upgrade question.

AnnieHuley · Mar 22, 2013

Hi All,

I know there are many many many threads like this, but please don't shoo me out. I've read through lots of pages of them and still think I could use a little advice

I have a canon t3 right now, with the 18-55 kit lens a 50mm 1.8 and a tamron 70-300 f:4-5.6

I don't have a lot right now to upgrade, but I would like to upgrade my equipment. I primarily use the 50mm lens.
I'm looking mostly for a better ability to take photos in low light without grain. I would like to do this without flash as I want to take photos at a friends wedding soon (Not as a job, just want to get some photos in for fun while I am there...)

Three ideas I have come up with are:

Canon 60D body
Canon 5D body
Tamron 28-75mm f:2.8 lens

If I get the 5D, I believe the only lens that would work would be my 50mm. It would take a while to be able to afford another lens. The Tamron lens on the t3 body would allow me better pictures than my kit lens, but wouldn't actually allow me to use a lower aperture than my 50mm so it doesn't seem like much of an upgrade in that specific area, although it would be a great investment overall...

So opinions would be great.

Also: Does anyone know if the Tamron lens would work on a 5D body? What about the Sigma I already have (I know it's nothing special, but better than nothing, and definitely would produce better results on a full frame if it does work! The lens has the red dot on it, like my 50mm, so I THINK it would but I am not sure)

I reaaally don't want to spend more than $600...

David444 · Mar 22, 2013

Your Tamron 70-300 will work on the 5D, what Sigma lens do you own?

If your budget is set at $600 then I would suggest a 5D. If you can swing more then look at a used 5DII, at around $1100 they are a bargain.

AnnieHuley · Mar 22, 2013

David444 said:
Your Tamron 70-300 will work on the 5D, what Sigma lens do you own?

If your budget is set at $600 then I would suggest a 5D. If you can swing more then look at a used 5DII, at around $1100 they are a bargain.

I'm sorry, I misspoke (or mistyped) the 70-300 is a sigma.

David444 · Mar 22, 2013

Also will work with the 5D.

AnnieHuley · Mar 22, 2013

I wouldn't have anything lower than a 50mm though. But I could maybe find funds for the 28-75 with the money I got selling the t3 and kit lens or if I get any of the jobs I applied for! lol

Tiller · Mar 22, 2013

A 50mm is a lot wider on a full frame 5d than it is on your t3.

If you use your 50 the most, I would suggest getting the 50 1.4.

texkam · Mar 23, 2013

I'm looking mostly for a better ability to take photos in low light without grain. I would like to do this without flash as I want to take photos at a friends wedding soon

The body upgrades you mention will not produce a significant difference in this area. If you want to shoot the wedding with ambient light, consider renting some fast glass, but ultimately I would suggest mastering the craft of off-camera flash.

AnnieHuley · Mar 23, 2013

This is why I am so confused, some say going full frame will make a big difference, others say glass... but the 50mm should be able to produce good results, it's a pretty fast lens, right? So that is what made me think a body upgrade would help, then following that up with a lens shortly thereafter...

I've never used a full-frame so I don't know how significant the difference would be.

The 5D is very old, is it still a good camera? $500 seems like next to nothing to put down on a professional body. I was suprised to find I could afford any at all.

Derrel · Mar 23, 2013

A $500 Canon 5D would be a worthwhile purchase, I think. I have one. It's a decent low-light camera, but not as good as say, some of the new Nikon compacts with high-MP count Sony-made sensors. Canon JUST announced two new EOS bodies yesterday!!! Both have an 18-megapixel CMOS sensor, and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that this new 18-MP sensor is going to be significantly newer and better-performing than the one in the 60D. I think it's possible that these next two bodies will have vastly better High-ISO performance than the 60D and the 7D have...those two sensors are already two (or even three) generations behind what SONY has come up for and sold to Nikon and Pentax, and is also using in their own SONY-branded cameras.

For good, low-light images, decent high-ISO performance is very nice to have. So is a wide-aperture lens, like a 50mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4 or an 85mm f/1.8 lens, or a fast wide-angle, like a 35mm f/2. Now, on a full-frame sensor, a 35mm lens is a great indoor/party/wedding focal length, and is one of my favorites. Also, a 24mm f/2.8 is very useful, and with its short focal length, it does not magnify things much, so slooooow shutter speeds like 1/15 can easily be hand-held indoors by most people. On full-frame, an 85mm/1.8 lens is a powerful tool!!! It has "some" reach, and very high sharpness, and is also easy to hand-hold. Surprise,surprise,surprise: the Canon 35mm f/2, 50mm 1.4, and 85mm 1.8 prime lenses are all "affordable", and are plenty good for professional results. This is why I say a 5D for $500 makes sense; you can buy it two of the most-needed lenses, affordably, and then have a good set-up, affordably.

The way different focal lengths perform on Canon's 1.6x bodies and Full-frame bodies is VERY significant. Full frame "does" change most everything. On FF, a 24mm is a wide. A 35mm is a semi-wide. A 50mm is a normal. And 85mm is a USEFUL, usable, handy telephoto when indoors; on 1.6x, an 85mm becomes a very narrow angle of view lens that is NOT very useful indoors, except at distances over 30 feet, or for "sniping" close-ups. The differences are very real. They key is to buy the right lenses for what one wants to accomplish.

AnnieHuley · Mar 23, 2013

I have looked into the perspective change on the lenses and I think I will be okay with that. I love my 50mm but it will be nice to not have to back up so far.

Yes it does seem like a good idea to upgrade my 50mm to a 1.4, which I will probably do after upgrading to a good telephoto zoom lens.

Does the Tamron 28-75 work on a FF?

I have a harder time being sure with the non-canon lenses what will fit as they dont say EF or EF-S...

David444 · Mar 24, 2013

Yes, the Tamron 28-75mm is a full frame lens.

TCampbell · Mar 24, 2013

Derrel said:
A $500 Canon 5D would be a worthwhile purchase, I think. I have one. It's a decent low-light camera, but not as good as say, some of the new Nikon compacts with high-MP count Sony-made sensors. Canon JUST announced two new EOS bodies yesterday!!! Both have an 18-megapixel CMOS sensor, and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that this new 18-MP sensor is going to be significantly newer and better-performing than the one in the 60D. I think it's possible that these next two bodies will have vastly better High-ISO performance than the 60D and the 7D have...those two sensors are already two (or even three) generations behind what SONY has come up for and sold to Nikon and Pentax, and is also using in their own SONY-branded cameras.

For good, low-light images, decent high-ISO performance is very nice to have. So is a wide-aperture lens, like a 50mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4 or an 85mm f/1.8 lens, or a fast wide-angle, like a 35mm f/2. Now, on a full-frame sensor, a 35mm lens is a great indoor/party/wedding focal length, and is one of my favorites. Also, a 24mm f/2.8 is very useful, and with its short focal length, it does not magnify things much, so slooooow shutter speeds like 1/15 can easily be hand-held indoors by most people. On full-frame, an 85mm/1.8 lens is a powerful tool!!! It has "some" reach, and very high sharpness, and is also easy to hand-hold. Surprise,surprise,surprise: the Canon 35mm f/2, 50mm 1.4, and 85mm 1.8 prime lenses are all "affordable", and are plenty good for professional results. This is why I say a 5D for $500 makes sense; you can buy it two of the most-needed lenses, affordably, and then have a good set-up, affordably.

The way different focal lengths perform on Canon's 1.6x bodies and Full-frame bodies is VERY significant. Full frame "does" change most everything. On FF, a 24mm is a wide. A 35mm is a semi-wide. A 50mm is a normal. And 85mm is a USEFUL, usable, handy telephoto when indoors; on 1.6x, an 85mm becomes a very narrow angle of view lens that is NOT very useful indoors, except at distances over 30 feet, or for "sniping" close-ups. The differences are very real. They key is to buy the right lenses for what one wants to accomplish.

The latest generation of Canon sensors seem to be giving nearly 2 stops of improvement in ISO. I upgraded to a 5D III from a 5D II and while the 5D II is _significantly_ better than in ISO performance than any APS-C sensor camera that I've seen, the 5D III is even better still (noticeably).

As far as Canon vs. Nikon... they're really extremely close and neither is clearly better. For example, Nikon seems to have just *slightly* better dynamic range when used at lowest possible ISO. But Canon actually has *slightly* better dynamic range when shooting at a high ISO. The latest scores I've seen seem to be indicating Canon is slightly ahead of Nikon on low-noise at high ISOs. I should note that DxO (and only DxO) published a report to the contrary, but then I learned that DxO was resizing their images (which tends to smooth noise).

The latest technology is usually engineered for the high-end flag-ship cameras and then trickles down into the mid-range and entry level cameras later. Full-frame cameras can have larger physical photo-site sizes (the light detecting components that cover the surface of the sensor) and a larger photo-site does a better job of detecting light. If you compare a full-frame DSLR to an APS-C crop-frame DSLR you'll generally find the full-frame has better low-noise performance for a combination of these reasons.

In the size that MOST people tend to use their images (not displayed at 100% zoom) these differences are difficult to notice. In other words, while I wont say there isn't any difference, I will say that the performance is so close that most people wont notice and it's probably not worth agonizing over the choice.

I shoot with a Canon. Not because it's "better", but because that's how I started the system... and I'm a bit too heavily invested to switch systems. But the same is true of Nikon.

I don't want to pump-up your expectations for this wedding you mentioned. Just to be clear... the bride & groom are NOT counting on your photos, right? I ask this because I don't want you to have an illusions that if only you could buy a new camera then you'd be able to take these low-light wedding photos.

The gear to take fabulous wedding photos inside a dark church is basically a full-frame recent/current-generation DSLR (and those are usually at least $2k) and an f/2.8 or faster lens such as a 70-200mm f/2.8 (there goes another $2k). Switching from a T3 body to a 60D or 5D (original generation) body with any lens other than your 50mm f/1.8 (and with that you'd need to be close) is still going to result in a fair bit of noise.

A typical church wedding photo exposure for me might be something like this: ISO 3200, f/2.8, 1/60th of a second if I get lucky, but more often the shutter speed would need to be 1/30th and just occasionally slower than that. With a camera that can handle ISO 6400 and still have acceptably low noise you can increase the shutter speeds so now you're at 1/60th to 1/125th. With either of the cameras you menionted (T3, 60D, or 5D) cranking to ISO 6400 is either (a) not possible (a 5D original maxes out at ISO 3200 and that's in "extended" range), or (b) would have a LOT of noise in the image. If you had a Canon 5D III or 6D, or a Nikon D800 or D600, then you could shoot at these ISOs and, while you'd see some noise if you look at the images closely, it really wont be too terribly bad (and at most "web-sized" images you wont see the noise at all. Even a used 5D II would be extremely good (not quite as good as the current generation, but not too far behind and still miles ahead of anything a T3, 60D, or original 5D could do.)

When you see wedding and sports photographers with advanced bodies and high-end lenses it's not because they want to be forced to spend top dollar for their gear... it's because they're constantly required to shoot with settings that put them on the very edge of what a camera can do and they need to be able to count on having gear that can do it. Better gear gives them a higher "keeper" ratio.

AnnieHuley · Mar 24, 2013

TCampbell said:
I don't want to pump-up your expectations for this wedding you mentioned. Just to be clear... the bride & groom are NOT counting on your photos, right? I ask this because I don't want you to have an illusions that if only you could buy a new camera then you'd be able to take these low-light wedding photos.

Hi thank you for this advice, and I do understand your point. I went to a wedding last weekend (where I was NOT the photographer, just a guest with a camera) and after posting some of the photos a friend with a VERY low budget wedding contacted me about having me take pictures at her wedding. I told her that I would not be able to produce professional results, and that I have no experience and not good enough equipment, but that if she didn't have the money for a professional I would go as a friend as long as she looked at the pictures I posted from the other wedding and MAKE sure she would be okay with that type of picture. She actually has not gotten back to me with a firm yes or no if she wants me to take her photos, but she did say she understands that I'm not a professional and that she loves what I got at the wedding before. So I just figured if I did upgrade, it would make it slightly easier to capture this wedding.

The girl is not a big pomp and circumstance girl, the wedding will have few guests, low budget, not a big deal type of thing. I think she just wants slightly nicer photos to look back on.

I understand that a lot of people show up begging for help shooting their best friends wedding who wants to save money, but in this case I had a sample of what I could provide to show the couple, and they were positive they would be comfortable with similiar results. The wedding is next month, they would not have a photographer at all if they don't have me at the wedding. In this case, while I normally would turn down a wedding flat, I thought it best to accept. As a friend I know she would regret not having any pictures of the day.