United3dArtists Archive

If you are a Canon user like me, it might be time to thinking about getting a new camera now. The reason is the new Canon 60D and the difference it has between the old 50D line.

Essentially, the old XXD line dies with 60D. The XXD line have always been a semiprofessional series situated between the consumer XXXD line (like the 500D) and the professional XD line (like 1D).

However, with the new 60D is more of a "prosumer" camera. It will be built in plastic instead of the magnesium alloy of the old 50D and previous cameras. It will also be a bit smaller. Some features is apparently not going to be there. According to what I have read in reviews the quality isn't like the old series and it isn't marketed as it either.

I have to say that I don't like this. The new semiprofessional camera is supposed to be the 7D instead. But this is much more expensive than the 50D (and the XXD series) was.
Some comparison prices from Sweden:
A 7D costs about 14000 kr
A 50D costs about 9000 kr
A 60D will initially be 11000kr - this will probably get down to around 9000 kr in the future.

What does this mean? Well, it means that if you want a high quality Canon camera after the 50D is out of sales, you will need to step up to the 7D. The 60D will not be of the same quality as the old 50D and older model.

Currently you can make good prices on the 50D since it is an old model. I picked one up for 6900 kr which is half of what a 7D would set me back. Off course, the 7D is a better camera with 19 focus points instead of 9 and it can do video - but this isn't really worth a premium off about 7000kr (about 700 euro) in my book. I can get a good lens for the money between the 50D and the 7D.

So if you are thinking of getting a good quality Canon camera, you might want to shop the 50D before they are gone.

If you can afford it, go with the xD line. I bought the 5D some years ago and it is rock solid, with great picture quality even in low light and all the features we need. When I consider the fact that this camera will be in my travel bag all along my life, it was not so expensive.

Some picture I took with it :
A baloon trip in Perigord.
A villa of my neiborhood for sale (700 k€).
Cannes (French riviera).

Emmanuel wrote:If you can afford it, go with the xD line. I bought the 5D some years ago and it is rock solid, with great picture quality even in low light and all the features we need. When I consider the fact that this camera will be in my travel bag all along my life, it was not so expensive.

Some picture I took with it :
A baloon trip in Perigord.
A villa of my neiborhood for sale (700 k€).
Cannes (French riviera).

Yep, I have borrowed a 5D for a couple of shoots but it is a bit to expensive for me to buy now. It is a very nice camera though.

I´m into Nikon for more then 30 years now and got 2 D700 bodies working around the clock.
Pretty good for low light...
most of the cameras are pretty good nowadays .. even some compact cameras are not bad considering the size they have.
But what I wouldnt do is buying old technology.....
unless you get an insanely low price tag.
Otherwise get the newest generation you can get and keep it for some time....
Peter

RAYMAN wrote:I´m into Nikon for more then 30 years now and got 2 D700 bodies working around the clock.
Pretty good for low light...
most of the cameras are pretty good nowadays .. even some compact cameras are not bad considering the size they have.
But what I wouldnt do is buying old technology.....
unless you get an insanely low price tag.
Otherwise get the newest generation you can get and keep it for some time....
Peter

I would agree with you but if the new generation is of lower quality than the older generation, then I think it comes in a different light. Also, the previous generation of a digital camera isn't exactly stone age technology.
The difference between a 50D and a 60D technical vise is a higher megapixel sensor in the 60D. The processor and display is the same for instance.

spyfrog wrote:

RAYMAN wrote:I´m into Nikon for more then 30 years now and got 2 D700 bodies working around the clock.
Pretty good for low light...
most of the cameras are pretty good nowadays .. even some compact cameras are not bad considering the size they have.
But what I wouldnt do is buying old technology.....
unless you get an insanely low price tag.
Otherwise get the newest generation you can get and keep it for some time....
Peter

I would agree with you but if the new generation is of lower quality than the older generation, then I think it comes in a different light. Also, the previous generation of a digital camera isn't exactly stone age technology.
The difference between a 50D and a 60D technical vise is a higher megapixel sensor in the 60D. The processor and display is the same for instance.

While it is true for this specific case its not a rule of thumb... generaly the cameras are getting much better with every generation.
Better is not a higher MP density !There is an increase of dynamic range and useable iso.....better autofocus amongst some other improvements.
As an example the Nikon D3s is at least one stop faster then the D3...... while having same build quality and same price......
Even in the compact range The Canon S95 is better then the S90..... just some examples......
If the 50D fits your personal workflow best there is nothing to say against it... I also bought an older camera just for the support
of older lenses etc. but not as a rule of thumb.If i were you I´d get the 7D and hold onto it a little longer.. have heard some good things about it.
Will be a few hundred bucks more but you will be happy with it probably 2-3 years longer.
I would even say you would be happy with it for the next 10 years.It also has a better autofocus.
Its also enviromentally sealed which the D50 isnt and it has a very well accepted video feature...
These pictures also speek for themself
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page21.asp"
You would also want to look at the comparator on Imaging resources.com and look at the samples side by side between the cameras even at higher iso..
Peter

Here is the D50 against the D7 in low light first 800 iso next post 3200 iso
The D7 blows the d50 virtually away....
Where there is detail in the D7 there is noise in the D50.....
Thats only 1 year of R+D between those models.

Here at 3200 iso this is a useable iso range on the D7 on the D50 it isnt..

Thats my D700 against the high pixel D5 mk 2 all at 3200 iso .......
compare it to the other 2 and you will see......

Oh yes Rayman, Nikon is now far better in low light performances. Since 2 years now, a lot of professional photographers (including my uncle) are leaving Canon for that unique reason.

If you stick with Canon, the best thing is to wait for their next generation.

Each year we have new camera on the market. The problem is we need to change everything to have the best of the technology. Why they can"t do a camera like a computer with digital processor on a card and cmos updatable? we could invest in a good camera for many years. It sounds a curious idea but reminds you that the first PC were incompatible with each other and everything had to be changed each time. It is time to do things that last longer to stop throwing. Most of new technology (cam, phone, etc...) are designed to spend as much money as possible.

The most important thing, what I understand, is the quality of the lenses. The amount of pixels doesn't matter if the lens are bad. So if you are looking for a camera you should look for the lenses quality. The tecnical development is fast and maybee the next year Canon is the best. Who knows. I think the most important thing is to by the camera you feel is the best at the moment.

In all photografic pictures its the person behind the camera who is the most important thing to do the best pictures regardless of which cameras he use.

the lens is important but the size of the digital captor too. about pixels if the captor is small the quantity of light for each pixel is very small then less pixels can be better than too many pixels for the same size of digital captor. to have a good quality and definition the captor need to be large and sensitive.
In fact you have 3 important thing: the lens, the captor and the digital processor. If only one of them is bad, the others can't work well.
Not sure if my bad english explain that correctly.

marcel wrote:Each year we have new camera on the market. The problem is we need to change everything to have the best of the technology. Why they can"t do a camera like a computer with digital processor on a card and cmos updatable? we could invest in a good camera for many years. It sounds a curious idea but reminds you that the first PC were incompatible with each other and everything had to be changed each time. It is time to do things that last longer to stop throwing. Most of new technology (cam, phone, etc...) are designed to spend as much money as possible.

I´ve invested into a good system with a good camera my tech lust has gone I have what I need .... and I have very good lenses too.
The need for updating every year isnt very big...
Thats why i said to Spyfrog get the newest and best you can get now and keep it for a long time.. !

Since 2 month i have a video camera. I bought it for a tv advertising. My surprise was the photo was better than the photo made with my old camera 10 mega pixel. The video camera have 8 mega pixel (real, no interpolation like many video camera) and the processor are very good. The photo have no noise even without light. Now it is enought for me and i don't need to change my camera.
The part for the video is great: full hd 1920x1080 at 50 fps progressive up to 25 mbits/sec! 64 giga ssd + 2 memory card, tounch screen interface 922 000 pixels! Optical Image Stabilizer.
In two weeks I won 3 times more money than its cost. A very good investment.
Now i can use it just for the fun...

I bought 7d back in march, great camera, I also have the older 5D, that is also a very nice camera. As has been mentioned, the lens are important, I have some very fine glass I purchased over the years as I get some extra money. The 7D is not all that much more expensive than the 60D, though it really depends on what you want and what you can afford.

Word of warning, I know a guy who shot with P & S cameras for many years, he bought a 5D MKII thinking he would have a seamless cross over... wrong, he purchased cheap glass, and the learning curve from a p & S to a DSLR is very steep, the glass was also a major hindrance for him. I bet he struggled with it for 4-6 months before he really started to understand how to shoot with a DSLR camera. I think he is still using the cheap glass, but his pictures are looking better than they were.

Rich

A good thing to do before you take your camera out for the first time is to read the manual. I didn't. So I ended up with two problem:
1) No RAW images because I apparently forgot to enable that setting
2) A color problem (the images is a bit green in my opinion, but I am also unsure off how good my screen is calibrated). I have to confess that I am very bad when it comes to color correction of JPEG images because I almost always shot raw and I also is red-green colorblind..

This is an image of an old engine type called "BT" which was used by one off Sweden's largest private railroads TGOJ (later bought up by the government railroad and used as an independent operator until now, when they will be merged with Green Cargo, the government owned cargo operator).

The BT engines was quite modern when they came. This engine on picture here is manufactured in 1954. During that time, the government railroad was still getting shipments of these old Da engines as shown below (a much more old design which lower performance).

spyfrog wrote:

The attachment BT_lok_ua_forum.jpg is no longer available

A good thing to do before you take your camera out for the first time is to read the manual. I didn't. So I ended up with two problem:
1) No RAW images because I apparently forgot to enable that setting
2) A color problem (the images is a bit green in my opinion, but I am also unsure off how good my screen is calibrated). I have to confess that I am very bad when it comes to color correction of JPEG images because I almost always shot raw and I also is red-green colorblind..

This is an image of an old engine type called "BT" which was used by one off Sweden's largest private railroads TGOJ (later bought up by the government railroad and used as an independent operator until now, when they will be merged with Green Cargo, the government owned cargo operator).

The BT engines was quite modern when they came. This engine on picture here is manufactured in 1954. During that time, the government railroad was still getting shipments of these old Da engines as shown below (a much more old design which lower performance).

The attachment da_lok_uaforum.jpg is no longer available

Your images are not green they are blue to magenta. when you take pictures outdoors either leave your whitebalance to automatic or in case of your
railengine set it to about 5000 kelvin. You shouldnt have to correct them in postpro then anymore
Even if you have a green dominant like in this picture I made today you wont have a tint in the rest of your subjects.....
Peter

That's an interesting photo.
I don't think I've ever seen a horse being pulled back like that, it's back leg muscles look like they're going to snap.

It's a nice image, I think I can see now why people spend money on these cameras - there's no way I could get that result with my $200 wonder.

Benji wrote:That's an interesting photo.
I don't think I've ever seen a horse being pulled back like that, it's back leg muscles look like they're going to snap.

It's a nice image, I think I can see now why people spend money on these cameras - there's no way I could get that result with my $200 wonder.

thanks Benji ! The real challange was the bad weather... you got to freeze the polo motion and its pretty dark so your ending up cranking the iso to
something like 3200 iso.. thats where the good cameras can outperform the cheaper ones ... but in good light even a 200-300 $ piece can make some beautifull
shots.
Peter

An overcast sky have a particular light. There is no bad weather for photography. just a different subject to shoot. I like to adjust the contrast of a shoot of fog. The levels of color (or grey) are very important for a good post process. It is often a detail not referenced when you want to choose a camera. Only a test (specialized magazines, web) can show and compare the quality of this parameter.

marcel wrote:An overcast sky have a particular light. There is no bad weather for photography. just a different subject to shoot. I like to adjust the contrast of a shoot of fog. The levels of color (or grey) are very important for a good post process. It is often a detail not referenced when you want to choose a camera. Only a test (specialized magazines, web) can show and compare the quality of this parameter.

Believe me there is bad weather.... if you shoot polo your shutter speed can increase dramatically if the sky is overhung with clouds...
you can up the iso to a certain point though.
By the way France won the European Polo Championship congrats to France
And I´m worn out after that weekend !
Peter

RAYMAN wrote:

spyfrog wrote:

BT_lok_ua_forum.jpg

Your images are not green they are blue to magenta. when you take pictures outdoors either leave your whitebalance to automatic or in case of your
railengine set it to about 5000 kelvin. You shouldnt have to correct them in postpro then anymore
Even if you have a green dominant like in this picture I made today you wont have a tint in the rest of your subjects.....
Peter

Belive me - it was set to auto AWB. The problem was that Photoshop did something to them that made them appear green in photoshop. When I looked at the picture in windows explorer, they looks alright. The reason there is a blue tint in them now is probably because they looked like they needed it in Photoshop. When I goes back to the original image and looks at it in explorer, it looks alright. I think my PS is having fun on my expense.
Last, I would like to point out that it is extremely hard for a green-red colorblind to color correct images.... you essential shoot in the dark. What looks alright for me with my colorblindness could look whacked out for other people. I wish I could get a perfect color vision but you can't correct that yet.

spyfrog wrote:

RAYMAN wrote:

spyfrog wrote:

The attachment BT_lok_ua_forum.jpg is no longer available

Your images are not green they are blue to magenta. when you take pictures outdoors either leave your whitebalance to automatic or in case of your
railengine set it to about 5000 kelvin. You shouldnt have to correct them in postpro then anymore
Even if you have a green dominant like in this picture I made today you wont have a tint in the rest of your subjects.....
Peter

Belive me - it was set to auto AWB. The problem was that Photoshop did something to them that made them appear green in photoshop. When I looked at the picture in windows explorer, they looks alright. The reason there is a blue tint in them now is probably because they looked like they needed it in Photoshop. When I goes back to the original image and looks at it in explorer, it looks alright. I think my PS is having fun on my expense.
Last, I would like to point out that it is extremely hard for a green-red colorblind to color correct images.... you essential shoot in the dark. What looks alright for me with my colorblindness could look whacked out for other people. I wish I could get a perfect color vision but you can't correct that yet.

There must be something wrong with either your screen or your photoshop.....
Do you have a color management system because they are sometimes setm up so that they only change the colors of Photoshop....
if you use awb and its daylight and its ok in explorer just leave it as it is..

Here is an update from the last match France against Spain which France won..... ... France is champion!
believe me I´m tired today
Both teams went for a swim...
Peter

Thinking of getting a new camera the right time can realy be now.....
Nikon just intoduceed a weather sealed magnesium alloy body with 16MP and probably the same lowlight capabilities the
D700 is so well known for. Its called D7000.......
1080p/24 video ...
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/NikonD7000/"
now comes the good part even the 30 year old lenses that you can get are possible to be used
with ai coupling so there are a lot of gems around for an apple and an egg on the used market that mount and meter on that
new model.. that wasnt the case with the d90 only with the more expensive models...

Price is 1199 $ body and 1499 $ with the 18-105 VR lens.....
So for those who want to switch....

Disclaimer: I know nothing about serious photography.

Spyfrog: Thinking tactically, maybe you could use Photoshop's color analysis functions that represent the color content of a picture in a graphical way (histograms?). Then you could see the red and green as different things ... as bars on a bar chart etc. Or, try changing the image to some kind of false color where red and green are represented other colors that you can distinguish, adjust those, and then turn it back to regular color.

If I could buy, and knew how to use, an expensive camera then the ability to use lots of lenses would be a big factor to me. I would want to be able to use old lenses and ones from other companies than the camera manufacturer.

here are 2 videos made with a preproduction model of the D7000
If you doubleclick on the movie inserts you can go to the youtube site and you can choose 1080p and fullscreen..

Back and forth the pendulum swings, the D7000 is a remarkable sounding camera. Nikon, keep the pressure on Canon It only benefits us the consumer

Rich

I want to get a Kodak Z1012. It's basically
a fancy point and shoot, and that may be enough
for me.

a good camera can do good video and now a good video camera can do good photo. The difference between both world is very little because "pixel race" no longer matters. the real difference is the ergonomic: from this point of view a camera (reflex) is better for photo and a pro video camera is better for movie. If a day we invent the ideal ergonomic for photo and movie, we will have only one equipment for both. I think about a technologie that can change shape depending on what we do. Photo, video and why not phone... rendez vous in a few years to know if I am right.

marcel wrote:a good camera can do good video and now a good video camera can do good photo. The difference between both world is very little because "pixel race" no longer matters. the real difference is the ergonomic: from this point of view a camera (reflex) is better for photo and a pro video camera is better for movie. If a day we invent the ideal ergonomic for photo and movie, we will have only one equipment for both. I think about a technologie that can change shape depending on what we do. Photo, video and why not phone... rendez vous in a few years to know if I am right.

rendez vous at the Photokina... Nikon is working on that with the new evil system you can even use a head up display....pre production probably to be seen
tomorow at Cologne.
Peter

the problem of a Head up display is we lost our natural stereo vision (we have 2 eyes). Is good to see multimedia and environment at the same time but not to shoot photo or video. when we use camera, we can see 3d enviromment all around we then we see throught the camera or on the display screen to shoot what we find interesting. monocle screen is useful for many other thing but it is not for the same thing. and what about when all the technologies will be in 3d (i mean stereo)? we will need a choose: see througt glasses or with our eyes. Also it is difficult to imagine how to use a stereo camera througt a "bi reflex" to see in stereo before the shoot. For now we have stereo camera but with only one eye to shoot because we don't know how to see in stereo througt a camera without lost the environment of our work. that is the next challenge.

ps: my last comment was to know what is the best form to shoot photo and video assuming both are very good and both are the same meaning for the user. We have the technologie but ergonomic keep the first problem. It is why we will have device for photo and device for video for many years. and i say again: rendez vous in a few years .

sorry, for a little OT.... but Iam happy, that a new camera which is perfectly for me is about to be released by NIKON - the brand new D7000 with many cool parameters, functions, HD video external mic in etc. Very usable camera!

I have been reading this thread and I would like to own any of the cameras mentioned. Nikon to me has always been the
the Pro camera and Canon the High-end consumer camera. However from my
own experiences if you are not a Pro the cameras mentioned will hardly ever be used. Are you really going to
carry these cameras around everywhere you go? Fantastic if you do, a waste of money if you don't. I carry a smaller camera with me
that fits in my pocket. Now when I see some interesting subject I have the means to capture the moment all the time. Unless you are in the
same line of work as Marcel or Rayman I wouldn't waste my money.

Steinie makes a good point. We all dream of getting the good stuff and of being able to use it but can we use it to its full potential, afford it, and is it really suited to our needs? Pros, skilled amateurs, and point-and-shooters need different things.

My friends who have studied photography for amateur interest take good pictures with low end DSLR's. I take a camera on my hikes. I got some pictures and movies of a sand storm in the dunes ... at the cost of a camera. An expensive camera could be a burden when hiking or elsewhere when it could be damaged. Can you afford repairs or to consider it disposable?

That's why I'm getting that Kodak for $150 refurbished. I'm not spending
$1,500 for a camera.

There is always a half way too !
I went to the Photokina in Cologne the past 2 days and guess what I took with me... my point and shoot...
but the one I have has all the controls that the big ones also have...
those are cameras like the canon S95 or the Lumix LX 5 or Canon G 12 series.. Sony Hx5 series ..... etc. there´s quite a lot of them to choose from....
small but with all the manual controls to make good pixs
Peter