5D and crop OR 40D?

jerry12953 said:
What would your views be on this?

For birds, should I use my 100-400 zoom on the 5D2 and crop wildly, or on the 40D and crop a bit less?
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Not done this on either but with 21Mp on the 5D I would have thought that would be the way to go. As far as I am aware AF is about the same so I doubt there would be much difference, try it and see, feeback would be good on your results.

Matt
 
I would bet that the 5dmk2 would easily beat the 40d. At a pixel level the 5d should be sharper, and the 2x megapixels cancels out the 1.6 crop of the APS-C cam
I shoot a 1d, with 10mp you really need to get your framing right in camera because any cropping drastically reduces your printing potential.


also i'm thinking that if you're cropping you'll need a higher shutter speed, so if you shoot with a 200mm and crop by 2, strictly speaking you'd need a shutter speed of twice that- so 1/400 (for optimal sharpness), i'd like to see some shots to back this up though, I might do a test if I have time


Also what is your intent- if you wish for large scale prints then you'll need to figure out the minimum amount of MP you can throw away before you need to scale up.
 
One of the reasons i ask is that I went to Skomer recently and was amazed at the burst speed (?) on some of the modern cameras other people had (Nikon D3 etc) , while my 40D went "click....click....click....click....."

I'm wondering if the 5D2 would be much faster, let alone the quality issues. So many more "poses" to choose from in a moving subject.

I'll certainly give the 5D a try next time, I think, although actual comparison shots might be difficult.
 
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jerry12953 said:
One of the reasons i ask is that I went to Skomer recently and was amazed at the burst speed (?) on some of the modern cameras other people had (Nikon D3 etc) , while my 40D went "click....click....click....click....."

I'm wondering if the 5D2 would be much faster, let alone the quality issues. So many more "poses" to choose from in a moving subject.
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A 5dII is only 3.9 fps, the Nikon D3s you header is 9 fps! Though apparently (according to wikipedia anyway) your 40D can do 6.5 fps which isn't bad at all imo.
 
I helped my friend with buying his 5DII and before he bought it he used my 50D for a while. We went to the hawktrust and he used the 50D and became a member. He now is hte owner of a 5DII and he uses that when he visits.

Yes it is slower but he gets good results & the quality is fine when cropped.

Personaly take both bodys with you and see what you prefer for wildlife.

You caould always sell the 40D and get a 7D as another body;) Problem solved:D but alas we can't all have both:(
 
mrjames said:
the 2x megapixels cancels out the 1.6 crop of the APS-C cam
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Nope.

The 1.6 crop is a linear measure, not a measurement of area. So the 5DII would need 1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56 times as many pixels to match the 40D.

Let's imagine you're shooting a bird with your 5DII and it takes up half of the frame - that's 2808 pixels high. Shoot the same bird, with the same lens, from the same location with a 40D and the bird will take up 80% of the frame - that's 3110 pixels, 10% more. So, cropping the image down to just include the bird, you'll have more pixels covering the bird with the 40D than with the 5DII.

This value of 'pixels per bird' is one of the more important factors when you're having to crop down. Yes, FF will win when there's no problem with filling the frame. But, with bird photography in particular, most of the time we haven't got the option of using a longer lens or getting closer to the subject. All we've got left is to grab what we can and crop - and you'll get better results from an APS-C than a FF camera when you do so.
 
salacalvet said:
I helped my friend with buying his 5DII and before he bought it he used my 50D for a while. We went to the hawktrust and he used the 50D and became a member. He now is hte owner of a 5DII and he uses that when he visits.

Yes it is slower but he gets good results & the quality is fine when cropped.

Personaly take both bodys with you and see what you prefer for wildlife.

You caould always sell the 40D and get a 7D as another body;) Problem solved:D but alas we can't all have both:(
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That would be the ideal solution, however I'm not sure yet how much bird photography I will be doing and the 7D would be a bit of a luxury for the time being.
 
hollis_f said:
Nope.

The 1.6 crop is a linear measure, not a measurement of area. So the 5DII would need 1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56 times as many pixels to match the 40D.

Let's imagine you're shooting a bird with your 5DII and it takes up half of the frame - that's 2808 pixels high. Shoot the same bird, with the same lens, from the same location with a 40D and the bird will take up 80% of the frame - that's 3110 pixels, 10% more. So, cropping the image down to just include the bird, you'll have more pixels covering the bird with the 40D than with the 5DII.

This value of 'pixels per bird' is one of the more important factors when you're having to crop down. Yes, FF will win when there's no problem with filling the frame. But, with bird photography in particular, most of the time we haven't got the option of using a longer lens or getting closer to the subject. All we've got left is to grab what we can and crop - and you'll get better results from an APS-C than a FF camera when you do so.
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That's a great reply......but doesn't it also depend on the quality of the sensor?
 
jerry12953 said:
That's a great reply......but doesn't it also depend on the quality of the sensor?
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I would agree. My understanding is that in a direct comparison between full frame pixels and crop pixels, pixel for pixel the full frame pixels are bigger giving better colour rendition and sharpness, it's thus not a direct comparison of like for like. A recent camera release saw the newer model having fewer pixels because of the improved image.
 
Greywolf said:
A recent camera release saw the newer model having fewer pixels because of the improved image.
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Which was that? The only reductions that I can recall in the recent past all applied to compact sensors.
 
Greywolf said:
I would agree. My understanding is that in a direct comparison between full frame pixels and crop pixels, pixel for pixel the full frame pixels are bigger giving better colour rendition and sharpness, it's thus not a direct comparison of like for like. A recent camera release saw the newer model having fewer pixels because of the improved image.
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To get back to the practicalties, if I had a 7D I would have no hesitation in using it. I would trust that the quality of the sensor and the burst rate would be optimum for bird photography.

But with my 40D, I'm not so sure.

Wasn't it the Canon g11 that had fewer MP's on the sensor than the g10?
 
The 40D has a marginally higher pixel density than the 5DII, but also a faster burst frame rate and cross type outer AF points.

The 5DII has a very similar pixel density to the 20/30D, I think it's fair to say that a 5DII image cropped to a 1.6x field of view would have very similar IQ to a shot from a 20D.
 
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