Anyone gone mirrorless? (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

I've been juggling my lens line-up of late as well. Sold off my 24-70 F/2.8 and my 17-40 F/4 lenses, and just have 3 primes (Sigma 35/50/85) and a 70-200 F/4 now. Still wanting to pick up a 50L, and maybe upgrade to a 70-200 F/2.8 some day. May end up looking for some wide-angle lens too.

But I digress...

Back to them mirrorless cameras, I guess.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm with you. I'm selling off my Mac Pro, an iMac, the old 85mm and a few other things to get the new 80-400. Always new toys to try out! Still loving the mirrorless NEX as my go everywhere little cam in the car tho!

Edit: My advice: Do not go from the 70-200 F4 to the 2.8 or the 2.8 VR. Save until you can get the VR2. The differences just aren't worth it till you get there.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I've been juggling my lens line-up of late as well. Sold off my 24-70 F/2.8 and my 17-40 F/4 lenses, and just have 3 primes (Sigma 35/50/85) and a 70-200 F/4 now. Still wanting to pick up a 50L, and maybe upgrade to a 70-200 F/2.8 some day. May end up looking for some wide-angle lens too.

But I digress...

Back to them mirrorless cameras, I guess.

I just picked up a 17-40L about a month ago as an ultra-wide solution for my full frame 5D3. Now I need to sell the EFS 10-22mm, which only works on my 7D.

I think I'm done buying equipment for awhile. I do need to find a different backpack for our summer trip to Glacier National Park. The Lowepro Flipside 500 I purchased a year ago is a little bigger than I need, and my workhorse Lowepro Flipside 300 is a little too small to fit the equipment I plan on taking. I am considering a Tamrac Expedition 6 to fit a 5D3, 7D, 17-40 f/4, 24-105 f/4 and 100-400L, plus filters and other small accessories.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Edit: My advice: Do not go from the 70-200 F4 to the 2.8 or the 2.8 VR. Save until you can get the VR2. The differences just aren't worth it till you get there.

I'd only buy the Canon 70-200 F/2.8 IS MKII if I upgraded. I like my F/4 with IS, though. It's lightweight and pretty solid with AF (but I attribute some of that to being a F/4 lens anyway.

 

[DaveF]

The 16mm fixed lens is a decent one but not all that sharp in the corners, especially on the upcoming NEX-7 which really stresses it. I got mine for $100 bundled in with my kit and I consider that a bargain worth taking. The 30mm macro is slower at f3.5 but AWESOME quality. https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/

Are your macro photos online elsewhere? I'm checking out options for the NEX-6, like macro lens capability.

 

[Sam Posten]

Can't search by camera and focal lense from iPad, let me know if this link works to just find all my photos tagged macro does or if only I can see it:http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Macro&ss=2&ct=6&mt=all&w=59504749%40N00&adv=1Some examples here:http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/314928-macro-mania/

 

[DaveF]

Cool, thanks!

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, today I should get my Canon EOS M mirrorless camera from Amazon. Since they sold out of the $299 model with the 22mm F/2 STM lens, I opted to go with the $349 package with the 18-55mm F/something for a walking around camera, and for shooting full-body shots at conventions (I get to test it out at SD Comic-Con this week, too). I figure that EOS M/lens combo will weigh a fraction of one of my 5D3 with lens and battery grip, but probably be pretty versatile, while leaving more creative options with my 5D3 and prime lenses.

I did also over the EOS EF mount adapter so I can attach my other Canon lens on the EOS M just for fun.

 

[Citizen87645]

I was tempted by that offer as well, but read a couple negative reviews about the performance. I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts on how it works.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The initial scuttlebutt on the EOS M was slow AF performance. The new firmware update 2.0.x seems to have placated most of the EOS M owners, plus I know a couple of people who really like it with the new firmware, so that pushed me over the edge. Plus, I really want to lighten my camera gear load at conventions, and if I can get some decent image quality from this little camera, why not give it a try. I'd be willing to pick up a second EOS M and carry 2 of them, and one 5D3 at conventions if I thought that was really the way to go. Plus, I think I can sell it off without losing too much as a 2nd-hand camera.

I bought stronger reading glasses just so I can use this camera since it's all LCD screen driven, no viewfinder. Haha.

 

[DaveF]

Sony NEX 6. Haven't had a chance to play with it. My better half is figuring it out.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, it didn't go too bad for what I was using the EOS M for at Comic-con this past weekend. Hope to upload some photos soon, but first, I need some sleep!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I'll be interested to see some example shots, Patrick.

We just got back from a week in Glacier National Park. For a light weight walk around lens, I recently picked up a 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens refurbished from Canon for $116 shipped. It's a great little lens for the price, takes up almost no room in the camera bag, and worked well when we were walking around the lodge in the evening. The 40mm focal length works very well for me as a walk around prime on full frame. I actually used the lens as my body cap for the 5D3 when packing my camera bag -- it's that small.

Of course, my backpack also contained a 5D3, 7D, 17-40L, 24-105L and 100-400L, plus a few filters, extra batteries and memory cards, so I still wasn't exactly traveling light.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I think I may also get that 40mm STM lens (since I received the EF-M mount adapter yesterday from an Asian Ebay seller), and slap it on the EOS M and see how it works.

I will say my shots from the first day with the EOS M weren't all that hot, but I finally figured out most of the kinks by the 2nd day. I'm almost embarrassed to say how much I sort of enjoy shooting with this little camera (though it's tough to compose shots in bright sunlight or bright conditions).

Having borrowed a friend's EF-M mount adapter (who had rented it for 3 weeks), and used it with a 70-200mm F/4 IS lens, the results were pretty decent. The battery life is pretty bad though, perhaps 100 shots from a fully charged battery with the IS engaged and used heavily with the 70-200mm lens.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I am not sure how the 40mm pancake will work on the EOS M. The focal length would probably be too long for my tastes on a crop body, as I never liked a 50mm prime on a crop and instead used a 28mm f/1.8 as my "walk around" prime. It's a very usable length for me on the full frame 5D3, though. Since you do a lot of portraits at your conventions, though, it may work for you, Patrick.

The image quality is quite good for such a small, inexpensive lens. It's pretty sharp wide open. The lens does vignette a bit when shooting wide open with a full frame camera, but that is easily fixed in Lightroom. I am not sure about vignetting on a crop body, as I have not tried the lens on my 7D.

Trying to compose using only the back LCD of the EOS M would drive me crazy. When we were in Glacier last week, I took only my 7D + 100-400L on one of the trails (we were hiking this particular trail primarily looking for wildlife), and discovered that I wanted to take some landscape shots. So, I resorted to using my wife's Powershot S100, which she had in her pocket. Trying to compose using that screen in the sunlight was not fun.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I've seen some people use some LCD screen hood for use with their mirrorless cameras, not sure I'd go that route, though.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Was at the Newport (Chamber) Music Festival the last few days and coulda used a good mirrorless camera for a few discrete shots here and there -- and so could the annoying pro(?) w/ his "white" 80-200L IS during our first concert featuring Tasmin Little at the Breakers. >_>_Man_Sent via HTF mobile app

 

[Patrick Sun]

I've seen some people use some LCD screen hood for use with their mirrorless cameras, not sure I'd go that route, though.

Of course, as soon as I type the above, I end up ordering a $17 screen hood / screen magnifier off Ebay from a friend's FB post. Haha.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Here's a photo set of cosplayer hallway photos I took at Comic-Con a couple of weeks ago with the brand new EOS M (I bought the M specifically for hallway photos at conventions and to offload the shutter count off my full-frame bodies), I was still figuring things out, but here's a gander at them. I was using hand-held off-camera flash with a Yongnuo YN-560 I speedlite in manual mode with a wireless trigger/receiver combo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patcave/sets/72157634899582801/

(only the last photo in the set was taken by my Canon 5D3).

 

[Patrick Sun]

Here's a set shot with the EOS and either the EF-M 22mm F/2.0 lens or the EF 17-40mm F/4.0 lens (with EF-M to EF adapter), snoot flash camera left for most of the shots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patcave/sets/72157634996136325/