Moving up to full frame .....

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Currently using a canon 40d with the following lenses ..... Tamron 17-50, sigma 10-20, sigma 70-200 and a nifty fifty 1.8.

Now, I know I should know the answer to this .... But I've been out the loop for a while ..,,

A mate is offering to sell me his 5dmkII. Full frame . Will my current lenses be compatible and what differences may I notice (lens wise).

Also, anyone got any experience of a 5dmkII at higher ISo / lower light ?

Cheers folks!

Anth .
 
The Sigma 10-20 likely won't fit on the camera, but if it does - you'll get a massive vignette as it's designed specifically for crop cameras (the EX part of the name I think...maybe the DG)

I don't know about the Tamron, but might be the same. The others are fine.
 
Only your 70-200 and nifty will work, the others are crop lenses to replace them your looking at something like a 17-40mm f4l and a 24-70mm f2.8l which will not be cheap even third part options of quality will cost more than your crop lenses will fetch.

The 5d mkii is a great performer in low light high ISO conditions.
 
The biggest different you may already know but nobody has mentioned is (in laymens terms) that all your lens will become shorter (focul length).. but your picture quality wil/shouldl become better
 
Will my current lenses be compatible and what differences may I notice (lens wise).

Also, anyone got any experience of a 5dmkII at higher ISo / lower light ?

The 10-20 and 17-50 will fit but vignette badly.

My own view is that changing to full frame get's you better high ISO performance and better ultimate image quality but you'll have to print very big or look very close to see the better IQ. After getting used to an APS-C 20D when I moved to a 5D what struck me apart from the better high ISO was that I needed smaller apertures and thus was getting longer shutter speeds and needed higher ISO settings due to using longer focal length lenses.

Personally I think that cameras are now at the point at which it really doesn't matter what format you use between MFT, APS-C and FF unless you push your camera to the very edge of what it can do in terms of image size or high ISO performance. If you don't use very high ISO's or print the size of a barn door (or crop like crazy) I think you'll struggle to see any real advantage between systems. That's not taking into account features and focus systems etc.
 
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The biggest different you may already know but nobody has mentioned is (in laymens terms) that all your lens will become shorter (focul length).. but your picture quality wil/shouldl become better

I think it's the other way...

With FF you probably end up using longer lenses, not shorter.

For example - "Standard" lens on MFT could be = 25mm, APS-C = 35mm, FF = 50mm.
 
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I think it's the other way...

With FF you probably end up using longer lenses, not shorter..

eh? Are we at cross thingies here... I ahve a 1.4 crop and a full frame.. all my lens on the FF become shorter.. my 50 is like a 35 and so on ..the bigger the crop the longer the focul.. FF = no crop.. hence why i put in laymens terms) that all your lens will become shorter (focul length).

Are we talkign the same thing... its highly possible I am the one confused so serious question :)
 
Its a pretty pedantic point but a 50mm will always be a 50mm whether or not its on FF or crop, only the FOV will change not the focal length.
 
Its a pretty pedantic point but a 50mm will always be a 50mm whether or not its on FF or crop, only the FOV will change not the focal length.

very pedantic considering i put in laymens terms and its in answer to what will i see different.. put simply you will see a shorter focul lenght..

next? :)
 
If any of your existing lenses are EF-S, I wouldn't put them on the 5D2. EF-S lenses protrude further back into the body than EF, and thus you're risking mirror damage.

Even if you get away with it, the vignetting at minimum zoom will be horrific.

Here's a chap who modified a Canon 10-22mm EF-S lens to fit on a full-frame camera.

Here's one of his shots at 13mm:

20100829_192111_mg_5097.jpg
 
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IIRC, Canon crop only lenses are designated EF-S, Sigmas designation is DC and Tamron call theirs DiII. Not sure if Canon's FF DSLRs can be set to crop mode and so use crop lenses but I know Nikons can. This is the result from a Sigma 10-20 on a Nikon FF body when set at 10mm.

GPN_3119
by gpn63, on Flickr
and this is the same lens/body at 20mm.

GPN_3121
by gpn63, on Flickr
 
You can't use EF-S lenses on a Canon EF body (see above about the risk of mirror damage); they're physically different. Bad Things will happen.

I had to say a tearful farewell to my 10-22mm when I got the 6D.
 
eh? Are we at cross thingies here... I ahve a 1.4 crop and a full frame.. all my lens on the FF become shorter.. my 50 is like a 35 and so on ..the bigger the crop the longer the focul.. FF = no crop.. hence why i put in laymens terms) that all your lens will become shorter (focul length).

Are we talkign the same thing... its highly possible I am the one confused so serious question :)

Ah, I see... The field of view becomes wider with FF so a 50mm on FF looks like 25mm on APS-C. I get it! :D

What I meant was that if you change from APS-C to FF you may end up using longer lenses. ie. If you like 35mm on APS-C on FF you'll be using 50mm :D.
 
You can't use EF-S lenses on a Canon EF body (see above about the risk of mirror damage); they're physically different. Bad Things will happen.

I had to say a tearful farewell to my 10-22mm when I got the 6D.

That's just EF-S as far as I know. They wont mount on FF but you can adapt them to mount... YMMV and you may trash the kit, or not. I'm pretty sure that Sigma and Tamron lenses don't intrude further into the camera body and that only Canon EF-S lenses do that. Googling should provide answers and example shots but personally I wouldn't bother as the amount of vignetting is just too much for me to retain any interest in using smaller format lenses on FF cameras.
 
What I meant was that if you change from APS-C to FF you may end up using longer lenses. ie. If you like 35mm on APS-C on FF you'll be using 50mm :D.

so..saying same as me........ just from a different angle :)
 
Great and thorough replies guys ..... As I knew there would be !

He is also throwing a canon L 24-105 into the deal - so pretty good! I am keeping my 40d as a second body for now, so will keep the cropped lenses, but will probs eventually sell up including the lenses in order to buy new glass for the mark ii
 
Low noise/high ISO, mainly. And not having to convert focal lengths in your head when lens-shopping.

And the small matter of 20MP vs 10MP.
 
As Peter said the ISO capabilities for one are substantially better on the 5DII.
Then you have the likes of Micro Adjustment,video capability and better LCD screen on the 5D as well that the 40D doesn't have.
 
and video on the 5d mk2 if that interests you

another difference will be dynamic range and detail
i've owned both cameras and i think there is enough differences between the cameras to make the upgrade worth while
even cropping the 5d mk2 image to match the 40d FOV i think gives a better image

the obvious is try it out and take some photo's with it and compare them to the 40d
 
I think the whole point about effective focal lengths has been confused, to clarify, your 50mm on a FF is 50mm however on a Canon APS-c (crop) it effectively has the same FOV as an 80mm lens on FF.

The crop factor is 1.6x so effectively .6 times more than FF.
 
I had a FF camera now i am back on crop with the canon 70D & i don,t miss it.:)
 
i think telling people their lenses " will become shorter " is what's confusing people :confused:

other people have perfectly explained the difference in the Field of View that the 2 formats offer. nobody else seems to be having any trouble with it :)
 
:) in my defence.. i did put ..in laymans terms... meaning to put as simply as i could ...couldnt be any simpler.. everything does become shorter.... i'll shut up now :)
 
From a low light perspective I found the 5d MKII more than up to the task. If you're images are exposed properly ISO 3200 delivers great results, with carefully handled noise reduction 6400 ISO shots clean up nicely.

When they were initially released most people seemed to think the D700 had a slight edge (which it did viewing each image at 100%) but if you downsize those 21MP shots they come out on top.

One of the best cameras I've ever owned.
 
Thanks again guys.

He's doing me a great deal, camera body, lens, cards, and a posh lowepro back to keep it all in.

Delivering it on Saturday so I'll have a play then and get back to you. Cheers
 
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