james_de_h

I always used to carry a back-up body with me, a role now passed to a smartphone. I use my camera for my work, the 'phone for everything else but being surprised by how well it copes in difficult lighting. If tech moves on at its current pace, I can see some using a fake DSLR body into which they secrete a 'phone for 'pro' use. Imagine a bride in a few years time quizzing her photo bill when told her wedding was captured on an iPhone...

Correct. It is an F4 max aperture lens. Typo.

I was taking pictures of a Claas Telescopic handler. These are lime green, grey, white and red. The background included off-white buildings, with open and close shutter doors, and broadleaf trees. Conditions bright mid day sun with occasional, and welcome, cloud cover. I did some general shots with the 12-100, most in the range of f2 to f8 and ISO 200. . When I swapped to the 17mm f1.8 I kept the same ISO but varied the aperture more as I want as deep a depth of field as I can. The sweet spot on the day appears to have been around f7.1 - going in at a smaller aperture lost too much light in the shadows. All pictures were taken in pretty much the same conditions spread over around 30 minutes. In LR I knew which images were taken by the lenses due to their sequence but I could see a difference in the 'feel' between similar staged shots. As one of you pointed out, colour can appear different dependant upon how sharply a given part of the image is captured and this is almost certainly what's happened with the foliage in the trees in the background. As an aside, I take absolutely no notice of a review that says a given lens has this or the other faults or whatever. I have not noticed light fall off in the corners of the 17mm. It may well be there but I don't notice it.

I did not expect to see a really noticeable difference between a 17mm (f1.8) prime versus a 12-100 zoom in terms of colour but boy oh boy the 17mm is lovely. The way it hangs onto every nuance of green in foliage and blues in the sky is just remarkable. Even my ageing eyes can see a wider palette of colour in the images taken by the prime.When people used to bang on about zooms v primes I used to just groan. Perhaps I missed the point as they went on about sharpness and bokeh but not colour. As an aside, useful upgrade to the OM-D M1 MkII in the latest firmware. Have to say I have found Olympus a great company to deal with. I actually know the names of people to talk to if I have a problem. (Also known as cock up a setting).

Hi Gary, you and me both.

<p>Carrying kit in a bag that is then dumped in the car is not the same as carrying all of it 'on site'. If I find Olly wanting I at least have all the Canon kit within walking distance. I am experimenting and will see how I get on in the next few months. If I find Olly is not up to the job I have only an old Canon lens as a casualty of my my investment. Conversely, my Canon kit has enough retained value to let me step up to more pro oriented Olly gear should I commit to the micro four-thirds system. As to getting a new full frame Canon body it is the 6D that would attract me, the 5D IV being well beyond what I need. I just think we are really lucky to have so much choice.</p>

<p>Back in July I posted a question on suggestions on how I could lighten my kit bag load. Outline, a Mk1 EOS 5D with 16-35mm and EOS 7D MkI with 24-105. Add spare batteries etc. and that little lot is quite a weight for what I need to do with it. So I asked for suggested alternatives and got a great deal of help and suggestions. I tired a Sony A7 combo - no real weight saving. I then looked at replacing my kit with Fuji gear - too expensive and would lead to my treasured 16-35 and 5D combo having to be sold for far less than they are worth to me. Anyway I decided to go left field and give micro 4/3 a try. Selling off a never used lens funded an Olympus OM-D M10 MkII with kit pancake 12-42 and 40-150 lenses to give 35mm equivalent 24 to 300mm range. In a package that weights about as much as my flash. Because I work in less than ideal conditions, I am aware the kit I have purchased is not the ideal. But I did not want to invest in weather sealed pro quality without really giving the system a go. Very long story short, the little Olympus and kit lenses - mainly the dinky 12-42 - has really exceeded what I expected. I readily accept my Canon bodies are a long way from the cream of DSLR models now on offer but they both capture all I want. And the OM-D 10 MkII is so close I am staggered. To add a little cream, my version of LR and PS will not handle the camera's RAW files, although Olympus Viewer 3 will convert as necessary. This lead to me switching to JPEGs. With my Canon bodies, I just do not trust / like the JPEGs. With the Old they are pretty much bang on. <br> So, despite wanting to reduce my kit haul, I now have little Olly sitting in my bag as well. He does not cover all the bases but I find he is the go to bit of kit for much of what I do. So I have decided to hang on to my Canon bodies even if they get left in the car boot increasingly and use little Olly more and more. He may be a relatively cheap buy and the 40-150 lens looks as if it has the strength of a paper bag but I do not care. This Olly combo takes great images. Totally unrelated, my first SLR was an Olympus OM10 back in 1979. That little camera served me well, my poor manual focus skills seeing me chop it in for an Canon EOS10 and next a 10D etc. But I missed the OM10 and now feel his grandson is back with me and I love him to bits.I still have all my Canon kit too. Now must get back to doing my back exercises and stuff some body building into a crowded day....</p>

<p>Hi Carl,<br> I have stopped my sub to CC now and am using Bridge and LR5 with Affinity. I am not the right person to comment in depth upon Affinity as I just scratch its surface. But clone and in filling with Affinity seems to work better for me than it did with PS CC and certainly better than CS6 for which I have a perpetual licence. I forgot how useful Adobe Bridge can be too, the latter coming as a free download in CC form at preset. Affinity 1.5, with a few updates, is due soon and Serif have also reduced the price for a while too. To good a deal to overlook in my view.</p>

<p>I am now in a better position to appreciate how tricky this is after having my kit valued. In brief, trading in to switch to something lighter will essentially see the investment made in one single lens returned for pretty much every bit of kit I own. So I am going to stick with my lenses - the heavy bit - and use just a 6D body in the future. I could go for a 10-22 on the 7D but I tried this for a while and missed the 16-35 and 5D combination. I found a camera dealer who actually understands my problem and they have offered to walk me through my options next week. In real terms, trading in used bodies that are not current makes keeping them as a back-up a more viable option. I still love the 5D too. A two bag solution is still on the cards. It is easy to do and actually the more I think about it is seems it is the way forward. Thanks for the Sony to EF link Brian. Wow, there are some really helpful people on this forum.</p>

<p>Thanks one and all. I cannot realistically swap lenses on most jobs as if it is not dirty or wet it is windy and damp! I can, of course, do the swap somewhere cleaner but this is not always as easy as it could be. The middle of a field is typical. The 5D is a rugged old thing and has no dirty sensor problems thanks to the lens always being on its nose. I think I will invent a splitting camera bag so I can leave a body behind but re-unite the kit quickly and easily when I need to. A camera in the car is always handy -until you take the car that does not have the camera in it... I may take look at the 80D - it seems to have a very impressive spec and maybe it could do the job with a 10-22 on it.</p>

<p>I started to ramble on this so in brief my kit is a EOS 5D mated to a EF 16-35mm lens and a EOS 7D mated to the EF 24-105 that came with the 5D. The latter is brilliant and despite borrowing a 5D MkII and then a 6D I still think the 5D is fine for what I need. And that need is to be able to take images inside tractor or combine cabs etc., capturing as wide a vista as possible to show the controls. I rarely use flash these days thanks to the power of Adobe CC software (Actually I have reverted to LR 5 and purchased Affinity Photo which I prefer to Photoshop). I shoot handheld. The 7D is used for pretty much all the other photography to include taking pictures of machinery in action. I only shoot RAW, always put the bodies away in 'P' on the mode dial to ensure I can quickly grab a shot if I do not have my 'manual' head on. I sometimes find 'P' does it well enough to allow me concentrate on framing the shot. Now there is an admission! <br> Question? Two bodies and different spare batteries crammed into one slightly too small a kit bag can make for a package that is less than easy to carry on a 'plane. I want to downsize. But I am out of touch with modern kit and have nowhere to go to fiddle with alternatives. So any suggestions for a system that will cover 16mm through to around 75mm, do good RAW capture and is up to working in dirt, dust and damp? </p>

<p>I sold my 5D to get a 7D and immediately regretted it. So I bought a well used 5D to compliment the 7D and the two are just brilliant for me. Low light? Ah, then you will probably find the 5D needs very careful handling and a nice fast lens. Try one and you may fall in love with its other qualities. There is something about the images from these previous generation digital bodies that I really like. Some of my best photographs were taken with a 10D.</p>

<p>Any of you Mac users on here giving Affinity Photo a try? I subscribe to Adobe CC and think it offers great value for money but find I only use LR these days so do not need to really invest in the heavy lifting offered by PS. But I would miss the latter if I stopped with CC. Hence the trial with Affinity. It plays very nicely with LR and I think a purchased licence to LR plus Affinity could make sense for a lot of us. Affinity does have a lot more oomph than I expected too and it really flies on both my 2009 iMac 27in and newer 27in Retina model. The latter is not much faster in PS than its aged brother but in Affinity the newer Mac is so fast adjustments are made almost too quickly for me to notice them. Well worth a try and the learning curve will not be too steep if you know your way around PS. Affinity has some neat little features too but I do not need them. But try Stacks. Great fun!</p>

<p>Buy the best monitor you can afford and work back from there. Software? PS Elements.</p>

<p>I am now in a better position to comment. I spoke to Apple and it transpires my Library files needed a bit of a purge. I could go into detail but I know from experience a post that lists what to do can help some but a misplaced step can also cause mayhem so will just remind Mac users of Go, option key and Library that will now appear in El Capitan. If you do not know what this means, leave well alone and get the relevant Cache files purged by someone who does or will walk you though which library to trash. I am not trying to patronise here but more prevent my lack of knowledge leading to someone accidentally purging some files the system needs. Took a couple of minutes and transformed my machine. When you do a fresh install, some files need to be removed it seems but not always. My machine now does the job fine and 100 RAW imports into LR steam along just fine. As to the fans, the Apple tech told me the fans are designed to have a high idle to keep the system cool. So where my old iMac was always warm this one stays cool - really noticeably cool. I have good hearing so pick up the fan noise but must point out it is not loud. In a busy environment you will not hear them. When the fans ramp up they die down again when the job is over. Now to the CF card. I dug out an ancient reader after a rouge card would cause the system to reject it and then tell me off for not doing it properly. Worked just fine. Strange as my Windows 10 PC had the same problem with the card but it too read fine with the old reader. So a coincidentally issue not related to this new Mac. Keyboard last. It is a bit click and clack but not if you treat it gently. I am a thumper due to using manual typewriters for years. Tap and the keys shut up. The E key went AWOL and a new keyboard delivered within 24 hours is 100%. Shame it is a US one but Apple are sending the right one for me in UK. I am now getting used to this Retina screen and realise it is actually really rather special. The colours are - well no point going on. As to my CPU and GPU upgrades I would say spend the money on a going SSD and in RAM for photo work. Video? Not my bag but my son installed Final Cut whatever on this machine and he says its performance is 'stellar'. Trouble is he filled the 500 Gig drive and now I have to purge them to an external drive before I can get back to work!</p>

<p>I knew 8GB of RAM would not be enough but did not want to pay any more to Apple for ram that I could slot in for a lot less. Added and extra 16GB so 24 in all. This morning I took just over 100 RAW images and did the usual download using a USB 3.0 card reader. A bit faster than on my old USB 2.0 mac. Then the second card would not read. That's a first. Got round by wiring up the camera direct. Just check, shut down and reboots. First CF card read fine, but not th second. Did the usual swapping etc. but it seems this new machine only like to rad once card and the says no to a second. Now to LR import. Slow. My old machine took its tim but did the job. This nw one was the sam speed and told me a couple of files were corrupt. So tried radar and card in the old Mac. No problem. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. And to add insult to injury, the fans came on full time with just 90 RAW fils to upload into LR. 24GB of RAM in this machine is plenty for LR. My old Mac had 16. If things do not improve I may nd putting this back in the box.The new keyboard is driving me mad too. Have to thump th keys down - th e, as you can s dos not work! </p>

<p>Posted on 4th November that I was thinking of getting a new iMac 27in Retina. Took the plunge and using it now. Plus points are the screen for TEXT. Really sharp and clear and just so much easier on the eye. As for images, they are better in that you can pick out more detail. The green frog Mac screensaver, for example, has a hair running under its foot. You can spot that on the Retina screen but I never noticed it before. Downside? Well if you want to achieve anything with just 8GB of RAM think on. It will see LR and PS bang their heads and slow up. The cooling fans run full time from startup. I am used to a Mac that just whispers. The new touchpad is a funny thing - turn off the Force Touch and it is much better. The new keyboard is noisy and clacky. And now to performance. I am comparing a new Skylake 4 GHz Intel Core i7, 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 ram and R9 M395X 4096 MB GPU with a 2009 i5 model with 16GB of slower ram and a 512mb GPU. Th new should smoke the old right? Well no, it doesn't even with a fast nominal 500GB SSD doing the lifting and storing. For PS and LR, my old Mac holds its own. It is a bit slower and gets pretty warm but it is silent. This new machine went nuts installing my LR catalogue. Thought it would take off. But it remained cool to the touch. So my verdict after a couple of days is old iMac 27in warriors, do not despair. For photo work your old machines are still viable and not out classed. Sorry if there are spelling errors etc. This new keyboard likes a firm key press. Think I will nick my old keyboard back!</p>

<p>Thanks Wouter</p>

<p>Since I started this I decided to go along and see one of these macs for myself. To be honest, the screen did not really seem much different to mine image wise but fewer reflections which is a plus. The'Genius' I had talk me through the various specs was actually not quite as clued up as I expected initially but he was really helpful and went off to talk to a supervisor to see if what I was using the mac for would call for the higher spec CPU and GPU. He came back and said 'Not necessary. Core i5 is plenty fast enough and a 2GB GPU is fine but we do not know what will be on offer software wise in 5 years. So your call.' I decided to go with 4GB and the i7 processor and 512GB SSD. The genius told me to add my own RAM to save some cash. 'It is the only bit you can swap yourself anyway.' Helpful advice. He said add two 8GB sticks and not to go the full 32GB as I will not hit the RAM ceiling. If I do, then swap out the 2x4GB Apple ram later. Still cheaper than going for 16GB. So there you go. I now have to wait for it to be delivered. I think the buy to order models are assembled locally and not in China as it takes a boat a lot longer to float over than the 10 day wait! Thanks for your help here. With any luck this machine will see me into retirement....</p>

<p>Thanks - the extra for the 4GB card, spread over 5 years, is actually not that great. Seems like it is the way to go.</p>

<p>I am using and still relying upon my 2009 27in 2.66GHz i5 iMac with my own home brew fusion drive that mates a Samsung 830 EVO 500GB SSD with the OEM 1TB spinner. It has 16GB of RAM and ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB graphics. I use both PS and LR alongside the latest MS Office. This spec and iMac are just fine for me but I am in the position where my business model allows for its replacement. The simplest solution is to go for another iMac, all of which now have Retina displays. Simple question. Should I go for the top 4GB graphics card for one simple reason. If it is the most 'powerful' option it will not have to work as hard so possibly it may run cooler? I am looking for the new mac to last as long as this one. This is about longevity and not out and out performance.</p>

<p>I would just like to thank Andrew Rodney for his contributions to this forum. Brilliant and I for one have learned a great deal from you Andrew. </p>

<p>Dave thanks for posting your air to air pics. If rule breaking delivers this level of quality then maybe those rules need breaking more often. Jan - if positive thoughts are of any use you should be feeling a bit better today. </p>

<p>I agree with you both. I suppose it is easy to 'forget' how much we all needed to learn, and indeed forget, to switch from film to digital. Still I am pleased my 5D and 7D both seem to get better with age and I am extremely grateful to those that have developed software that does such a good job.</p>