NCaLD (New Camera and Lenses Day!)

oaf

The delivery man has just delivered this:



Canon 5D Mark IV with 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM and 24-70mm f2.8L II USM lenses.

I've only ever used film SLRs up to now, though I do have a few digital compacts and am very familiar with Photoshop/Lightroom. I developed my own negatives and prints as a kid so I'm quite excited to see how I get on with some new technology!

The battery is charging... guess I'd better be good and wait for it to get to 100%?

boogieman

Wow, did you rob a bank? Some serious kit there, you should get some great results. I've got a 5D3 with a couple of L lenses, 16-35 and 24-105, they're both pin sharp. 

stickyfiddle

I find your lack of Fujifilm disturbing... 

bt srsly, that's some serious kit! I look forward to seeing some shots

richardhomer

I have a (much more modest) Canon DSLR and a couple of L Series lenses.

Your pictures will be sharper than real life!

Tone71

Very nice, massively impressed. Look forward to seeing some shots.

ThePrettyDamned

Phwoar, ace set up! Very nice stuff  

stickyfiddle said:

I find your lack of Fujifilm disturbing... 

bt srsly, that's some serious kit! I look forward to seeing some shots

X100f coming soon... Hopefully it'll drop the price of the x100s to something I can realistically afford for a bit of sun-overpowering fun

stickyfiddle

ThePrettyDamned said:

Phwoar, ace set up! Very nice stuff  

stickyfiddle said:

I find your lack of Fujifilm disturbing... 

bt srsly, that's some serious kit! I look forward to seeing some shots

X100f coming soon... Hopefully it'll drop the price of the x100s to something I can realistically afford for a bit of sun-overpowering fun

Yeah, I love the idea of the X100 series but it would be a second camera so too pricey. The new 100f looks amazing though..

Electro_Ham

There is just so much that can be done with digital photography. Taking the picture is just the tip of the iceberg. That said, it's good to take a great photo in the first instance. Does the OP intend to do some editing?

ThePrettyDamned

stickyfiddle said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Phwoar, ace set up! Very nice stuff  

stickyfiddle said:

I find your lack of Fujifilm disturbing... 

bt srsly, that's some serious kit! I look forward to seeing some shots

X100f coming soon... Hopefully it'll drop the price of the x100s to something I can realistically afford for a bit of sun-overpowering fun

Yeah, I love the idea of the X100 series but it would be a second camera so too pricey. The new 100f looks amazing though..

I know right?! I've wanted an x100s for a long time, or even the ricoh gr (similar idea, but 28mm equivalent) and I'd probably use it a lot for work, but it's a lot to drop when I could probably get that sexy 18-35mm sigma lens instead... So perhaps it'll come down a but more in price when the new one is out. 

I can't say the same about the medium format fuji - it's only 0.8x crop?! That's nowhere near medium format, surely you'd get a more "medium format look" with a 5dsr and a trinity of canon ultrafast primes. 

Hopefully it'll be a way of developing "proper" medium format digital though. I'm hoping the lenses are capable of wider coverage than the current sensor - incredible to read forum posts saying they can't imagine a sensor going beyond 10mp..

oaf

Battery charged! Now snapping randomly as I wander around the house and wishing the light was much better As it is you lot thought I should do something guitar related...



and for the PRS haters:



First shot ISO2500, second ISO2000. They're JPEGs (haven't got the RAW software installed anywhere yet) which have been resized and exported as PNG, nothing else done to the images.

...and both of these guitars were presents from my wife

Really like the focus speed, impressed so far. The 4K video files are waaaay too big though... 30 minutes = 128GB card full.

olafgarten

I really hate the X100 series, I had an X100s for 2 weeks before I realised I couldn't get a good picture out if it. They are tremendously over hyped and I can assume they are only really liked by the Hipster crowd. 

I swapped it for an NEX 6 which is really good. 

ThePrettyDamned

olafgarten said:

I really hate the X100 series, I had an X100s for 2 weeks before I realised I couldn't get a good picture out if it. They are tremendously over hyped and I can assume they are only really liked by the Hipster crowd. 

I swapped it for an NEX 6 which is really good. 

All about that leaf shutter though. Sadly, there are very few digital cameras with a hot shoe that have a leaf shutter. 

I am a big fan of super dramatic shots so I could really use a flash sync of 1/1000th to buy me a couple of extra stops. 

hywelg

Have had my eye on  5D for a while as an upgrade to my 7D. I have big hands and they just feel right in the hand. My 7D is very capable but not so good in.low light which I often find a problem. 

My plan is to upgrade in stages. Obviously there are lenses that will work both the crop 7D and a full frame so I'm going to get a Sigma 20mm f1.4 since I'm often using the wide end of my stock lens. 

Any specific reason you went for the Mk4 rather than the 5Ds or 5DSR?

oaf

Good question @hywelg the Mk4 just felt like a more all round solution really, I wasn't sure that I would benefit from the increased resolution and I felt the Mk4 had more features/speed/versatility. I also wanted to play with 4K video (though the implementation of it in the Mk4 isn't ideal - cropped and hugely inefficient codec - the quality is very nice and storage is cheap now!) I know what you mean about it feeling right, it really does!

FYI I got it from HDEW Cameras: ordered on Monday and arrived yesterday. They were very easy to deal with and you can get a touch more off the website prices if you call them/buy several bits at once. Recommended based on my experience.

jellyroll

olafgarten said:

I really hate the X100 series, I had an X100s for 2 weeks before I realised I couldn't get a good picture out if it. They are tremendously over hyped and I can assume they are only really liked by the Hipster crowd. 

This really gets my goat. "I don't like this product...ergo ...anybody who likes it is [insert derogatory adjective]"

ThePrettyDamned

hywelg said:

Have had my eye on  5D for a while as an upgrade to my 7D. I have big hands and they just feel right in the hand. My 7D is very capable but not so good in.low light which I often find a problem. 

My plan is to upgrade in stages. Obviously there are lenses that will work both the crop 7D and a full frame so I'm going to get a Sigma 20mm f1.4 since I'm often using the wide end of my stock lens. 

Any specific reason you went for the Mk4 rather than the 5Ds or 5DSR?

5dsr has the same sort of pixel density as a 24ish megapixel crop. So if you're looking to shoot above 12800 iso with less noise, the 5dsr won't do it. I think canon removed the option of shooting at high iso as it would dispel some of the myth that full frame = less noise (as opposed to reduced pixel density = less noise). 

I think of the 5dsr as being a small medium format camera really - combine it with the 50 1.2 or 50 1.4 and you get the equivalent of a 50mp medium format camera with a 80mm 2.5ish lens. 

Canon has, in my opinion, created the ultimate professional small camera in the 5d series - great photos, fast, good autofocus and excellent lenses. Nikon did it with the d700 but has not really managed an equivalent since... 

Have you considered gripping the 7d?I have never looked back since using one. More battery life, easier to hold with big lenses and easy portrait orientation. I couldn't go back to ungripped. 

paul_c2

Wow! That's a lot of camera, more suited to sports or wildlife photography but of course its good enough to do a wide variety of other kinds too. Is it a hobby or do you also shoot professionally?

oaf

Just a hobby, I used to take a lot of pictures as a kid and then develop them at home but have taken a long time to get into the digital side.

What are you experienced digital photographers using to process your RAW images? DxO Optics Pro? Something else? I'm after some good tips please What are the pros and cons of what's available? (Windows only, well Windows or Linux but I don't expect there's much for the 5D4 in the Linux world...)

jellyroll

I use Lightroom.

hywelg

ThePrettyDamned said:... 

Have you considered gripping the 7d?I have never looked back since using one. More battery life, easier to hold with big lenses and easy portrait orientation. I couldn't go back to ungripped. 

No, since that's not my problem really. I use mine for work, shooting close range often with poor light and very high contrast. The 7D produces noisy deep shadows. I sometimes take a tripod and shoot bracketed for HDR but I'd prefer not to have to bother. 

boogieman

oaf said:

Just a hobby, I used to take a lot of pictures as a kid and then develop them at home but have taken a long time to get into the digital side.

What are you experienced digital photographers using to process your RAW images? DxO Optics Pro? Something else? I'm after some good tips please What are the pros and cons of what's available? (Windows only, well Windows or Linux but I don't expect there's much for the 5D4 in the Linux world...)

I've used Corel Paintshop Pro for years. It's similar to photoshop and a very powerful editing program but nowhere near the price. Has some great features built in, I use the Vibrancy, Clarity and Fill Flash adjustments quite a bit. It does a great job of reviving old faded photos too with the Fade Correction filter. Very intuitive to use (and yes, it does RAW conversions).