End of year DSLR deals? (70D)

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jamsomito

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My wife just let the cat out of the bag that my whole family is pitching in to get me a new DSLR due to recently completing a few big life accomplishments. They wanted my input to make sure they got the right thing.

I currently have a Canon 20D that's getting pretty long in the tooth. I'm about 90% set on a Canon 70D. I decided on Canon because my whole family uses them and we can exchange lenses and I can get tech support from them. I'm leaning towards the 70D because of the video capabilities that I think I would use a lot. If you have suggestions, I'm still open, but I'm pretty set on it at this point. Budget is <$1000, stretch $1200. Just need the body.

I need the camera at the latest by December 23 for a trip we have coming up. What I don't know is how I should play the holiday season sales, etc (I don't buy this sort of thing every day).

Do you have any advice regarding black Friday, cyber Monday, or pre-Christmas deals?
Should I expect any price fluctuations between now and then?
Any preferred retailers? (I'm considering Amazon, B&H, and Norman Camera)

Thanks.
 
If it was my money, I would personally buy used and get a 5D2, which can be had on the FM forums for roughly the $1200 amount. It of course was the camera to start the dSLR video 'revolution', but more than that it's an excellent stills cam. It's hard to discern what is more important to you. The 5D2 is lacking some of the features of newer cameras, most notably a more advanced AF system, and more usable high ISOs. Still, it's my main camera and it has incredibly good output.

As another small side note, I do photography as my job, and personally I don't bother purchasing anything new. As long as your equipment wasn't abused by the previous owner, it basically will last forever (also providing you don't abuse it). All of my gear is used, save for things that were a bit more rare and couldn't be found on the used market. So, I practice what I preach and as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather just save the money.

If you must buy new, and that is your maximum budget, the 70D will suit you well. It has a touch screen and dual-pixel AF which most hobby level videographers will appreciate.
I should note however that any and all dSLR's out of the box are not really good for shooting video. There are two major keys for great video, the first is stabilization (which is essentially what all that after market stuff is for. From tripods, cages, focus pullers, the lot, these are all to facilitate stability, and control), and the second is lighting.
If you don't want to spend the money on aftermarket gear from Red Rock Micro and Zacuto amongst others, I would recommend just getting a purpose built DV cam over a dSLR if your primary usage case is video.

I can't speak to deals, but Amazon released all of their Black Friday 'deals' early. Amazon has had 'Black Friday-Week' rather than a single day. Pretty smart actually because I'm sure they've gotten a lot of people to purchase early from Amazon rather than wait to buy on Friday.
I don't know what B&H, Adorama, or others are doing.
Canon and other camera manufacturers rarely have sales on their pro-sumer and professional class cameras unless it's to liquidate stock after a new model has been released. So I'm not certain you will find some amazing discount more than around $100-$200 anyway.


EDIT: Not sure if you've checked used sites or not, but just looking around I found some interesting deals
Used 6D @ Adorama: http://www.adorama.com/US 673159.html
Another 6D @ Adorama: http://www.adorama.com/US 674496.html
Used 5D2 @ Adorama: http://www.adorama.com/US 668142.html
Another 5D2 @ Adorama: http://www.adorama.com/US 674383.html
7D1's can be had for $500-$700. Check their rating system for used, that helps to understand the condition and is also the reason for price differences.
 
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Just want to say that there are a few websites you should take a look at are:
1. http://www.canonpricewatch.com/ (which give you current price from major reseller, their CPW "street price", and also can give you notification on deals from BH, Adorama, Amazon, Canon Refurb, etc...)
2. Greentoe.com (a reverse auction site where you submit what your top price for item, and they have dealers competing to accept your offer). They normally accept a 10-15% discount offer from current going price (new item) from my experience. My last item was actually fulfilled by Adorama with all the necessary receipt for the additional rebate from Canon going on at the time. However, you do not know which retailer will accept your offer in advance tho.
3. Canon Loyalty Program (where you send in a broken/out of warranty canon camera, can be a broken point & shoot you get from ebay for $20 to them, and then able to buy at a fairly steep discount on their refurbished camera/lens. (here is a article that explains it https://fstoppers.com/business/canon-photographers-biggest-secret-exposed-3193)
4. Beside Adorama, BH, Canon Refub website. KEH is also a good reputable website that have very good rating system in term of their used gears.

Hope this help on your purchase, and have a great trip with lots of great pictures for the memories.
 
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Thanks for all the advice guys!

I'm spending other people's money here, so I'll probably have to heed their advice a bit - my dad is the one pushing for something new, but I'll run the idea of a used body by him again. Are there any drawbacks to buying used besides the obvious previous ownership care? Warranty or anything?

I should clarify my video usage. I am a hobbyist, nothing more. Although, I am playing around with the idea of a youtube "business" just doing product reviews and such. The majority of my video would be done on a tripod, but there would be times I'd try to film something while out and about. We have a 4-month old at home that would be getting plenty of shots and footage of on the fly. I've thought about buying a video camera, but it wouldn't be used as much as it was worth, and I would never bring it on a trip because I wouldn't want another bulky gadget cluttering up my luggage, worrying about charging every night, etc. The idea of video capabilities within a DSLR that I would opt to bring instead is really appealing for all these reasons. I'm terrible with manual focus, so I liked the AF features on the 70D too. I'm also aware they are not the ideal video solution, but the camera will still be primarily for still shots.

What would be the biggest difference between a 7D and the 70D? They both appear to have the same sensor, and the 70D looks like it has better ISO capabilities too. I actually like the lighter weight of the 70D too as I'll probably be taking this on backpacking trips, and those are usually not done during inclement weather which would need the environmentally sealed body like the 7D has.

A 5D is a dream. My sister is a wedding photographer for a living and the detail she gets with her 5D is just incredible. I can't swallow the new price of one so I tried not to get my hopes up about it. But, if I can get a Mark II for $1200 it may be in the running. The video AF is mighty tempting on the 70D though.

I've thought about the Canon loyalty program a bit. I've tried to go through them before, but their stock seems to turn over depending on what gets sent back to them and they didn't have what I was looking for at the time. I might give them a call and see what they have these days.
 
jamsomito said:
Thanks for all the advice guys!

I'm spending other people's money here, so I'll probably have to heed their advice a bit - my dad is the one pushing for something new, but I'll run the idea of a used body by him again.
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Noted. You're also probably dealing with people that don't understand photographic gear and probably are comparing the camera as an investment to something like a car.


jamsomito said:
Are there any drawbacks to buying used besides the obvious previous ownership care? Warranty or anything?
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Warranty is the only thing you lose really when buying used, but I would argue that for any camera that has been on the market long enough to know whether or not there are specific issues to that model or have survived a year (with moderate to heavy use), probably won't have an issue related to workmanship. Warranty only covers manufacturer defect and what I'm trying to say is, that's rare.

I brought up FM before (the Fred Miranda forums). It's not uncommon to see cameras that are over 10 years old being bought and sold. Or older for that mater (in the case of Leica's). The 5D1 came out in 05, and various versions of 1D/1Ds' are still chugging along just fine.


jamsomito said:
I should clarify my video usage. I am a hobbyist, nothing more. Although, I am playing around with the idea of a youtube "business" just doing product reviews and such. The majority of my video would be done on a tripod, but there would be times I'd try to film something while out and about. We have a 4-month old at home that would be getting plenty of shots and footage of on the fly. I've thought about buying a video camera, but it wouldn't be used as much as it was worth, and I would never bring it on a trip because I wouldn't want another bulky gadget cluttering up my luggage, worrying about charging every night, etc. The idea of video capabilities within a DSLR that I would opt to bring instead is really appealing for all these reasons. I'm terrible with manual focus, so I liked the AF features on the 70D too. I'm also aware they are not the ideal video solution, but the camera will still be primarily for still shots.
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Right. Focusing can be tough without the right tools. That's what Zacuto focus pullers are for, as well as Marshall external monitors so you can actually see whether you're in focus or not (no 3" screen is up to the task of ensuring focus). It's just part of the deal. It takes a bit of coin to outfit a dSLR to handle easily. With those tools and some practice it's not the hardest thing in the world.


jamsomito said:
What would be the biggest difference between a 7D and the 70D? They both appear to have the same sensor, and the 70D looks like it has better ISO capabilities too. I actually like the lighter weight of the 70D too as I'll probably be taking this on backpacking trips, and those are usually not done during inclement weather which would need the environmentally sealed body like the 7D has.
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I can't comment on this nearly as much as I think others probably can. But generally I would say they have a lot of similarities. 70D has some newer tech (better ISO, dual pixel AF, flip and touch screen if you really want that). 7D will be better for sports work, or anything needing better FPS. 7D was/is a work horse for a lot of videographers. It won't disappoint in that particular category if properly outfitted, but like I mentioned before, to really have the best control, you'll probably need a focus puller and a monitor. Both should have similar stills performance, save for noise.

The weight difference between the two in practice will probably be negligible.


jamsomito said:
A 5D is a dream. My sister is a wedding photographer for a living and the detail she gets with her 5D is just incredible. I can't swallow the new price of one so I tried not to get my hopes up about it. But, if I can get a Mark II for $1200 it may be in the running. The video AF is mighty tempting on the 70D though.
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Well a 5D3 is $3500 new. A used one can be had for around $2400. But that is still out of your price range. The 5D2 unfortunately isn't offered new, but used I think it's probably one of the best deals to be had.

The video capability of the two will be similar. Arguably the 5D2 will be 'better' as the full frame offers a lower depth of field and hence a more 'cinematic' look. The 70D's advantage will be the dual pixel AF and focusing with the touch screen. But it has the disadvantage of being a crop sensor.

I can dialog you through that, but it sounds like you're leaning toward the 70D. Buy what is right for you. I would only caution you to buy what you'll actually use. I personally don't do enough video to really even worry about video on dSLR's (despite filming an entire documentary on them).
 
Not sure about the new 70D, but there is a freeware called Magic Lantern for the 5Dii and 7D. It can be install on top of your firmware and will give the extra features that Canon official firmware does not, such as focus peaking (very helpful for video using the live view screen), and recording in RAW, and numerous other cool features. Worth checking out. http://www.magiclantern.fm/features.html

While the 5Dii is still a great camera. You should also consider the 6D also. Newer tech, better iso. and lighter but probably a bit more expensive. As far as video, a gopro probably goes a long way. and it is tiny lol.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
Noted. You're also probably dealing with people that don't understand photographic gear and probably are comparing the camera as an investment to something like a car.
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Haha, it's funny to hear you say that. I think it just comes down to preference of the individual I suppose. My dad has been a hobbyist for years, and he's the one who taught and continues to coach my sister who does it for a living. Here's her website if you'd like to check it out. I also put together a couple of his pics in an imgur album if you're interested. Check it out here. We all keep telling him he should sell his stuff, but he's too much of a perfectionist to think it would be worth anything. I look up to both of these people quite a bit, and it's interesting to see their completely different styles (and I like unashamedly sharing their work - off topic here though... sorry about my ramblings).

Also worth noting is my dad recently "retired" but continues to work for spending cash, so money isn't exactly an issue for his hobby whereas it is a limiting factor for me. I'm not opposed to getting something used so I'll see if I can talk him into it.

UnknownSouljer said:
I can dialog you through that, but it sounds like you're leaning toward the 70D. Buy what is right for you. I would only caution you to buy what you'll actually use. I personally don't do enough video to really even worry about video on dSLR's (despite filming an entire documentary on them).
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Thanks for pointing that out. Historically I have been a sucker for features, so I'll take a step back and make sure I think about what I actually need and what will make the most difference in my expected use cases.

One thing I know for sure is that I like abstract pictures of things or textures, and grandiose landscapes and cityscapes. I don't usually try to capture motion, so I'm not too concerned about rapid fire FPS.
 
Anh N. said:
Not sure about the new 70D, but there is a freeware called Magic Lantern for the 5Dii and 7D. It can be install on top of your firmware and will give the extra features that Canon official firmware does not, such as focus peaking (very helpful for video using the live view screen), and recording in RAW, and numerous other cool features. Worth checking out. http://www.magiclantern.fm/features.html

While the 5Dii is still a great camera. You should also consider the 6D also. Newer tech, better iso. and lighter but probably a bit more expensive. As far as video, a gopro probably goes a long way. and it is tiny lol.
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Never thought about flashing firmware, didn't even know you could do that. I'll look into it, but it makes me nervous. I've been looking into a gopro too :) Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Alright, looks like I'm good to go for used or refurbished, which greatly expands my options. Still mulling over the video options...

The 6D has my eye now. I have a few weeks so I'm trying to make sure I understand my options and not jump to any conclusions.
 
jamsomito said:
Alright, looks like I'm good to go for used or refurbished, which greatly expands my options. Still mulling over the video options...

The 6D has my eye now. I have a few weeks so I'm trying to make sure I understand my options and not jump to any conclusions.
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It's an excellent camera, but I personally prefer the 5D2 more.

Here is a brief summary of the reasons why:
1/8000th vs 1/4000th maximum shutter speed.
1/200th vs 1/180th maximum flash synch speed
Compact Flash vs SD (although people who want to use cheap cards will prefer SD, I'll always prefer CF)
21.1 vs 20.2 MP (this really doesn't matter, but resolution is resolution I guess)

The 6D advantages are: better high end ISO, a few more AF points, and slightly higher FPS (3.9 vs 4.5). It also has built in Wi-Fi and GPS. I personally don't need those features, but if you need them (like you're a hardcore landscape/architecture guy and you want to blog about it) then that can be really useful. It also has slightly better video controls (starting with the 7D, they started adding buttons exclusively for video), and a silent shooting mode (okay, that's a feature I do wish the 5D2 had).

I shoot all stills. I use studio lighting and natural lighting. That shutter speed and sync speed matter to me. Basically, in my opinion, the 6D was built on a spec sheet, they added some features yes, but the things that pros consider most important they ensured was lower than their 'higher level' camera (resolution, sync speed, shutter speed, memory card solution). Still, the 6D will serve any photographer well. If it was my camera I wouldn't have any problem making it work. At this point we're just digging into the minutia. I'll still offer you the same advice I did before. Get what you need! Both are good.
 
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I have been able to play around with your current camera, the 7D, and the 70D. Either one of those choices is certainly a step up from the 20D and should be more than adequate. I would also agree that while you can get good video from an SLR, it seems that unless you're into filming, you probably won't end up doing too much of it.

Between the 7D and the 70D I'd definitely pick the 70D for the touchscreen alone. It makes configuration changes a lot faster for certain things. Sure you can use the buttons for a lot of the common settings but you can do many changes with a couple of presses. Imagine trying to operate a cell phone with arrow keys and you'll understand why the touch screen makes sense. One of the other benefits of a 70D is being able to use SD cards instead of CF. It's much more likely someone would have a card reader handy and they cost half as much for a similar card. For you that might be a detractor if everyone is already using CF and you have good cards you would no longer be using.

AFAIK there is no magic lantern for the 70D yet but it's not really something most people would actually find useful. My friend put it on a rebel and we didn't see any settings that we would have liked to use or change. Since it's geared mainly for video you're not getting extra options for photos.

You're in a bit of a different boat I think than others. I would normally say stick with crop sensor because you might be sharing EF-s mount lenses (you probably won't), SD cards, and you might not have the budget for the glass and accessories that would be useful with a FF (No point in putting a $150 lens on a $1000+ body). I'd guess that a 70D is still more than enough camera for most and having a FF isn't going to get better pictures because the operator doesn't know how to use extract all of the performance that the camera offers. When you add all of that up I can see where a 5D2 would be a bit more compelling than it is for someone else who is newer and just leaves the camera in auto mode and expects good shots because it's a FF.

To go with what UnknownSouljer said the crops do good on the spec sheets for some things. Both at 1/8000 shutter and both support 1/250 flash sync and have several more AF points. You also get much faster bursts if that's something you'd need. (up to 2x faster) But those are the kind of things that are "nice" to have but may or may not be a deal breaker, it just depending on what you find you use the most.
 
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bman212121 said:
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AFAIK there is no magic lantern for the 70D yet but it's not really something most people would actually find useful. My friend put it on a rebel and we didn't see any settings that we would have liked to use or change. Since it's geared mainly for video you're not getting extra options for photos.
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Actually Magic Lantern has a few features that are very useful for still photography, at least for me. Focus peaking helps immensely when using live view to focus for landscape. Intervalometer / Timelapse is also great for night photography. In my opinion, it is a shame that such a simple thing to program and yet the big manufactures just would not include in their official firmware. Dual ISO which expands your dynamic range, altho at a cost of resolution. All of this while you can still keep using the official canon firmware/menu without using magic lantern if not needed. There are more but I do not take advantage of them all.
 
Anh N. said:
Actually Magic Lantern has a few features that are very useful for still photography, at least for me. Focus peaking helps immensely when using live view to focus for landscape. Intervalometer / Timelapse is also great for night photography. In my opinion, it is a shame that such a simple thing to program and yet the big manufactures just would not include in their official firmware. Dual ISO which expands your dynamic range, altho at a cost of resolution. All of this while you can still keep using the official canon firmware/menu without using magic lantern if not needed. There are more but I do not take advantage of them all.
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I just looked up focus peaking and could see where that could be beneficial if you're using the live view. With the 70D you could tap on the screen and it will autofocus where ever you tap so that is helpful for that case. Time lapse could also be another thing that I think is cool but probably never end up using myself.
 
After thinking about it some more, I think the 6D is going to be just too rich for my blood. The cheapest I could find it is ~$1350 refurbished by Canon. I really like the refurbished idea, actually. But, I only have EF-S lenses right now so I wouldn't be able to reuse any of those. It would probably be around $2000 before all was said and done with body + lens, and that's quite a bit outside of my original budget, unfortunately. I was leaning that direction though - the detail and low-light performance of the 6D was super attractive.

So, I think I'm back to my original 70D idea. I found this incredible deal from Adorama that I think I'm going to jump on. We can swing the price of a nice EF 24-70 F4 lens to go along with it, if I can find one used or refurbished. I think that combo is going to be awesome. A huge step up from what I have now at least.

Any final thoughts before I pull the trigger?
 
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The 70D is a great camera. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Instead of the EF 24-70 f4, you should also take a look at the EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS. Lot of people get it as part of the combo with the 6D or the 5Diii, and don't use it. You can find it used (altho barely use if any use at all) for less than $500. If you look around might able to get for about low $400. It is a great lens, and i think the difference between it and the 24-70mm f4 is negligible in IQ.
 
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Hey guys - thanks a bunch for the help. Just thought I'd follow up with some initial impressions on the 70D. I have a big trip coming up in a week or so and I was planning to wait until then to post some good shots, but I've got some already so I'll include a few here. I also picked up the 10-18 STM lens, and I love the lens so far.

I'm finding that I really would have liked a full frame body better, but in the end it was just too expensive for the body and lens. Overall, I'm really happy with the 70D, and the compromises of a crop sensor really aren't that bad. At least it's what I'm used to anyway. Speaking of being used to things, other than the camera feeling a bit smaller than the 20D, all the controls were fairly intuitive if you've ever used a Canon before.

High ISO performance is way better than my 20D. I used to see really bad grain starting at about ISO 800. I can go up to about 3200 before it gets noticeable on the 70D. So that's an extra 2-3 stops; big deal. Auto focus is really, really good in single-shot and in both view finder and live view for both speed and accuracy. I haven't had a chance to test the servo mode yet, but face tracking in video mode works much better than I was expecting. It still gets confused if two faces get close together, like when my wife picks up my son and hugs him for a picture, but it's really easy to just tap where you want to focus it again and almost immediately it's there. Resolution is crazy high coming from my 8MP 20D. I'm going to need a new hard drive, and quick.

I didn't really care for the swivel screen or the touch screen when I bought it. I've grown to really like the swivel screen quite a bit for shots that are in weird angles, like low to the ground, up high, or around a corner or something. I still don't really care for the touch screen except their Q menu now seems optimized for it, and live view focusing kind of needs it IMO. At least it doesn't get in the way for regular stills.

The LCD overlay in the viewfinder is awesome. My first impressions were that it looks like this. Tons of focus points, all of them identical in accuracy. There's almost too many for me - I miss being able to jump large distances between points in a click or two. If you're using single point focusing, you need to scroll through all of the points in between to get to where you want to be. A minor qualm.

The wifi shouldn't really be a selling point for this camera. For one, it disables video when it's enabled (not even on, just enabled), and its buried deep in the menus so its not easy to enable or disable quickly. You can turn it on and off in the Q menu, but that doesn't free up video. Also, setting it up is ridiculously unintuitive. I'm really hoping a firmware update makes it a bit better, or maybe magic lantern eventually. Though, I can live without remote controlling it from my phone for the most part, or transferring pics to my cell phone which has limited storage anyway.

I really like that the camera has micro focus adjustment that can be stored per lens. Awesome feature. Rapid fire is frickin' fast. Sadly this may be the least used feature by me just because of the photos I like to take.

Video is good. I'm a little confused why it lets you do full auto or full manual, nothing in between. I would have preferred using Av in video mode, but it's not too big a deal. Sound is actually not bad, but the lens makes a big difference. Forget using a standard AF lens - way too noisy. I have a 17-85 USM that I tried a video with and you could even hear that. STM is the only way to go if you want to use the on-board mic. I only had the chance to use it indoors at night (read: very low light), but I wasn't too impressed with the auto/default video settings. Really high contrast, and it cranked the ISO when it didn't necessarily need to. It seems as if grain is more pronounced for a given ISO level in video than in stills as well. Manual mode definitely helps here. Video AF is nothing short of awesome as far as the body is concerned though.

As for the 10-18 STM lens... it's awesome. Really sharp, and I haven't noticed much vignetting or distortion (except for maybe right at 10mm), and chromatic aberration is negligible. I love it. This is my first UWA lens, and it's definitely my preferred style. Just for fun, I also picked up the plastic fantastic 50mm f/1.8, but it won't be here until tomorrow.

My wish list includes the sigma 35mm f/1.4, or maybe the 18-35 f/1.8 for my next lens. However, I'm also getting a 17-55 f/2.8 as a hand me down (really excited for that one), and I have a slew of Canon L series lenses including the 24-105 and 24-70 f2.8 to borrow from family though, so those sigmas might be a little ways off.

I'll comment more on PQ after my trip. One thing's for sure, I need to work on composition and understanding the camera's metering modes (and not over-editing). Most of my pics from the brew day below were underexposed for the subject because of the bright overcast sky, and got pretty grainy after brightening them after the fact. I'm usually a little bashful to share my pics because I'm not a pro by any means, but any feedback is welcome.

So here's what you've been waiting for, some sample pics. Full album here. Favorites below (click for full res).



















Cheers!
 
Ok, I filled up my 64GB card on my trip. I also lost my walk-around lens, the Canon 17-85 IS USM, to an aperture mechanism malfunction about half way through so I had to get creative with my wide angle and plastic fantastic 50mm f/1.8 for the rest of it.

Also a problem, my boot drive died on my PC so I can't edit my pics yet! :mad: Just got my RMA back in the mail today so hopefully I'll have some pics up at the end of the week. The suspense is killing me :eek:
 
I'm sorry to hear about your lens malfunctioning and your PC drive dieing (huge fear of mine).

What are you using for editing? Lightroom makes everything very quick; just make sure to backup the database to a different drive. If you aren't shooting RAW, I'd highly recommend you check it out. RAW will give you much more leeway in adjusting the exposure after capture.

The photos posted are on the blue side. Stylized. I kind of like it on the last 7 photos when you combined it with more contrast and the black levels.
 
I only shoot raw (if I want a quick pic for facebook or email I'll use my phone), and I'm using Photoshop Elements 11 for editing. However, it doesn't recognize the raw files from my 70D unless I convert to .DNG which is really not ideal. I've been highly considering lightroom but after having just spent so much on the camera and a lens I'm a bit hesitant.

Thanks for the kind critiques. For the most part I just left it on auto-white balance, which gave that result, and I didn't change it afterwards either. I did increase contrast on a lot of the pics, and desaturated most of them too. For some reason the reds were blown out. I attributed a lot of these to the cloudy day, but I'm still learning too.
 
at this point I wouldn't buy 7D, go with 70D, its better.
7DII is good, but 7D aged quite a bit.
 
Back up and running. Here are some of my favorites from the trip. All the best ones in the album here.

We spent 7 days on a sailboat in the British Virgin Islands. The scenery was not what I was expecting, but beautiful in its own right. Photography in general was difficult because the sun was intense from about 9am until sundown at 5pm (dark at 6:30 or so), and all the boats were white. We then had a one-day layover in San Juan (Puerto Rico) on the way home, which also was a great experience. The city was tropical and beautiful in a different way, much more extravagant, but also gritty among the glitter.

Road Town


Cooper Island


Salt Island (I like how the water turned out in this pic)


Bitter End Yacht Club


Bitter End morning


Marina Cay


Marina Cay 2


Hammer of Fire


First swim


Cane Garden Bay


Silver Spirit


San Juan


San Juan 2


As always, critiques welcome. Thanks!
 
Looking good. Beautiful vacation location.

I also experienced the 9-5 harsh light timing on my vacation. I'd bike through a location and think "Ooh this would look really good in 6 hours, too bad I'll be 30 miles away at camp. :("
 
Does anybody use Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0? I hear they've made some big improvements. I'm thinking of trying it out and foregoing a light room purchase.
 
jamsomito said:
Does anybody use Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0? I hear they've made some big improvements. I'm thinking of trying it out and foregoing a light room purchase.
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DPP is just a raw converter. I guess if you only want to do raw conversion and nothing after, then it's a viable alternative. I haven't used it in a while (2 years or so), but when I was using it, it was clunky. I also think despite Canon having 'root' access and full understanding of how their sensors are engineered, other software manufacturers trump them in RAW conversion.

I would argue the best RAW conversion for portraiture is probably CaptureOne, provided you're on a system that CaptureOne supports (and they do support Canon). So my own personal workflow is CaptureOne (RAW conversion) => Photoshop (retouching, enhancements, all the layer stuff, etc).

Lightroom and Aperture are similar in this way, I'd argue that they're really just RAW converters. Everything that Lightroom does is available in Adobe Camera Raw which is part of Photoshop. Some people are more than happy to only go up to this step, and I think it's perfectly valid, especially if you're not trying or wanting to do deep enhancements.
 
I found a deal on Lightroom 5 for $60 with a free printer. I have so many printers I don't know what to do with them all... I did a trial install of Lightroom compared to Canon DPP 4.0 (and Photoshop elements that I already had), and I like the flexibility of Lightroom the best. If I needed something free though, I would not have been ashamed of using Canon DPP 4.0 at all - really nice software actually.

I'm replying here because I didn't want to start a whole thread about this. I just picked up a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM (mk1), and it's by far the heaviest lens I've ever used. I know there are bigger ones out there, but I wanted to hear your thoughts about how careful I'll have to be swinging it around by just the camera body. The 7D, 6D, and 5D all have magnesium frames, but the 70D is just a polycarbonate frame with some aluminum here and there. Would I need to worry about stressing my body too much with a heavy lens?
 
The only stress on your camera body will be specifically on the mount, which is metal. It's fine. Canon builds these cameras to be mounted on and with anything. Yes you should be careful to not slam your camera body or lens into anything while carrying it around, but no more or less than you would be with any other lens/body combination.

For reference, I've seen images with an SL1 strapped onto the 800mm. Basically just the biggest lens with the smallest body. At that point though you're carrying around the lens really, and the body is sort of just a lens cap.
 
Yeah, ok thanks for your input. I just tried taking it from my hip to my eye just by holding the grip on the body and there's a lot of torque on there!

This lens is also one of the best I've used. Glad I stuck with Canon so I could have access to more and better lenses. It's true, they make the biggest difference in PQ.
 
Thinking of when I have my heavy 70-300 on the camera, I end up lifting it by the lens. You will need to have one hand on the lens anyway to zoom, and steady your camera. Might as well get used to lifting the combo up by the lens hand or even better both hands.
 
MN Scout said:
Thinking of when I have my heavy 70-300 on the camera, I end up lifting it by the lens. You will need to have one hand on the lens anyway to zoom, and steady your camera. Might as well get used to lifting the combo up by the lens hand or even better both hands.
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I forgot to say this, but yes this. It generally will feel natural anyway, as I'm sure you noticed that there is no real way to bring up your camera to your eye with one hand and this lens (other than if your one hand is on the lens and not on the camera body).
 
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Oh yes, I would never be able to take a shot that way. I just noticed I can't handle it the same way and was worried about warping a plastic frame (or worse, cracking it).

EDIT: Sounds like for the limited time I'll be single-handing it by the body it should be okay. Most of the time I'll be inclined to use two hands or hold it by the lens itself.
 
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