Strid3r Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Wow, thanks, everyone. I shouldn't be surprised, but I leave for a few hours and come back to lots of good advice here. I do like hearing the wisdom of the crowd here and am open to suggestions across the board.
I probably should have opened the first post with the fact that I have enjoyed my 50D. I've carried it all over the world and I've gotten some wonderful images out of it over that past 6 years. The upgrade from my Rebel XT was a revelation across the board - image quality, auto focus, drive, ergonomics, the rear wheel, and the large viewfinder.
What inspired in initial inquiry - and perhaps was lost - is that the 50D might be getting long in the tooth compared to some of today's offerings (released in Oct 2008). There have been a number of improvements to digital bodies and sensors in the ensuing years and I'm wondering if it is time to consider an newer body. Do you think upgrading to the 80D (or 6D) might have a similar impact that I saw when I made the jump to 50D many years ago?
Mark – Perhaps saying there was too much noise wasn’t quite right – but what I see during post processing is a lot of noise/grain(?) in the detail and shadows as soon as I'm hitting 800 ISO and its obviously exacerbated when I'm trying to sharpen images. I try to be light handed in PP so I don't think I'm in a situation where I am asking for too much. I can't remember the last time I printed (even on a small scale) an image shot anywhere near 1600 ISO. Banding appears and noise reduction softens up the images up significantly. When I can keep the ISO closer to 200/400 I'm happy with the results, if I'm at 800 ISO it starts going downhill fast.
I do 90% of my PP in Lightroom 5 with Photoshop filling in the rest.
Lenses - I use a fairly standard mid-range set geared toward the crop body, 10-22, 15-85, 100mm Non-L Macro, and 70-300 (USM) . My 50 1.8 collects dust, but maybe that will change in a couple of months. Not L-glass, but not the standard 18-50 kits. I've experienced the benefits of L-glass - renting a long telephotos for some special vacations, but it feels tough to line up the focal lengths on a crop body for wide and medium telephoto where you're not switching frequently. My old Tamron 17-50 sees less action due to the benefits of IS on the other lenses and it makes me worry that the 17-40 would be too limiting on the long end.
Switching to a 6D would carrying some switching costs on the lens side - perhaps having to settle for gaps in coverage in the near term. However, it sounds like there is a good bit of love for the 80D and I had forgotten the 6D was released way back in 2012. Some of the advances since (AF in particular) might make a big difference
I like Zenon’s suggestion. I hadn't thought about going to LensRentals and renting an 80D for a weekend. Seems obvious in hindsight to give it an extended side by side run with my 50D. Might be an easy way to answer the "if" and "which" questions.
Again, thank you to all for taking the time to weigh in with perspectives and experience. It's extremely helpful.
Mike
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