800D crops better than Canon with supetele? - FM Forums

Home · Register · Search · Software · Hosting · Software · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

FM Forum Rules
Canon SLRs, primes, and zooms lenses reviews

FM Forums \| Canon-mount SLRs \| Join Upload & Sell
1 2 3 4 end

Archive 2012 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

fotofraag
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #1 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

I know, we have not seen a lot pictures of the 800D yet. But is it to be expected that Nikon 800D with a good affordable long telelens like the 200VR e.g. as good as or maybe even better than a Canon 1Dx or 5DmkII with a 400/2.8LIS? Is Nikon philosophy that competition race is about pixels and not about good long glass? Is that why Nikon has better wide angle zoom maybe? I ask because I have the good Canon 1DsmkII and am saving for money for a long lens like 400/2.8 or maybe 300/2.8 with converter already a long time. And now Nikon seems to be so attractive suddenly. Is digital zoom (almost) as good as optical? I mean that is in effect what cropping is about isn't it?

Feb 14, 2012 at 10:56 AM

Dave_EP
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #2 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Hmmm.... I'm assuming you mean the D800. I don't understand why so many people have trouble (on both sides) getting the 'D' in the right place

Digital zoom is not the same as cropping. Digital zoom is the same as upscalling.

Crop is not digital zoom, it's cropping to leave fewer of the same pixels in place.

Crop sensors merely record less of the field of view and do not 'zoom' as such.

The D800 will have lots of pixels for sure, but I'd be wary of any speculation regarding quality until serious reviews appear using production bodies.

Feb 14, 2012 at 11:06 AM

Pixel Perfect
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #3 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

The D800 has effectively sqrt(36/21) = 1.31x more reach than a 5D II, so in other words if you were FL limited you would get the same pixels per duck with a D800 + 200 as you would a 5D II + 262. A 5D II + 400 would put far more pixels on the subject. So you'd need a 300mm lens on the D800 to make it a fair comparison with the 5D II + 400. As for the 1D IV the D800 only has about 15% more reach when FL limited, so even smaller difference than with 5D II. Of course we now await for real world tests to see how this all pans out.

Feb 14, 2012 at 11:14 AM

Eyvind Ness
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #4 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Again, the assumption seems to be that a pixel is a pixel - it is not, size matters. How else can you explain why a 5DmkII image is extremely crop-able, whith almost no loss in IQ, while a 1DmkIV image (1.3 crop factor) is so much less crop-able, and even worse for the other crop cameras (1.6 crop-factor), with even tinier pixels.

Feb 14, 2012 at 11:49 AM

arbitrage
Online
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #5 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Eyvind Ness wrote:
Again, the assumption seems to be that a pixel is a pixel - it is not, size matters. How else can you explain why a 5DmkII image is extremely crop-able, whith almost no loss in IQ, while a 1DmkIV image (1.3 crop factor) is so much less crop-able, and even worse for the other crop cameras (1.6 crop-factor), with even tinier pixels.

This is very important and personally I never thought it would be true. However, I've now had a 5DmkII for the last 3 weeks and it partners my older 7D. My original plan was to have the 5DmkII be my landscape, macro, general purpose camera and the 7D be my wildlife camera paired to my 100-400. However, I've been finding exactly as you state above in that the 5D files can easily be cropped and look equal to the native 7D file. Cropping the 7D files falls apart quickly. I'm now actually using the 5D and 100-400 maybe 80% of the time and only using the 7D for its BIF tracking ability but not for its 1.6 reach as much. Unfortunately, I have to think that the 7D will be making its way to the Buy and Sell forums as soon as Canon releases a new camera. If the rumours of a new 5D around 22MP and 7FPS is true and if it actually has either 1D or 1D-X AF then I will happily add that to my 5DmkII and the 7D will be gone.

I would think the D800 has better quality pixels than the 7D but probably not as good as the 5DmkII. Who knows though until the real tests/reviews are out. We shall see.

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:04 PM

jcolwell
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #6 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

I figure the 1DsX will work OK with my 500/4L IS.

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:10 PM

fotofraag
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #7 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Again, the assumption seems to be that a pixel is a pixel - it is not, size matters. How else can you explain why a 5DmkII image is extremely crop-able, whith almost no loss in IQ, while a 1DmkIV image (1.3 crop factor) is so much less crop-able, and even worse for the other crop cameras (1.6 crop-factor), with even tinier pixels.

So you guys mean 36mp is not that big difference with Canon 21mp? It is only about the difference of a converter of 1.4x? That is amazing to me. I would expect it is much more quality difference. Also I am afraid Canon telelenses are maybe better. But Nikon lenses have good reputation and are so much sheeper. so if I switch there must be some profit in the buy of shorter lenses to compensate. Given examples, choice could be to buy Nikkor 300/2.8 ED VR at euro 4700, or Canon 400/2.8IS mk IIat 10.000 euro and trade the 1DsmkII for D800 system. There is a lot of money between the lenses to build a great Nikon system again. Another one could be Nikkor VR 200/2.0 at 4699 or Canon 300/2.8 IS mk II at 6500 euro. Less difference but still a lot. This going through my mind all day, should I go for the D800 to buy nicer lenses but just a little bit shorter because the 36mp give some crop space?

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:22 PM

fotofraag
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #8 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

I figure the 1DsX will work OK with my 500/4L IS. My doubt is because Canon said that 1Dx is replacement for 1DsmkIII and 1DmkIV and no other 1Ds anymore. From now the 1Dx seems to be the full frame flagship. Nikon now has bigger flagships

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:25 PM

PhilDrinkwater
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #9 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Pixel Perfect wrote:
The D800 has effectively sqrt(36/21) = 1.31x more reach than a 5D II, so in other words if you were FL limited you would get the same pixels per duck with a D800 + 200 as you would a 5D II + 262. A 5D II + 400 would put far more pixels on the subject. So you'd need a 300mm lens on the D800 to make it a fair comparison with the 5D II + 400. As for the 1D IV the D800 only has about 15% more reach when FL limited, so even smaller difference than with 5D II. Of course we now await for real world tests to see how this all pans out.
This is correct. The other element to take into account is lens quality - which lenses can resolve enough detail at 36mp. I don't know whether it will be all of them. That said, a 300mm lens on on 5dii might be worse than a 200mm lens on a d800.

We just don't know yet.

Personally I'd generally take the longer lens with less cropping if for no other reason than I think I'd prefer the photos and it would be easier to frame the photo in camera.

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:48 PM

PhilDrinkwater
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #10 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

fotofraag wrote:
So you guys mean 36mp is not that big difference with Canon 21mp? It is only about the difference of a converter of 1.4x? That is amazing to me.
Camera manufacturers didn't do consumers any good by advertising megapixels. It confuses people

However, it helped them to sell their cameras with not that much of a resolution increase.

I can guarantee there will be arguments all over the world with one side saying (incorrectly) that the D800 is nearly twice the resolution than the 5dii.

The difference between 18mp of the 1dx and 36mp of the d800 isn't even that much, and the difference between the 18mp of the 1dx and the 21mp of the 5dii will be virtually impossible to see.

Informing people of that reality though and making them understand can be really hard

Feb 14, 2012 at 12:56 PM

RobertLynn
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #11 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Eyvind Ness wrote:
it is not, size matters.

That's what she said.

Feb 14, 2012 at 01:13 PM

jcolwell
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #12 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

RobertLynn wrote:
Eyvind Ness wrote:
it is not, size matters.

That's what she said.

Feb 14, 2012 at 01:35 PM

NikkorAIS
Offline
• • •
Account Locked

p.1 #13 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

First of all I consider 400mm and above super telephoto. And yes using cropped body dosnt give you more reach , just as looking a tree through a smaller window dosnt make a tree closer than looking at the same tree through a bigger window. The tree dosnt get closer. With a cropped sensor your just cropping. So thinking that a 300mm will give you 400 mm just untrue.

If your crop the 300 mm image or use a cropped body your getting cropped 300 mm image. That's it.

And trust me the "look" of the photo will be differnt for both. Especailly if you fill the frame with each repective focal length at simular aperture.

I would base my decision/choice on the system as a whole. Look at the big picture. Not just the focal length you need for telephoto. . And it sounds like the 400 mm 2.8 is what your looking for ? What kind of wildlife are you wanting to photograph?

Thinking about cropping for wildlife is sometimes unavoidable but is far from the ideal solution of filling the frame to suit your needs in the first place.
And alot depends on what kind of animals you are want to photograph.

And how deep you pockets are.

I personally picked up a 400 2.8 EF Version 2 (brand new) for less than a 1/3 of what the new IS and light weight version of the Canon's version is going for.

If your shooting with a tripod/wimberly with shutter speeds above 1/250 second is not required in most cases.

As far as the D800 ,

Just wait and see.

Gregory

Feb 14, 2012 at 01:36 PM

fotofraag
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #14 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Eyvind Ness wrote: it is not, size matters. That's what she said. Robert, so she has also big megapixels?

So Canon has big pixels and big lenses and Nikon has them smaller? When I had to decide between Nikon D700 or Canon system most people said to me to choose 5DmkII or 1DsmkII or mkIII because more pixels is better. I am confused about this, just like PhilDWedding says. This is also because my 1DsmkII is significantly better to my eyes than 1DmkII which is also difference of 2x in mp. So I would expect the Nikon at 36mp also to be significantly better and give much more crop room.

Feb 14, 2012 at 01:39 PM

splathrop
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #15 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

This going through my mind all day, should I go for the D800 to buy nicer lenses but just a little bit shorter because the 36mp give some crop space?

It may be that Nikon chose 36mp because they wanted to offer a camera featuring the highest number of pixels that could support reasonable image quality under good light. If so, then cropping for enlargement is going to be a disappointment. I join the others who say wait and see.

Feb 14, 2012 at 02:01 PM

PhilDrinkwater
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #16 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

fotofraag wrote:
Eyvind Ness wrote: it is not, size matters. That's what she said. Robert, so she has also big megapixels?

So Canon has big pixels and big lenses and Nikon has them smaller? When I had to decide between Nikon D700 or Canon system most people said to me to choose 5DmkII or 1DsmkII or mkIII because more pixels is better. I am confused about this, just like PhilDWedding says. This is also because my 1DsmkII is significantly better to my eyes than 1DmkII which is also difference of 2x in mp. So I would expect the Nikon at 36mp also to be significantly better and give much more crop room.

There's three things to take into account:
* Number of pixels
* Quality of pixels
* Technology improvements

In theory, you could make a 200MP image out of a small sensor but the quality of those pixels would be pretty poor using the current sensor technology so you probably wouldn't want to.

Most people agree there is something of a sweet spot for current sensor technology, where the pixels that are recorded are still high quality. This does depend on what ISO you need. So, a 12MP camera will *generally* do better than a 21MP camera for high ISO photography, but the difference can be less than a stop.

I don't think we laymen know enough about sensor technology to confidently predict where the sweet spot is, but I use the 5dii so I can say that, even though it's medium-high resolution, the pixels are still high quality. Since then technology has also improved and sensors are doing better - the Nikon d3x for example has 24MP but very high quality.

However, physics is still physics and people in the know seem to be suggesting that we're approaching the limits of the current technology. This has made some people wonder whether 36MP from a 35mm sensor is just pushing it too far. However, the same was said about the 5dii, so who knows? We don't... yet.

What we do know is that both Nikon and Canon have chosen 16MP and 18MP for their top of the line pro cameras since most pros understand it's not always about the amount of pixels - it's about the quality of those pixels. Plus, an 18MP image will still print at 17" at 300dpi, and most people accept you can scale up a bit without any particular degradation in quality so a 24" print from 18MP is perfectly feasible.

So there's a real question on who *needs* more than this. Lots of people *think* they do but they actually don't. When I was talking about my next camera I said I wanted 18MP rather than the 21 of my 5dii since it suits my shooting style for weddings - slightly lower storage requirements, slightly better high ISO, slightly more dynamic range in theory and so on. I don't *need* more than 18MP for this work. That's *my* sweet spot.

Another thing to take into account is your lens. Not every lens is physically capable of making the most of the 36MP, so having a 36MP camera will mean you'll have to have the absolute the top of the range lenses or you might as well have a lower resolution camera.

Finally, the other thing to take into account is storage requirements and speed of your computer. Many Nikon users aren't used to high resolution images, having been used to 12MP cameras on the whole (unless they use a d3x or other brands too). They are in for a bit of a shock when they try to process 36MP images on old computers - I needed to completely upgrade when I got my 5dii..

I'm not saying Nikon made a mistake with their choice - but just don't fall into the consumer marketing hype which says "more mega pixels is automatically better". In some cases it's just to make you want to buy their gear.

Hope this helps

Feb 14, 2012 at 02:32 PM

Lars Johnsson
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #17 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

fotofraag wrote:
I figure the 1DsX will work OK with my 500/4L IS. My doubt is because Canon said that 1Dx is replacement for 1DsmkIII and 1DmkIV and no other 1Ds anymore. From now the 1Dx seems to be the full frame flagship. Nikon now has bigger flagships

The Nikon flagship body is the D4. It has 16 mp.

Feb 14, 2012 at 02:40 PM

PhilDrinkwater
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #18 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

Lars Johnsson wrote:
fotofraag wrote:
I figure the 1DsX will work OK with my 500/4L IS. My doubt is because Canon said that 1Dx is replacement for 1DsmkIII and 1DmkIV and no other 1Ds anymore. From now the 1Dx seems to be the full frame flagship. Nikon now has bigger flagships

The Nikon flagship body is the D4. It has 16 mp.

I think this is part of the problem. People assume megapixels = flagship when nothing could be further from the truth in reality

Yes, studio people need mega pixels. Yes, landscape people need mega pixels. However, most of the rest of the world doesn't but the marketing people keep throwing that "lie" out. A real shame.

Feb 14, 2012 at 05:22 PM

Dustin Gent
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #19 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

i just can't imagine that many megapixels on the same size sensor as other full frame cameras. The pixel density is going to be crazy. I guess the processors and such may negate the large pixel density, but I am interested to see this.

The most important factors for me are build quality and low noise. As old as my 1Ds is, I am very happy with the IQ. Now if I was making money with my photography, I would obviously upgrade - just no point in that at this moment.

Feb 14, 2012 at 06:37 PM

fotofraag
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #20 · 800D crops better than Canon with supetele?

The Nikon flagship body is the D4. It has 16 mp. So the 1Dx is the flagship to counter the Nikon? Then let me reword what I said the leading camera in the enthusiast class. I use 1DsmkII but I am thinking about the megapixel "flagship" or leading camera in the enthusiast class or whatever you want to call it, the D800 from Nikon @36 mp. The reason I ask for opinion is many good photographers at FM know better than I myself because you are more experienced. Also, I wonder what happens to my friends with D700 who jump immediately from 12mp to 36mp. Will they hardly notice, or will they get sick from jump in quality and computer needs? I really want to believe that my 1DsmkII is as good as D800 because pixel quality counts more than pixel amount. I am satisfied with pixelquality of my 1DsmkII but I want more of them. Because this will save me buying longer lens. If D800 is as good pixelquality as 1DsmkII I could buy it, and buy shorter telelens instead of extra long one for my Canon. Then I would have more resolution for every other picture than with my cropped long tele shots and the 14-24 wide zoom seems to be a dream that I could buy then. What for sake should I do. I can now subscribe to Rabbit Mountain photostore if I want, but I don't want to be number 1000 on waiting list.

Feb 14, 2012 at 06:48 PM

1 2 3 4 end
FM Forums \| Canon-mount SLRs \| Join Upload & Sell 1 2 3 4 end