Definitely, this is one of the most-oft asked questions for photographers. What gear do you use and why? Of course, like most fields, it's not the gear, but it's the person behind the gear that is important. Having said that there are some nice features that new gear offers. As technology advances, prices rise and drop, and as skills get refined, we have many more options and variables to consider when we are purchasing a piece of equipment. We may have some gear that is beyond our needs and understanding or we may crave more functionality. Anyway, i think it's nice to see what gear we use and why. It may save each other money, time and energy in constantly looking for what's out there.
Let's share the following: body we use, primary lens and why and one tool that revolutionized your picture taking.
john
Body: Nikon D300
* details: (1.5 crop factor, cmos, 12mp, 6fps, w. grip 8fps, 3in lcd, 51pt AF). low-noise level is amazing at high isos. at 1600-3200 indoors is beyond belief.
Lens: 17-35 2.8 Af-s
* this is my primary lens b/c for a non full-frame it gives me a great wide angle and some nice close-ups in a small room setting. for larger venues, like auditoriums or large group gatherings i have to go longer. but for in your living room or home it's great.
Tool:
* for me it would be my flash - sb600. just changed all my indoor low-light pictures. if i could afford the luxury and price, i'd get the sb900.
Body: Canon 5dJohn put down too many nerdy specs. This is the old school version. Full-frame, 12.8mp. Great low light AF acquisition, and low noise at high ISO. One downside is only 3fps.
ReplyDeleteLens: 28-105 f/4 LFull-frame capability, sharp in most settings, especially outdoor. Good walk around lens. Struggles indoor night/low-light situation.
Tool: 50mm f/1.4Shooting with a prime is HARD but rewarding. Makes me think and work harder for different shots. But this is the fastest lens I've used, and it's razor sharp.
Body: Canon 40D
ReplyDelete1.6x Crop, 10.1mp, noise levels up to 800 are pretty usable in my opinion. The 6+fps is really nice.
Lens: Tamron 17-50 f/2.8. I LOVE this lens. I'm so glad I bought this over the Canon 17-55 f2.8 (like a third of the price and basically same real life results). AF noise is pretty loud but you get used to it. Otherwise AF is pretty fast.
Tool: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I guess this is not really camera equipment, but I feel PP is a huge part of photography and this has helped me a lot in even understanding what goes on inside the camera itself.
Body: Canon Rebel Xti
ReplyDelete...wating to upgrade when Canon 60D comes out
Primary Lens: Been using the Sigma 18-50 f2.8 which I love for quality/price value but recently upgraded to Canon 17-55 f2.8. Love the IS feature on this lens especially for indoor shots.
Tool: 85mm f1.8 I agree with what Kevan said above regarding primes. I absolute love this lens for portrait pics, many agree the optics of this lens rival L series lenses.
Body: Canon 50D is my main and 300D as my back-up if it breaks no tears $75 off of craigslist awesome camera. No nerdy specs here.
ReplyDeletePrimary Lens: 17-50 f2.8 (same as DP). It was all I could afford but nice, sharp, clean, photos. I heart my 80-200m f2.8L as well.
Tool: hm.. haven't really done much fun shooting lately. My new favorite accessories..R-strap and Giottos rocket blaster.
When I started out (was my gear for 5 years):
ReplyDeleteBody: Canon 300D.
*I used this with the Wasia hack, which was very useful for the following - ISO3200, FEC, and first/second shutter sync control.
Lens: Tamron 17-35/2.8-4.
*Great lens. Surprisingly very good sharpness and color, especially on the crop body. Switched between using this and 80-200/2.8L
Tool: Sigma DG-500 Super flash unit.
*Indispensable for weddings.
Current:
Body: Canon 5D
*Bought at a decent price used, from fredmiranda.com. One thing I did not expect, was for the DoF to become so drastically reduced. I knew it would be, but I was not prepared for how much so! It's taking some getting used to still.
Lens: Canon 50/1.8
*Having nicely broken my beloved Tamron (it still takes photos, just can't AF, and the focus point shifted so that it looks like a Lensbaby. So I moved to using my nifty fifty, which is now finally normal on a full-frame body. I swap between using this and my Nikkor 20/3.5UD manual focus lens, mostly.
Tool: $15 Nikkor F -> EOS mount adapter for Canon bodies. Allows me to use the Nikkor 20/3.5 above. Nice.
davidpark: Nice, another Tamron user! How's the 17-50's wide-open performance? Is it better on one end over the other?
ReplyDeleteGordon: that 17-55 Canon is great; if they ever put IS on the mid-range zoom (24-70) that would be the hottest seller ever! haha.
Eileen: Did you have the 17-50 at Teej's wedding? I didn't know you had that lens. Nice. Btw, I have a Rocket Blaster too. Very useful! Just remember to point the camera body upside-down when you're blowing dust off the sensor =)
Ah...the nifty fifty. I think that is definitely the best bang for the buck lens that Canon has produced.
ReplyDeleteMaurice, can you explain more how the depth of field is reduced with the canon 5d as compared to a cropped camera.
maurice, the tamron is really sharp even at f2.8. it's definitely sharper at f4 (you get ridiculous details, more than you need anyway). i feel like, wide open, it's better at 17 than at 50 but that's a subjective judgment as i've never done any formal tests (again, the reason i never tested it was because i was more than satisfied with the sharpness throughout). i think i definitely have an outstanding copy of that lens though (oh but it doesn't work on 5D though)
ReplyDeleteDavid: ah, it's a crop sensor lens. Makes sense, the 17-50/2.8 would be too juicy at that price range otherwise! =) Aside from build feel, Tamron seems to do a good job. On my 17-35, it was sharper at the wide end too. Other people reported similar, and that perhaps it was a design consideration since most would be using it for the WA. I guess maybe I should see about getting that lens fixed, it would be neat to try out 17mm on a FF.
ReplyDeleteGordon: I think one way to describe what's happening is this - let's say you have a FF camera and a crop camera, and you are using the same lens and shooting the same subject. To end up with the same composition in both images, the crop camera would have to be further away from the subject than the FF camera. You could frame it such that both images look identical, except in one regard - at the same f-stop, the crop camera will have larger DoF, due to the fact that the crop camera is further back, and DoF increases with greater subject distance (we saw the opposite before, with extremely narrow DoF in macro photography).
Ahh...now I see. Thanks for clarifying that for me, Maurice.
ReplyDeletefor me, this issue is always slightly confusing b/c i think it also depends on the field of view. mo, correct me if i'm wrong about this. from what i understand if you have 2 shots with the same lens and same settings on a 5D and a 300D would have different field of view and therefore DOF b/c one is "magnified" at 1.6. but if you actually cropped them to be the same field of view the DOF would actually be the same. is that right?
ReplyDeleteman, i need a d3 to test this out!
Yeah, it's really confusing! It took me a while to understand even how to view my lenses, as compared to how they would have behaved on my Nikon FM manual focus "full-frame" film camera.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, if all else is exactly the same, the 300D's sensor simply acts as a literal 'crop' of the 5D's sensor area of the image circle. You could think of it both ways.
Haha, nice 'reason' to buy a D3 though! ;) j/k. Personally I think the D700 is more exciting than the D3!
actually, it'd be the d3x. but i'd get that only after i win the lotto. although i don't play the lotto so the chances are even slimmer....=(
ReplyDeleteThis is how I understand the FF/crop difference:
ReplyDeleteThe four factor that influence DoF:
-Distance from subject (closer to subject: less dof)
-Aperture (larger aperture: less dof)
-Circle of confusion (smaller circle of confusion: less dof)
-Focal length of lens (longer lens, not effective focal length, the actual focal length: less dof)
Say you start with a 1.6x crop factor camera using a 50mm lens (effectively 80mm). Then you go to a FF using an 80mm lens (which will give you the same composition). The two things that change are longer focal length (less DoF) and an increased circle of confusion (FF has larger circle of confusion than APSC, but this is negligible compared to the change in focal length).
Another way to look at it is the way maurice described it:
Start out with 50mm (80mm equiv.) and then change to FF with a 50mm but keep your subject size the same by getting closer to them. Here the circle of confusion changes again but is negligible compared to the effect of decreasing your distance to the subject (the other two remain same).
one more point to add to this discussion. i debated this point with some of my coworkers as experience seems to dictate a different reality. check out this website and let me know what you guys think:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.have-camera-will-travel.com/field_reports/full_frame_vs_crop_sensor_-.html
I think gary gray makes a good point: it's true that in the case of changing nothing but the camera, the DoF doesn't change (well actually it does, the DoF in the 5D will be slightly larger because of a larger circle of confusion but not large enough to matter in any practical use).
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER, that's not the situation we're talking about when we are talking about the reduced depth of field. When you go from APSC to FF, the photographer has to use a longer focal length to get the same picture, which DOES decrease depth of field.
So no, just swapping out your Canon XTi for a 5d doesn't automatically reduce your depth of field, but in use, when trying to get that same composition, the DoF changes.
Gary says, "Put the calculator away and take pictures" which I definitely agree with, but as an engineering major, I find this stuff incredibly interesting HAHA.
ah, yes david, i was thinking we were speaking on your first point - just swapping camera and noticing DOF just from that. i see the point about trying to get the same composition with different focal lengths b/c you go from APSC to FF. that seems pretty clear.
ReplyDeletei think we're all into this b/c we do find it incredibly interesting. and mo, kev and i were not engineering majors. haha!
Yeah, it really becomes a discussion of effective DoF or 'relative' DoF. It's also part of the reason medium format/large format landscapers use absurd lenses with f/32, 60-something, and even higher f-stops. And also the reason that the little digicams have incredibly high DoF and pretty much every photo has almost everything in fg/bg in focus.
ReplyDelete