6D 7D and 5DMk2

Mitzyboy

Mitzyboy

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Jon
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I've come very close to buying a 5DMk2 on here in the last few days.
I currently have a 7D, and I thought it would make a welcome upgrade to full frame ....... because thats what I need .... don't I!

So .... I start to research, read all the reviews ... make an informed decision. Thats always the best way, right?

I take landscape & cityscape normally .... I dont do portraits and very little sport. I realise the 7D would be better for sport, and thats why I thought I could keep that also.
I have Canon L lens' except for my 10 - 20 Sigma, which I realise I would have to change.

My problem is ..... that after having done all my research I can actually find very little that tells me that upgrading to a FF 5DMk2 (or a 6D)will actually be greatly beneficial for me. My "walk around" lens is a 24-105L IS, and my other two are 100 - 400 L IS and 70 - 200 L IS.

It's really confused me. I don't need low light capability normally, as I'd be using a tripod for low light landscape etc.

Can anyone put me out of my misery and tell me if I am actually correct, or just misinterpreting the data :)
I've come to the conclusion I might as well just invest in a decent prime lens of some sort!
 
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Obvious first point, what do you feel you lack with the 7D? I can't see anything in what you've written as to why you might actually want to go FF. Keep in mind as well that if you do go down the FF route and want to be able to replace all your current capability, you won't be able to do the same as the 7D + 10-20 lens with the other lenses you mention. So you might end up carrying two bodies a lot of the time, or have to buy another lens as well...

Having said that I have both a 7D and 6D and don't regret buying the latter. The 7D now gets relatively rare outings where it really is better. Mostly I use the 6D. I do similar sort of photography to you, but I do have a 16-35 lens for the 6D as well as a 24-105. I do however do a lot of low light photography where the 6D wins hands down in terms of Canon bodies.
 
Why not get a 5D mk1, great for landscapes and keep the 7D for everything else. Would set you back about 350 quid and if you find FF does suit, sell it on to buy something newer

Even though I went over to Fuji, still kept my 5D for the very occasional landscape stuff
 
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Just produce a nicer overall photo, weak low pass filter certainly helps and the colour is definitely better. Better range of wide angle primes/zooms, something like a 24mm which would in effect be about 38mm on your 7D so probably not wide enough

I have had all the cameras you mention and can honestly say the 5D at low iso beats the 7D hands down. AF on the 7D is superb, but not needed for landscape work
 
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fred_bt said:
Obvious first point, what do you feel you lack with the 7D? I can't see anything in what you've written as to why you might actually want to go FF. Keep in mind as well that if you do go down the FF route and want to be able to replace all your current capability, you won't be able to do the same as the 7D + 10-20 lens with the other lenses you mention. So you might end up carrying two bodies a lot of the time, or have to buy another lens as well...

Having said that I have both a 7D and 6D and don't regret buying the latter. The 7D now gets relatively rare outings where it really is better. Mostly I use the 6D. I do similar sort of photography to you, but I do have a 16-35 lens for the 6D as well as a 24-105. I do however do a lot of low light photography where the 6D wins hands down in terms of Canon bodies.
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I think thats exactly the point. I was going up to FF as a natural progession, having read in the past that they are far better for landscape .... but when I really looked inot it, people are saying the difference is minimal. I'm quite happy with my 7D as a camera to be honest, but I want to use the best equipment thats available (and that I can afford) :) .

What, overall, is the very thing that makes you use the 6D more now. Is it mainly the low light, or are the images that it produces sharper in any way?

(Oh, and I did realise that the Sigma was never going to work on the FF :)
 
I bought it for its low light capability (since someone was finally mad enough to pay me to do some photography and it was all nighttime light pollution stuff). I keep using it because I prefer the results in a very unquantifiable way (not sharpness which is really just down to the fact that the pixels are coarser for the same focal length so you aren't pushing the lenses quite so hard), and it's noticably lighter in the bag (even if it is only 100g!) which helps when I go hiking.
 
I recently went from a 7D 15-85 combination to a 5Dmk3 24-105 and I have to say that for most subjects in good light, and especially if the output is web sized or small to medium sized prints then there isn't much to chose between them.

I also have a 10-22 Efs, the view of which I am missing on the 5Dmk3 and it is going to cost me a lot of money to replace that view on FF

I appreciate you are not considering a 5dmk3 but from what I have read a 5dmk2 is not that far behind except perhaps in the AF department.

The high ISO performance of the 5Dmk3 is much better than the 7D but only really if you are looking at 100% or making very big prints. Noise reduction in PP can work wonders even if you are pixel peeping.

So in hindsight the switch was a lot of money that I could not really justify but a wise friend asked me "does your new camera give you pleasure from using it" (he knows nothing about cameras but had just gone through a similar very expensive exercise with a pair of road cycles) well to that I had to answer a hearty "YES" so job done.

HTH

David
 
@Willid1 - No, I dont produce prints (so far) other than A4ish size. I've somehow managed to sell a few recently but I have no idea why people buy them. You've more or less summed up what I'm thinking. Ive looked at the Mk2 and also just had a scout around at Mk1's on fred's advice. Anything from £300 - £1200. It's not so much the cost though, as whether it's worth it, as I will have to buy another lens in the wide angle area.

@fred_bt - Thanks again
 
When I first upgraded from a good crop to FF i was a little underwhelmed as I expected to see a big difference, which it just wasn't. Then I realised the extra processing power FF gave me in dynamic range. I came to realise the benefits and for absolute resolution there is a real difference. If you are into landscape and cityscapes then you don't need the mk3, but nearly twice the resolution of the mk2 against its predecessor is worth the extra all day long, it is a significant jump up. You can pick up a decent 17-40L for not too much too which are a great combo.
 
as above really I use both a 6D and a 60D and at low iso numbers the difference in identical images is minimal, at high iso the difference is astronmical.

The difference when coming to pulling and pushing in post is also far far greater.

Overall I would never take my 60D out over the 6d but then again, the crop bodies are superb really too.

I think the question is do you really feel you need one, is the 7D holding you back or do you just want to have ff.

If you shoot lower iso numbers, below 800 then the difference might not be of any benefit to you.
 
Full-frame is mostly about image quality, and it's all about the physical area of the sensor rather than pixels.

FF is sharper than crop-format, because the bigger sensor doesn't have to be enlarged so much and this allows lenses to perform better. The larger sensor also collects more light, so noise is lower, dynamic range is greater, and high ISO performance is better. All these things are highly valued by landscapers. Also, FF delivers shallower DoF when the subject is framed the same and at the same f/number.

Against that, full frame kit is bigger and heavier, especially the lenses, and more expensive.

Whether the differences are worth it (and crop format also has some fundamental advantages) is a matter of debate. The advantages are there for sure and clearly visible, but one man's 'night and day better' is another man's 'hardly noticeable for the work I do'.
 
HoppyUK said:
Full-frame is mostly about image quality, and it's all about the physical area of the sensor rather than pixels.

FF is sharper than crop-format, because the bigger sensor doesn't have to be enlarged so much and this allows lenses to perform better. The larger sensor also collects more light, so noise is lower, dynamic range is greater, and high ISO performance is better. All these things are highly valued by landscapers. Also, FF delivers shallower DoF when the subject is framed the same and at the same f/number.

Against that, full frame kit is bigger and heavier, especially the lenses, and more expensive.

Whether the differences are worth it (and crop format also has some fundamental advantages) is a matter of debate. The advantages are there for sure and clearly visible, but one man's 'night and day better' is another man's 'hardly noticeable for the work I do'.
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Pretty much sums it up.

You should take up writing Richard;)
 
Phil V said:
Pretty much sums it up.

You should take up writing Richard;)
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:D

To expand on the sharpness thing, because it's widely misunderstood - it's not really about pixels, but lenses. What we call sharpness is a combination of resolution (the fineness of detail) and contrast (how clearly those details are shown). These are the two axes of lens MTF performance graphs that manufacturers publish and actually it is contrast that contributes most to visual perception of detail.

It is a fact of optical physics that as resolution demands go up, so contrast goes down. Compared to FF, crop-format APS-C requires roughly 50% more resolution, and M4/3 needs double. Therefore, smaller formats appear less sharp.

Example MTF graph for Sigma 35/1.4 Art, one of the sharpest lenses currently made. The red lines are at 10 lines-per-mm, and the lower green lines are at 30 lpmm, showing that contrast (vertical axis) has dropped about 20%.

http://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_67&product_id=87
 
Thank you Richard, your posts are really helpful and that does make some of the grey areas clearer. Image quality is something that's important to us all I guess.

As I mentioned at the outset, I have all Canon L IS lens now, Ive been replacing my old lens' with them over the last few years for the possibility that I might go to FF eventually. The only one I have left is the Sigma 10 - 20, because up to now I havent really seen a lens that would be any better. I am aware of course that it wont work with a FF.
 
Mitzyboy said:
Thank you Richard, your posts are really helpful and that does make some of the grey areas clearer. Image quality is something that's important to us all I guess.

As I mentioned at the outset, I have all Canon L IS lens now, Ive been replacing my old lens' with them over the last few years for the possibility that I might go to FF eventually. The only one I have left is the Sigma 10 - 20, because up to now I havent really seen a lens that would be any better. I am aware of course that it wont work with a FF.
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You're welcome John :)

Just to say the Sigma graph on the link is not quite as I explained, ie it doesn't have contrast on one axis and resolution on the other. There are various ways MTF graphs are portrayed and in the Sigma's case, because resolution is fixed at 10-lpmm and 30-lpmm here, the horizontal axis is distance from the centre in mms, with contrast up the vertical. But it demonstrates the point very well, ie resolution up, always means contrast down.
 
Collected the 5D, and although early days am very pleased with it.

Did a series of DOF and noise tests at a local video club (strange, I know) 7D against 5D2. DOF better on the 5D, and not surprisingly noise less at ISO6400 on the 5d. The 7D though seemed to cope surprisingly well at 6400.

Thanks for all the advice guys
 
Do you not also now find that looking through the viewfinder on the 7D is like looking out of a small window?

I was using a mate's 7D the other day back to back with my 5D2 and couldn't put it down fast enough!
 
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