Canon Live view question.

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fulwood

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henry
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I'm wanting to develop my macro photography skills using Canon gear. I have a 30D & 5D, neither of which have Live View capability.

Seems to me that for critical focus accuracy a body with Live View would be a good idea, especially being able to magnify x5 or x10.

My question is is there a noticeable difference in the Live View abilities of the various crop sensor bodies - can't afford a 5D II :-( - with respect to macro photography - don't need af abilities. Will a 40D or 450D give the same Live View image as a 50D or 7D? Bearing in mind that older bodies are 3 inch 230,000 pixel LCD's and newer are 3 inch 920,000 pixel LCD's - is the difference visible for macro work and if so, does it help with focussing accuracy?

Thanks
 
The 50d screen is a considerable improvement over the 40d screen - both are good, but the 50d is clearly better..
 
Personally find liveview useless for macro unless i'm shooting on a tripod and then i shoot tethered so don't use the rear screen. Trying to use it hand held just magnifies the shakes by 5x or 10x making it even more difficult to get the focus plane in the correct place
 
I've got a 550D and a 7D and 90% of the time I use the 550D for macro. The screen is 1,030,000 dots I think (dont quote me) but it is absolutely brilliant for live view. So clear and bright, and you can get some great pics too. Reasonably priced these days too.
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Personally find liveview useless for macro unless i'm shooting on a tripod and then i shoot tethered so don't use the rear screen. Trying to use it hand held just magnifies the shakes by 5x or 10x making it even more difficult to get the focus plane in the correct place
Click to expand...

I totally agree with the above statement. I use live view frequently for landscapes and never use it for handheld macro shots.
 
Thanks for your replies, I wouldn't use Live View for landscapes - through the viewfinder good enough for me, unless someone knows better and can talk me throught the advantages of LV vs Viewfinder for LS work.

As far as macros are concerned, then out in the field I'll be using the VF. I would only use LV when on a tripod. Am I right in thinking that tethered view means plugging the body into a laptop and viewing with software, eg EOS Utility. If you have a decent laptop, I can see this as a very attractive possibility when working indoors on a tripod.

I'll be doing just this this winter, do all Canon LV capable cameras output to a laptop. If so is there any difference in the quality of the image output by different models - resolution or refresh rate differences?

Thanks again.
 
modchild said:
I've got a 550D and a 7D and 90% of the time I use the 550D for macro. The screen is 1,030,000 dots I think (dont quote me) but it is absolutely brilliant for live view. So clear and bright, and you can get some great pics too. Reasonably priced these days too.
Click to expand...

Stuart, is there a difference between what you can see image quality wise on the 550D and the 7d screens?
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Personally find liveview useless for macro unless i'm shooting on a tripod and then i shoot tethered so don't use the rear screen. Trying to use it hand held just magnifies the shakes by 5x or 10x making it even more difficult to get the focus plane in the correct place
Click to expand...

Totally agree, will be using on tripod indoors and through VF in the field.
 
The 40D's Live View is a bit of a pain to use as it uses phase-detect autofocus rather than contrast measurement. You have to press the AF button to get it to autofocus and it drops the mirror down in order to do so, shutting off the LCD.
 
There isn't a massive difference between the screens on a 7D and a 550D. You would easily manage macro on the 7D but it's just that I got a 550D first and was blown away by the screen image quality. You can pixel peep to full zoom and its still razor sharp. The actual pixel count is 1,040,000 same as the 600D, 60D and the new 1DX as opposed to 920,000 on a 7D,5D2 and 1D4. Thats over a million pixels extra in about a 3" screen.
 
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