topic Looking into full frame in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Looking into full frame

Noka — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 05:17:41 GMT

Good Evening Everyone

I'm new to the Canon world and very excited to be apart of the Canon community.

I started out with a Nikon D90 and decided to upgrade to a full-frame camera.

I hope I don't come across as an obnoxious newbie, but I figured the best place to get answers was straight from the source!

I'm looking into purchasing a new camera, however I keep going back and fourth on save up and purchase the DM4 or save some money and purchase DM3 and put the extra coin towards glass, or should I consider another body?

I know I have a wide array of photo interest cause I really haven't locked down what I like to focus on.

I do know I not interested in
1. Portraits
2. Sports
3. Weddings

My photo interest include,

1. Travel my wife and I travel allot (the occasional street life, historical architecture and landscape)

2. Landscape/and possibly astro-photography

Any guidance on this dunce would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all.

Noka!

Re: Looking into full frame

diverhank — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 05:26:38 GMT

You can probably save money and get yourself a 6D instead. It's every bit as good for what you want to do since fast focusing is what set the 5DIII and 5DIV apart from the 6D and you are not going to need that.

Re: Looking into full frame

Waddizzle — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:39:20 GMT

@diverhank wrote:
You can probably save money and get yourself a 6D instead. It's every bit as good for what you want to do since fast focusing is what set the 5DIII and 5DIV apart from the 6D and you are not going to need that.

Never heard that about the fast focusing before. Never really gave it much thought. I know the 5D bodies do have higher frame rates than 6D bodies, so I supposed that could be the reason.

——————-

There is nothing wrong with either the 6D, or the newer 6D Mark II. Critics are overly picky, IMHO. The biggest complaint against them seems to be the lack of a second memory card slot. None of the complaints are deal breakers for me, a photo enthusiast.

I have shot with a 6D for three years now, and love it. I have shot sports, wildlife, landscapes, and people equally well. What I like most is shooting in low light and higher ISO, which the 6D is pretty good at doing. I have never had, or even noticed, a problem with focusing speed, except for when I use a non-Canon super telephoto lens. I recommend it.

I have been using a 6D Mark II for a couple of months, and have found it to AF even better than its’ predecessor. The majority of the upgrades in the 6D2 are in AF system, which was upgraded from 11 to 45 AF points. In addition, the body has 5-axis image stabilization, which is new feature for Canon DSLRs.

For your shooting habits, I would definitely recommend a 6D2 and a fast, wide angle lens. An EF-24-70mm f/2.8 II USM zoom lens would be a good starter lens. I have the EF 16-35mm f/2.8: II USM that seems to rarely leave my 6D. I use it to shoot landscapes, cityscapes, and family gatherings, indoors and out.

Re: Looking into full frame

TCampbell — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 15:39:31 GMT

I have a 5D III & IV. Both of these are very "technical" cameras... offering some very advanced capabilities for those that need them.

The 5D IV has more dynamic range than the III (which is nice for landscape photography) and it's ability to shoot at high ISO with low noise is also a bit better than the III.

Other than that, the bodies look and feel extremely similar. The control layout is nearly identical (the IV has a couple of extra controls). The IV also has a touch-screen LCD - the III isn't touch-sensitive.

The IV also has a built-in GPS and built-in WiFi. I almost never use the WiFi. I use the GPS all the time. But I also have the GPS module for the 5D III (it slides into the hot-shoe). It's great for travel because it geo-tags the location of every image you take.

The IV is higher resolution than the III... but I confess that most of my images are only displayed on computer monitors and the web ... I print... just not very often. And the resolution of both cameras is far beyond the needs of any computer display (to dispaly an image on a web page I have to down-sample the resolution from both cameras anyway... so I don't know that the resolution buys me anything unless I'm pringing very large wall-art sized photos.)

I do astrophotography, but typically through a telescope. When using a telescope, it's usually not a benefit to have a full-frame camera (I have a 60Da that I use for astrophotography) because telescopes usually can't maintain a "flat" field all the way to the corners of the frame (you'll see the stars starting to go soft in the edges and corners). VERY expensive telescopes avoid this (buy a 17" PlaneWave telescope for only $23k and it'll give you a flat field for sensors up to 70mm across). A friend in my astronomy club used to shoot APS-C size sensor cameras, swtiched to a cooled monochrome CCD camera (with color wheel... so you shoot seperate "red" , "green", "blue", and "luminance" channel images and then combine them in software to create a color image), then wanted to switch back to a DSLR for simplicity ... but wanted a "full frame" DSLR (he bought a 6D) and found his telescope couldn't provide a flat field out to the corners.

You can do astrophotography without a telescope... this typically calls for either an ordinary (but preferably very sturdy) tripod and a very wide-angle lens. The purpose of "wide" angles is that the stars appear to drift more slowly in a wide angle lens so you can take longer exposures before the stars appear elongated. For a "full frame" camera you divide 500 by the focal length of the lens to get your maximum exposure time in seconds. If you cheat it longer... you'll start to notice the stars are not quite round pinpoints.

You can also pick up a "tracking" head. This is a motorized head that mounts on camera tripod (preferably a very sturdy tripod). The rotation axis is aligned to point to the celestial pole (you can point the camera anywhere... but the head is tilted over and aligned to Earth's celestial pole). As Earth spins from west to east... the head rotates from east to west ... at exactly the same rate. This cancels out the rotation of the Earth and allows for very long exposures of the sky without the stars moving and smearing. But the catch is... if you include landscape in those shots then the land will be blurred. Most of these heads have a special mode that runs the motor at 1/2 the Earth's rate of spin ... this splits the difference between blurring the stars vs. blurring the landscape and allows you to take shots that are twice as long as you could get away with on a stationary tripod.

The two most popular vendors for these tracking heads are Sky Watcher (they make a model called the "Star Adventurer") and iOptron (they make a tracker called the Sky Tracker Pro). These are around $300 (give or take a bit) but you do want a sturdy tripod (so factor in the cost of a strong tripod if you do not already own one.)

Honestly, I think a 6D would be fine ... especially if you're trying to reduce the cost of the body to afford more lenses. The lens selection is far more important than the body selection when it comes to your image results.

Re: Looking into full frame

diverhank — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 16:23:52 GMT

@Waddizzle wrote:
@diverhank wrote:
You can probably save money and get yourself a 6D instead. It's every bit as good for what you want to do since fast focusing is what set the 5DIII and 5DIV apart from the 6D and you are not going to need that.
Never heard that about the fast focusing before. Never really gave it much thought. I know the 5D bodies do have higher frame rates than 6D bodies, so I supposed that could be the reason.

——————-

I'm thinking of the 65 point focus system which is faster, more accurate and more versatile than the 6D 11 point and the 6D2 45 point focus.

Re: Looking into full frame

TCampbell — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 17:10:06 GMT

I never heard that either (about fast focusing) and I own both cameras. The 5D IV has a more advanced algorithm for focus tracking... so it's more likely to properly track a moving subject than a 5D III (but this assumes shooting action photography where focus tracking is a feature you'd use.)

Re: Looking into full frame

diverhank — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 17:47:52 GMT

@TCampbell wrote:
I never heard that either (about fast focusing) and I own both cameras. The 5D IV has a more advanced algorithm for focus tracking... so it's more likely to properly track a moving subject than a 5D III (but this assumes shooting action photography where focus tracking is a feature you'd use.)

That's what I mean by fast focusing. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Looking into full frame

Noka — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 05:26:16 GMT

Thank you everyone for your valuable insight and helpful guidance.

You all gave me somthing to think about and hopefully I can make a great decision!

I will continue my research and keep saving my pennies.

I will make sure to post what I end up nabbing!

Thanks again all!

Re: Looking into full frame

ebiggs1 — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 14:55:41 GMT

Hold on there a minute Noka.

All cameras are full frame. You get exactly what you see in the view finder. Full frame. What you are really asking is, "Do I want certain features from a camera?"

Any of the Rebels or the xxD series cameras or the fabulous 7D Mk II will do precisely what you want. Plus they will do it for less money and that means, more glass is possible. In some cases the 7D Mk II is sharper that some FF cameras. Is that something you want?

There is a lot of hype, myth and down right lies about crop size cameras vs FF cameras. Make sure you are not falling prey to that! FF is not the end all that some profess. You can wind up spending a lot more money and end up with a lot less.

7D Mk II vs the 6D ? 7D MK II all day long. Even vs the 6D Mk II.

Re: Looking into full frame

Noka — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:10:27 GMT

Good Afternoon

So I've been doing some research on the 6D2 and I have some questions. There are sime things that stand out that i really like, however i see the big complaint is the DR and the auto focus points seem to clumped in the center.

Also the DR has lots of issues at the lower end 100 iso but gets better once it goes beyond 320 iso things seem to get better.

I like the suggestions of the 6D2 over the 5D3 mostly due to the 6D2 being newer and having newer guts.

Should I be concerned about the DR complaints or is this driven by pixel nerds who are getting way more techical than I plan on doing, especially since this is my first FF body?

What ya think?

Thanks

Re: Looking into full frame

diverhank — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:37:58 GMT

It's a common understanding out there that the 6D sensor is just as good as the 5D Mark III so I'd imagine that the 6D Mark II sensor has to be better than the 5DIII and I have the 5DIII...it's pretty good up to ISO 25,600 with aggressive post noise filtering.

The 45 focus points for the 6DII is closely bunched up in the middle (covering less than half of the total area) but then for what you need to do (and most other types of shooting), it will be more than adequate.

Between the 6DII and the older 5DIII, if it were me, I'd go for the newer model, which is the 6D...the 5DIII is a bit old in the tooth, so to speak.

Re: Looking into full frame

TTMartin — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:43:36 GMT

@Noka wrote:
Good Evening Everyone

I'm new to the Canon world and very excited to be apart of the Canon community.

I started out with a Nikon D90 and decided to upgrade to a full-frame camera.

I hope I don't come across as an obnoxious newbie, but I figured the best place to get answers was straight from the source!

I'm looking into purchasing a new camera, however I keep going back and fourth on save up and purchase the DM4 or save some money and purchase DM3 and put the extra coin towards glass, or should I consider another body?

I know I have a wide array of photo interest cause I really haven't locked down what I like to focus on.

I do know I not interested in
1. Portraits
2. Sports
3. Weddings

My photo interest include,

1. Travel my wife and I travel allot (the occasional street life, historical architecture and landscape)

2. Landscape/and possibly astro-photography

Any guidance on this dunce would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all.

Noka!

When you say you travel a lot, to me that is a red flag for going to a full frame camera.

Full frame cameras require larger and heavier lenses than APS-C cameras. So before you go full frame you need to include that in your decision. Canon's STM lenses have superb image quality, rivaling that of L lenses from less than 10 years ago, so image quality isn't an issue.

When it comes to Astro-photography depending on what your definition of it is you might want avoid the 80D and 5D Mk IV, stick with the 7D Mk II or 6D Mk II since they have a RAWer RAW file.

Re: Looking into full frame

Waddizzle — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:43:58 GMT

@diverhank wrote:
It's a common understanding out there that the 6D sensor is just as good as the 5D Mark III so I'd imagine that the 6D Mark II sensor has to be better than the 5DIII and I have the 5DIII...it's pretty good up to ISO 25,600 with aggressive post noise filtering.

The 45 focus points for the 6DII is closely bunched up in the middle (covering less than half of the total area) but then for what you need to do (and most other types of shooting), it will be more than adequate.

Between the 6DII and the older 5DIII, if it were me, I'd go for the newer model, which is the 6D...the 5DIII is a bit old in the tooth, so to speak.

To be fair, the 6D2 AF points are not “bunched” in the center of the image. It is the same AF system as the 80D, and you are seeing an “uncropped” view of the AF points. Those same AF points would seem to cover more of the viewfinder with the 80D, but the focusing systems seem to be essentially the same.

And they do cover about the center 2/3 of the image. Overall, the 6D2 tracks youth football VERY well. It tracks at least as well as my 7D2, and I can shoot at higher ISOs, meaning faster shutter speeds. It is too late in the season for me to judge how well it tracks birds, but I have gotten some great shots of a few so far.

What I think gives the 6D2 an edge over a 7D2 is the in-camera, 5-axis stabilization. The only reason to use the 7D2 is for the extra reach, on a bright sunny day. The 7D2 cannot keep up with either the 6D or 6D2 shooting Friday Night Lights.

Re: Looking into full frame

Waddizzle — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:51:14 GMT

@Noka wrote:
Good Afternoon

So I've been doing some research on the 6D2 and I have some questions. There are sime things that stand out that i really like, however i see the big complaint is the DR and the auto focus points seem to clumped in the center.

Should I be concerned about the DR complaints or is this driven by pixel nerds who are getting way more techical than I plan on doing, especially since this is my first FF body?

What ya think?

Thanks

No.

Like I said. People are to picky, IMHO. I think the complaints about Dynamic Range are nonsense. The specifications say that the 6D has slightly better Dynamic Range compared to the 6D2. In practice, the difference goes unnoticed. The 30% increase in resolution does get noticed. The improvements to the AF system, make the 6D2 a very capable camera.

Re: Looking into full frame

TCampbell — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 03:52:32 GMT

Dynamic range is just one of a great many data points that you might consider. Look around at the top sports events at the massive number of photographers shooting with Canon gear — not too concerned about dynamic range impeding their photography.

I am ok if my camera is more capable than I am... I don’t want the reverse (to be capable, but have a camera that is holding me back). I do not use all of the capabilities of my camera (but I do use many of them.)

So the #1 thing we can all do to get better photos ... is to learn more and become better photographers. Skill is king. Skill is a result of a bit of learning... and a LOT of practice.

The #2 thing is lighting. To have good light, you need good shadow. So the term “lighting” really applies to the combination of both the light and the shadow. You’ll see references to the quality of light... that’s mostly a reference to how “hard” or “soft” it is... but this is referring to those points where both shadow and light meet. Does your light have a “hard” edge (rapidly transition from light to shadow with a well-defined line) or does your light have a gradual transition from light to shadow (this is what is meant by “soft”). A tiny pin-point source of bright light creates hard edges. A very large broad area that emits the light (not a pinpoint) creates soft lighting (especially if it is placed close to the subject because it’s relative size will seem smaller if it is placed farther away.)

The #3 thing is the lenses. Using zoom lenses and long focal length lenses is less about being too lazy to just walk closer to the subject... it’s more about the “angle of view” that these lenses create and some of the side-effects that come with it. Long lenses have shallower depth of field and they create an effect called “compression” where it becomes difficult to tell how far away objects really are. Background objects will seem like they are not very much farther than your subject ... even if they are actually much farther away. The reverse happens with short focal length (wide angle) lenses. These have a naturally broad depth of field and they “stretch” the depth of the scene. This makes room interiors seem larger. Objects behind your intended subject will seem farther away. But there are many other qualities of lenses... the “quality” of the out-of-focus blur can be radically different from lens to lens. Some lenses produce nicely “flat” focus planes which very good corner to corner detail. Others have more rounded focus planes such that objects near the edges and corners are falling out of focus. Lenses can have “breathing” issues (all lenses technically have a little) but some lenses have severe breathing problems. “Breathing” refers to the notion that as you change focus... the true focal length of the lens changes. Good quality lenses minimize this issue.

And #4... pretty much in last place is the camera body itself. (I suppose we could pick on other things like tripods and other bits of gear). You don’t want a dated camera that holds you back. But most any modern camera is amazing. The higher end bodies tend to be more “technical”... you gain a lot of interesting functionality but the cameras are not necessarily simple and exploiting these cool features will require a bit of learning (and practice).

While I am not casting any disparaging remarks toward other brands (they make fine gear too), I am particularly impressed with Canon’s glass. There are a number of Canon lenses that are basically the top lenses in the industry AND these happen to the most commonly used lenses such as the 24-70 and the 70-200 and the 100-400 (to name a few).

There are other areas where some reviews argue the competition leads the industry... but I have run into problems suggesting the competition is using a bit of trickery to pull off better scores when they aren’t really better (this does NOT surprise me. I work in the computer industry and learned years ago that when certain industry benchmarks would come out, the vendors would design chips that were specifically designed to do well on those benchmarks even though they didn’t actually perform better with real-world workloads). When I inspect real-world images, they aren’t as good as some of the reviews would claim.

I suspect some reviewers are also part of the problem. Lately the new thing is to test “ISO invariance” — it’s something no real photographer does (certainly no serious photographer) and it also displays a lack of knowledge regarding how the imaging sensors work on a camera. I don’t expect consumers to know that... but I ABSOLUTELY DO EXPECT reviewers and testing labs to know that stuff. To use an analogy, it is NOT OK for someone to claim they are a cardiac surgeon... and not know anything about how the human heart works.

I see this problem is the industry today... reading some articles will leave you knowing less than when you started because they get so much wrong.

Re: Looking into full frame

Waddizzle — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 10:39:21 GMT

@Waddizzle wrote:
@diverhank wrote:

Between the 6DII and the older 5DIII, if it were me, I'd go for the newer model, which is the 6D...the 5DIII is a bit old in the tooth, so to speak.
To be fair, the 6D2 AF points are not “bunched” in the center of the image. It is the same AF system as the 80D, and you are seeing an “uncropped” view of the AF points. Those same AF points would seem to cover more of the viewfinder with the 80D, but the focusing systems seem to be essentially the same.

And they do cover about the center 2/3 of the image. Overall, the 6D2 tracks youth football VERY well. It tracks at least as well as my 7D2, and I can shoot at higher ISOs, meaning faster shutter speeds. It is too late in the season for me to judge how well it tracks birds, but I have gotten some great shots of a few so far.

What I think gives the 6D2 an edge over a 7D2 is the in-camera, 5-axis stabilization. The only reason to use the 7D2 is for the extra reach, on a bright sunny day. The 7D2 cannot keep up with either the 6D or 6D2 shooting Friday Night Lights.

What I mean about the AF points is this. If I were to use a 50mm lens to look at a scene with an APS-C 80D, I would see AF points covering an object at the edges of the AF display.

If I were to use that same lens on a full frame 6D2, my angle of view would seem wider, but the AF display would be covering the identical part of the scene as what I observed through the viewfinder of the 80D. I want to point out that the amount of coverage in the viewfinder is not anything new for Canon DSLR bodies.

In fact, when Canon offered both full frame and APS-H 1D bodies at the same time, the same AF system was used a couple of the bodies. The APS-H bodies seemed to fill the viewfinder more than the FF bodies, although the coverage of the subject was identical with either body.

Re: Looking into full frame

ebiggs1 — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 14:45:59 GMT

"There is a lot of hype, myth and down right lies about crop size cameras vs FF cameras. Make sure you are not falling prey to that!"

Now you see what I meant. Be smart and do not fall for the ole inner web hype.

Re: Looking into full frame

Noka — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 15:42:09 GMT

Ebiggs

I assume you saying to take a longer look at crop before going ff.

I guess my thought about jumping to ff was the lens selection would be better.

If you suggesting crop what you roccomend. I believe right now I'm seriously considering the 6D2, mostly due to price ( I can get a lense and the body for the price I the 5D) and it's newer.

What ya thoughts

Re: Looking into full frame

diverhank — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 16:04:07 GMT

@Noka wrote:
Ebiggs

I assume you saying to take a longer look at crop before going ff.

I guess my thought about jumping to ff was the lens selection would be better.

If you suggesting crop what you roccomend. I believe right now I'm seriously considering the 6D2, mostly due to price ( I can get a lense and the body for the price I the 5D) and it's newer.

What ya thoughts

I can only tell you from my own experience, I own both a 5D Mark III (full frame) and a 7D Mark II (cropped) and I find that for any kind of shooting outside of wild life (Birds in Flight), I keep reaching for the 5D Mark III...it's better even for wild life (if reach and speed is not a factor).

Re: Looking into full frame

RobertTheFat — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 16:33:16 GMT

Noka wrote:
Ebiggs

I assume you saying to take a longer look at crop before going ff.

I guess my thought about jumping to ff was the lens selection would be better.

If you suggesting crop what you roccomend. I believe right now I'm seriously considering the 6D2, mostly due to price ( I can get a lense and the body for the price I the 5D) and it's newer.

What ya thoughts

I'm not Ernie. But I'm just as opinionated as he is, so I'll answer anyway.

Full-frame lens selection is better, in this sense: While EF (full-frame) lenses will work on a crop camera, their focal lengths tend to be more appropriate for full-frame.

Also, Canon's full-frame cameras are better in low light than their crop cameras are. This may be true of all manufacturers, but it's certainly true of Canon.

I'm a 5D3 owner, so I probably tend to be biased in favor of the 5D line. But in deciding between a 5D3 and a 6D2, the fact that the 6D2 is newer could be a consideration. Canon doesn't support their products, even their expensive ones, forever. This means that buying a camera nearer the beginning of its product life is arguably advantageous. The 6D2 is fairly new, while the 5D3 has been supplanted by the 5D4 for a year or two already.