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Canon 1Ds Mk2 thoughts: when to climb on the FF carousel...
#1

The following are merely thoughts and opinions. Yes, like orifices, everyone has them but every so often we just have a desire to moon out of car windows. Well, maybe that's just me then.
I finally went full-frame yesterday after quite a bit of weighing up.
Tell you the truth, I was more than a little tempted to return to Nikon for the first time since emulsion..and had finally plumped for Canon for crop-sensor digital some years ago with the 350D....er, that'll be Digital Rebel then for overseas cousins. Boy, that name stinks: just the wrong amount of consumerism and feature-bloat implied by this happy-clappy nomenclature, IMO. I perhaps should have read the signs then that Canon lately seem to have made it an increasing feature of new digital cameras to include a very clever balance of the things you think you need and the things you certainly don't. Megapixel-bloat stirs a sediment into waters that then become clouded with multiplicity of AF points(remember when we were quite happy to have just one?). Let slip the slurry of "live-view", video and we start to have a real soup on our hands. When we try to seek light in this lovely mixture we do so by never feeling as if the lambs stop crying(Clarice) until we buy a new lens: and this has to be "glass"( dontcha just hate it how people say this word instead of "lens"? A throwaway nonchalance to the very word which mirrors the very inbuilt obsolesecence that drives our fears). This lens then just has to be something that has to attempt to resolve the corner detail of a shot right to the furthest extremes of the pixellage available...because what is the use of a 21MP camera if we only can resolve 12 of these in Zone C folks.
So we then turn to the great and good that lurk in the fanfest and troglodyte troll-world known as forums: heck, these people are so knowledgeable that I'm in sheer admiration that they ever get to use their cameras, strutting and fretting away about AF-assist points and the like. The dining rooms and lounges of these people must be well-worth a visit: 100% crops enlarged and arrayed on the wall thus: "Well, Elmer, this is a 100% crop of the corner of this building in Florence...this one's of the corner resolution of our cat...", etc;
I'd decided that this was going to be the year that I went full-farme, so I researched, saved my pennies and noted slowly but surely, in the retentive glow of delayed gratification, that, hey, digital cameras do surely depreciate quickly, don't they? And then, just as one is poised to pounce in buying that very things one has dreamed about, all of a sudden it ceases to be the pleasure it was, as it's the seasonal time for The Upgrade.
You know the score: it's autumn(fall); nights are pulling in; those summer shots are away on the external HD where they sit in silent accusation at you never being quite good enough to get the "pro" shot that everyone else seems to who has the next camera up from yours. Also, as the darkness pulls in, it's the last chance to feelgood before the massive coffer-emptying of Christmas: if you don't buy now, you'll have to wait...and you know you'll be skint in January.
And: DING: Photokina. A pre-seasonal snow-flurry of new kit.
But wait a minute: yes, 21MP...oooh, that's a biggun..WOW..Oh my: Digic A Million and Fourteeen: excellent! Now, surely they've done something for photographers, then, it being a camera, like? Hmm: whaddya mean..is that all the weathersealing we can get for that money?? An increase in autobracketing range then..? Er, OK...maybe a tad of an upgrade to the FPS then...?
Welllll, actually...we've given you something even better..!
Go on then: I'm cacking it with anticipation anyway, and it must be ACE for 2 thousand quid....!
...do you wanna...DO YOU wanna...!!?
Yesssfor goodnesssake-!
-Live view.
...!...And...?
(smug pause) video, mate. And bally nice too: beauuuutiful plumage John...!
And thus the promised Bird Of Paradise has all the feathers...and more...it's just that I feel as if they've just been stuck onto the carcase of the last chicken in the shop.
I won't echo the plaintive howls of forumites; I won't blather on about something I know jack about, like slow-release marketing ploys paid out like baited line by senior management of companies who seem to know more about urinating in the shared fishpond than cameras-for-photographers-who-take-pictures.
I found myself pining for the old days, when I bought a battered Nikon F4 and loved every minute of it.
My choices clearly had become: 5D?...5DMk2?...throw the towel in and return to Nikon just out of impotent spite..?
I balanced up that I don't need or want video... and having 21MP for me is most of the time like having a kitcar that can do 150 mph but that most of the roads I'll be on(!) go at 70...ish.
I wanted a vertical grip too...and maybe something a bit chunkier, something that I COULD get decent weathersealing in, something that was...oooh....like a 5D but with maybe a tad more..?...
...In short, I wanted to be a , er, "digital rebel": I wanted the full-farme camera I wanted, with the things I want in it and nothing more. I wanted the ideal camera that would represent for me the cherrypicking of all the features I want, without the tripe I don't, and I want it NOW...and I want the smug, smug glow of satisfaction that I can get it on my terms and opt out of the fevered ratrace; and I want to be able to control my buying rather than having a camera company tell me when and what and how much.
So, for the price of a new 5DMk2, I could have got a used IDsMk2...but I do not have the remotest problem with terms like "obsolete" or "dinosaur", and it felt good to know that the forum-led upgraditis that sells its own granny for a camera that arguably is not the logical evolutionary missing link it could have been, can actually work in our favour: I waited another fortnight: lo and behold, the same dinosaurs seem to have miraculously eroded further in value.
And so, it was with the greatest pleasure that I did indeed get a IDs Mk2 at considerably less than even the cheapest deals on the 5DMk2, and at a tad less than the 5D was when it came out.
This camera is, what, 4 years old. Barely 10 thousand actuations. Just an itty bit weathersealed. And with the just right amount of MPs at 16.7. Flippin' 'eck: 4 years ago this was costing one-sixth of what I bought my house for a few years before that..and I pick this up at a third of its price when new.
Course, I'm just an amateur imagining I'm in long trousers. I've something laughably outmoded, superseded and outclassed by kit that others have.
But innit always going to be the case?
And when we've all got the lambs to stop screaming as we curl up with our Mark Twos, do we then start to hear their little bleats start to sound like " Leica", or "Elmarit", "Summicron"? And just how much IS that Phase One 25 back...?
I fully expect someone will soon get a crackingly better deal than me with a 1Ds Mk3, to be honest. And, I tell ya what, whoever you are: feels good, dunnit?

These are not brilliant pics that follow: I was spooning in a couple of minutes when I was supposed to be gardening but couldn't wait.
But for me, someone who's been fantasising about full-frame for a few years, they're the poodle's plums.
Taken in RAW, a merest tad of sharpening. It was supreme fun just to keep clicking away on the navigator a few more presses than usual and still see the pic enlarge.
Full-farme[edited: sorry, I mean "uncropped" here], followed by 40% crop, followed by 100% crop and something I just threw together. Just because I could, really.
Lens is bogstandard 50mm f1.8, shot at f1.8.

[Image: 12_full.jpg]

[Image: 12crop_40pc.jpg]

[Image: 12crop2.jpg]

[Image: 12final.jpg]

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#2

In haste, because I'm off to see that old black 'n' white fan, Phil.


OH MY GIDDY AUNT! :o

Cave canem
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#3

Best line, of many:
"I won't echo the plaintive howls of forumites; I won't blather on about something I know jack about, like slow-release marketing ploys paid out like baited line by senior management of companies who seem to know more about urinating in the shared fishpond than cameras-for-photographers-who-take-pictures."

They have all of the upgrades and new features ready to go years in advance, and drip them onto the market's upturned faces at a pace guaranteed to keep the sucker's wallets empty.


Can't argue with your reasoning at all--and I applaud you for avoiding the MkIII with it's serious focusing problems.
ANY camera no matter how "obsolete" will get the job done, and saving a few thousand dollarseurospounds leaves room for lenses and....food.
If I hadn't been (literally) forced to buy a new DSLR, something a few years old would have suited me just fine. Let some other jerk absorb the depreciation.
Same with cars and guitars.
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#4

Two days ago, I was standing on the other side of the counter, talking to a young man who wanted to know how much money he had to spend and which lens he needed to spend it on to get good photos. His photos weren't as good as his friends, he only liked 10% of them, and wanted to know how much money he should budget to get to like 90% of what he shot. If I had said $1000, or $2000, told him that the 135/2 or 70-200/2.8 or 14mk2 would do it, he would have bought it - maybe not then, but once he had the money, he would have spent it.

A woman bought a D80 and an 18-200 lens because she didn't like the way the D90 made everything golden and glowy, but needed me to explain what focal lengths meant. She was thinking that she may need to exchange the D80 for a D300 to get the results that she wants, but she was willing to give the cheaper camera a try. I later learned from a co-worker that she was offended by my constantly stressing that she needs to read the camera manual.

Another woman came in to buy a replacement lens cap, and I correctly guessed what camera she had once I saw the cap that she was carrying. She's the only person in months who asked me what books she should read instead of what camera/lens/accessory she should buy.

I saw a great statement from Canon that struck a chord with me. Technological supremacy means nothing without the toughness to come through with the shot you want under any conditions. I couldn't agree more, and it was a brochure for the EOS-1v.

There are certain people who carry cameras that give them a lot of credibility. Nikon 995's and 5700's, Sony F707-717 (may they rest in peace), early Canon G series, and older Nikon and Canon pro-series bodies from both film and digital technologies. An old camera that was great in its day speaks much more loudly to its owner's photographerness that a new camera that's better than the old one ever was. Today, owning a Nikon D3 just means that you can afford a Nikon D3. Using a camera that's lost the oreol of a marketing campaign is a mark of distinction.

Congratulations.
Now go take more pictures.

matthewpiers.com • @matthewpiers | robertsonphoto.blogspot.com | @thewsreviews • thewsreviews.com
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#5

Congratulations on you new camer Zig Smile

I am very happy for you!

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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#6

Too many delicious sentences in Matthew's post to quote them all.

There's a huge camera market out there, and as many different approaches as there are people who have discretionary income to spend.

At a wedding today I crept in close to almost every LCD screen I could see--some were pocket cameras and some were high-tech phones w/cameras.
The "mistakes" I saw were numerous, mainly white balance and flash issues, but even using my new DSLR it was difficult to beat some of the photos that were grabbed by consumers, not photographers, especially when the decisive moment is considered. Big Grin
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#7

Good thoughts all. You must have passed an exam in advanced self-restraint for some of the scenarios you encounter, Matt.

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#8

Hi Zig,

Congrats on the 1Ds2 - wonderful choice.

Canon stuff.
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