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Thinking of going Full Frame... (1 Viewer)

Carlo_M

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Even with a monopod I don't know how I could get that type of shot to be really sharp. If you're talking about having a second or longer exposure, I just can't keep a monopod still enough for that. For me, to take that type of shot, requires a tripod, and I'll even use mirror lockup to help alleviate the vibration from the initial shutter opening up.
 

Scott Merryfield

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Carlo, the shot was 1/4 second, not a full second. At that shutter speed and focal length, IS or a monopod (or both) will help a great deal. I also try to brace myself against something -- in this case, it was a stone wall. I agree that at a second or more, nothing is going to work well except a tripod, with a remote shutter release and mirror lockup also improving things even more.
 

Carlo_M

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Ah, yeah I could probably hold still enough for 1/4 second...assuming I haven't had my morning coffee yet so the caffeine hasn't kicked in...
 

Patrick Sun

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Photography-wise, it's a good thing I never developed the habit of drinking coffee...


I finally took possession of an EF 24-70mm F/2.8 lens today. Found a semi-local seller on Fred Miranda's buy-sell forum over the weekend, and we met up after lunch to do the C-notes tango. I was shocked to find out its date code was UYxxx, which means 2010, when I read the for sale listing. It is a beast, but not sure if the 5D/24-70 combo is all that much heavier than my XSi with EF-S 17-55 lens and battery grip. I think I'll go for the battery grip for the 5D just because I like the 1D feel of such a camera these days.

So the rest of my to-buy list has been whittled down:


Battery grip (probably the Zeikos version that's about $80)

1-2 spare batteries and charger

Flash unit (can't decide to go Canon 580EX or 580EX II, or a YN46x/yn560 unit). Been using a 430EX flash clone for the last couple of years, can't see pouring a ton of money into the flash, will check the used market either way).
 

Scott Merryfield

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What is wrong with your current 430EX flash? I am still using that unit with my 7D. While the 7D (and I presume the 5DMKii) allow you to change the flash's custom functions from the camera menu with the new version II of the 580EX and 430EX, that has not been enough of a reason for me to upgrade.
 

Patrick Sun

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It was a clone that I bought without much experience with flashes, it's not like it's a bad flash, hoping to get a better recycle time between flashes, and maybe a little more reach. I need to figure out about being able to use the flash's assist-beam in dark situations. I may hold off on the flash once I get a chance to use the old flash in the first week of December at local convention. But perhaps I was just using my upgrade momentum to check out the other quality clones out there nowadays.
 

Patrick Sun

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I finally received all the ordered parts of the new setup with the 5DMKII, and put them all together last night in order to reorganize my photo-bag. With everything attached to the 5D, including the 24-70 F/2.8 and 580 EX II, and a battery grip, this is one hefty beast of a camera. Everything barely fits in my old Lowepro 200 Slingshot bag (had to relocate my 70-200 F/4 to the upper compartment for the time being). Might need to rig up a harness so that the pressure isn't just on my neck when the camera is not be used as I walk around with it.
 

Scott Merryfield

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I used to own a Slingshot 200, but it began to hurt my shoulder and back as I added heavier gear because of the weight distribution with the single shoulder strap design. I switched to a Lowepro Flipside 300, which is more of a traditional backpack with two shoulder straps. This handles a heavier load much better and no longer aggravates my back.
 

Patrick Sun

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Believe me, I've got my eye out on a new bag. Will relegate my old dSLR/stuff to the 200 Slingshot once I settle on a new bag. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to check it out.
 

Patrick Sun

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I get to put my new dSLR through its paces this upcoming weekend at Wizard World Atlanta. Wonder how steep the learning curve will be...
 

Patrick Sun

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Wow, the convention center lighting was so dreary (I called it "six foot under" lighting, everyone looking like the walking dead), plus I was playing around with using my flash in manual mode for kicks, and it was pretty tough to get decent exposures. Later, played around with eTTL and flash compensation, which seem to help a bit more, but it was either that, or the batteries not be fully charged that helped with not blowing out stuff. Going back for a second day, will try to apply what I learned. Hopefully I'll have some photos up later tonight or tomorrow.
 

Patrick Sun

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I think the first 50-60 photos from this photo set were shot with me playing around with the flash in manual mode (which meant I did some fixing up of the photos to keep them looking consistent, especially when the white balance needed help on some of the photos), but later I pretty much stuck with eTTL and ratcheting down on the flash exposure compensation for a more muted look (not as bright or shiny) for the remaining photos for this set.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/patcave/sets/72157625423795349/
 

Citizen87645

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Looks like a major factor was also increasing the ISO from 400 to some as high as 1250, allowing more ambient light in and thus a more natural look to the illumination.


Shooting in manual flash would have been fine if you and the subjects were in a fixed position the whole time, but the spontaneity of the situation makes working in manual pretty tough.


Considering the high ISO capabilities of the camera you probably would have been fine shooting as high as 1600, if not higher.
 

Patrick Sun

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Right, with the lighting conditions changing as I simply walked down the aisles, it was crazy! At least I'm able to salvage most of the shots, though I did have to throw away a few of them, but it's all part of the learning curve. I was a bit scared to push the ISO, but I guess I'll get used to that, as it was one of the main advantages of the camera.


Shooting in manual flash mode, I was struggling to switch between the 6 1/3 stops between 1/32 and 1/64 power (for mainly fill-flash), and not taking up too much of the subject's time with me fiddling to find the right exposure settings.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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All else being equal, you should actually anticipate the need to shoot at an ISO ~1 full stop higher (w/ aperture ~1 full stop smaller) to offset the reduction in DoF anyway. So if you were shooting ISO 400 at f/5.6 before in those situations, you should anticipate ISO 800 at f/8 before considering other aspects -- note though that ~1 full stop is just a rough estimate/guide and might not be quite enough in some cases.


You may of course opt to compromise certain aspects here or there to get acceptable results in very difficult situations, but that would be after factoring the baseline need to adjust for the shallower DoF.


_Man_
 

Patrick Sun

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That would make my head hurt, but willing to give it a shot on my next photo opportunity. I must be a vampire because I rarely shoot in the sunlight where I'd be having to be ratcheting down on the aperture to avoid over-exposed shots. Heh.


Been playing with Picasa's for its quick-n-dirty photo-clean-up tools, and it looks like I can punch up some of those photos from the tail-end of the previous batch of photos. Just got through fixing up some other photos with decent results, will upload in the morning. Amazed at how well some photos were able to be salvaged from their original files.
 

Scott Merryfield

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Patrick,


Are you shooting jpeg or raw? If you are not shooting raw, you may want to give it a try. Using Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP), included free with the camera, you can make more liberal adjustments to save some of your marginal shots. The latest version of DPP has added quite a few useful tools, such as unsharpen mask, cropping & rotating, and highlight/shadow adjustments. There are also some lens correction features that will work with predefined lens profiles, such as CA and vignetting correction. It's become a very powerful tool.
 

Patrick Sun

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For the 5DMKII, I was shooting large fine jpegs (since most of this stuff is all web-intended content), so I ended up with JPEG files in the 5MB-6MB range for each shot. I will have to install the Canon DPP software and give it a shot this weekend (if not sooner). I did my corrections with Picasa on this set of photos that I uploaded this morning (a lot of poses from the cosplayers during their judging segment at a costume contest at Wizard World Atlanta):


Picasa made it easy to fix minor white balance, fill-in lighting/gamma, and I finally used their cropping and gradual rotating options (totally missed them on my earlier batch of processing). I tried hard to crop out most of the left elbow of another photograther who was sitting in the row/seat directly in front of me. Heh. Sometimes I use IrfanView for quick fixes as well after running it through Picasa.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/patcave/sets/72157625430147051/
 

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