chinmaya

<p>I have 28-135mm, pretty good lens. I have made 16x20 prints, looks great. Some blogs say that 28-135mm has 2stop image stabilizer as compared to 3 stop in most modern lenses. 28-135mm complements very well with your 10-22mm, however I think 24-105mm IS makes better walk around lens both on crop and full frame than 28-135mm. If I could afford it I would go for 24-105mm. Also 28-135mm has loose-zoom issue, may not be a problem for many including myself.</p>

<p>Good luck deciding. You are thinking ahead of time, so you might just make it by holiday season :-)</p>

<p>Please don't leave our brand !!!<br>

Once I tried to switch from Canon to Nikon, asked for suggestion at photo.net, I can say I almost got hammered (ofcourse with why, why not, kind of questions).<br>

I'd say if you love Nikon body I would just get it without asking any suggestions, you can build a good system either with Nikon or Canon with few hundred $$$ give or take.<br>

Just go by what loooks good and fits right in your palm</p>

<p>I don't have any experience with G11, when I did research between G11, LX3, S90, <br>

to me, LX3's f2.0 and 24mm wide made more sense than any other.</p>

<p>You can consider LX5 (although no reviews yet), it has 90mm on tele end which makes it<br>

better on paper.</p>

<p>I don't have 7D, its certainly a better camera, I didn't find it worth 800$ more than 50D.<br>

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3971392">Nathan</a> makes some good points.<br>

May be people who own both will give you a precise openion.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>You get what you pay for. 7D is certainly better if you can afford it.<br>

But I use 50D and I find it sufficient for my needs.</p>

<p>I went from XTi to 50D.<br>

Either 50D or 7D will be a major upgrade, you can choose either, depending on your budget.<br>

If you pixel peep, then with the resolution of 50D or 7d, you might find your lenses limiting.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>People after get excited about perfection or best of best. Everyone wants to have better than what neighbours have.<br>

If there was no dpreview.com or no pixel peeing, things would have been sorted out differently.<br>

People often talk about 1600/3200 ISO, and compare 2 cameras by pixel-peeing. Well unless you have to impress your client to make money I personally don't care for pixel level noise. Infact after reading so much about 50Ds noise I did an inventory of my images, I have only taken about 5% of images at ISO 1600 (on my XTi) and I have only printed 1 ISO 400, mostly I have printed are ISO-100 which I use tripod. And rest of the images, I use them to impress people on web and 90% of the time I post 1600x1024 resolution. So to me 50D is a great camera / upgrade.<br>

Then you might ask what is the point of the best or better camera out there?<br>

Well buy it if you can offord it, if not most of the cameras are good for a common man.</p>

<p>Definitely when buying I don't trust one liner response (e.g buy 7D, its better), Well yes I know 7D better, lot of websites have posted technical data to prove it and said it better, but does not answer my fundamental question 'if it suits my need?'.</p>

<p>Certainly 5D m2 has advantages, I really like the bokeh difference in macro photography and there are plenty others advantages. I would love to own one, when I can justify cost of it.<br>

I will buy 5D m2 tomorrow, if I start to make money of my photography today, or if my employer raises my salary. If not, to my level of expertise (amateur) and the amount of time I spend on Photography, I am very very (super happy) happy with 50D and XTi output.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am not clear what you want.</p>

<p>However, you can fit Canon XSi + 18-55mm + 70-300mm for $1000</p>

<p>I have made good 16x20 and 16x24 size prints with XTi.<br>

But I think my XTi may have reached its limit at 16x24. Anyways I don't intend to print beyond 16x24. I mostly print 8x12 and 10x15 a lot, and sometimes 16x24.<br>

Where am I going with this ... ?<br>

I hear lot of 5D better for landscape, 7D is better than 50D etc.<br>

I think these big/costly cameras are going to give you pleasure in 3 things, their level (how its placed in canon lineup), pixel peeping, or making huge prints.</p>

<p>I would say any camera should be fine, as long as you incorporate right capturing and post processing techniques. I would spend more time learning techniques than buying a better camera body.<br>

That does not mean, that I suggest its not worth upgrading to 50D or 7D. Certainly you get some great performance and useful features such as 6.3/8 frame per second, better Auto Focus, better LCD , better controls etc.</p>

<p>Finally, to the point:<br>

I did lot of research on 50D vs 40D vs 7D. I eventually short-listed 50D and 7D and bought 50D. I could not convince my self that 7D additional features were worth paying $800 extra. If you do lot of bird photography, you may need great amount of cropping, then certainly 7D 18mp and 5Dm2 21mp is worth investing.</p>

<p>My suggestion is : Your next camera purchase should be based on</p>

<ol>

<li>prints size </li>

<li>your style of photography today </li>

<li>your style of photography tomorrow </li>

</ol>

<p>Hope my 2cents helps.</p>

<p>HDR 'to me' is easiest way of exposing a scene.<br>

I would use Evaluate/3d-Matrix, and let camera make the best guess for each of 3 exposures.<br>

And rest done in software.</p>

<p>I still can't believe that there is talk about 40D vs 50D.<br>

I have 50D and its a great camera. I have a proof of that hanging in my Office.<br>

(Please stop harassing 50D)</p>

<p>BTW: if you don't mind buying from ebay, you get Live/Bing.com cashback of 8%.<br>

So you might be lucky save $70 to $80.<br>

http://www.bing.com/shopping/pages/faq.aspx</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>do you also loose the AF?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I would not worry about loosing AF, best chance of getting a great macro shot is using manual focus. Or if your lens support full time manual focus, then you can take advantage of auto focus to get close enough focus, later fine tune it using manual focus.</p>

<p>I did lot of research on 24-105mm, its is like a great lens, but is it worth it? I din't think so and I dint buy it.<br>

I mostly use 17-40mm as my default lens while hiking, if I am going to a park or local town, I carry my 28-135mm IS (some people think IQ of this lens is in par with 24-105mm).</p>

<p>If I had not bought 28-135mm, today, I would have bought Panasonic LX3 as my walk around photography device. Its got raw support, IQ is very good, its got 24-60mm (full frame) focal length, which is perfect for walkaround according to me. It costs about $400 today. I think its better to buy a LX3 than a walk around lens. I am pretty sure LX3 will serve better purposes: family get together and parties. And its less than 300grams.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I use EOS utilities for renaming to make file names unique,</p>

<p>Template looks like:(I use this one)<br>

<Prefix>_<Shooting Day yy/mm/dd>_<Image Number>.CR2<br>

e.g IMG_2009_12_10_1456.CR2<br>

That way file names are unique, and easy too identify</p>

<p>Or you could sequence number<br>

<Prefix>_<Sequential Number>_<Image Number>.CR2<br>

e.g IMG_0001_1456.CR2</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Re: What's limiting your photography?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Time</p>

<h1><br /></h1>

<p>Canon 28-135mm is a very good lens, I have made 16x24 size landscape prints, and its very shap.<br>

For some, 28mm is not wide enough, it will be great walkaround+inexpensive lens on a full frame.</p>

<p>Canon 70-200mm is one god-dam sharp lens, Canon 55-250mm won't match the IQ of 70-200mm.<br>

And as you might expect there is whole world of difference in pricesing,<br>

55-250mm is USD $250+<br>

70-200mm nonis is USD $600+<br>

70-200 is is USD $1000+</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sometimes when I hike, I still manage with Canon 70-200 L Non-IS + 1.4x TC, as its a light weight package compared to 100-400mm IS.<br>

But as it gets darker, even pushing ISO to 1600 on my XTi does not give me fast enough shutter speed.<br>

I almost always 'try' to make sure my shutter speed is least 1/400th of a second. And hold as steady as possible and take multiple shots (in cont. drive mode) to increase my chances of getting a shaper image.<br>

Having a tripod is great, but you may not have time to setup your tripod for lurking birds. And you have to make sure to use a ball-head, otherwise its difficult shoot birds on a tripod.</p>

<p>Have you considered Canon 55-250mm IS? It seems to have decent reviews (don't take my word for it, checkout some reviews), it costs about 250+ USD</p>

<p>Nikon Coolpix S60 already has a touch screen. So SLRs may not be far too behind.</p>

<p>

<p>Canon 18-55mm is decent focal length for landscapes. I am not sure how sharp it is.<br>

How much ready are you for an big lens upgrade? Only you can judge it, try to post your images in critique forums here and elsewhere get feedback.<br>

Irrespective of that, following order of equipment purchase (possible transition path to better landscape lens) would will take you there incrementally...</p>

<ol>

<li>Shoot raw, learn raw manipulation to get most (Dynamic range, less noise etc) out of your camera. </li>

<li>Learn to get everything sharp at smaller aperture such as f14 thro f22. It will take some practice to get there.</li>

<li>Get your composition right. <strong>Buy </strong> some books </li>

<li>Sharpness is very important. <strong>Buy </strong> a tripod And flip the mirror and take photograph (check your custom function; at least it was so in XTi). <strong>Buy </strong> IR Remote or timer to take shots. IR Remote may cost you USD $20+.</li>

<li>may be <strong>buy </strong> some filters, GND and Circular Polarizing filter. Or if you are fan of photography editors such as photoshop/gimp you can get those effects. But I don't think you can get Polarizing filter effect.</li>

<li>Depending your style of photography <strong>buy </strong> either Canon 10-22mm, Canon 17-40mm </li>

<li>If you are on budget <strong>buy </strong> Sigma 10-22mm, Tokina 12-24mm, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8</li>

</ol>

<p>Good Luck</p>