Buying New- Sony A700 or Cannon 50D

[fragged3d]

I'm set on the 5D MKII, what lense do you guys suggest for shooting portrait shots?

 

[Mgw189]

50mm or 85mm are very popular prime lenses for portraiture.

 

[sultan]

I still don't get why you chose to skip Nikon. Nikon D40s are cheap low end cameras. You can't say that Nikon sucks because you held a $400 Nikon and it felt like crap next to a $1500 Canon. Hold a D300 or D700 if you want a feel for a Nikon. The better Nikons feel more solid and comfortable than Canons in their class.

If you still prefer Canon, that's fine too. Its all a personal preference.

 

[zioneffect564]

Yeah i don't understand why you're throwing nikon out the window. A D700 in my honest opinion is far better than the 5D Mark II and that's only if you can get one of those within a couple of months. They have been sold out for forever and its just because of that HD video which really who needs that? You have to focus manually yourself anyways. I could see the 5D if you're shooting landscapes and needing to crop but other wise you have excessively large files on your computer. The nikon is actually cheaper but it's whatever feels best in your hands. Nikon also makes all of their own glass but canon doesnt.

 

[Village Idiot]

Yeah i don't understand why you're throwing nikon out the window. A D700 in my honest opinion is far better than the 5D Mark II and that's only if you can get one of those within a couple of months. They have been sold out for forever and its just because of that HD video which really who needs that? You have to focus manually yourself anyways. I could see the 5D if you're shooting landscapes and needing to crop but other wise you have excessively large files on your computer. The nikon is actually cheaper but it's whatever feels best in your hands. Nikon also makes all of their own glass but canon doesnt.

Far better? The 5D MKII almost matches the D700's high ISO performance, and when you do down size a 21mp 5D MKII RAW file to 13mp (or whatever the D700's size is), it looks better at the same ISO. Plus, I can print off 30"x45" prints and not have to edit it to hell in back for sharpness in the up size.

Who really needs HD video? Ask the people that bought the camera for it.

What's excessive? 1tb of storage says that my files aren't excessive in size. Plus excessively large files are great to work with. If something happens like an image turns out soft or a lens front focuses or back focuses, then I can fix it with a bit of sharpening and down sizing and it looks perfect.

I mean, the 5D MKII does has a slightly different version of a sensor found in a $7000 camera, so for the price, it's a good deal.

Please point out where you've seen that Canon doesn't make all of their own glass and Nikon does?

I got my 5D MKII in December about two weeks before Christmas. I could point you at several different sites that have them in stock. You should check before making statements like that.

http://www.adorama.com/ICA5DM2.html
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001G5ZTLS/ref=pd_bbs_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235056546&sr=8-1[/ame]

 

[inTempus]

A D700 in my honest opinion is far better than the 5D Mark II and that's only if you can get one of those within a couple of months.

Far better, eh? According to who? There are people ordering and getting 5DMK2's all over the place. At the most you'll wait a week or so, depending on where you order it.

They have been sold out for forever and its just because of that HD video which really who needs that?

Really? Who told you this? The same guy who said the D700 is "far better" than the 5DMK2? The D90 has this feature as well, is this the only reason people buy D90's?

I could see the 5D if you're shooting landscapes and needing to crop but other wise you have excessively large files on your computer.

Excessively large, eh? That's pretty funny. Maybe if you're running a P90 wih 512k memory and a 10GB hard drive. :mrgreen:

 

[fragged3d]

File size is the least of my worries, I have the computer to handle them. I took a pan shot last year and it was 16 shots long, I couldn't wait to get home so we tried processing it on my works most powerful computer, c2d with 2gb ram. The shot took an hour and a half to process and after it crashed, did the same thing on my computer at home and it took seven and a half minutes and was successful.

I have a huge computer I built specifically for web design and photoshop. It has a 2.66ghz quad, 8gb ram, 1tb in raid, 2 8800gts 512mb video cards and 4 22" Dell monitors.

I have not made a commitment yet but I'm sure in my mind, I still want to read and compare. This is an expensive investment to just buy on impulse.

 

[fragged3d]

50mm or 85mm are very popular prime lenses for portraiture.

I ask because all of the tutorials I have seen the guy used a 70-200mm and reccomended that size.

 

[Tayfun]

Far better? The 5D MKII almost matches the D700's high ISO performance, and when you do down size a 21mp 5D MKII RAW file to 13mp (or whatever the D700's size is), it looks better at the same ISO. Plus, I can print off 30"x45" prints and not have to edit it to hell in back for sharpness in the up size.

According to dpreview.com's 5D MKII camera review and comparison by D700, up to 800 iso there seem to be no difference. But after that level of iso, 5D MKII begins to make more noise reduction (loss of detail begins) and the advantage of 21 MP goes away, D700 takes the lead. But actually at 21 MP up to 800 iso good noise performance is great. You mensioned that, if you down the MP to 13 MP, the iso performance gets better. Are you sure because as I know, the iso performance is involved by the light collectors' size of the sensor.

 

[Village Idiot]

According to dpreview.com's 5D MKII camera review and comparison by D700, up to 800 iso there seem to be no difference. But after that level of iso, 5D MKII begins to make more noise reduction (loss of detail begins) and the advantage of 21 MP goes away, D700 takes the lead. But actually at 21 MP up to 800 iso good noise performance is great. You mensioned that, if you down the MP to 13 MP, the iso performance gets better. Are you sure because as I know, the iso performance is involved by the light collectors' size of the sensor.

If you down size the photo. Like in Photo Shop.


Shooting JPEG with Noise Reduction on:

Compared to the Nikon it is harder to call, with the 5D Mark II having almost double the pixel count of the D700. At the pixel level there is very little difference in noise up to ISO 800, but you can see Canon applying increasingly high noise reduction from then on, meaning that by ISO 3200 the 5D Mark II's resolution advantage has been wiped out and the the D700 steps into the lead, albeit by a whisker. The fine grained noise produced by the D700 is less objectionable in pictures than the rather more processed looking noise and noise reduction of the 5D Mark II, but in truth at normal enlargement sizes the difference between these two cameras will be minimal. Of course you can also turn down the noise reduction a little on the 5D Mark II if you prefer - see the next page.

What this means is that Canon has managed to walk the tightrope between high resolution and manageable noise pretty successfully, retaining a good balance of detail and noise in the most commonly used ISO range, and providing usable output at higher settings through heavy - but not excessive - noise reduction. While it may not the first choice for users who need the best high ISO performance (and over 6400 it's really 'emergency use only'), it is still a very good option that will produce comparable results in the same circumstances as the D700 - certainly at normal enlargement sizes.

Shooting RAW:

In this RAW comparison you get a better idea of how noisy these three cameras actually are without the veiling effect of in-camera noise reduction. As seen earlier, the Sony A900 is quite a noisy camera compared to the 5D Mark II and the D700, which are suprisingly similar (we'd expect the Nikon to be less noisy, but the difference is actually very small). All the way to ISO 25,600 the D700 and 5D Mark II are very close in terms of noise and fine detail retained, with the D700 slightly better at all settings. These results, especially at the top two ISO settings illustrate how much in-camera noise reduction is applied to JPEGs, and that both the 5D Mark II and D700 have very effective noise reduction algorithms.

Of course the D700 is less noisy because of the larger pixels, but not by much and the resolution advantage of the Canon means you can down size the photos in post processing to help get rid of noise.

100% crop of an image shot at 4000 ISO:


That shot resized for web use to 800x533:


Practically 0 noise in the resized shot.

 

[Tayfun]

If you down size the photo. Like in Photo Shop.


Shooting JPEG with Noise Reduction on:


Shooting RAW:


Of course the D700 is less noisy because of the larger pixels, but not by much and the resolution advantage of the Canon means you can down size the photos in post processing to help get rid of noise.

100% crop of an image shot at 4000 ISO:


That shot resized for web use to 800x533:


Practically 0 noise in the resized shot.

Of course such noise management by 21MP is great as I mensioned before and up to 800 MP the same noise level by 12 MP camera and 21 MP camera is likely unbeleivable, thats ok. But on your downsize sample, does it give lower noise or by downsizing is it more difficult to see the same noise? I think on the %100 crop photo and the resized one have the same noise but it is difficult to see it on the smaller one. But by this I don't want to mean "Nikon is far better or the opposite". Yes as my opinion video is not necessary but it is a plus of course.

I am satisfied with my equipment but one day if a have to change system, my preference will be Nikon D700 probably. Because I won't need such resolution, but will need water proof body and durability where Nikon wins here. Expecially I hear a lot of Err99 issue for 5DMKII but none for Nikon. I gave the link where a few bodies compared on an Antartica trip.
Antarctica 2009 - What Worked

But let me say; we are talking about 5D MKII, or D700. It sounds to me funny to call any of them bad, or net enough :lmao:. As my opinion for an amateur shooter any of the DSLR on the market will be more than enough :mrgreen:
Best
Tayfun

 

[inTempus]

We've been playing with sRAW and high ISO noise over on the Canon forums for a while and it would appear that images shot in sRAW do in fact display noticeably less noise.

Keep in mind that the 5DMK2 has less space between its microlenses than the D700 does and this helps to reduce noise. The engineers at Canon were trying to cheat physics which dictate the higher the MP the higher the noise levels. It would seem they've done a pretty good job of doing that.

With the 50D they actually achieved a "gapless" microlense array on the crop sensor to help control noise. It's pretty darn impressive they packed 15MP into a 1.6x sensor. I think Canon has pushed the 1.6x sensor to the limits of what's doable. I suspect their next xxD body will use a 1.3x because as we all know, the marketing people demand more MP's with each new release.

Here's a sample of the noise differences on the 50D going between RAW and sRAW at 3200 ISO (which is very high for the 50D).

First, here's what the original shot looked like at 3200:

Here's a 100% crop from a RAW file:

Here's a 100% crop from a sRAW file:

As you can see, the CA noise levels in the sRAW appear to be reduced pretty noticeably.

 

[inTempus]

I am satisfied with my equipment but one day if a have to change system, my preference will be Nikon D700 probably. Because I won't need such resolution, but will need water proof body and durability where Nikon wins here. Expecially I hear a lot of Err99 issue for 5DMKII but none for Nikon. I gave the link where a few bodies compared on an Antartica trip.
Antarctica 2009 - What Worked

While this story is concerning, it's purely anecdotal. 70% of the people (77 people total) on the trip where shooting Canon. 26 of those shooters were carrying new 5DMK2's. 6 of those had various failures, 3 died permanently and 3 had hiccups but continued to work. The sample size is totally skewed, there were FAR more Canons onboard.

Let's not mention that if you're going into adverse conditions, it's best to take the right tool for the job. The Canon manual tells you the 5DMK2 is NOT weather sealed. If you want a weather sealed camera, take a 1D. Even though its not weather sealed 20 of the 5DMK2's functioned flawlessly. More than the number of D700 that functioned flawlessly, because there were far fewer D700's.

 

[Tayfun]

We've been playing with sRAW and high ISO noise over on the Canon forums for a while and it would appear that images shot in sRAW do in fact display noticeably less noise.

Keep in mind that the 5DMK2 has less space between its microlenses than the D700 does and this helps to reduce noise. The engineers at Canon were trying to cheat physics which dictate the higher the MP the higher the noise levels. It would seem they've done a pretty good job of doing that.

With the 50D they actually achieved a "gapless" microlense array on the crop sensor to help control noise. It's pretty darn impressive they packed 15MP into a 1.6x sensor. I think Canon has pushed the 1.6x sensor to the limits of what's doable. I suspect their next xxD body will use a 1.3x because as we all know, the marketing people demand more MP's with each new release.

Here's a sample of the noise differences on the 50D going between RAW and sRAW at 3200 ISO (which is very high for the 50D).

First, here's what the original shot looked like at 3200:

Here's a 100% crop from a RAW file:

Here's a 100% crop from a sRAW file:

As you can see, the CA noise levels in the sRAW appear to be reduced pretty noticeably.

So it seems like that pixel binning works well. I know that they designed new type of small photosites which is able to collect more light. But it is said that 50D gave more noise than 40D. You wrote that 5DMKII had less space between its microlenses than D700 have and that helped to reduce noise? I couldn't understand that sorry. Should less space not make it hard to collect light so make it difficult to reduce noise?

 

[inTempus]

You wrote that 5DMKII had less space between its microlenses than D700 have and that helped to reduce noise? I couldn't understand that sorry. Should less space not make it hard to collect light so make it difficult to reduce noise?

Here's a blog that explains it in some detail. I wasn't clear, it's not just the gapless (or reduced gap) design that helps to improve ISO performance, it's coupled with new photo diodes that are supposed to be able to gather more light.

Canon’s new sensor design « Mayank’s Viewpoint