Camera gear discussions

Discussion in 'Photography and Cameras' started by Bill-P, Oct 15, 2015.

  1. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Please remember to have fun.

    Otherwise you turn into a gear head and might as well transform into a Dalek shouting "Full Frame! Full Frame! Exterminate Crop Sensors! Exterminate Crop Sensors!"
     
  2. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    My Pentax K-50 is coming today and here I am with class and work until 7, damnit.
     
  3. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    High iso and high iso exposure testing can still be fun ;)
     
  4. rayfalkner

    rayfalkner Not to be confused with Roy Fokker - Friend

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    Full frame iz luv! |\/|

    Nah, the gear chasing phase is already a quite distance away behind me fortunately; though I had to shamelessly admit that the thought of regressing into crop sensor after years of using fx is umm... uncomfortable. But really, just something with the no-nonsense functionality of the 'dinosaur-era' D700, but with a mirrorless form factor is all I need right now for my personal photography gear.

    *) I'm not joking, one of my colleague called my late D700 as a dinosaur. If only this is a medieval era I would challenge him into a saber duel right away. He must pay that insult with his neck.
     
  5. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Out bokeh him with a fast 50.

    You can then Dirty Harry him with the sweet F1.8 or F1.4.
     
  6. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    K50 came and I came to the realization that I have a lot to learn about photography and I'm ECSTATIC to learn. I haven't been this excited about anything in many years. The first thing that I realized is that my lens (18-55 3.5-5.6) is not very good for macro shots, in-fact it seems awful for it. The next thing that I learned is that the ISO settings on my Nikon P330 aren't indicative of what I should use for my K50.

    I am going to have a blast attempting to get some good shots tonight at an outdoors/dimly lit party. I don't care if I have 1,000 poor shots, I am super excited to learn how to use this beast.
     
  7. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    The kit lens could be worse. Stick to iso 400 in good light and it should still be snappy with focusing.

    With every new camera the first few hundred shots tend to be to simply try out settings. From time to time I try something new because I might have missed something and improvements are possible.

    If you want to have manual focus fun, get an old 35mm F2 or F2.8 and expose manually. You pick the iso, aperture, shutter speed, image settings and everything else. An old 50mm F2 manual focus is also good for practice and you will join the bokeh club.
     
  8. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    I'm having a blast shooting my friends even if some look awful. Thanks for the advice, macro prime is next!
     
  9. JoelT

    JoelT Friend

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    The other nice thing about a lot of these lenses is that the optical quality tends to be very good for the price - generally much better consumer level zooms.
     
  10. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    So I took over 500 photos between last night and today. I am completely in love with learning how the settings affect the photo and am diving into the youtube links and book recs you guys posted on changy. Thanks a lot guys. I've been super down in the dumps lately, but today I woke up with such enthusiasm about my day. Tomorrow I work all day, which stinks, but I look forward to getting out there and using my new camera as much as I can.
     
  11. Friday

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    Congrats on the first step. Next would be sorting out the pictures you actually want to keep, which is a real headache when you take 1000-odd pics on a holiday. If you thought Grados were fatiguing, try curating. Which is why I try to sort out shots on the go. I suppose this is easier for film users who tend to have better shot discipline.
     
  12. JoelT

    JoelT Friend

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    Enjoy the journey, Keanex!

    As someone who's shot film for the past 10 years, I would say you're absolutely right. It's just a different process, as it costs money every time you press the shutter and you're dealing with a physical object. The "shot discipline" becomes significantly more rigorous as you progress to larger film formats as well.
     
  13. Friday

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    Finally got the time to read through earlier posts in the thread.

    And that's the start of the slippery slope for those newly introduced to the world of interchangeable lenses. Because sometimes we find ourselves in a situation that requires a specific lens, we might get too caught up in purchasing that lens, only to realise that we won't use it that much after all as its application is too specific.

    Not to say that I don't like macro lenses, though I can justify that purchase since I quite enjoy taking close-ups of bugs. If you think you that you would find a macro prime wanting often enough, I'd recommend the Tamron 60mm or 90mm, depending on whichever range is more suitable for your usage. They have a pretty good price to performance ratio, and have a 5 year warranty. I'm using the 90mm myself, which is great for insects but too long for indoor shots, which is a bit of a pity since the bokeh would render food pictures quite nicely.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2015
  14. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    I would actually advise against macro primes, really. Unless you're stuck at home all day long, and you shoot random photos of your kids' toys...

    I mean, no offense/disrespect to macro photographers, of course. Some awesome shots can be had with macro photography, but for someone just starting out, I think something more casual at the wider end with a big aperture would be more fun, as they won't be overwhelmed with the impact that different settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc...) have on the overall image quality.

    Seriously, if you're new to photography, I'd say... 50mm and under only. f/2.0 or larger (read, smaller numbers like f/1.8, f/1.4, etc...) only. That way, you can still try out everything from landscape to portraiture, indoors or outdoors, and you can still appreciate being able to frame a bit bigger than necessary. Once you are used to all of the settings, and you know what you'd like in your frame, and you're not uncomfortable with having to adjust a billion things and taking a billion shots before getting the right one, then go macro.
     
  15. Friday

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    Yes, that much is true. Even with autofocusing, getting a sharp shot with a macro can be a real pain in the arse, as when you are up so close every movement is magnified (including slight hand shakes and light breezes), and you can only go so high a shutter speed since the light reaching your sensor is very much reduced and chances are that you will stop down a fair bit to get your entire subject in focus.

    Of course, the results are very satisfactory if you do get it right, but bear in mind that the process can be very frustrating.
     
  16. rayfalkner

    rayfalkner Not to be confused with Roy Fokker - Friend

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    Hmm, I always sort through my shots only when I'm back home. Carrying extra cards helps a lot. Rather have bunch of shots to choose from than worry about post processing sorting time.
    Well, dismissing mediocre shots straight to the recycle bin is always quick and easy for me. Choosing between several good shots of a relatively same scene is what makes it time consuming; so IMO in this digital era, having a good shot discipline actually makes things harder for you when you have to choose what to keep (man all of these are good!) :p

    Oh and I used to have the 60mm f/2.8 macro semi-permanently attached to my camera. Sharp! And I don't know why but my brain kind of connect easily with that focal range, and this lens is in particular such a good performer. I swear. Been using it in so many shooting situations except for wide landscape shot, yeah. Well the 2.8 minimum aperture does limit its use in night scenes...
    Ah yeah of course by having the ability to 1:1 macro is a delightful extra thing to have if somehow you got the time to properly setup with your tripod, focusing manually through the live view, and set the couple of seconds timer release for the shutter-- probably a few and between occasion to do that on street photography or while on family trip though haha!
     
  17. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    When you stay in auto focus go aperture priority mode, single shot and manually control the iso. At every shot check shutter speed and aperture and you learn as you go.

    The old Pentax K-mount 50mm F2 was the kit lens of its day. Many old Pentax kits before the plastic era come with that lens. For less than 50 Dollars/Euros you can pick a good one up and have a 75mm F2 for bokeh and macro which allows you to play with light, darkness, sharpness and softness in the image and most controls are on your lens.

    What I do to keep photography fun is simple. I plan ahead to go some place and improvise with my camera. That date is then set and the results may vary but it gives me a challenge. I keep learning that way.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2015
  18. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    I think I'm too deep into this stuff as well.

    Just splurged on an MS-Optical 50mm f/1.1 lens to go with my A7R.

    Suffice it to say... I think I should let some of my lenses go, so will be thinking about that for the next while now. But having said all that, I'm excited about the MS-Optical lens. It's hand-made in Japan (cue Japanese craftsman comments), super compact for such a large aperture, and apparently very good optical performance for price and size. Will compare it against my Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 and report back. I think only one of them will remain at the end of the day...
     
  19. fiddler

    fiddler New

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    Sony A7R and the likes are likely the future, but the battery life...

    With my Canon 6D and battery grip, I hardly ever even think about batteries. From what I've read, the story is very different for A7 owners.
     
  20. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    Yeah, battery life is horrid.

    But the trick is... you can charge the camera with any portable USB battery. So instead of having to remember to charge everything, I just gotta remember to charge and bring along some USB batteries that will work with... well, everything.

    Couldn't do that with the 6D (oh yeah, I did have a 6D for a bit), so the battery grip was kind of necessary.

    But the biggest criticisms I have for the A7 series, as opposed to the 6D are as follow:

    1) Autofocus sucks. A7R is a lot worse at AF than all of its siblings. It's in fact even worse than some of the worst compact cameras. A7Rii is a vast improvement, but still not a speed demon. Hunting down kids running at a zoo under intense sun at noon (12PM)? That's doable. Chasing down grandma's movements in a dimly lit kitchen before dinner at 6PM? You might as well use your smartphone. Yes, it's that bad. And folks like @kapanak will tell you it's not, but IMO, it is. A Sony A6000, or... hell, that Canon 6D with something like the Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4 lens will beat the living snot out of any A7 camera at autofocus speed under those conditions. So if you value your grandma's photos (or you go to sports and concerts), I'd say you'd best stick to your Canon 6D. If nothing else, Canon has at least perfected their focusing mechanisms years ago. Mirrorless (minus A6000) still have a long way to go. I deal with this problem... by simply not using autofocus at all.

    2) The button layout sucks. No, seriously. The movie recording button is super small, and it sits in a corner that can only be pressed by... well, moving your shutter finger over. Why it is not next to the regular shutter is a big mystery to me. And why the f**k is the "Menu" button on the upper left hand corner? In fact, why is it the ONLY button on the left hand side? Hell, why is it the ONLY CONTROL ELEMENT (so there's no dial, wheel, etc... nothing else over there) on the left hand side? It makes no sense whatsoever, except perhaps the only excuse they can say at this point is that they ran out of space for such a button on the right hand side.

    3) The menu layout sucks! There are pages and pages and pages of options, and under some of them are even more options, and yet the crucial things (disabling the need to set a zoom point before zooming, etc...) are nowhere to be found, even considering there are so many options. On top of that, some options are completely useless as they can be overridden or reset or has already been replaced by one of the dials/buttons. Prime example? Exposure compensation! Why would anyone go into the Menu and try to find this option after like... 10 pages (quite literally) and set it there? The exposure compensation dial is right under their thumb on the upper right hand corner, and can be turned any time!

    4) Movie recording quality sucks. A7Sii is perhaps the only camera that doesn't suck with movie quality, but even a "lowly" Canon 60D can easily beat any A7 camera at recording movies. Yes, I know.... 36MP and such is too much for the buffer when recording raw frames, but they could have added more buffer. Not enough physical space, you say? Then disable the movie recording function altogether and redesign some things to fit the camera toward better still shooting! But then that'll require them to ditch the same A7 body that they use across all 3 (A7, A7Rx and A7Sx) cameras, you say? They shouldn't do that because profit margins, you say? So it comes down to profits after all...

    5) Battery life is horrid. As said above. Do wanna add more that this is also kinda minor and can be mitigated further if using manual focus lenses, as the camera doesn't need to power the autofocus motors or other sensors in the lens then.

    With that said, I think the A7R is my best camera yet to date. I love it to death, too. It has its quirks, and I don't think it fits all styles of shooting, but the IQ is great, and that's *almost* all that matters to me. The other has to come down to size. I can fit my entire A7 system (body, lens, accessories, etc...) into a small messenger bag that also contains other cool toys like an iPad, a laptop, chargers, batteries, etc... and the bag won't bulk up too much, or weigh down too much. Not possible when I had the Canon 6D, which had to hang outside, strapped around my neck. Not to mention super bulky autofocus lenses. I shoot mostly people who stand still enough for a few seconds, and landscapes on my travels, so the A7R is adequate enough for those kinds of things. If I'm shooting moving kids... I'd take out my phone and start recording a movie. Hahaha

    And that's my "mini A7R review". ;) (but which may very well apply to all A7 cameras)
     

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