carl_weller

Just a conversation starter...

if the 5D actually exists, and it is FF, then I would think that would be the practically the

death-knell for ef-s. It'd be relegated to the el'cheapo segment of the DSLR market.

It would also canabalise the holy crap out of both 20D and 1D mk.II sales.

Seems to good to be true really.

Unless the plan is to kill off the 20D and 1D mk.II and shift to a 3 DSLR range?

The 350D is pretty much as good for most people as the 20D, most 20D users really

wanted the not-yet-made 3D but settled for the 20D, and canon have said they only want

one 1 series DSLR.

What do y'all think?

Steve,

minolta has shown in-body IS can be done on a DSLR with the dynax 5 & 7.

Other than canon's claims that IS is best as a lense-specific implementation there's just

one thing...

If you want to use any ef lense safely, the sensor would have to be a bit bigger than FF so

that when the sensor moved it would still capture the full image. You could get away with

ef-s lenses with a FF or slightly smaller sensor I would think.

My understanding is that nikon were the first to use IS/VR on a point and shoot. Then

came canon in '95 with the 75-300 and nikon followed later on with it's VS lenses.

I doubt canon has plans to go in-body anytime soon. Better NR solutions are likely to do

much the same thing in a practical sense anyway. Who will need IS when a body comes out

with which you can shoot at ISO 3200 without stressing about image noise? Thats

probably only a year or two away.

regards,

About 230 bucks. And 0.66 of a stop if f1.8 isn't fast enough for you.

Seriously, the f1.8 is that good.

The biggest difference between the two for most people is the damage the f1.4 does to

your wallet.

P.S. All the bits about better built and USM too, but IMHO even if you want the f1.4 you

should but an f1.8 too, just because its such a good buy.

regards,

Cool that its finally coming, but I doubt it will be called the 5D.

There is already a minolta 5D!

cheers

$700 is a lot of wonga. Its at least a 17-40/4L [subsitute whatever other lense(s) you like

here i.e. both a 50 f1.4 and 85 f1.8]. I personally would choose the tamron AND the other

lense(s) over just the 24-70.

You can have 95% percent of the image quality for less than half the price with the tamron.

There are many here on this forum who will pay any price for the best. Different folks,

different strokes.

Only you can decide if you want to pay so much more for that last 5%.

regards,

I tried crumpler - they look good [not really like a camera bag full of expensive goodies]

but are very big for the space inside and are poor to work out of IMHO. You can tell that

the designers are designers, not hard core photogs.

The pro mag is at the other end - looks very tempting for thieves! I have the elite and

never use it.

I doubt I ever will find 'the bag', but find the lowe pro reporter series excellent.

Great to work out of and you can take the padded insert out and put it in any other bag if

you want to go incognito. I found a normal hiking daypack and one of those sling-type

GAP bags and it it fits into either perfectly.

You can also extend them. I have the reporter 300 and a couple of s&f 50 pouches that fit

on the ends of the reporter in no time to add room for at least two big-ish lenses [a 200

prime or a 24-70 zoom fits in one fine], a deluxe waist belt to put the load more on the

hips if I want to, another couple of 50 pouches, a utility pouch, and the s&f 75aw

toploader. I can generally put together some sort of setup for whatever I'm doing.

The only issue is you can't really have a long tele like the 70-200 or 100-400 mounted on

the body in any of the reporters. They're a bit short for that and the padding is really set

up to store things vertically, not horizontally.

Another bag that has caught my eye is the specialist 85aw, mainly cos you can have a 70

-200 mounted and upright and still have plenty of room for other things, and it goes with

all the s&f stuff.

hope this helps,

In all those cases where you left your 70-200 at home because it is so damn HEAVY the

shots from the 85 will be 948% better!

All lenses are just tools that have pluses and minuses, even lenses at the very top of their

game like these two.

Image quality wise there will probably be so little in it that you won't notice. Size, focal

length versatility, and weight is the main point of difference. The 85 is also 1.33 stops

faster, something that IS can't substitute for all the time.

regards,

Just a quick note to all those who have commented in this and other posts re the 70-300

DO lense...

This is actually one of the few lenses that hasn't been done to death on this or other

forums. There are, at my count, only 5 or 6 half useful web reviews of the DO [here,

Reichmann, Castleman, one on Shutterbug, the Digital Picture, and the eastern European

one. That's not a lot of info to base a $1000 plus buying decision on.

Unlike the 70-200 series, there aren't even that many posts about the DO on photo.net,

and half of them are pulled short by people acting as if the book had been written on this

one.

Its not as if people are asking the 'ole chestnuts like canon 70-200mm f4 vs. sigma 70

-200mm f2.8, canon 50mm f1.4 vs. canon 50mm f1.8, or the even more refreshing "What

UV filter for lense blah blah blah" [and no one gives people asking such a dense question

as the last one such a hard time].

For such an interesting lense there is bugger all useful info on the web, so don't come

down too hard on people asking about it pls. And, yes, if you're wondering, I'm curious

about the answers to this one too.

regards,

The argument that canon must be long-term committed to ef-s because they're so

expensive doesn't necessarily wash.

Maybe ef-s lenses are so expensive because canon knows they will have such a limited

shelf life that they have to make their R&D costs back quickly on them.

Either way, the existence of three lenses does not set the strategy for a whole camera

system!

The drift towards smaller size in the wider electronics market could also be a bit of a red

herring. SLRs have always been bigger than other cameras, hasn't been much of a

problem, has it?

FF would be nice, but I'd be happy enough if they could market a 1.3 crop at 20D prices.

At least then you can have an effective 20-21mm wide angle with the 2 ultra wide L zoom

offerings.

regards,

I agree with the previous poster, the 30 is plenty good enough.

Glass is more important and later you'll probably want to go digital anyway, so why spend

a heap of money on this body?

good luck,

Just a few things...

...if you go boating when everyone else does [i.e. when the weather is nice] then its

unlikely that IS or even the stop greater speed of either of the f2.8 versions is actually

going to make a real difference at all over the f4.

IS is also not going to let you take sharp shots at 200mm at 1/60th of a second if the

damn boat is moving either [boats tend to do that even when they are 'stationary' and they

move a lot more than a slightly shakey hand]!

IS shines in LOW light, but the 70-200/4 is optically just as good if not slightly better than

its bigger brothers.

The 28-135 is not even on the same planet, let alone in the same ballpark unless you stop

it down, smack it silly, and whack it on a tripod.

good luck,

Jim,

I'm one of those people you could puree and stack up next to the empire state building.

I don't need next day results so am gritting my teeth, scanning chromes, and waiting for

that digital 3 [or at least a 20D sucessor that comes close].

The wait is getting harder, but I want one or two lenses yet and they are at the top of

my list anyhow.

Despite the enthusiasm on this and other forums for DSLRs, as someone who LIKES doing

this just for fun [very serious fun] I can't rationalise purchases based on the real dollar cost

of missing a shot.

I'm just not gonna pay eos 3 prices for a digital elan or rebel, and I don't shoot the ten

thousand odd frames a year required to make digital convincing from an economic

standpoint.

regards,

Anything other than a 1 series DSLR will feel like a piece of crap with a tunnel for a

viewfinder.

Sorry 10D/20D guys, but any of you who used to play with the 3 know its true.

You will probably learn to live with a 20D, but will secretly covet a 1D mark blah blah blah

until you go mad or find a friendly bank manager [and your wife shoots you when the visa

bill comes in].

The number of people waiting for a digital 3 is only slightly smaller than the empire state

building if you puree them and stack them in cambell's soup cans :)

regards,

At the risk of sounding like a luddite, shoot film.

I hear its good for batteries too :)

Seriously, I wouldn't get smaller cards than 512MB, too much of a pain. So, a mixture of

512MBs and IGBs should do the trick. If you get the newer extreme 3 cards they come with

a little CD with data recovery software, I hear.

regards,

What Jim said.

If you've got a spare 70 bucks get the 50/1.8 as well.

Good for low light portraits and so cheap for the image quality its a gift from heaven.

Good luck,

FWIW they're optically pretty much the same.

Only difference is you lose all the wide angle on a 1.6 body with the 28-135. That will

start at 45mm on your XT.

But, you then have a lense that will fit on any eos body. The 17-85 is ef-s only [300D/

350D/20D].

You have to decide what's more important.

good luck

I say glass.

Option 2 or 4 looks good to go.

I have the two lenses you've got, plus an 85 and a 200 prime.

To tell you the truth I just got sick of changing lenses and have moved over to the f4 L

zooms for most things [low light excepted]. Will never sell the primes though.

I'm a big guy, but I can't imagine lugging either of the f2.8 70-200s along for the day with

all the rest of the junk. Life is too short to have a sore shoulder. Have you thought about

the 70-200/4L? The money you save on that vs. the f2.8 version could go towards a

speedlight like the 420ex or even 580ex - every photog should have one.

The step up from the 300D to the 20D is just not big enough image quality wise when you

obviously have such a need for good glass. Both of them will probably be replaced within a

year or so anyways...

good luck.

Sorry Andrew, no offence meant, but why, oh why, do people do this?

You can't compare apples and oranges or primes and zooms like this and expect anything

meaningful.

Of course the 135 is going to kick the 70-200's butt, its so bleedingly obvious you don't

even need to worry about it.

The thing is, and this is the point, the zoom is almost as good as the prime, a tiny little bit

slower, but a whole lot more versatile!

If you want the absolute best image quality canon has on offer, buy their best primes.

If you are happy to put up with something a little bit less [but still quite stunning actually],

and flexibility and the ability to change focal lengths quickly is what you need, then buy a

nice L zoom.

Once you've got past that whole "Is the image quality good enough?" thing, concentrate on

how you are going to use it. That's way more important than if lense X is 0.768% better

than lense Y on the 'howthebloodyhellgoodisthislenseanyway' scale of optical nirvanna.

The best lense in the world is no good if you miss the shot 'cos its too slow/too heavy/you

had to change to a longer or shorter prime just right then/doesn't come in vermilion/etc.

my $0.02

I'd get the 85mm f1.8.

If you want a zoom, then the 24-70 is the way to go. Be sure to have a good look at the

tamron 28-75 as well, much cheaper and very close to being as good.

regards,

I would go for the 350D and the 70-200.

Good lenses are always a better buy than cameras, even though cameras seem 'sexier'.

Cameras are just a light-tight box, of varying levels of 'boxiness' and functionality.

The actual image quality difference btw the 350D and the 20D seems marginal, yes the

350D is that big an improvement of the 300D! Either camera will be last week's news in 6

-12 months, so why spend a bomb on one? Especially when your main need from a

photographic viewpoint is actually good lenses.

The 70-200/4 matches well with the 24-85, both take a 67mm filter. You also have a

good fast 50mm for low light. You should think about something for the wide angle later

[i.e. the 17-40, a killer combo with the 70-200 and a 50mm].

Don't forget to budget for CF cards and software.

good luck,

The sigma lense [in fact all sigma lenses] get a black mark because they do not license the

eos mount design from canon - they have basically reverse-engineered it.

This means that a change in canon bodies may cause the lense to stop working.

Sigma are pretty good about re-chipping all current models if this happens [for free], but

its still a pain in the backside.

The other thing [and this is all third party lenses to some degree] is YGWYPF. Usually the

third party lenses offer between 90-100% of the image quality of canon lenses, but are not

as well built.

With what can be a huge price differential, many people are cool with this. And then you

get some real gems like the tamron 28-75. Tamron also have a better reputation for

compatability with canon. Sadly they are yet to release their new 70-200 [was announced

a while back but no one has heard anything since].

Most people buy the f4 canon for its size and weight primarily. With DSLRs you can dial up

the ISO one stop to compensate for the lower speed no problems. It is also as good as the

f2.8 version at half the cost.

I now see the 70-200 f2.8 as a bit of an orphan really. If speed isn't important, then you

have the f4. If it is, then go the whole nine yards and get the f2.8 IS version.

thats my $0.02

Get a B&W MRC, but do NOT get the slim version. 2 reasons:

1. Its much more expensive and you do not need it as the normal one does not vignette on

the 17-40.

2. It does not have a front thread so you cannot use the normal canon lense cap that

comes with the lense. You get a black plastic cap that has a tendency to fall off and has to

be taken off before you can remove the lense hood. All very annoying in the real world.

You also can't screw anything else on in front of it due to it not having a front thread.

Link:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?

O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=11994&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

regards,

Try:

www.oehling.de

Its a German site, but you should be able to find your way around OK.

Its EU internal so there won't be any customs and the prices are in euros.

A link to the 300D with EU postage is:

https://www.foto-oehling.com/cgi-bin/Oehling.storefront/

42e4b5fa0140588a27410a00011e05dc/Basket/Update

Going thru the States B&H is the best, 'nuff said.

regards,

Not unless you really really need the cash.

A good fast prime will always have its uses.

regards,

30-35% operating margin is OK, but remember this is before tax and before returns to shareholders!

When you look at the digicam market where the margin is about half that of DSLRs you see the impact of more competitors in the market and more price competition. This market will still be very profitable, but is supported by a high volume/low price dynamic.

That being said, prices will not come down for DSLRs more steeply unless a) the technology begins to mature [which is a while off] b) more competitors enter the market [unlikely] or c) demand falls off [i.e. we stop rushing out to buy the next great thing before it even arrives in the shops].

You also have to look at the decline in film body revenue, which has not been discussed.

Its also logical that they need to make a bigger margin on the high end bodies. The volumes are at the low end of the scale and the R&D needed to stay on top cannot come cheap.

Contrast that with the DRebel end of the market where higher volumes are pushing down price.

I expect the whole thing to pan out much like the PC market did, but at a faster pace. Within 10 years DSLRs should become 'commoditised' as the technology matures and demand falls off. Even if they could make a 50MP camera, who really needs one? Most people are well served by the current 20D, all thats needed is for the price for that level of technology to come down.

regards,