dave404

My first experience with a full frame camera was with the 5D which I borrowed while shooting a Christening event. Immediately I thought my 20D was like shooting with a pea shooter. It was apparent that my 24-70 2.8L and 70-200 2.8L were not realizing their full potential on the 1.6X body. As Steven mentioned, noise is much less reduced on the 5D. I spend much less time doing Noise Ninja and other programs (almost none at ISO 800). For landscape the field of view is king you do not want to be constrained. I have shot with a 10-22 and I good results on a trip to Lake Tahoe, but the better lenses are all geared to full frame.

 

You may find even cheaper 5Ds on the market as people move to the 5D MkII. The 5D is a fine camera. I would not mind having a 5D mkII as the primary and the 5D as backup. For now the 5D is the main the 20D backup.

If you are printing most vendors prefer sRGB. Since the color gamut is much larger in Adobe RGB/Prophoto/ Colormatch you may do color correcting and post processing in these wide gamut color spaces only to have the print house quash these extra colors down into sRGB, losing colors and flattening your colors in the process. Same for the web. When you convert from a wider gamut space to a smaller gamut space you will lose colors and contrast as they get merged together. It may be less noticeable than the posterization in the reverse process described by Alan Meyers (above) where the colors are stretched, but it does a lot of damage.

 

Shooting RAW defers the need to make a choice at the time of the shoot, the RAW converter makes the choice in post process. Shoot RAW! I think the key point is to match the output color space you intend to present your work in. So if web sRGB, if a printing house that uses sRGB its sRGB, but perhaps your color printer at home can do something with these extra colors and you should use Adobe RGB.

 

A good book on the subject is by Dan Margulis "Professional Photoshop - the Classic Guide to Color Correction".

I love my recently acquired 5D and its full frame sensor. My 24-70 and 70-200 are amazing on the full frame body. After using a borrowed 5D the field of view on my cropped camera body left me thinking I was looking through a tunnel. I bought the 5D the next week. The sensor has much less noise than my 20D and overall image quality is much better.

 

Of course I have started to drool over the 5D MKII. I could have used that HI ISO feature in the soccer game I just shot. And, a little HD video never hurt.

I use exposuremanager and its pretty good. The cost is about $100 a year. You get the info on who is actually

buying prints, complete with email address etc. I believe that smugmug originally left you in the dark about who

was actually doing the purchasing. I have sent email at 7:00 PM to them and received a reply the same night, that

apparently including someone verifying my cropping was correct on the uploaded ready for print files. I was

surprised.

They claim to have sensor cleaning mode and for LCD viewing in bright light.

 

Having HD video capabilities with me and my canon L lens set would come in handy. I rarely carry my Sony video camera since I am burdened down by my F2.8 lenses like the 70-200. Using these lenses on a video camera that I own would be astounding. Its probably not the choice to shoot a wedding video, but why scoff at it.

Katrin Eismann had a good correction for this in her book Photoshop Restoration and Retouching. I used it once to good effect. Basically its the green that has the problem. Examine each channel to verify this. Using a channel mixer adjustment layer she selects green and adds from the red channel +65, then selects blue and also adds ups the blue amount 10% to 110% to cut down any yellow that crops up in the first step to balance it. Blend mode is lighten so as only to lighten the dark patterns. This could be a problem on a lot of shots but you might be able to replicate it easily. Try this on the big winners to improve them. As always you can change opacity to tone it down. This book had a bunch of things to improve problem photos.

I gave up waiting for the mythical 5D MKII and bought the 5D at its new cheaper price. This new camera if and when it appears will be over $3,000 and the extra features are not enough for me to justify it right now. More Mega pixels is nice for shots you intend to blow up into posters, but most of the time I have to hack them down. (I archive all my RAW files). It would be nice to be able to see the LCD in the sun. It would also be nice to have sensor cleaning. But, the 5D is pretty cheap for a full frame camera. I guess it will go even lower in price when the MKII comes out.

Another question is whether to go strobist approach with speedlights or with studio lights. I have pursued both. You can achieve quite a lot with Speedlights or with old vivitar 285HVs or similar manual flashes. (Just watch the sync voltage issues). I have two Canon speedlights and I now have my old Sunpack handlmount flash firing with the new Pual Buff Cybersyncs. This is a very portable system, no need to get reluctant people into my crappy "studio" in the basement. You take it to them.

 

For studio units I like the Alien Bees. I got a cheap set of SP studio system strobes as an XMAS present (I put them on my B&H wish list), but the Alien Bees are much better. I now use the SPs as accent lights, background lights, etc. Choose your set wisely with future plans in mind. A small AB set ordered as a package is a good idea.

 

Alternately a set of cheap manual strobes and wireless triggers (cybersync, Pocket wizard etc) could be the way to go. It depends on where you will use them.

Just like windows, shut down everything, turn off the power and let it rest and magically it comes back. Actually some of these CMOS chips hold the feeble charge on their gates quite a while after power is removed. With time they will zero out hopefully clearing out the problem.

My 17-85 mostly hangs out in my spare camera bag, gathering dust. (I hope to get my son interested in photography with my old 20D and this lens but that is not happening). The CA and slow speed of this lens limit its usefulness to me. CA would come up all the time on any reflection, back lit subject and Camera RAW would not remove it all. Shooting against a bright cloudy sky - color fringe. Edge masks with desaturate or manually using my Wacom tablet to wipe it out was a pain. On the positive side the 17-85 is very sharp and has great IS and is light. My 24-70 f2.8 really rocks, but more on a FF sensor body than the 1.6X crop body. Otherwise the effective focal length of 38 mm is not wide enough for me. On a 1.6X body I think the 17-55 would be a better choice.

I like the 70-200 2.8 at weddings and other events where the 2.8 is a must. Sports in a stadium at night the 2.8 is also a must. I use it everywhere including hiking where the weight seem to increase with each step. Buy good straps, backpacks and other stuff. If I was rich I would have both lenses so I will labor on.

I was going to wait for the MKII until I had a chance to use the 5D and see how my 24-70 2.8L and 70-200 2.8L (not to mention the 15mm fisheye) performed with a full frame sensor. I was delighted. especially with the 24-70 lens which at 24 really became a wide angle. I did not have to back up to the next table at an event to get everyone in. The 70-200 was also a much more usable range on the FF, maybe not during a soccer game but for most events, but I still have my 20D. The pictures had less noise, the LCD was much, much better. I know the MKII will probably have all the 40D bells and whistles but it must come out at $3,400 at least. That was the 5D came out with and after inflation that means the equivalent price would be $4,500. Canon demands a premium. Then with a new camera there may be bugs, firmware updates and other problems to contend with. With the rebate I talked myself into it.

I just ordered a set. We'll see. Paul B had several posts of test shots on a forum somewhere on the Internet. While at work on my work PC. I don't have it here. He claims syncing at 1/250 at 350 foot. The Ebay trigger's 10% malfunction rate was getting to me. Hope they come soon.

I like this lens a lot on both the 5D and the 20D. The effect on the 20D is more subdued and I found it to really work at parties and other events and also while hiking where it renders nice scenes and getting around the 1.6X crop. On the 5D its really wide and dramatic and fully shows off the fish-eye effect. The focus of this lens is a bit noisy but it's a fast lens and really sharp.

I agree with Steve C. ACDSee as a viewer, slide show creator are great, If you don't need RAW they have a cheaper version also that does non RAW formats. I process in Photoshop but use ACDSee as a viewer, its very fast. Since I shoot RAW using the pro version on the road I can still view my days work. On vacation I usually have the days shots running in slide show mode.

Holy moses, looks like my old setup OM-4 and the T-20. Make sure you turn off the flash or you'll exhaust that lousy 357 watch batter in the OM-4. You can give it a try in TTL but it looks like a manual arrangement would be better. A light meter would help. Based on guide number you could come up with a table of distances for proper exposure and try to zero in on some useful settings and then bracket. Remember to add the two flash outputs where they combine. No trial and error here. In the 80s the Olympus system was pretty sophisticated in their flash technology.

Expose for the highlights so that the histogram is pushed up to the right, the number of levels in the black regions is very low and hence noise is more of a problem. You can also try a noise reduction plugin in Photoshop - do it on a copied layer and reduce opacity to taste. These things can really flatten an image.

I have stitched before and someone always moves and there is a seam problem and I am cutting and pasting from some other photo. Make sure to shoot manual or the camera will switch exposure, Manual focus also. I shot about 450 pictures on this one outing, nobody is gonna stitich that many together. Now that I have my 5D the 20D will be relegated to backup and sports use. The 1.6X crop is good for sports at 5 frames per second. Even better on a 40D. So it still has a place.

I have been using the 20D with the Canon 24-70 2.8L and 70-200 2.8L for several years. I recently borrowed a

brand new 5D and used it to shoot a friend's Christening party. Getting rid of the 1.6X factor made these lenses

so much better I could not believe my eyes. The 70-200 in situations like this is a bit too powerful, frequently

its a major problem and I get a lousy crop because I can't back up. The 24 of the 24-70 is not really a wide

angle lens at all - again you can't shoot a bunch of people sitting at a wedding reception without backing up to

the next table. This reminded of my film days when my 24 prime was a nice wide angle. I also got much better

background separation with the 24-70 than I ever got before. I was a bit disappointed in the 24-70 on the 20D, I

love it on the 5D like I should. On the 5D noise was much reduced, the brightness of the viewfinder helped me

achieve a much higher hit rate with the 5D in a very dark reception hall. I shot 200 shots with each camera and

so it was a good test. I had really wanted to wait for a 5D MKII but with the recent price cuts/rebates I did the

deed - the new 5D came today. Only a few pieces of dust on the sensor but it is a great camera. I would like the

electronics from the 40D but its the sensor that counts and this one rocks.

You may be having sync issues between the camera and the flash. If you are using ETTL you WILL have trouble because Canon sends out Pre-flashes that will trigger your monolight and when the final exposure occurs you have nothing. If you operate the canon flashes in Manual mode with the MASTER/SLAVE set to off, the flash will trigger the slave units of the monolights. It will sync up to 1/250 with my Alien Bees. When you have trouble like this, you have to assume the sync is not working. Using flashes in manual it may help to get a light meter. If you are going cheapo and want to avoid tripping over the sync cord, you can buy the ebay radio triggers ($20 a pair), or just use the on camera flash at a low level just to act as a trigger. There are much more reliable wireless systems like Pocket Wizards but they cost a lot.

I was trying to use my old Sunpak and found a paper that showed it pumps out 200Volts plus. I was lucky, no damage.

 

Here is a good reference.

 

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html

Where else? B&H.

 

I bought sheets of CTO gels in 1/4 and 1/2 and cut them up to size and veleco'd them. It was about $12 or so. Go though lighing/filers/gels a simple search only found the big rolls. They were cheap.

I like the Newton bracket that I use. Its smaller, rugged, light and easy to use. Its built out of machined aircraft aluminum. The one I have folds flat! You just have to use some tools to attach it to the camera - a single allan screw. I use it with a 20D and my 70-200 2.8 lens and its great. (not with the collar though). You can find them at B&H.

http://www.newtoncamerabrackets.com/

 

If you have questions, email him and he will personally call you back. Made IN USA.

 

I already dropped my 550EX once and had it repaired. I want a solid bracket. I gave away my cheapo flip bracket.

I would never rely on the canned grey scale conversion in the camera. Capture it in JPG or better in RAW and then convert in Photoshop. In Photoshop, never just convert to grey scale - it sucks. At least bring up the cannel mixer or the new grey scale conversion tool in CS3. I have read dozens of different ways to do a really nice grey scale conversions. You can look in Scott Kelby's books or much more sophisticated methods using Dan Margulis's approach. The idea is to build up contrast to create a compelling image - even when the luminosity is similar in regions you intend to contrast.

I have shot in this situation and the rule is to NOT get in the way of the paid photographer, especially doing formals. Many people in attendance are going to be taking pictures not knowing the difference between their snapshot and a professional photograph. They will not be placing orders anyway.

 

As for lenses, taking a longer focal length lens will allow you to stay out of the way of the professional photographer and to grab moments in the distance. I would take my 70-200 2.8 IS even though many people will mistake you for the paid photographer. ON the 5D this will be real nice. Since you actually know the people in attendance and can gauge what is happening you have a great advantage over the paid photographer who knows nobody and has to get all the mandatory shots of people he has never met before. Let him do his job and you be a 2nd or 3rd shooter. This winter I attended a very nice wedding at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens that had two paid shooters plus video. My cousin was disappointed in that they concentrated on the standard shots and formals and did not do a good job covering the event. This family is a rambunctious one and things get pretty wild. They wanted to capture that. Fortunately, I did.

 

Get insurance on the equipment. If you are afraid to take it out, you should not buy it in the first place.