What would YOU do?

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jono

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jonathan
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I'm interested to know what you would do given this situation.

I currently have a 500d and love it to bits - especially the ability to shoot video in HD

HOWEVER!

The thing is just so damn small.... I'm a tradesman and have clunky chunky hands, having held a 1d body it just feels so much more usable in comparison. So this got me thinking about buying a second body.

I mainly like to shoot people and landscapes but in the future as and when my budget allows would like to buy a suitable wildlife lens. I don't tend to print my pictures in large format either.

My question is with £850 to spend and in my situation what canon pro or prosumer body would you buy? 1dsmkii, 1dmkiii or other?

I would be keen to hear from anybody who has experience of both.
 
jono said:
My question is with £850 to spend and in my situation what canon pro or prosumer body would you buy? 1dsmkii, 1dmkiii or other?

I would be keen to hear from anybody who has experience of both.
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You can't go wrong with either. Both are very reliable. The question is do you need 10fps at 10MP (usually that's plenty) or much higher resolution? You could have both, but that's nearly £5000 :puke:
 
See if you can find a 5D2, even if you have to up your budget a bit.
 
What about a grip for you current camera? And use the rest on a savage lens?
 
I thought about a grip, but it doesn't work for me because it fails to improve the layout of the buttons or the size horizontally of the camera. The battery grip just makes it deeper so to speak.
 
daugirdas said:
You can't go wrong with either. Both are very reliable. The question is do you need 10fps at 10MP (usually that's plenty) or much higher resolution? You could have both, but that's nearly £5000 :puke:
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I don't need the 10fps but I have been made aware of the improvement of the mkiii for handling higher ISO.

Another thing that i'm keen to know from mkII owners is how do you find it not having live view?
 
jono said:
I thought about a grip, but it doesn't work for me because it fails to improve the layout of the buttons or the size horizontally of the camera. The battery grip just makes it deeper so to speak.
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It adds another shutter button for vertical shooting, and it would increase the vertical size. Maybe not 1D size, as your camera is a smallish DX body, maybe a 5D [1] and grip?
 
jono said:
I don't need the 10fps but I have been made aware of the improvement of the mkiii for handling higher ISO.

Another thing that i'm keen to know from mkII owners is how do you find it not having live view?
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no live view is no issue at all unless you have some very specific requirements. You will get an enormous viewfinder in return.

Having both cameras in the bag, I cannot see any signs of 1DIII handling ISO any better (processing in Lightroom 4). In fact they are so similar at 100%, that 1DsII prints do have an advantage due to being larger. Both will very easily beat 500D output if that's your question. 1DsIII would be slightly cleaner, but more expensive too. Check out dxo mark sensor database if you want to compare cameras.
 
If you sold the 500d, with your £850 on top, you'd get a spanking good condition 5D mk2, beautiful camera!

Do it! You know you want to!
 
Not as big as the 1 series, but the 7d is quite a bit bigger than the 500d and also a good choice for wildlife.
 
avarice08 said:
If you sold the 500d, with your £850 on top, you'd get a spanking good condition 5D mk2, beautiful camera!

Do it! You know you want to!
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apart from video there is nothing so special about 5d2. AF is a big let down and IQ is ever so similar to much older 1DsII. I would have bought one buy now if I had any little more confidence in them
 
I had to make the same decision as you although I'm only 16 I had saved up all last year and asked for money for christmas and my birthday so that I could buy a 7d in the christmas sales, I managed to save 15% on one of the amazon flash sales but back to the point my hands are quite big and still growing, I found that holding the 500d i previously owned was starting to get very uncomfortable and that at I could only fit my 3 fingers on the grip and my little finger sat underneath the camera, but when i came to get the 7d I was surprised how big it was compared to my 500d even though I had seen a lot of comparison videos however it was just the right size for my hands all be it a bit heavier but this just added to the build quality.

Also I noticed how clearer the viewfinder was and how practical it was to move the focus points with the joystick and how the focus points weren't 'permanent'

Im not sure on the other bodies but the ergonomics alone would persuade me to buy a bigger body
 
I currently own a 5D MKii , 7D & a 1D mkiv & I can honestly say the 5D MKii produces the best results consistently & the 7D is consistently the worst. My findings only.
 
What lenses do you have at the moment, if you have EF-S lenses you'd be far better off with a gripped 7D. I've got all EF lenses as I've got a 5D3 as well so I sold all my EF-S lenses. The wife still has an 18-135 for her 650D but I've never needed to use it.
 
Having had a 5dii, 7d and 1diii to compare at the same time I'd have said if image quality was top priority with no fast moving subjects then 5dii is the best bet by far. The images were significantly better than the others using all L glass.

The 7d I liked as a go anywhere camera. Great for tracking, loads of handy features and decent AF. I also preferred the extra resolution but I often view at large sizes.

The 1diii I liked the images from and the other perks and I would put it just ahead of the 1diii only because of lower MP and no video.

All were great cameras but now that I'm getting back into photography I knew the 5dii was the one for me. I'm tempted to pick up on of the others for action photography but have a hard time deciding which as they're all so good.
 
daugirdas said:
apart from video there is nothing so special about 5d2. AF is a big let down and IQ is ever so similar to much older 1DsII. I would have bought one buy now if I had any little more confidence in them
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Have you used one?? There is a lot of talk about the AF amongst mainly pro sports 'tographers and comparing it to a Nikon equivelent, but that's it really isn't it?
The 5d2 is a superb camera and has graet IQ. It has great AF, unless you are a pro sports guy the AF is brill!
 
On the Huh said:
Have you used one?? There is a lot of talk about the AF amongst mainly pro sports 'tographers and comparing it to a Nikon equivelent, but that's it really isn't it?
The 5d2 is a superb camera and has graet IQ. It has great AF, unless you are a pro sports guy the AF is brill!
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Two of my friends shot weddings with them. Once they got 5DIII I hadn't heard a single positive word about mk2 from them. AF is the first complaint. I clearly didn't see the need to get one, having had suffered from a very similar AF in 40D/30D.
Playing with RAW files I just cannot see any significant improvement over DsII. None, in fact shadows have a worrying amount of noise even at ISO 100.

So if you have to ask, my preference would be in this order 1DIII < 1DsII = 1DIV < 1DsIII < 5DIII < 1Dx (no 5DII here)
 
daugirdas said:
Two of my friends shot weddings with them. Once they got 5DIII I hadn't heard a single positive word about mk2 from them. AF is the first complaint. I clearly didn't see the need to get one, having had suffered from a very similar AF in 40D/30D.
Playing with RAW files I just cannot see any significant improvement over DsII. None, in fact shadows have a worrying amount of noise even at ISO 100.

So if you have to ask, my preference would be in this order 1DIII < 1DsII = 1DIV < 1DsIII < 5DIII < 1Dx (no 5DII here)
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OK , but the OP was asking for an improvement from a 500D, I know of top wedding photographers who purchased 5D2's in place of big and bulky 1dsMk 2/3's or whatever. My point is some of us have experience and have used a 5d2, you seem to criticise it yet not used one before. If this is the case you are nothing more than a tw...:p ..it
 
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Thanks for the feedback guys - I didn't mean to open a can of worms but the discussion has given me food for thought.

Comparing the 5dii and the 1DS ii the latter has a greater range of focus points. Would the availability of more focus points be a help or a hindrance for shooting people and portraits or a mute point?
 
I doubt the number of focus points would have any impact on people / portrait photography. I normally use my 5d2 and 7d with just the central AF point active so I can be sure the camera is focussing on what I want rather than what it's detected in another zone / AF point.
 
stu.artd said:
I doubt the number of focus points would have any impact on people / portrait photography. I normally use my 5d2 and 7d with just the central AF point active so I can be sure the camera is focussing on what I want rather than what it's detected in another zone / AF point.
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errrr no! You select a focus point you need and use that. Good luck with focus and recompose at f/1.4 for example
 
I must admit the reason I ask is becuase I shoot the way that daugirdas mentions, I scroll through my focus points till i get the one that falls nearest to the part of subject I want to focus on and then take the shot. Hence asking if more points are better in peoples experience, but hey I may be doing it all wrong so am open to comments
 
When I had a 550D I shot at centre point and recompose, when I went up to a 5D2 and 7D combo I still had to use centre point and recompose on the 5D2. On the 7D I used it mainly for aviation and wildlife so I could set a decent DOF and use multi point or whatever point I wanted.

Eventually I got a 5D3 and now I just pick whichever cross point is nearest my desired focus target. After adding another 7D to the 5D3 it's given me the freedom to compose a shot anywhere and I use centre point less than 50% of the time now so extra focus points have really help me 'develop' in my photography.
 
daugirdas said:
errrr no! You select a focus point you need and use that. Good luck with focus and recompose at f/1.4 for example
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Errr yes!
I normally use the centre point and don't need to focus and recompose. If I were to feel the need then I would use another AF point. However normally I don't, hence the use of the word normally as a qualifier.
Good luck with making a pleasant response to someone at some point in the future.

Edit: I thought that shooting portraits at 1.4 could give too shallow a dof ?
 
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