Camera FAQ
January 23rd, 2007
I wanted this to be an in-depth post about the Canon 5D and why we chose it over other cameras, specifically how that relates to our existing Nikon D70s. Also, how it relates to the Canon/Nikon “war”. Apparently, a “war” that is similar to the PC/Mac “war”.
Instead of dealing with those large issues, as I don’t really have a platform preference for cameras (I love Holgas, for example, does that mean the Diana or other toy cameras need defending or shouting down??), I’m going to just give you the gear rundown and a brief note about why we chose the 5D. We still use and love the Nikon D70s. But we fight over the 5D. Which is why I did a morning walkabout in Manhattan while Heather was doing her thing on our New York trip last month.
Points
First, we wanted to buy a second camera, largely to reduce the back and forth when we travel together and shoot. “Did you take this one? Did I?”
Second, I wanted to take a step up. We looked at the Nikon options and the Canon options. For us, the Canon options looked more attractive from a price/specs vantage point, very similar to where we were in 2004 with the Nikon purchase. I think I’m more drawn to the Canon lens options. Save your arguments about awesome Nikon glass for a photography forum or a digg post. It’s not so much about the quality of lenses as it is options with price/features. I think Canon and Nikon make great lenses. As do a number of manufacturers. The Canon line appeals to me a bit more. Faster speeds and a wider selection. Will I use all of that range? Dunno. But when looking for lenses for the D70, I decided to wait, as it seemed that Nikon was in the middle of a lens lineup refresh.
When we were in Austin last spring, I shot with a Canon 24-70 2.8L USM and its buttery goodness forced me to make a mental note. A couple of hours later, I was able to take a few shots with a 5D and the game was nearly over at that point. So a Canon would be our second camera. And then we replaced our sewer. And got sued. I took on more freelance work. And then Santa Claus came.
Third, to get a full-frame sensor in a digital SLR meant that there were only a few options. The 5D was not only the cheapest, but really the only one in the Canon line for us. There was only one other full-frame, high megapixel camera: the 1DS Mark II. It is more than double the price. It’s a fantastic camera, but for us, too rich.
Fourth, we purchased the following gear (with rebates!) from Canon:
–5D body
–24-70mm 2.8L USM lens
–50mm 1.4 USM lens
–Canon Speedlite 430EX flash
–extra battery
–B+W UV filter
–Lowepro Stealth Reporter D300 AW (It’s too small)
–I can’t decide if I want a super wide angle or a 70-200mm next, but we’ll likely rent a few lenses to figure out our next purchase, sometime in 2015.
Fifth, Canon is not paying for anything in this post.
Sixth, I’ve gotten a flood of email and a few comments about what we use to handle the RAW files. On our tower, which is Heather’s machine, we have Adobe Creative Suite 2, using Bridge and the Camera Raw plugin into Photoshop. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (a free beta app) on my laptop, and I’ll pop into Photoshop CS when I need to make a quick edit. I’ve heard good things about other apps, but it really depends on how you work and what you are looking for. Right now, this is our setup, but it will likely change.
Seventh, storage. We’ve gradually purchased larger and larger Compact Flash cards from Costco. We have three 2gb cards and two 1gb cards. For the computers, I’m looking at external drives, and we’ll probably settle on a Western Digital or Seagate. The Western Digital 500gb RAID 1/1Terabyte RAID 0 with dual FireWire 800 ports is looking pretty sweet, if a little more expensive than the Seagate options. I’d like to be able to move it around from computer to computer for backup purposes, so an external drive is looking like the way we’ll go.
Eighth, getting pro-level gear (I think the 5D is on the high end of the prosumer designation) is part of the process, as is working to take better pictures. The extra megapixels and improved sensor mean that we have more information to work with when doing things like Chuck’s calendar or other stuff we’d like to share. More on that soon.
Conclusion
Finally, we hope to get better as photographers and share our work with you, because you are a big part of the reason we can do this. So thanks again and if you have further questions, post them in the comments. o
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January 23rd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I’d go with RAID 1 for safety purposes on the storage front. But then, I’m ¸ber-paranoid about losing data. And unless you are doing heavy duty video editing, I wouldn’t think you’d need RAID 0.
You can also easily add a cheap and huge SATA drive internally into the tower.
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Nice choices all around! I have a 5D myself. I’ve heard that the 24-70 is a beast to lug around; sounds like you’re ok with that though. I do have the 50, which is a real sweet lens for the price.
Congrats!
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
After reading this bit on your camera buying experience, I want to kiss your feet. I work in a pro photo lab and I want to commit suicide on a daily basis when I hear the words “high res” in conjunction with talking about scans.
People like you and Heather give me hope for this world in the crazy time of digital that maybe in the future all of our wedding photographers will know how to re-size images for printing. You can only hope, otherwise you’ll hear about me on the CBS Evening News after I’ve gone on a killing spree.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Very nice summary of your thought process; it’s nice to see how others have thought it all through. I’m still (*still!*) emotionally recovering from the theft of nearly $15K of camera equipment from my apartment back in 1998 — two Nikon bodies, two restored-to-perfect 1970s-era Contax RTS bodies, three Nikon Nikkor lenses (including a 300mm), three Zeiss lenses, and an entire bag full of accessory equipment — so I’m always on the fence about committing back to a nice kit; we have a Digital Rebel XT that serves our purposes now, but I know that I’ll get the itch again at some point soon. As it is, I’ll just sit here salivating for your 50 1.4…
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Thanks for the review. I have the 24-70L on my Digital Rebel and LOVE it.
Can I ask why you went with the Speedlite 430 over the 580? Have you been able to use it enough to know if you like it? I’ve been trying to decide between the two for months and am still not sure which to get.
Congrats on your new camera & gear.
BTW I have a 2 Seagates and really like them.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:31 pm
As fun as it was to play with the Cannon, the thing that I was most impressed with was your 50mm lens.
I loved what great shots it took in low light.
Most woman get a piece of jewelry when they give birth, but I’m hoping I get the 50mm lens.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Nice purchase!
Regarding the storage options, you may want to look at some of the stuff from Buffalo, they are building some really nice NAS RAID 5 hardware in 1 and 2 TB options.
Btw, http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php is a great forum for fanatical Canon owners, from newbies to serious pros.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Just want to say thanks for this post.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Thanks! I had just about decided to fantasize about buying a D-70 with the money I don’t have, now you’ve thrown it all into confusion again. I had only really looked at the Rebel; good to have something else for comparison.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I was feeling very proud of myself for having customized my too-big hand-me-down camera bag with strips of old towels sewn into cut-up pieces of an old pair of black tights. I suppose I have a way to go until I can really hang?
I have recently come to enjoy photography as a hobby and just treated myself to a Digital Rebel XTi, which I love. I very much enjoyed the use of a loaner Canon 24-105, and it was wonderful.
Congrats on your lovely new equipment.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I have to recommend the Kata backpacks. They build body armor for the Israeli military and you can see it in the bag construction. Beyond that they are just really well thought out; easy access to the camera, flexible design and the ability to attach a “fanny pack” and chest pack for more room. ( http://www.kata-bags.com/Item.asp?pid=220&cid=28&perentId=4&ProdLine=4 )
As for the 70-200 f/2.8L IS, it is an amazing lens, but it is very heavy. The weight means that you need the $200 legs with the $300 head instead of the cheap tripod. You also really need the battery grip to balance it out. After all this, it isn’t really as long as you want it to be. That said it is my #2 lens and great for portraits. Now I just need to replace my 28-135 IS with that 24-70L.
Torrie, The 50 1.4 is my absolute favorite lens and perfect for infant shots.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:43 pm
A full frame DSLR at that price range = options galore. Very cool. I would have to agree, the 5D is at the very top of the prosumer line.
If you want to get ultra geek (its not too bad), you should look at a real raid setup in your powermac, or doing ubuntu with netatalk. You’ve then got redundant backup options as well as commercial grade AppleTalk sharing. Throw a new Airport Extreme and a gigabit switch in your house for 802.11n and then you are looking really good with fast backup that is wireless, and gigabit from the desktop. The cost in the network gear would be cheap compared to the savings in buying cheap internal drives on a whitebox pc or inside your current desktop mac.
My workflow = D70 > NEF > Aperture > Flickr > Appletalk RAID through Ubuntu
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Jon,
If I may be so bold, I would recommend the super-wide angle as the next lens, given the number of closeups I’ve seen from you and Heather recently. With something like an 18mm f1.4 or thereabouts, you can take great shots in low light, and go to town with image distortion goodness and fun depth of field tricks.
Of course, if you wanna be hard core, you should just break down and get a Hassleblad with a digi-back, and a couple of Leicas for ‘day to day’ use ;P
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Yeah, the Hasselblad and Leicas are on back order. We can dream, joh3n.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
i still love my nikon, but you persuaded me to looking at a Canon. You could be a lawyer.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Jon, I’m sooo jealous. My wife and I have each had Rebel XT’s for about two years ago, and about 6 months ago we each got the Canon 24-105 F4 IS Lens. I must say it’s one of the best lenses I’ve worked with. so happy to hear you have come over to the Canon side of life. Gotta agree with you they are both great, but currently i love what Canon has.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Great choice, I myself greatly prefer Canon. In my experience, the interface and design is more Apple like. I love the iPod-like navigation wheel, so smooth and simple.
Full-frame is awesome - but you really scored with those low aperture, fast lenses. I’ve found that the lenses used are far more important than the body.
Those Western Digital My Book’s are awesome external drives. Especially with FW 800.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Congrats on the new baby!
I was giving Adobe Lightroom a try, but after editing a few raw shots and sending them to PS, somehow 90% of the work done in LR was gone. I thought maybe its just the fact that i am working with PS 7, have you had any kind of problems with LR?
January 24th, 2007 at 3:13 am
D*mn, now you’ve got me thinking about upgrading to the 5D…
I can recommend the f4 70-200 L lens. Cracking bit of glass, and amazing value for money. But given you’ve just laid out a significant amount of wedge for that kit, perhaps it’s one for the wishlist!
Regarding storage, I use LaCie external FW drives and they’ve been pretty good.
Is there any reason why you’re not looking at using Aperture for photo management? It runs fairly slowly on my ‘ancient’ PB G4 but it’s still good enough that I’d rather use it than Lightroom (though I do like it) or Capture 1 Pro (great on the PC, NSG on the Mac).
Keep those gorgeous photos coming!
January 24th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Go Wide! The 17 - 40 f/4L is an awsome lens, and the price is reasonable. Or since you’re a fan of fast lenses, I’ve also heard great things about the new 16 - 35 f/2.8L USM. Wide and fast, but expensive.
Congratualations on joining the forces of goodness and light.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:16 am
I personally consider the 5d to be out of the “pro-sumer” range, especially with the full frame sensor. Are you noticing much difference with the full frame verses the “cropped” sensor? I know for a lot of my telephoto shots, the cropped sensor is actually a blessing, but it would seem for you guys with more portraits and landscape type shots that the full frame would be much more welcome.
I also want to recommend the sandisk extreme 3 cf cards. In my canon’s, the extreme 3’s are more than worth the money (more like their weight in gold), although the ultra 2’s are still good cards.
I can also second the recommendation for the WD My Books.
Congrats on the 5D though! I’m very jealous!
January 24th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Nikon has some gaps in focal ranges unless you’re willing to pay near a grand (12-24 f/4, I’m looking at you…). That said, it’s friggin’ hard to get wide with a non-full frame sensor.
If you’re hooked on Canon, I’d ebay all your Nikon gear and invest in a 2nd Canon Body. You’ll be able to share a lot of gear.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I can only dream about the camera and the lenses and the filter and whatnot, but my lovely husband bought me the 430EX flash for Christmas. Apparently I was a very good girl this year. Even on my relatively crappy little Canon G5, non-SLR camera, that flash completely and totally rocks. I’m planning on upgrading the camera at some point; probably not to the 5D, maybe the Rebel XT, but at least I’ve got the flash.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:06 am
ColleenS, the 430 was cheaper and has worked great for us and the kind of shots we take. I’d get the 580 if I needed a faster refresh or did longer shots that need flash.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I recently bought my first SLR, the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Unfortunately, I don’t have much training, so I fumble a lot. But I can see the spiral into more lenses and gear. When it was snowy here in Portland, I was amazed at the quality of close up shots, even with the lens included in the kit I purchased.
I chose the Canon because it felt better and is relatively easy to use with limited knowledge.
I look forward to seeing what you produce; your work is awesome, so congratulations on the purchase.