New 40d or used 5d?

[soydios]

Originally posted by: punchkin

Originally posted by: soydios

Originally posted by: punchkin

Originally posted by: ElFenix
the 5D takes in 2.56 times the amount of light as the 40D due to the sheer size of the sensor. it had a 1-1/3 to 2 stop advantage over the 20D

Nope, although some 5D users may believe this enough if they repeat it amongst themselves. In addition, though the 5D takes in more light it spreads it over a larger area and is far more susceptible to vignetting at larger apertures, so your "argument" is a fallacy.

http://wyofoto.com/40D_Image%2...lity/40D_shootout.html

Beware of fanboys bearing... unfounded opinions, I guess.

I'm sorry, but WRONG. a cropped-frame body lets the same amount of light hit the same unit of area. the light that doesn't hit the sensor just gets absorbed by the black walls of the mirror box. in a full-frame body, that wasted light instead hits the sensor, allowing the same number of pixels to be spread over more area, resulting in larger pixels. this is how the Nikon D3 gets such insanely high ISOs, and why the 5D (a two-year-old camera) gets the same performance as the 40D at high ISO. the 5D, because it is full-frame, puts 2.56 times more light onto a sensor 2.56 times the size of the 1.6x crop bodies. thus, 2.56 times more light hits each pixel of the 5D than the 40D, but the 40D's pixels are newer, so it balances out.

You are an absolute numbskull if you think that 2.56 times the light hits each pixel of the 5D sensor. You haven't compared the light-absorbing area of each pixel, and they have different numbers of pixels.

In any event, the full-frame-smitten almost infallibly advance your idea alongisde the notion of greater room for cropping on a full-frame sensor. Cropping, of course, would destroy any such advantage actually gotten.

The main reason the D3 gets insanely high ISO "performance" is aggressive in-camera noise reduction. It often obliterates the shadows, for instance.

the fact that each pixel and microlens is bigger and captures more photons has nothing to do with it, eh?

the D3 keeps good high-ISO image quality; it isn't like a compact camera going to ISO3200. ISO6400 with a small amount of noise reduction produces acceptable-quality prints. such a thing was physically impossible with film.

 

[punchkin]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Anyone who has used a full-frame camera has seen first-hand how their lenses perform at the edges and various f/stops,

I've used a 1DsII quite a bit, and the only time I saw vignetting is using legacy Canon L glass at wide F-stops. Go figure........If you're able to use the same Canon glass without having to stop down on your 40D I have a large body of fresh water in Georgia I want to sell you.

I'm buying. The poor edges are cut off and the 40D has more depth of field at all f/stops.

Otherwise, the logic of using a cropped sensor camera to avoid vignetting by cropping out the lens circle might be among the most illogical one I've ever heard of.

You haven't heard much, then. It's not just vignetting, of course, but softness etc. at the edges. Very few lenses are as good at the edges as in the center, and especially at wide apertures. Guess you didn't know that either.

 

[teatime0315]

5D for FF and everything else
40D if you need it for fast action.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: shocksyde
Throwing Nikon into the mix? I'll admit I hadn't even considered it, but I'll read up on the D300

Text

as much as jeff likes to complain about the cost of proprietary batteries you'd think he'd get a sponsorship from sterlingtek

For the slow readers, here are the highlights:

When Nikon announced the D300, the digital photography world stood up and took notice. When people call the D300 a "baby D3", they're not kidding. The D300 has nearly the exact same feature set, but with an APS-C / DX-format sensor instead of a full-frame one. That means you get the super-fast performance of the EXPEED image processor, live view on a brilliant 3-inch LCD display, a 51-point autofocus system, dust reduction, full manual controls, and the expandability that you'd expect on a Nikon SLR. You also get excellent image quality, especially if you tweak a few basic settings. It's not often that I review a camera actually lives up to the manufacturer's hype -- and the D300 does exactly that.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: punchkin

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Anyone who has used a full-frame camera has seen first-hand how their lenses perform at the edges and various f/stops,

I've used a 1DsII quite a bit, and the only time I saw vignetting is using legacy Canon L glass at wide F-stops. Go figure........If you're able to use the same Canon glass without having to stop down on your 40D I have a large body of fresh water in Georgia I want to sell you.

I'm buying. The poor edges are cut off and the 40D has more depth of field at all f/stops.

Otherwise, the logic of using a cropped sensor camera to avoid vignetting by cropping out the lens circle might be among the most illogical one I've ever heard of.

You haven't heard much, then. It's not just vignetting, of course, but softness etc. at the edges. Very few lenses are as good at the edges as in the center, and especially at wide apertures. Guess you didn't know that either.

for the 5D use a longer focal length by 1.6x, stop the lens down so that the aperture is the same, and then see what the performance of the lens is. after all, you want to take the same picture with each camera if you're testing the camera, don't you? and how can it be the same if the FOV isn't the same and the DOF isn't the same?

 

[punchkin]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: punchkin

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Anyone who has used a full-frame camera has seen first-hand how their lenses perform at the edges and various f/stops,

I've used a 1DsII quite a bit, and the only time I saw vignetting is using legacy Canon L glass at wide F-stops. Go figure........If you're able to use the same Canon glass without having to stop down on your 40D I have a large body of fresh water in Georgia I want to sell you.

I'm buying. The poor edges are cut off and the 40D has more depth of field at all f/stops.

Otherwise, the logic of using a cropped sensor camera to avoid vignetting by cropping out the lens circle might be among the most illogical one I've ever heard of.

You haven't heard much, then. It's not just vignetting, of course, but softness etc. at the edges. Very few lenses are as good at the edges as in the center, and especially at wide apertures. Guess you didn't know that either.

for the 5D use a longer focal length by 1.6x, stop the camera down so that the aperture is the same, and then see what the performance of the lens is. after all, you want to take the same picture with each camera if you're testing the camera, don't you? and how can it be the same if the FOV isn't the same and the DOF isn't the same?

It wouldn't be 1.6x stopped down, but more like 4/3 stops. And no matter what you do, you cannot escape the edge performance of the lens. Many lenses never get as good in the edges as they do in the center, no matter how far you stop down.

 

[shocksyde]

I didn't realize I was going to start a religious war, haha.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I am personally waiting to see what Canon does to replace the 5D. Will Canon release two FF DSLRs at the same time to replace it, a EOS-3D and 7D as some suggest?

At that time I will then either get the 3D or 40D MkII/50D. As much as I love that big, bright FF viewfinder, I think I might miss the extra 120mm reach I get out of my EF 70-200 F4L IS on my 20D.

Point is, they are both (40D and 5D) great cameras, both capable of producing extraordinary pictures in capable hands. You just got to know what you need and what you can spend.

 

[shocksyde]

Does anyone have any experience with the computer-controlled aspect of the 40D I asked about earlier? I'm having a hell of a time finding information about it!

At this point I'm still completely on the fence, and it may simply come down to the 40D being nearly half the price...

 

[OdiN]

I'd say 40D - can be a bit better for weddings depending on the lenses you have. If you get too wide on the lenses with a FF camera, you can introduce some distortion which isn't always flattering.

5D for landscapes, definitely.

IQ-wise, there really isn't much difference between the two, and you'd be hard pressed to determine which is "better" in that department.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: punchkin

It wouldn't be 1.6x stopped down, but more like 4/3 stops. And no matter what you do, you cannot escape the edge performance of the lens. Many lenses never get as good in the edges as they do in the center, no matter how far you stop down.

while this is true, it is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be, shooting focus charts (a plane) wide open at a closer position and then complaining when the shallower DOF (a sphere) blurs the edges more than the optical qualities of the lens do. stopping down also improves the corner shading 'issue' (in quotes because it's only an issue if you're not testing using the same image, 1/8 of an EV shading either way isn't a problem).




edit: get the 40D and the 70-200 f/2.8 if you've got gorilla arms
the computer can't zoom for you, well, optical zoom. i guess you probably know that. i'll test it out later today or maybe tomorrow, assuming i don't need anything more than what came in the box.

 

[rudder]

The only downside I can see to the 5D is the fact Caon left off the on-camera flash. Granted, I try to avoid using the on-camera flash because the light it produces is not all that flattering... but it is there when I need it.

Definetely not a deal breaker though.

 

[shocksyde]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: punchkin

It wouldn't be 1.6x stopped down, but more like 4/3 stops. And no matter what you do, you cannot escape the edge performance of the lens. Many lenses never get as good in the edges as they do in the center, no matter how far you stop down.

while this is true, it is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be, shooting focus charts (a plane) wide open at a closer position and then complaining when the shallower DOF (a sphere) blurs the edges more than the optical qualities of the lens do. stopping down also improves the corner shading 'issue' (in quotes because it's only an issue if you're not testing using the same image, 1/8 of an EV shading either way isn't a problem).




edit: get the 40D and the 70-200 f/2.8 if you've got gorilla arms
the computer can't zoom for you, well, optical zoom. i guess you probably know that. i'll test it out later today or maybe tomorrow, assuming i don't need anything more than what came in the box.

Now that I think about it, using the computer to control the camera can probably only take advantage of autofocus, which would defeat the whole purpose. If you do happen to test it out, I'd be interested in what you can/can't do.

 

[soydios]

40D stuff (includes computer control):
http://uk.youtube.com/results?...on%2040d&search=Search

you can auto- or manual-focus with the computer. pretty nifty, seeing as how Nikon makes you buy software to do it.