brainiac wrote:
I completely agree. One other reason I hate the 1 series is that the C mode situation is wofully borked, to the extent of unusable. With 5D/7D I get 4 cameras for the price of one. With 1 series I get 60% of a camera for the cost and weight of two.
yeah c mode is poor there, pretty weird
while i sort of would like a 5D2 with D700-like general performance (or at least 6.3fps) (3D) it is true that there are a few things to be said for the 5d2/7d pairing in that you do get the 5D2 for a lower price than a 3D and the 7D has far more reach than a 3D would've which is quite helpful for wildlife and the combined cost while probably a little more than a 3D would've been does give one two bodies which can be very useful at times
as for 5D2+7D vs 1D4, i can certainly very much see how many would prefer 1D4, but, in my case I just don't like the bulk, the 1.3 is awkward at times for landscape shooting, it has less reach than the 7D and still not quite the IQ of the 5D2 under most, if not all circumstances and you only have one body not two; the 1Ds4 probably won't be as fast as the 7D and it has the bulk and the crazy, crazy high price i'm sure
i'd still like to see a 3D though!! at this point in time say 24MP (if the 1ds4 turns out to jump to 40MP instead of 32MP then maybe 3D could have say 28MP), 6.3fps, 1D4 AF, digic v (for much better video quality and perhaps enough processing to give usable jpgs for the times you just don't want to bother)
for my professional pj work non-1d is completely useless, because it's much too slow and af sucks. in very low light even af of 1dm3 sucks. gonna try 1dm4 next week ...
The 1DIII sucks in very low light? Compared to what, exactly?
As for the 1DIV, many have reported the camera to perform worse in low light compared to the MKIII.
Consider a new or used 1D MK III. A good used one is about the price of a new 7d. After shipping my 7d back for a refund, I bought a used 1d MK III and am much happeier with it.
Brainiac: I won't dispute your banding concerns. However, when there is no banding (which I see rarely), my experience is the 5D2 produces more detailed, less noisy images at higher ISOs than the 7D.
BTW, my comments re. "crazy-high ISOs" and the like were not intended to call your approach into question, though I realize now it does sound that way. I was just (literally) describing my own practice, not passing any judgement on others. I grant you that if you push the files the way you describe, the 7D may do better; I just don't have a need to do this, and at the ISOs I shoot at, the 5D2 is superior.
brainiac wrote:
The ideal camera would be a 5D2 with decent AF and no banding, and a 7D with manual focus, but Canon won't supply us those because its no. 1 goal in the market is to rape us. No other brand does less customer-raping though. Other brands rape to survive, Canon rapes for profit.
*Checks drawers* I feel so violated after that.
Ah dunno, you can go through life dwelling on the negative or do the best with what there is. And what there is dad burn good. If you can't get consistently get good images out of the 7D and 5DII the problem ain't with the cameras.
You should have seen me struggling with my FM or Elan back in the day. Half the damn picture got away before I had everything dialed in. MF in dim light with a FM or FE was a total PITA compared to a 7D or 5DII. I'm amazed at how easy it is to get great images out of the 7D and 5DII. It's like falling off a damn log.
Ixania wrote:
compared to nothing. you just cannot af in very low light, i often get 8 of 10 oof. and i'm a getty guy who knows how to get a picture ... we'll see
I agree, but it's true of all AF systems, even the sacred Nikon one. The only solution, I have found, is to do your best with MF. Unfortunately Canon carpet bombs the market with models and carefully avoids hitting the target: the 1 series are too heavy, the 7D can't be manually focussed, and the 5D2 would have been perfect if they hadn't made a basic engineering error with the banding. I say basic error because shortly after the 5D2 came out, I bought a 500D which had less of a banding problem than my 5D2's, as have all Canon bodies since. Canon carpet bombs the market with models but never hits the target. Whether or not it's deliberate, I'm sure it's not just me who is frustrated by it. Meanwhile, Nikon illustrates that it can see the appeal of the bull's eye model (D700) and offers it, to great acclaim. Shame about the sensor and the lens mount. One thing I will say is this: with the expanded centre point AF the 5D is as good at autofocus as any 1 series I have used. But they all have a light limit below which AF fails, not gracefully, but catastrophically. Manual focus is the only way out then.
brainiac wrote:
The ideal camera would be a 5D2 with decent AF and no banding, and a 7D with manual focus, but Canon won't supply us those because its no. 1 goal in the market is to rape us. No other brand does less customer-raping though. Other brands rape to survive, Canon rapes for profit.
Gochugogi wrote:
*Checks drawers* I feel so violated after that.
Don't check your drawers, check your pockets ;-)
Ah dunno, you can go through life dwelling on the negative or do the best with what there is. And what there is dad burn good. If you can't get consistently get good images out of the 7D and 5DII the problem ain't with the cameras.
Those of us who rely on blaming the camera are having to be increasingly creative in our search for camera failings. It's hard work!
Ixania wrote:
compared to nothing. you just cannot af in very low light, i often get 8 of 10 oof. and i'm a getty guy who knows how to get a picture ... we'll see
Compared to nothing? It is regarded as one of the best low light AF systems out there and you're speaking about how it sucks? Makes me wonder what people expect from a camera...
jerrykur wrote:
I like it the way it is, but if you want a better exposure in the foreground you can use a split ND filter.
I don't like split ND's. I have seen too many photos where the ground is lighting the sky. I prefer my cameras to have great dynamic range. The 5D2 would score far higher in that regard if it weren't for the unnecessary banding in deep shadows.
skibum5 wrote:
while i sort of would like a 5D2 with D700-like general performance (or at least 6.3fps) (3D) it is true that there are a few things to be said for the 5d2/7d pairing in that you do get the 5D2 for a lower price than a 3D and the 7D has far more reach than a 3D would've which is quite helpful for wildlife and the combined cost while probably a little more than a 3D would've been does give one two bodies which can be very useful at times
as for 5D2+7D vs 1D4, i can certainly very much see how many would prefer 1D4, but, in my case I just don't like the bulk, the 1.3 is awkward at times for landscape shooting, it has less reach than the 7D and still not quite the IQ of the 5D2 under most, if not all circumstances and you only have one body not two; the 1Ds4 probably won't be as fast as the 7D and it has the bulk and the crazy, crazy high price i'm sure
You raise a lot of interesting points here. Right now I have about 5000 GBP invested in 3 bodies (5D2 x 2, 7D). If Canon made a 6fps full frame no-banding proper manual focus and AF lightweight 3D for 2700 GBP, would I buy three? Hell yes - one camera with the virtues of both 5D2 and 7D rolled into one would be a marketing bull's eye IMO. My total investment in Canon bodies would then be 8100 GBP, not 5000, but I would gladly pay it for 3 cameras that fully work instead of 3 cameras each of which is borked in some unnecessary way. Canon's divide and conquer policy is making me spend less, not more. I may be the exception though.
brainiac wrote:
...per pixel, which is irrelevant. Best results in low light or high iso arise from shooting full rez raw and applying your best noise reduction algorithms _before_ downrezzing to sraw size.
It's a workflow thing. I shoot this way for events when the client needs turnaround very quickly and I don't have time to do post. ISO 1600 on the 5DII at sRAW1 with High ISO NR set to 'Low' is astonishgly clean and still well detailed (processed in DPP), and ISO 3200 is quite good too.
Yes, I can get slightly better results using a full RAW workflow, but I prefer to use this approach for the jobs and images where it matters.
The examples you show at extreme ISOs are excellent photos, BTW, though they exceed my personal tolerance for noise. So yes, maybe I do try to shoot in the "sweet spot" of my cameras. I would likely use different techniques in similar light, such as dragging the shutter with 2nd curtain sync flash, to pull the ISOs back into range. But--that's my approach and yours is equally valid.
I still dispute your assertion that the 7D is a better low-light camera in most situations. At every "normal" ISO speed I've tried, the 5D2 is at least a stop better. I don't see the banding on the 5D2 until ISO 6400 and that pretty much exceeds my noise threshhold anyway.
I have all of the above, and by far the best low light/event camera of the 3 is the 1D3. I pick up the 7D next, thanks to its excellent AF and light weight. Lastly I have a 5D2 which serves a backup role at best for low light/event work where there are moving subjects. Like you the center AF point is the last one I'll use (composition 101 right?), but ironically the only point that really works well in low light on he 5D2. So my 5D2 is my landscape/travel camera,and as a backup to my 7D for event work.
