Nikon D700 for a Serious Amateur?

I’ve had more free time lately, so I’ve been photographing more often and also sorting and rating my photographs from the past 12 months.  In a sense I’ve been rediscovering my hobby, and I’ve started feeling the desire for a full-frame camera again: less DOF, better high-ISO performance, larger viewfinder, no conversion factor, etc.  Although 6 months ago I decided that I don’t need a full-frame body, I allowed myself to at least consider the alternatives and get informed.  Since size and weight matter to me, and I’ve never had much interest in Minolta or Sony, I’m left with two choices: Nikon D700 and Canon 5D mark II.

So I read up on the Nikon: the baby D3 is nevertheless big, heavy and expensive, but it’s very, very appealing.  It’s a true photographer’s camera: absolute top AF and high-ISO performance, excellent viewfinder, easy mirror lock-up, built-in viewfinder blind, etc, etc, etc.  For a moment I even considered switching from Canon to Nikon.  Now, this is all just a mental game, so I went through the exercise.

Only few things remained unchanged from the times of film, but the following truth still holds: choosing a camera body forces you to choose a camera system.  My current system consists of a wide-angle zoom, a normal prime, a portrait prime, a tele-zoom, a flash and a remote release, and I am a big fan of Canon’s f/4 zooms.  I’ve found the 17-40, 24-105 and 70-200 to hit the optimal compromise between size, weight, price and optical quality, and I was very disappointed to find out that all of Nikon’s high-quality FX zooms are f/2.8.  They might be better than Canon’s, especially the wide-angles ones, but the extra stop brings a along a huge penalty in size, weight and price.

Still, Nikon’s appeal was so strong, that I went to Calumet and played with a D700 and a 24-70/2.8.  Pretty quickly, with a pinch of regret and a huge sigh of relief, I decided that the combo is too large and heavy, too expensive to simply toss it in the trunk of the car, and the 24-70 is too short for a one-lens combination.

So while I find the D700 to be the perfect body for a serious amateur like me, the FX zooms are clearly “too professional” for me.  If Nikon made a series of f/4 zooms, my life would become very difficult, but as things are, I’m back to my three old options:

1. stay with the Canon 40D and ignore full-frame for a few more years,
2. add a Canon 5D and a 24-105/4 to my system, or
3. add a Canon 5D mark II and a 24-105/4 to my system.

Alternative 1 is already very good, but alternatives 2 and 3 have the following advantages:

• larger viewfinder and better high-ISO performance,
• a perfect portrait system (less DOF),
• extreme wide angle capability: 5D with 17-40,
• 5D with 24-105 alone is good enough for most photographic situations, so I can carry less gear on non-photographic trips,
• 5D with 24-105 and 40D with 70-200 give me continuous coverage from 24 to 320 mm (due to the 1.6 crop factor of the 40D), so I might never have to change lenses again!

The last two points are very important to me, because I’ve had problems with dust and missed shots in India, both due to constantly changing lenses.

My Favorite Auto-Focus Setting (Revisited)

About a year ago I wrote about my favorite AF setting, and I’m happy to report that I’m as enthusiastic as ever about it.  The basic idea is that I do not want the shutter release to activate the AF system.  On my Canon 30D I

• activate only the middle AF sensor,
• choose continuous AF
• swap the functionality of the shutter-release and exposure-lock buttons by setting the value of custom function 4 to 1.

A half-press of the shutter button now activates the exposure lock and a full-press releases the shutter, a quick press of the exposure-lock button focuses the lens once, a press-and-hold focuses continuously.  So now I have the choice of

1. manual focus,
2. single-shot AF,
3. continuous AF

all without taking my eye away from the viewfinder.  This setting absolutely rocks for street or photojournalistic type of photography.  Plus it’s perfect for portraits because I can focus once, then take a series of images where the subject varies his or her facial expressions, and I don’t need to go through the “focus-then-recompose” before each image.

When I recently got a new Canon 40D, I found out that there is no custom function 4 any more.  Instead there are groups of custom functions, and on the back of the camera there is a new button called “AF ON.”

I’ve been able to achieve a very similar AF functionality on the Canon 40D to that of the 30D by setting C. FnIV-1 (Shutter button/AF-ON button) to 3 (AE lock/Metering + AF start) and C. FnIV-2 (AF-ON/AE lock utton switch) to 1 (Enable).

I recommend these settings wholeheartedly, but if you decide to try them out, plan at least two weeks for the transition and make sure you don’t have any important shoots during that time.  Otherwise you might end up with a bunch of out-of-focus photos…

My New Camera and the Megapixel Wars

I’ve been preaching for years that if one knows how to sharpen properly, then 8-10 megapixel (MP) is enough for A3 prints.  So when Panasonic and Olympus recently released new cameras with new sensors but still with 12 MP, I took that as an indication that the MP wars are over.

Well, wishful thinking my friends!    In March 2009 Canon released a new body in their entry-level series, the EOS 500D, with a 15.1 MP sensor.  On an entry-level body!!!  What for???  By the way, this is the same sensor found in the Canon 50D, on which Harold Merklinger reported on Luminous Landscape in December 2008.  He found out that the resolution of this 15.1 MP sensor exceeds the resolution of many top-notch Canon lenses, including some L-series lenses, at their optimum aperture!!!

Please, let’s stop and think about this for a second!  The users of the Rebel bodies usually know almost nothing about aperture numbers and shutter speeds, let alone optimal apertures.  They usually own one or two cheap zooms with laughable resolving power and no tripod of any kind.  So what do these photographers need 15.1 MP for?!?!  Somebody please enlighten me…

Anyhow, enough whining.  I drew my consequences out of the MP wars and bought me a new old camera — a Canon 40D.  It’s been discontinued for about 6 months now, so if you find any new stock, the prices are excellent.  I was lucky to find a 40D for 665 €, so I didn’t hesitate for long.  My Canon 30D is 3.5 years old and if it broke two months from now (which I don’t think it will), I’d have to buy a 50D or a 60D in a hurry.  For those who’ve already forgotten the 40D, here is a comparison with the 30D.

By the way, the new 21 MP Canon 5D markII body (which I wanted to have) has a higher MP count than the 50D, but being a full-format body, its pixel pitch is lower.  In that same article Harold Mecklinger reports that the 5Dmk2 is OK with most L-series lenses, and that’s good news.  However before Canon increases the pixel count once again, they need to upgrade virtually all their lenses.  The 85/1.2 II and most super-teles can remain unchanged, but all others need a resolution boost.

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PS: Just in case you are wondering, I’m not saying that the 40D is the best camera out there.  Since I have a Canon system, I had to choose a Canon body, and the 40D is the one that best fits my needs and my budget at this time.  If I had three wishes on how to improve the 40D, they would be: image stabilization in the body, a larger viewfinder, better AF in low-light.  If I had three more wishes, then I’d say better high-ISO performance, full-format sensor and smaller and lighter body.

Dust on the Sensor

This is what happens to a perfectly clean dSLR sensor after 12 days of shooting in dry and dusty India.  I guess if I’m making a trip longer than two weeks I’ll have to carry sensor-cleaning “tools” in addition to everything else…

Since I have a small photo opportunity tonight, I’ll clean the sensor immediately.

Do I Need a Full-Frame dSLR?

If I were to really, and I mean really stretch my budget, I could get a Canon 5D mark II (5DmkII).  And if I were to ever get it, now is the ideal moment — so I’d be able to use it on my upcoming trip to India.  So, should I?

What would be the advantages of a full-frame body for me personally?

• Great high-ISO performance.  This is very important for me, so two thumbs up.
• Larger viewfinder due to the larger sensor.  Very nice!
• Canon’s newest imaging technology.  According to DxO mark I can expect highest quality images, overall 33% better than from my 3-year old 30D.  That’s very significant, but I already talked about high-ISO performance above, so when I limit the comparison to color depth and dynamic range, the numbers show only 11% improvement.  That’s not enough, especially since I subscribe to the theory that a great photographer with a mediocre camera will take much better pictures than a mediocre photographer with a great camera.
• No crop factor.  Intuitively I used to think of myself as a wide-angle type of guy, so full-frame would be just the thing for me, right?  Well, not quite.  I just examined my four- and five-star images and guess what? It seems that I am a mid-tele kind of guy!

  If I were to get a full-format camera, I’d use the 17-40 for 19% of my shots, the 50mm lens 16%, the 70-200 lens 40% of the time, and I’d miss or have to crop 25% of all shots! So for me no crop-factor seems to be a disadvantage.

• Better AF.  Apparently the AF is a bit better than the 30D, but not radically better.  I recently used a Nikon D300 in the light of three candles and a TV, and the AF did not hesitate once — pretty amazing.  Such performance is much better than my Canon 30D, and according to first test reports on the Internet, also better than the 5DmkII.

Unfortunately, the 5DmkII also has several other disadvantages:

• Very expensive.  OK, so it’s space-age technology and cheaper than a few other bodies.  I don’t earn any money with my camera, so for me the price alone is almost a deal-breaker.
• Very large.  Yeah, there are even larger bodies out there, but I want small.  Something between a Canon 450D and 30D would be ideal.
• Too many pixels.  21 MP is just too much for what I do.  I’ll have to buy more memory cards, a larger hard drive, a faster computer, wait longer for backups, etc.  I’ve learned to sharpen images properly, so I get very good 30×45 cm (12×18″) prints from my current 8 MP body.  If I had 10 or 12 MP I could crop more, but that’s it.  In case I do get the 5DmkII, I’ll set it permanently to sRAW1 and produce 10 MP files.
• No in-body IS.  I would very much like IS, but none of my lenses are IS, and Canon and Nikon do not offer in-body IS.  If I were to change systems, Pentax would be the top contender, mostly due to IS and my familiarity with the system.
• I need a new lens strategy.  If I look at the graph above again, I see that it makes sense to swap the 17-40/4 for a 24-105/4.  I’d miss 3% of the wide-angle images, but I’d be able to take 32% more normal and short-tele images without changing the lens.  Wow, that would be good!  But it would cost money, and if I don’t want to miss 25% of my tele-shots, I’d also have to swap the 70-200/4 for a 70-300/4.5-5.6 DO IS or 75-300/4-5.6 IS.  But that would mean putting non-L lenses on a top-notch body, which makes little sense.  So I’ll have to live with the 200 mm limitation and crop 25% of my shots.  Which would speak for the 21 MP, which I wanted to turn off.
• 14 bit RAW images.  On paper this sounds good, but it makes for even larger files, and noone has reported any real-life increase in image quality.
• Not that reliable. Michael Reichmann reports that although not exposed to extreme weather or temperatures 23% of the 5DmkII on his Antarctic expedition failed at one time or another.  Hmm…

So, what to do?  It seems that the Canon 5D Mark II produces mixed feelings, and in my case the negatives seems to outweigh by a good margin.  So what are the alternatives?

1. 5DmkII + 24-105/4 and 30D + 70-200/4, then sell the 17-40/4.  Sounds good, but I’ll have to spend a lot of money, lug two cameras around, and I’d still only have IS in my shorter lens.
2. Get a 5D (mark I).  It is moderately priced, has the large viewfinder and the ideal pixel count, but only a slight edge over my 30D in terms of ISO and overall image quality.  Plus it’s still large and heavy.
3. Switch to Pentax.  A K20D + 16-50/2.8 + 60-250/4 sounds sweet: IS, relatively small, relatively light, relatively inexpensive.  But I’ll have to change systems, will not gain image quality, and the viewfinder will not be as large as with a full-frame camera (but nicer than the Canon 30D).
4. Change to Nikon D700 or Sony Alpha 900.  This is just theoretical, since it brings virtually no advantages, but all the disadvantages of a new system.

And the winner is …  alternative 5: stay with the 30D for as long as it works and concentrate on the images.