Which body next?

Montana · Jan 3, 2010

CraniumDesigns said:
thanks guys. i ended up buying the 5D Mark II with the 24-105L lens for $3499 from B&H. they let u defer payment by 6 months. by then i'll have my tax rebate selling my 17-40L now.

Congrats! You are gonna $hit yourself when you see the files from that camera.

CraniumDesigns · Jan 3, 2010

haha. i bet. i just doubled my pixels

GeneralBenson · Jan 3, 2010

Dang, man. I would have hung on to that 17-40. It would be way sweeter on a full frame camera.

Derrel · Jan 3, 2010

I have to agree--the 17-40 L was made for full frame. When you see the geometric distortion on the 24-105 L's wide end you might be sorry you let the 17-40 go. The range between 17 and 24mm is a really wide expanse of different angles of view on full frame. I understand the 17-40 represents $600 you can recoup from the original purchase price, but it also represents a loss of a valuable piece of equipment that probably could last for 10 or more years of solid,heavy use, maybe 20 years+ in light duty use.

CraniumDesigns · Jan 3, 2010

hmmm. well i havent got any offers for the price i want, so i might just keep it. i used the reasoning that my 17-40 is basically a 27-64 on my old crop body, so having a 24-105 would be even wider, and give me more range. So I've been happy with the angle of the 17-40, even on a crop body. However, maybe I should hold onto it and test it out a bit.

can u explain more about distortion on the wide on the 24-105? wont i still get distortion with the 17-40? or do u mean i could use the 17-40 at 24 and have much less distortion than the 24-105 at 24?

Derrel · Jan 3, 2010

Yes, I was talking at the 24mm end of the 17-40; at the bottom range, the 17-40 has a LOT of barrel distortion--around 3.8% which many would consider "horrible", at least for architecture or city photography, but it also can give a real,true wide-angle look to its images on FF. Much more so than the numbers might indicate. The 24-105 L has around 1.8% barrel at 24mm, and a pretty fair amount of vignetting as well. Maybe when you get the new body and lens you can evaluate just how w-i-d-e 17mm on FF really is, and I think you'll see that each distinct millimeter 17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24 on FF is almost like a different lens unto itself.

It's hard to put into words the difference, since on FF the sensor is roughly 2.3x larger than a 1.6x Canon's sensor, so the depth of field, the camera-to-subject distances, and the "rendering" of the image is *significantly* different on FF than on APS-C, even with "equivalent" angles of view. The difference is not simply angle of view--you have working distance difference and therefore perspective differences between APS-C and FF, and you have a huge difference in format size as well. The trend is to look at things in terms of *ONLY* equivalent angle of view between 1.6 and FF, but the difference is much more than a simple mathematical equivalence in FOV based on taking a focal length and going "oh, I multiply by 1.6x and everything is equivalent." That's not how it works,by a long shot. Equivalent does not mean "equal photograph" in terms of several factors. Once you have the 5D-II you'll be able to judge for yourself. I hate to see you take a bath on a new lens that you'll quite possibly want to have back in the near future.

It's a shame the kayak and saltwater dunking you took with the other body and the 100-400...bummer deal on that.