dSLR thread

Tannin

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Meanwhile, back in the mundane world, the only thing I've bought recently is a Tamron 85/1.8 IS. At around $800 AU it's a mid-price lens, vastly cheaper than the Canon 85/1.4 IS and 85/1.2 and the Sigma 85/1.4 Art, quite a lot more than the ancient Canon and Nikon 85/1.8s.

More importantly, it is vastly smaller and lighter than the 1.4s and 1.2, though still a significantly bigger lump in your bag than the cheap 1.8s. It's built to high standard: all metal, none of that flimsy feel Tamrons used to have. In reality, I don't use an 85mm prime all that much: for me it's a nice little luxury. I can't justify spending $2000-odd on the only other one I seriously considered (Canon 1.4 IS) given that it won't get a ton of use, and even if you gave me one, I wouldn't cart it around with me 'coz it's just too big and heavy. The Tamron, though, is a sensible size and I don't mind slipping it into my shoulder bag if IO go for a walk with, say,j the 24-105 and/or the 16-35. So apart from being less than half the price, I'll actually use it much more often than a Sigma Art or an L Series Canon.

F/1.8 is fine for my purposes; I'd seldom if ever use f/1.4 (I reckon I've used f/1.4 on my Canon 35mm twice, ever) and the review sites all reckon the Tamron is optically very good. I'm not into test shots and pixel peeping; I just take pictures. Results are everything I expected, which is to say just fine.

One gotcha. It's really Canon's problem, but worth mentioning. If you have PIC (software vignette correction) switched on with a 5D IV, you get horrible dark rings on the picture, but only at wide apertures. Really obvious.

tamron_dud.jpg


(Yes, the background is supposed to be out of focus. It's plenty sharp at the focus point)

It does this at all apertures below f/2.8, does it to a lesser extent at f/2.8, and is fine from f/3.3 on. It ONLY does it with the 5D IV (and possibly some other newish full frame models). It is fine with a 5D II. The workaround is simple: turn off off PIC. Or work from the raw file. Or use a different camera. Easy-peasy. No hu-hu.

Anyway, I'm happy with the lens, and it's perhaps worth mentioning that this is the first time I've ever bought a Tamron. I've been happy with my two or three Tokinas, but always regarded Tamron and Sigma as cheap and flimsy (Tamron) or cheap and buggy (Sigma) things, but those days seem to be passing.

The one thing I'm still missing is something around the 50mm mark. Nearly all the 50mm lenses are ancient, crappy, flawed, very heavy and expensive, or some combination of these things. I'd use a 50 even less than the 85, so expensive products need not apply. Tokina have an interesting 50/1.4 on the way (but as always with Tokina, a lot heavier than it looks - though I actually don't mind weight so much as bulk), otherwise, there is Tamron's sister to the 85, a 45/1.8 with IS at around $730. I'm not sure that I really need a 45 when I already have Canon 35/1.4 and 40/2.8, neither of which I use much, so I'm still thinking about it. Prefer a 50 really. The senjsible thing to do, of course, is nothing.
 

LunarMist

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Meanwhile, back in the mundane world, the only thing I've bought recently is a Tamron 85/1.8 IS. At around $800 AU it's a mid-price lens, vastly cheaper than the Canon 85/1.4 IS and 85/1.2 and the Sigma 85/1.4 Art, quite a lot more than the ancient Canon and Nikon 85/1.8s.

More importantly, it is vastly smaller and lighter than the 1.4s and 1.2, though still a significantly bigger lump in your bag than the cheap 1.8s. It's built to high standard: all metal, none of that flimsy feel Tamrons used to have. In reality, I don't use an 85mm prime all that much: for me it's a nice little luxury. I can't justify spending $2000-odd on the only other one I seriously considered (Canon 1.4 IS) given that it won't get a ton of use, and even if you gave me one, I wouldn't cart it around with me 'coz it's just too big and heavy. The Tamron, though, is a sensible size and I don't mind slipping it into my shoulder bag if IO go for a walk with, say,j the 24-105 and/or the 16-35. So apart from being less than half the price, I'll actually use it much more often than a Sigma Art or an L Series Canon.

F/1.8 is fine for my purposes; I'd seldom if ever use f/1.4 (I reckon I've used f/1.4 on my Canon 35mm twice, ever) and the review sites all reckon the Tamron is optically very good. I'm not into test shots and pixel peeping; I just take pictures. Results are everything I expected, which is to say just fine.

One gotcha. It's really Canon's problem, but worth mentioning. If you have PIC (software vignette correction) switched on with a 5D IV, you get horrible dark rings on the picture, but only at wide apertures. Really obvious.

tamron_dud.jpg


(Yes, the background is supposed to be out of focus. It's plenty sharp at the focus point)

It does this at all apertures below f/2.8, does it to a lesser extent at f/2.8, and is fine from f/3.3 on. It ONLY does it with the 5D IV (and possibly some other newish full frame models). It is fine with a 5D II. The workaround is simple: turn off off PIC. Or work from the raw file. Or use a different camera. Easy-peasy. No hu-hu.

Anyway, I'm happy with the lens, and it's perhaps worth mentioning that this is the first time I've ever bought a Tamron. I've been happy with my two or three Tokinas, but always regarded Tamron and Sigma as cheap and flimsy (Tamron) or cheap and buggy (Sigma) things, but those days seem to be passing.

The one thing I'm still missing is something around the 50mm mark. Nearly all the 50mm lenses are ancient, crappy, flawed, very heavy and expensive, or some combination of these things. I'd use a 50 even less than the 85, so expensive products need not apply. Tokina have an interesting 50/1.4 on the way (but as always with Tokina, a lot heavier than it looks - though I actually don't mind weight so much as bulk), otherwise, there is Tamron's sister to the 85, a 45/1.8 with IS at around $730. I'm not sure that I really need a 45 when I already have Canon 35/1.4 and 40/2.8, neither of which I use much, so I'm still thinking about it. Prefer a 50 really. The senjsible thing to do, of course, is nothing.

The bogus 3rd party corrections have been an issue for many years. I always suggest turning off all of the corrections anyway one is better off seeing how the lens performs natively and of course shooting RAW since jpegs suck anyway.
I actually have the Canon 85/1.8, which is a fine lens at middle apertures. I use it as a gap filler between the 24-70 and 100-400 when I'm not bringing a 70-200.
I'd assume you would have a macro lens in that range, such as the 100/2.8 IS, but that lens is fine for certain purposes.

Testing and calibration of lenses is important due to the inherent variability in construction.
 

Tannin

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It's not "of course" shooting raw. It is actually quite amazing how many photographers say this sort of thing without thinking about it. For some tasks, JPGs are clearly preferred. An example is sport on a deadline. And for nearly all tasks they have both advantages and disadvantages. In particular, they are vastly more efficient and easier to sort and review.

Most bigoted supporters of the raw religion immediately tee off at this point, yammering on and on about white balance and dynamic range, as if these were the two biggest problems photographers ever meet. In fact, of course, these only become issues when you get the WB wrong in-camera, when you get your exposure wrong, or when the scene presents genuine dynamic range challenges. In 95% of shots, they are non-issues.

And practically none of the raw congregation ever stops to remember that there is absolutely nothing stopping a photographer from having almost all the advantages of JPG and all the advantages of raw simply by shooting both. In fact there are further advantages to the combination; in particular, extra safety. You send raw files to the compact flash card and JPGs to the SD card. (Or the other way around. But in general CF cards are bigger and faster and cheaper than SDs.) Then even after total failure of a card - yes, this can happen - you still always have your day's pictures in one form or the other.

The final result of photography is nearly always a JPG (actual printed output is slowly becoming less and less common). All this talk of "limited colours" you hear from raw preachers is, so far as the final result is concerned, utter tosh. There is more truth in a Trump tweet, or even a Symantec press release. The colour depth thing is a factor only if you need to adjust the colours during post, and if you got then right in-camera, you don't need to do this.

And, of course, if you shoot both, while you have the speed and convenience and efficiency of JPGs to ease your workflow, anytime you strike an image where you need the flexibility of raw, it is there for you.

By the way, members of the raw church, for some reason unknown to modern science, consistently make the mistake of writing raw as "RAW". Nobody knows why. It's not an acronym, it doesn't stand for anything, it's just a perfectly normal English work, like "boot" or "cabbage". For reasons equally unknown, church members don't generally go around writing things like "I had pumpkin and CABBAGE for tea" or "I think I might buy some new BOOTS today". Possibly the writing "raw" in capitals thing is something unconscious taught to them very young, the same way Catholics are taught to say the letter "H" as "haitch".
 

Tea

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My word, Tannin is grumpy today, isn't he!

Besides, he should realise that most of his readers ... yes, both of them ... are Americans who probably won't get the "haitch" thing. So far as I know, that's an Australia-only phenomenon (not saying "haitch, poorly-spoken English people say "haitch" too, I mean the Catholic connection). It probably has something to do with the strong history of the Irish Catholic community in Oz, particularly the Catholic school system, which was (and to some extent still is) very tribal, taking only Catholic kids, teaching them to say "haitch", and then recycling them into nuns and teaching brothers in the same schools.

This being a family-friendly website, we won't say what other interesting cultural practice was an institution in those institutions, but we might provide a hint by mentioning that the Pope's right-hand man (effectively the Minster for Finance) has been dragged back to Australia to stand trial for it.
 

LunarMist

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Although cameras have improved internal image processing recently, it is nowhere close to what can be done with skilled PP. Obviously for many purposes, especially commercial work, image quality is not paramount and jpegs are good enough.
In 2016 I reprocessed some RAW images from 2003 (1Ds) and was able to achieve far better results than possible back then.
RAW+JPG can be detrimental for action as the buffer throughput is usually slowed. It may have more or less impact depending on the camera and cards.
"RAW" is not technically correct, but a generic term probably derived from using a three letter extension. The early Canon DLSRs such as the 1Ds produced a modified TIF file format. There was a tiny TIF file for the rear display and then all the raw data was appended to that (~11MB).
 

Stereodude

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But no one knows what you do (aside from work for the CIA). Your posts assume we have the same requirements you do. We have no idea what your requirements are or if they're actually legitimate for your use because you're obsessed with being vague and cryptic. We don't know if you're a hobbyist with lots of disposable income to squander on camera gear or a pro with images published on front pages.

In general your posts lean toward excess where you stress over things that don't actually matter for any sane use case, like your multimeter accuracy requirements, and your expectation of your PC's clock accuracy, so I'd expect that's probably the case here too. As such, don't plan on being taken too seriously. :salut:
 

Tannin

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Image processing differences are, in most instances, immaterial. Only where the photographer wants to perform major tonal adjustments (i,e., has left the field of photography in the true sense and is making a manipulated image instead) is it of any consequence. (Or, of course, in the case where he has buggered the thing up in-camera and is trying to correct the fumble.)

In fact, the speed difference between raw + JPG and raw-only is trivially small. Yes, there are significant speed differences depending on what format you shoot, but they approximate to

(a) JPG only: fast. Practically impossible to fill the buffer
(b) Everything else (including raw-only and raw + JPG): slow. Possible to fill the buffer - but with good quality modern cameras and reasonable-spec flash cards (not your old one that you've had for ten years), it is quite difficult.

If you are having difficulty with buffer-full situations, and it really and truly isn't just a case of poor judgment when the action is hot, then the one and only thing which can make a significant difference is going JPG only, 'cause it's the massive great raw files which kill your buffer. Note in particular that the key bottleneck is flash card write speed. The camera can go faster, but the card can't. But by using dual cards and sending the raw files to the faster of the two cards (usually the CF card) the camera is able to write the small JPG files to the slower card (normally the SD card) while it is waiting for the fast card to finish writing the raw file and the speed difference between raw-only and raw + JPG, never large in the first place, becomes smaller still and quite possibly zero.

Togs in situations where speed really, really matters (notably sport) have traditionally used JPG-only for these reasons. They know what exposure and white balance they need; they just need to get the magic-moment shot.
 

Tannin

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^ That would be insane. I don't believe it for one moment. Not only are mirrorless cameras inferior for sport and action work because of the lag, Canon don't even have a sport/action mirrorless model yet. They have no mirrorless product equivalent to the 1 Series, the 7D II, or the 5D IV. Camera makers do some stupid things sometimes, but not that stupid.
 

snowhiker

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^^^^^ Right now, creating a 600/4 DO in the new RF mount would be silly, but you'd think that before the 2020 Olympics Canon/Nikon will have a pro level mirrorless camera. And such a lens might lead a few people to the mirrorless camp.

Fancy new RF lenses:

28-70/2
50/1.2


Rumored:
24/1.2
85/1.2


600/4 DO

Canon's going to produce a ton of bad-ass lenses to stir excitement for their new RF mount mirrorless cameras. The 24-70/2.8 IS lens will be in RF mount before EF.
 

LunarMist

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CR1, meh. There have been rumors and test models of a 600/f4 for 15 years.
 

LunarMist

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I don't use the ultra-wide lenses (e.g., 11-24 mm) as it becomes increasingly difficult to compose without perspective issues. Even with the 16-35 it can be an issue.
I assume those new designs would be mainly for PJ use. I'd rather see some newer tilt/shift lenses. A lot of designs are patented without ever coming to fruition.
 

Newtun

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The page is completely blank for me. Something is out of whack. :dunno:
Your link isn't about any dSLR equipment, but instead, refers to a page in this web site that doesn't exist or is empty: storageforum.net/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=6694
 

LunarMist

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Your link isn't about any dSLR equipment, but instead, refers to a page in this web site that doesn't exist or is empty: storageforum.net/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=6694

This morning I found the computer at a screen indicating the Windows needed a repair and it kept doing that after each reboot. :(
The first time I tried the Macrium the restore didn't work. I don't know if that has anything to do with the web issues.?
 

Tannin

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^^^^^ Right now, creating a 600/4 DO in the new RF mount would be silly, but you'd think that before the 2020 Olympics Canon/Nikon will have a pro level mirrorless camera. And such a lens might lead a few people to the mirrorless camp.

Fancy new RF lenses:

28-70/2
50/1.2


Rumored:
24/1.2
85/1.2


600/4 DO

Canon's going to produce a ton of bad-ass lenses to stir excitement for their new RF mount mirrorless cameras. The 24-70/2.8 IS lens will be in RF mount before EF.

Perhaps. But there is no advantage to RF over EF when it comes to sport lenses. None. Zero. RF, exactly like EFS, offers a shorter distance between the back of the lens and the film plane. That is useful for wide-angle lenses, marginal for normal lenses, and offers no advantage whatever for telephoto designs.

So, if they do that, it will be for shoddy marketing reasons. Nothing whatever to do with engineering or quality optical design.
 

LunarMist

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Perhaps. But there is no advantage to RF over EF when it comes to sport lenses. None. Zero. RF, exactly like EFS, offers a shorter distance between the back of the lens and the film plane. That is useful for wide-angle lenses, marginal for normal lenses, and offers no advantage whatever for telephoto designs.

So, if they do that, it will be for shoddy marketing reasons. Nothing whatever to do with engineering or quality optical design.

It's just an excuse to force people to buy new products. I'm really concerned about the adapter + TC stack.
 

Tannin

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There will be any number of clueless cashed-up gearheads who will happily hand over US$10k+ to buy RF versions of the big whites they already have, simply because it will be a new product. Utterly pointless, but they will spend the money anyway.

But you know this.

Actually, I'd quite like an EOS-R and thought about getting one to replace my ancient 5D II. But a couple of things put me off, primarily the lack of dual card slots (an essential in any serious camera) and the lack of a proper back dial. I could probably live with an EVF, given that my three main cameras (5D IV, 1D IV, 7D II) all have proper viewfinders, I'd like one of my set to have a tilt/swivel screen for macro, and I like the notion of having a smaller DSLR for those times when the big ones are a bit too much. I also love the 5D IV low light performance which the EOS-R matches. In the end, though, it was a lot of money for an impressive but flawed product, so I passed on it.
 

snowhiker

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Looks like the D5, D500 and D850 will receive firmware updates that will allow those cameras to read/write to CFexpress memory cards in their XQD slots. "After upgrading, users will be able to use both CFexpress as well as XQD cards in their camera interchangeably," according to post at Nikon Rumors.

Edit: The firmware updates will be released in May 2019 for the Z 6 and Z 7 cameras. In addition to the CFexpress slot updates the Z series will receive Eye-AF and improved AF/AE performance in addition to RAW video output. No date of release for the DSLR updates though. :(
 
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LunarMist

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At last the better Nikon and Canon cameras will unify under CFExpress in the future. I don't know about S*ny. Maybe we will see SDExpress with the PCI interface in their bodies.
 

snowhiker

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At last the better Nikon and Canon cameras will unify under CFExpress in the future. I don't know about S*ny. Maybe we will see SDExpress with the PCI interface in their bodies.

Canon uses CFast not CFex. Or are you saying that Canon will also move over to CFex. I think, going forward, CFex and SD (or SD express) will be the only memory slots used in cameras. Speed or small size.
 

LunarMist

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I would rather like 600/4 III, but I'm not sure I want to sell my house just yet.

Even at my age it's quite feasible to handhold one on a 5D IV for reasonable periods. The 600/4 IS III is so much lighter than the old 500/4 IS that I really like it. It's too bad that Canon did not also lighten up the 500/4 as I usually prefer the versatility of that focal length. Apparently that won't happen until the RF version, which may take years for general availability.
 

LunarMist

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Any new Canon 500/4 would be around $10-12K. ,, Pricks will never decrease. :(
 
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