kari v

<p>7D's focusing capabilities are somewhat wasted with Tamron and while it's sufficiently sharp it's nothing stellar. If you can afford it new OS Sigma is great.<br /> <br />I own 7D and the VC Tamron so I'm not just looking at test charts. I'll probably upgrade to Canon 17-55 or Sigma 17-50 unless I decide to go totally full frame, shooting with 5D and 7D now. I'm pretty sure that if you go with the Sigma you won't feel the need to upgrade anytime soon. (I do understand that the price of VC-Tamron is tempting and it really has pretty nice price/performance ratio.)</p>

<p>I'd definitely go with a stabilized lens in any case. It opens up much more options handheld. Non-VC Tamron and non-OS Sigma are sharper (I've shot with both) than VC-Tamron but, as said earlier, the stabilizer really balances the performance. And if you're accustomed to a stabilized lens it may come as bit of a shock how many blurred photos you start getting (at first) with a non-stabilized. Then again... learning better shooting technique always helps no matter what lens you're using but no need to make things more difficult than they need be. ;)</p>

<p>Forgot... I own Canon 70-200/2.8 IS and while it's a great lens it's an enormous beast to carry around. For just general stuff and walking around I'd be most of the time happier with the f4 version. (Nothing wrong with me, I'm an able man in my thirties! but seriously, sometimes a large f2.8 lens makes you miss more opportunities than take them. Also, many people don't like large lenses much and event security etc. will pay attention too.)</p>

<p>2.8 zooms are pretty large and heavy lenses. Canon 70-200/4 IS is seriously good professional lens with zero compabilty or quality problems and it's, all in all, pretty compact. With 600D for smaller prints you can easily get away with ISO 3200 and for web size 6400 so perhaps f4 isn't that much of a problem, especially with IS. Just a thought.</p>

<p>For sports only I could do without stabilizer as you mostly need fast shutter speed anyway but for general use stabilizer is something I'm not going to give up anymore, ever, in longer lenses. It's wonderful to be able to shoot handheld at night in the city with a 200mm. :)</p>

<p>But if you decide that subject separation at f2.8 is the most important thing then take the Sigma, it's the more advanced of the two. Hmm... I'm not sure if 600D has AF microadjust..? Very handy with lenses like this but then again if there's a problem you can have the lens adjusted to your camera body.</p>

<p>Underexposure is a likely culprit. For proper exposure at base ISO dslrs should have very little to no noise at all. Even my tight megapixel Canon 7D is totally fine with no noise reduction and even with higher ISOs for smallish prints (or web) the need is often really rather negligible.</p>

<p>Or perhaps you're just accustomed to the old Sony style of very heavy noise removal and the unprocessed image seems a bit rough to you? I've seen this happen couple of times and tastes differ anyway. Another thing is the lenses, shooting technique and sharpening - oversharpening a soft image can produce some pretty nasty artifacts as you're trying to bring back detail that simply isn't there and only thing left for the sharpening algorithm is the inherent noise structure in the image which shouldn't normally be visible.</p>

<p>Posting an image would help greatly assessing the problem.</p>

 

<p>William, manually focusing with that Sony and a super zoom is pretty difficult, you can't see the sharpness very well unless you zoom at 200mm, focus, and then take it back to 28mm for the shot. (And hope that focus stays where it was after focal length change...) Autofocus really is fine when attention is paid where the focus point is. Using the center one only is a good way to make sure and here "focus and recompose" won't lose the focus by any meaningful margin.</p>

<p>f16 or smaller is way over the top for aps-c sensor cameras. For image like this f8 is the max you're ever going to need. Also, f16 will make the whole image a bit soft.</p>

<p>Tripod won't help much here. Sony has pretty effective an image stabilizer making handholding at 28mm 1/60s a piece of cake - it won't cancel subject movement but then again tripod wouldn't do that either.</p>

<p>I'm currently running 64bit Win7, four core i5, 8Gt RAM, HP 24" IPS display, 64Gt SSD + couple of internal and external HDDs. Videocard is a low cost Radeon, it doesn't matter for me that much but for CS5 it might be good idea to invest in some muscle there too. But then again this is an easy upgrade to perform later on if you feel the need so you can skimp there now. Same goes for RAM, 8Gt should be fine unless you do a lot of HD video. Your motherboard should have at least four memory slots so if you buy 2x4Gt modules you can add a second pair later. Very very easy to do by yourself. (By the time you need more than 16Gt your hardware is outdated anyway so I wouldn't worry about maxing your slots with 16Gt.)<br>

<br /> Spyder 3 Elite does a fine job for calibration and Pro version is equally good if you don't need the Elite features.<br>

<br /> Pay attention when selecting the display, it's the single most expensive part and most important too. If you go with a large low cost model working with it will eat your nerves even after calibration. MAC has sort of edge here as their displays are rather good, with PCs you have to choose carefully and I've yet to see Dell or any other normal set with a proper display off the shelf - you always have to pay extra. There are some pretty good ones at $400 or so.</p>

<p>I built it myself so there was zero problem finding a suitable model. If you don't know how to put the pieces together I'm sure you can find a store that does that for you. I think Mark's suggestion of contacting a System Builder is a bit over the top, any proper computer store (not Best Buy etc.) should have an assembly service.<br /> Raid 0 is good but not necessary for still photo editing, unless you do some really heavy duty stuff on CS5. SSD system drive makes your computer very responsive indeed and normal 7200rpm drives for work/storage are good enough for most stuff.</p>

<p>What's your budget?</p>

<p>Macro lenses are built for corner to corner sharpness and very low distortion, I see no reason for even considering a normal lens for copy work. Just choose a proper focal length - all macros are good. If 50mm seems good then that old EF 50/2.5 can be found very cheaply.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>2. General purpose landscaping-zoom lens: Budget say $ 500. My find: <strong>Canon EF 100-300mm 4.5-5.6 USM. Or should I stretch to </strong>EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM, since I have no plan to keep many lenses.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>70-200/4 is just about infinitely better than the old 100-300 and it offers you weather sealing.</p>

<p>You can set ISO 1600 at first and see how long exposure you need in order to get decent bright stars, then just lower the sensitivity and take a longer exposure.<br>

1min @ 1600 = 2min @ 800 = 4min @ 400 = 8min @ 200...</p>

<p>For star trails you need at least 20min to get any proper effect, preferably more.</p>

<p>External microphone should be used for decent audio (even better, external recorder) and that minimizes the IS/OS/zoom noises with any lens.</p>

<p>One of the best cheap(ish) tripods I've seen is Velbon "El Carmagne" 530. It has carbon fiber legs with upper foam core padding and magnesium panhead and body, rather light but it doesn't twist and bend and "sing". It comes with a weight bag for extra steadiness outdoors. Max load is 4kg which is not superb in absolute terms but enough for OP's gear and all capacity you're going to get at this price point anyway.<br /> I'm not sure about US pricing but it should be close to the budget limits. Last time I visited a well equipped store that was the only sub $200 tripod with any hint of sturdiness and vibration control (thanks to the CF). It doesn't come with a quick release but the plate is large and Very firm for the money, quite different from the normal offerings and miles away from the small cheap QRs. Perhaps I'm picky but I find that mostly everything sub $200 (or in my case euro...) is pretty awful, this Velbon came as a very pleasant surprise.</p>

<p>Edit: So pleasant that I bought one as a light and cheap travel gear and I've even used it professionally. Quick release is a nice feature but really if you can live without one for a moment you're going to fall in love with the quality compared to entry level QR plates.</p>

<p>Old 35-70, 35-80, 28-80, 28-90... kit lenses are bad, for some reason I've tried many of them. But as Geoff says, they're mostly just annoying and without charm. A bit "better" with 35mm sensor when you get all the vignetting and warts.<br>

You could try some very cheap off-brand manual focus lenses with an adapter and shoot wide open. Old zooms tend to be bad but if you're after a character of any kind, then primes it is.</p>

<p>That looks like more than 100% crop or resized from a small file. How are you editing these? You should open the full size jpg, zoom in to 100% (or 1:1), then crop a piece and save as...</p>

<p>I'm feeling a bit talkative today it seems...</p>

<p>I feel that statues as subjects need very little resolution the look good. As a natural formation rocks (and trees and grass) take happily all the resolution there is but statues are perceived a bit differently, their overall form overrides the details unless you really set your mind to look for softness etc. Or perhaps it's just me. :D More coffee...</p>

<p>Here's a test chart for the $100 EF 50/1.8 on 5DmkII, take a look what happens at f4:<br /> <a href="http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/415-canon_50_18_ff?start=1">http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/415-canon_50_18_ff?start=1</a></p>

<p>Here's EF 50/1.4 on 15Mp APS-C:<br /> <a href="http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/565-canon50f14apsc?start=1">http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/565-canon50f14apsc?start=1</a><br /> Very little difference between f2.8 and f8 but in real world DoF will of course play an important role.</p>

<p>While I find that taking tests and charts too seriously is rather counter productive, here the findings agree with my eye very well. Basic primes tend to behave like this, that is, stop down one stop and you're good to go (most hazy aberrations are gone which makes the image appear a lot sharper, EF 50/1.4 is "dreamy" wide open, at f2 it looks like totally different lens), stop down to middle apertured and you're golden.<br>

But does the sweet spot matter in the real world? Depends. I have absolutely no problem shooting 50/1.4 wide open when I need it or want it. Sometimes sharpness is highly overrated and shooting wide open may produce desirable qualities in the image. Also, resolution and perceived sharpness are two very different things, 50/1.4 can look stupendously sharp wide open depending on how you use it.</p>

<p>If you can't spot any difference between f2 and f8 congrats you have a very good lens. :)</p>

<p>However, I think you'll find some differences when you shoot RAW and sharpen a bit more aggressively than camera default, especially when extracting detail by low radius sharpening (or "detail" slider in Lightroom). If your lens is wide open at f2 (or almost in the case of 35/1.8) you should see a difference in 100% view. Even if the lens retains very good detail at large apertures there's usually at least slight "mist" over the image compared to, say, f4 or 5.6. In web sized images you provided it's of course impossible to see anything, images in this size should be pretty much perfect anyway unless there's something really wrong.</p>

<p>As others mentioned, "sharpest at f8" is just for being sure. Only in the case of poor quality tele zooms (like the copious cheap 70-300 variants) and older slow kit zooms you should try f8-11 for best results. For primes middle apertures f4-5.6 are usually the sweet spot. For example my 5D + EF 50/1.4 produce absolutely stellar results there (so do my film bodies for that matter) even though the results at f2 are already very good and depending on the subject and light there might be little to choose between them.</p>

<p>Care to post 100% crops of the statue's head?</p>

<p>Always use sRGB for print and web, rest of the color spaces are for editing or for situations when you're absolutely sure they're needed.</p>

<p>Just tick sRGB in LR export dialog.</p>

<p>Infrared works anywhere, just remember that people pics may turn out pretty spooky. You see mostly summer pics because there's lots of foliage that is very prone to ir-effect.</p>

<p>Problem is that unless you have your camera modified the exposures with the filter will be Very long, strictly tripod stuff. In-built ir-blocking filter removed you can shoot handheld... but your camera is now useless for normal photography.</p>

<p>If b&w is your thing you could try it with film. But then you really should be developing your own.</p>

<p>Another vote for Samyang 14/2.8. It's simply excellent and for the price unbeatable. Just make sure you buy the updated version! First ones were not that good and they're circulating the used market.<br /> Current version is 14/2.8 <strong>UMC</strong>.</p>

<p>Edit: New UMC-version costs only about $300 so buying "cheap" older version is not something I'd recommend.</p>

<p>Lightroom is a very powerful tool for RAW files and has excellent noise reduction module. I'm not sure why you're looking for a PS plug-in or PS noise reduction tool when you could run everything through LR and only handle more demanding local adjustments in PS.<br /> LR -> edit in Photoshop makes a high quality work copy (with or without your LR adjustments) and opens it in PS, after that the PS edited file is stacked in LR with the original. This way it's very easy to keep multiple versions in order and always have the best possible file to work with.</p>

<p>If you find LR noise reduction module worse than some other tool you can use external noise reduction editors in LR too, same as in PS.</p>

<p>4272x2676 is almost 12Mp, if the image is sharp to begin with it'll produce a pin sharp 11x17 (and more). I just printed similar sized file 16x24 and it's like looking through a window, seriously.</p>

<p>2400x1600 is a bit less than 4Mp and while it'll give you nice 11x17 it'll be soft at 16x24, but then again your subject matters a lot here. Some subjects require very little resolution to appear decent and viewing distance for 16x24 will be a lot more than for 11x17.</p>

<p>Basically you can print sharp 12Mp as big as you ever like.<br>

4Mp is pushing it a bit but do try it and see yourself. If the image is such that you can show it here I could tell you how it's likely to behave, but in any case, when you want/need large, just do it.<br>

Calculating dpi is not really very productive prior to actually having experience how "100dpi" etc. looks like.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Difference between 7D and 5Dii is subject of a very hot debate right now</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think the debate is mostly about resolution. Otherwise it's pretty clear cut, 7D has superb AF and speed - 5D (mkII) wins in the noise department.</p>

<p>A vote for 5D mkI, noise levels are very much up to modern standards if you can handle RAW files. For $1600 you can get a camera body And a fine new lens.<br>

Having a dual format system with your lenses is great.</p>

<p>I shoot with 7D and 5D mkI myself. While 7D excels in AF, weather sealing and speed in general its high ISO performance isn't really that great.</p>

<p>Oh come on..! Just when I bought the normal version.</p>

<p>If you need something a bit longer than 70mm try basic 100/2 or stunning 135/2L, both are optically better than 70-200/2.8L and A Lot lighter.</p>

<p>I find 70-200/2.8L IS wonderful for sports and events, it's built like for NASA, weather proof, IS works when you pan, AF is superfast and accurate and the range is good for most situations... But when it comes to weight and optical performance I'd replace it with a decent prime any day if I could. It's more like king of workhorses, not lenses in general.</p>

<p>I hope that didn't sound harsh or something but really basic studio shooting requirements for the camera body are next to nothing. Pick between bodies based on how they feel in your hand and what you see through the viewfinder - in other words, concentrate more on things that are difficult or impossible to read from the tech specs.</p>

<p>Back to T2i and 60D.<br /> 60D has better ergonomics, better viewfinder, wireless flash control and a swivel screen (and faster max shutter speed). Is it worth the extra cost..? Depends. Actually the swivel screen may be very handy as you can place the camera anywhere and still see what you're shooting (kids from above or from grass level etc...). And you can communicate better with people as you don't need to hide behind the camera. Liveview is not the fastest or most accurate way to do things but it may offer you something pretty unique and enjoyable.</p>