ulrich_brandl

<p>Chris,<br>

if your primary intention is to have a backup body on travel, think of the bulk and weight of the 1D... cameras. For pure backup use a lightweight Rebel class camera would do it. If you want more pixels for huge prints, the used 1DsII won't have it. The 7D and/or 5D II possibly is a good compromise (more pixels, reasonable weight).</p>

<p>A smart little camera. For me, the optional elctronic viewfinder is a really good idea giving the GF1 a big advantage over the otherwise very nice E-P1. If live view delay (another issue of the E-P1) and shutter lag (a real showstopper) is short enough, I will build my new travel kit around it.<br>

 </p>

<p>Pricing - it makes no sense to compare list (7d) and street (5dII) prices. I' m sure the street price will settle in a few months around 300 bucks under the list price. And then, its a lot of camera for the money.</p>

 

<p>Yes, I use it a lot. Together with a 24-105mm it makes my preferred travel combo. A huge range of useful focal lengths covered with two lenses only. There are lots of uses:<br>

Architecture - it has much less distortions between 14 and 20 mm than all the 17 or 18-x zooms at their wide ends.<br>

People or interesting small (but bigger than typical macro) objects with their environment (both sharp).<br>

Dramatic skies.<br>

Many landscape applications.<br>

Good wideangle shots need much exercise with these focal length. Look for interesting forgrounds. Learn to use its steep perspective. Ok, some people prefer the more "natural" perspective of a normal lens. But give it a chance and try it out before selling. Most photographers having a UWA won't go out without it.</p>

 

<p>Another vote for the 18-55mm IS kit lens. Dan already wrote the most striking arguments. But I read you want to go into macro and portrait work. For portraits the 18-55mm is ok. You can shoot "environmental" portraits with its shorter and head&shoulder prortraits with its longer focal length settings. However, if you want blurred backgrounds the lens shows its limits and the addition of a 50mm or 85mm prime lens would make sense. For macro shooting the 18-55mm lens has its limits too. The smallest format filling object is about 67x45mm with that lens. This is ok for many flowers but too big for insects and other really small sujects. Unforturnately there is no really cheap lens for serious macro photography. But even if you add a macro lens and a fast prime for blurred backgrounds there will be so much use for the kit zoom in general photography that I' m sure you won't regret buying it.</p>

<p>Josh, I think some judgements about a camera are possible even without having hands on. The lack of an eye-level viewfinder is a serious drawback in an othewise semi-professional featured camera.<br>

Almost evertyone in this froum has experience with the viefinder of a (D)SLR and live view or P & S LCDs. Besides the problem on sunny days I see two other major disadvantages: Holding a camera against the face gives additional stabilisation. Older eyes may require reading glasses for vieweing the LCD display, a good SLR or electronic viewfinder has a diopter compensation.<br>

So I hope for an upgrade model in the near future with EVF. I also hope for more lens options in the meantime.</p>

 

<p>Another remark. It seems you have put in the 1.6x crop factor too - then your calculation is right if you compare the field of view with a 190mm on full frame. But it still has 119mm focal length and the lens performance must be compared with the 119mm setting on your 100-300 zoom.</p>

<p>85mm with a 1.4x TC will not result in 190mm (2x), you will get effective 119 mm.<br>

As Peter mentioned, the Canon 1.4x TC won't fit. Third party converters will do, but short telephoto lenses will not produce great results with a TC. The optimum will be reached with longer telephoto primes. According to photozone.de your 100-300mm is very fine at the short end of its zoom range. I expect better results with your 100-300 at 119mm. None of the lenses you listed will be really good with a TC.</p>

<p>I had both. The 70-200 f/4L is optically fantastic, but when used w/o tripod the lack of image stabilisation can be an issue. The 70-300 IS is not quite as sharp as the 70-200 between 70 and 200 mm, but the difference is not worlds apart. It has a slight performance drop at the long end - but the 70-200 doesn't yet offer this focal length. Mechanically the 70-200 f/4L is much much better (autocfocus too). But what about usefulness ? <br>

Wildlife: Often no tripod - IS plus 300mm is a clear advantage over the 200mm but it often can't be long enough.<br>

Sports: The 70-300 has only f 5.6 at 200mm. A clear one stop plus for the 70-200 f4/L. The shorter exposure brings here more than IS. Wich focal length/range is adequate depends on the type of sports.<br>

Landscape detail: If you're hiking in the mountains without tripod IS will be an advantage. In all other situations landscapes are better shot from a tripod. Slight advantage in terms of image quality for the 70-200 then.<br>

Macro: Both lenses are of limited use. When used to isolate flowers etc. the 70-200 has a nicer background blur.<br>

Indoor: Forget both.</p>

 

<p>Did you ever try shooting fireworks with your f 2.8 lens ? Like Oscar I doubt that f 1.4 makes sense as long as you don't use ISO 25 (still available ?) films.</p>

<p>28" is much for a 10 MP picture as soon as you look at the pciture at unusually short viewing distances. This is probably the case if you look at your TIFFs on your PC monitor. At "normal" viewing distance (the whole picture in your visual field) the image quality should be ok with your equipment as long as there is no error in upscaling the image.<br>

If you intend to produce an extremely detailed 28" picture for close view, the resolution of your camera is the problem. The cheapest way to improve resolution (I assume the cactusses will not move) is to shoot several smaller images (with a longer lens or closer distance) and stitch them together. This is done easily with the PhotoStitch software that came with your camera. A bit cumbersome to shoot and the final composition is not visible while shooting...</p>

<p>You have more options for fine tuning of BW conversion in photoshop than in DPP. You will get similar functionality by the GIMP software. GIMP is Freeware (Google for it), the only cost is your time for learning. It is (like photoshop) a relatively complex piece of software.</p>

<p>Never use the Windows Image Viewer ( or the optionally installable Windows RAW image package) to judge your photos. This is a very simple display program with a rather primitive scaling and it does not support any color management (= terrible color if you use Adobe RGB). The screen rendering in DPP, Zoom Browser, Photoshop, Gimp etc. is much better. The image viewer is only useful if you want a "quick and dirty" display of pictures in mixed directories.</p>

The discussion drifted away (17-40 vs. 16-35) from the problem of the original post. I (like others) don't think that it makes sense to buy a new lens. The 10-22 and the 24-105 are really very good even at the ends of their zoom ranges if used stopped down to f/8 as usual in landscape photography. It is unlikely that you will see any improvement if you use the 17-40 instead. The only reason for me to add a lens in that zoom range would be the convenience it can offer in shooting social events. And then, I would prefer the 17-55 as it adds a full stop and has a better long end for quick portraits.

135mm indoor: Much too long on a 1.6x crop camera as long as you don't wand head-only shots. Even if it is possible to get enough distance in a large room, yo will encounter two problems:

 

1. Distance subject - photographer: Too long, bad for interaction.

2. Distance subject - Background: The ratio between subject and background distance gets close. This greatly reduces the frequently desired backgruond blur.

Anders,this lens exits. The 24-105L is nearly distortion free and edge to edge sharp from 35-70mm. Sure, a dedicated 35-70mm lens could be smaller and cheaper, but most likely at the price of distortion @35mm.

As Alistair said, simply connect a TV unit to the composite video output of the camera (or a TV card input of a pc if your 32" screen is a computer monitor). You also can use the USB connection but the remote capture downloads the picture after every shot and might cause timing issues.

 

Be aware of possible monitor reflections in the people's eyes. I am not sure if looking at the monitor deserves better portrais than the critical decision of the photographer. I have seen photos from similar setups and the results were not too convincing.

AFAIK all 35mm Zeiss lenses are made by Cosina, Japan. They are designed by Zeiss Germany and seem to be produced under a relatively strict QC. At least no rumors about sample variation...

 

I would appreciate a few Zeiss lenses in EOS mount - but only if they manage an electronic, EF compatible aperture. Indeed, their f:2 50mm Macro would be a fine replacement for my good old Canon f:2.5 50mm (good close-up, sharp, distortion-free, but the worst bokeh I' ve ever seen). The Canon has a terrbile autofocus too, so manual only focus would not change my way using the lens.

History: When I bought my first DSLR Canon was way better in noise performance than any competitor. My

Olympus OM film equipment was obsolete including the lens mount, so I had to buy a new system from scratch.

 

Now: I still would go with Canon. Currently Nikon has very good camera bodies but the cost of a whole system is

significantly higher. Most Nikon lenses are more expensive than comparable Canon lenses without offering better

performance. Pentax has a nice body (K20D), but besides some very good (and expensive) prime lenses, the current

Pentax lens lineup is far behind Canon's. I haven't looked close enough to Sony and the Four Thirds system, so I

can't say anything about that.

 

All in all I feel quite comfortable with the Canon system. Even if one or the other manufacturer has added an

attractive feature to the camera body or may be an attractive lens missing in Canon's (large) lineup, this does not

justify the cost and the learning curve implied by a system change.

Songsten,

 

the 17mm lens retains its depth-of-field characteristics, but the field of view (and thus the perspective) is like 27,2mm. If you are focussing very close, the effective focal length can become shorter than indicated in some zoom constructions. I don't know if this is true for the Tamron. But I'd expect no more than 1-2mm of difference at the wide end. Maybe this together with the deeper sharpness could explain your obervations.

Back to yout original question: The 17-40L is a very good lens, but (assuming yo use a APS-C camera) the 17-55 is the better choice for weddings. It is at least equally sharp and its zoom range is much more useful for this purpose. It is more adequate for head and shoulders portraits and still wide enough for group shots.. The f 2.8 will give you more background blur if needed. For more blur and reach I would add in a 85mm prime.

No USM ? Its new super-UD-rubber lens might be damaged by ultrasound.

That's the point, the Tokina 50-135mm is for APS-C Cameras only, not useful for the 5D. In fact, there is no 1:2.8 full frame lens that covers your desired focal range. I think the 24-205L is still the best option - although it is only 1:4. Often the IS helps with low light. Otherwise use your 50 and 85mm primes where 1:4 is too slow.

1. Take your 18-55, put it in the 28mm and test it by yourself. How much wideangle you need depends on your personal style, but most photographers will miss the range from 18-28. Replacing the 70-300 with one of the options in your list will degrade image quality in the overlapping renge, the 70-300 is a darn good lens (if you speak about the Canon 70-300mm IS).

 

2. The 300D will support the Sigma HSM. But you will always find some users who complain about problems in a certain lens-camera combination.

 

3. If you need 200mm the you have no option. f:6.3 is very slow and will result in a very dim viewfinder. Only usable under good light conditions. (Again: The 70-300 is MUCH better here). You can expect better image quality with the smaller zoom range.

 

4. The 28-105, 28-135 have a much narrower zoom range than the "suerzooms" 18-135 or 18-200mm. The larger the zoom range the more difficult is it to maintain high optical quality over the whole range.

 

5. The 24-105 L is an excellent lens. Again, I would not use it as my ONLY lens as I would miss the wide angle range.

 

Better think twice before you go with a one lens only system.

Yes - this question has been put many times and there is no simple answer to it. If you shoot handheld most of the time, the image stabilized 70-300 will do the better job. If you want top quality and shoot with a tripod the 70-200 is better, but the difference is marginal in most real world pictures. As you want to shoot birds, 300mm is where the fun just begins to start. For me, the lack of IS was a sufficient reason to sell the 70-200 when the 70-300mm came out (the 1:4 70-200 IS was not available at that time) and I am relatively happy with this decision.