘crisp’: a large proportion of which is in the Lighting Equipment and the Lighting Techniques used for that Lighting Equipment; a second large percentage of what constitutes ‘crisp’ is the Post Production Techniques.

 

On the balance of probability, based solely on the number of photographers that I’ve crossed paths with over the years who register that they need better camera or lens – and they don’t; and also the fact that you’ve got more than a reasonable Camera and Lens to make good quality Real Estate Photos, I’d advise looking at: Photographic Technique; Lighting and Lighting Technique; and Post Production Technique, first.

 

In any case, FL = 12mm is more useful than 16mm for Real Estate work, IME.

 

WW

Thank you very much. And lighting is something I need to consider. Perhaps I can do more with some good off camera equipment and properly light each scene rather than trying to fix everything in post. Blending several exposures is typically how I deal with poor lighting, maybe I should look into lighting. Thanks for the info! I'll add more to the profile too, I was in the process of uploading my five images when something came up and I never got back.

Real estate & ultra wides aren't my field of serious interest. Looking at my own, by now surely outdated, Sigma wides: 14/3.5 manual focus and 24/1.8 (both k-mount, most likely made film in mind) I can say: They don't knock my socks off.

My approach to blaming a lens is comparing results to those from another that should be sharp and fits the same camera. <- Yes, apples and oranges! Take a (borrowed?) 50 or 100mm macro, to see what your camera should be able to deliver. If that looks good enough, follow the links others provided above, to determine if any other super wide comes significantly closer to the results you are expecting.

DxO tested a lot of stuff and I'd expect their PMP ratings to be quite consistent and able to serve as a shopping guidance (especially where things like AF performance don't matter at all, like in your case).

 

AFAIK better camera bodies demand good lenses to really shine. Once again: DxO provide numbers to quantify things and I guess they tested enough lenses on 5D IV & SR + your 6D. Maybe a high res camera gains more PMP, even behind a really bad lens but my dominant amateur side would not be happy with that compromise.

 

I don't advocate buying a new camera and hoping for miracles. - Yes, the 6D series doesn't get recommended to serious landscape photographers due to its limited dynamic range (I just read dpreview's utterings on 6DII & EOS RP) but hey, you are an established business! - I guess you learned to light rooms, bring a tripod to do your HDR stuff and get your exposures right? - It is easier for you to figure out what the dynamic range difference might mean for your work, be it in the field or post processing.

 

Elephant in the room: Does the absent sharpness have any impact on your business? - I'm clueless. The real estate photography I see is done to support online marketing and looks like a playground for APS + bread & butter zooms, if not even smart devices' cameras. But maybe you are (or could be) selling huge prints too? - Then go ahead and splurge. - I'd buy glass first since camera prices will come down.

Business is good & I really don't know if my current quality is turning away customers or not. I stay busy, but can take on more. The whole reason "crispness" came up was because I notice the edges on my Sigma lens really look blurry when zoomed in and the blacks are fuzzy. I compared it to my Canon 24-105 f4L both at 24 mm and the Canon didn't have that same issue. In fairness the Canon was darker overall with the same settings as the Sigma and in Real Estate Photography (at least for my customers) light and bright are the way to go. I May be complaining all in all of dynamic range problem in the end. I can't add more than 1.5 in PP exposure without the image becoming hardly usable. If I hit 2+ it's not acceptable. That may be the same case even with a 5D mark III or IV. Or even the new mirrorless Canon.

An obvious question I should have asked: how big do you display images? On Zillow, for example, the images look like they are less than 1100 pixels on the long dimension. At that low resolution, you won't see much benefit from better equipment, unless your lens is really lousy. (I don't know that lens.) Do you display much larger than that, either on your own site or in printed materials? If not, I would focus on technique, including processing techniques.

 

I recently was in the property market, and I relied substantially on posted photos. It was definitely the case that some photos did a better job of others in terms of creating appeal, but the issue for me--despite the fact that I am very fussy about sharpness in my own photos--was literally never sharpness. Rather it it was usually composition, choice of lighting, and the quality of processing (in particular, exposure and color balance). Just my two cents.

99% of my customers will display their images on the web at no more than 1600 px. I have two that print 11x14 flyers with one image covering the whole of the 11x14. After reading through everyone's generous insights I'm starting to lean toward lighting being my biggest issue and needing to learn a thing or two about creating the right environments with off camera lighting.

. . . lighting is something I need to consider. Perhaps I can do more with some good off camera equipment and properly light each scene rather than trying to fix everything in post. Blending several exposures is typically how I deal with poor lighting, maybe I should look into lighting. . . .

 

The mix of Colour Temperatures was what stood out to my eye, as I mentioned.

 

Thank you for your more detailed response: from that information, I think that the blending and also the other attempts in Post Production to fix up the CT variances are specifically the two main causes of the edge sharpness/acutance artifacts that I mentioned. From memory, the image was pulled at F/8, ISO 200, at F:L = 16mm. If that's correct and the PP was 'simplistic' we'd expect acutance to be crisp and we'd expect not to have the fringing and colour noise which were apparent.

 

I think you're on a winner looking at "Lighting", in the first instance. Several years ago, over the entrance to our darkroom door there was a sign "Do not enter unless you have got it right in the neg - Oats in quality out: chaff in [etc] out"

 

Good luck

 

WW

. . . The whole reason "crispness" came up was because I notice the edges on my Sigma lens really look blurry when zoomed in and the blacks are fuzzy. I compared it to my Canon 24-105 f4L both at 24 mm and the Canon didn't have that same issue. . . .

 

Clarification please; 'zoomed in' or 'zoomed out'

 

blacks are fuzzy and edges blurry at the TELEPHOTO END of the FL or the WIDE END of the FL?

 

If it is the wide end, then a question - do you keep a filter on your lenses? - if you do then take it off, that might assist.

 

If it is the wide end, then a comment - probably a difference in the intrinsic (and by design) optical vignette of the two lenses, I'd reckon that it is reasonable to expect the Sigma will vignette more severely: hence the edges are (relatively) underexposed, hence when bringing up the Exposure in PP the blacks are rendered more noisy.

 

Selective LIGHTING for the edges of the scene will assist.

 

WW

Edited March 15, 2019 by William Michael

Clarification please; 'zoomed in' or 'zoomed out'

 

blacks are fuzzy and edges blurry at the TELEPHOTO END of the FL or the WIDE END of the FL?

 

If it is the wide end, then a question - do you keep a filter on your lenses? - if you do then take it off, that might assist.

 

If it is the wide end, then a comment - probably a difference in the intrinsic (and by design) optical vignette of the two lenses, I'd reckon that it is reasonable to expect the Sigma will vignette more severely: hence the edges are (relatively) underexposed, hence when bringing up the Exposure in PP the blacks are rendered more noisy.

 

Selective LIGHTING for the edges of the scene will assist.

 

WW

By zoomed in I meant when zooming in on the image in Lightroom or Photoshop. And the Canon was fully wide (24 of the 24 - 105) and the Sigma was fully Telephoto (24 of the 12-24.) And your edge lighting scenario seems to hit the nail on the head. It is noise I'm seeing, which is what catapulted this whole discussion. I'm going to start a crash course in off camera lighting and see what I can learn to correct this.

. . . edge lighting scenario seems to hit the nail on the head. It is noise I'm seeing, which is what catapulted this whole discussion. . .

 

Excellent!

 

We have arrived at the core.

 

Break a leg.

 

WW

The 6D should be more than adequate for the task, really how large are people viewing the images? Larger than 100%? Go for better crisper lenses, especially a lens that is very sharp at high f stops so everything is razor sharp, and of course shoot with a tripod and either a delay exposure or remote trigger to avoid any camera shake for longer exposures at low ISO with those high f stops and longer exposures if you aren't using lighting. Tripod is never going to hurt the image and it allows multiple exposure stacking for better dynamic range and improved noise in post processing.