Any Canon DSLR users around?

[ksb63]

30d,
N8008
Couple of canon L, couple of nikon primes that I use with canon adapter. Acratech head on slik amt tripod use rrs plates.

 

[Golddiggie]

7D here.
18-135 f3.5
60mm f2.8 macro
70-300 "L" Zoom.

But I'm jonesing for a 5dMk3.

What do you print with?

I've not printed anything in some time. I do have an Epson R1900 printer though. IF I want to print something 13x19 (or longer), it's available to me. Most of the shots I take, that will be printed, are given to family members to have prints made of. Such as the pictures my sister wanted me to take of my niece for her yearbook and such. The school photographer's shots just sucked ass. I went over with my background system, hot lights and such and set up in their living room. Got some really good shots of her. Also took some of my nephew for my sister to use.

I really love how little you need to do, post capture, with great glass and a solid camera body. Of course, I also like shooting to both the CF and SD cards inside the camera. I set the jpg images to the smaller SD card and send RAW files to the CF card. That way I have the RAW files if I need to do major work on an image. Haven't needed to do that on this body though.

 

[Cromwell]

Oh yes, I forgot, I also have a 580 speedlight. I don't have a set of studio strobes, but between the on-camera flash on the 7d and the speedlight, I can get fill and key, and I do have a couple of umbrellas and stands.

I have an Epson 4880 so I can print 17" wide and as long as I want. Just for me personally, the point of a really high quality photo is to enjoy it large enough that you can see the tremendous detail and subtlety captured by the lens and camera. If you're just going to view it on a camera, a phone, or on an electronic picture frame, you might as well take it on a camera phone. But that's just me.

But then, I don't do a lot of portraits. I do a lot of landscape photography, and some macro.

 

[zeg]

Just for me personally, the point of a really high quality photo is to enjoy it large enough that you can see the tremendous detail and subtlety captured by the lens and camera. If you're just going to view it on a camera, a phone, or on an electronic picture frame, you might as well take it on a camera phone. But that's just me.

That's largely true, but I have noticed, even scaled down to laptop screen resolutions, that there can be a pretty significant difference in image quality even between a decent P&S and a DSLR. I've noticed this most strongly when I borrowed some L-series zooms for a couple hours. There was something I can't quite put my finger on that made the images pop in a way that, even with the same camera and my stock zoom, they don't otherwise.

Plus, there's really no competing with a camera that has a usable manual exposure mode in tricky lighting situations (this is sort of the converse of the principle that the camera phone in your pocket has better image quality than the DSLR you have in your closet at home...)

 

[Golddiggie]

That's largely true, but I have noticed, even scaled down to laptop screen resolutions, that there can be a pretty significant difference in image quality even between a decent P&S and a DSLR. I've noticed this most strongly when I borrowed some L-series zooms for a couple hours. There was something I can't quite put my finger on that made the images pop in a way that, even with the same camera and my stock zoom, they don't otherwise.

Plus, there's really no competing with a camera that has a usable manual exposure mode in tricky lighting situations (this is sort of the converse of the principle that the camera phone in your pocket has better image quality than the DSLR you have in your closet at home...)

The image quality of the L class lenses, especially the f/2.8 (and faster) ones is one of the things that has kept me buying them (when able). I'll hold off a lens purchase until I can get the f/2.8L even over a regular f/2.8 lens. I actually tested the 100mm macro lens in both regular and 'L' versions. For me, the L version simply was that much better, and worth the extra cost.

As for the camera body... I really like being able to do as much manual settings as I want on mine. Granted there are enough people out there that are not comfortable with that level of camera control. For them, full auto is the mode they'll use 99.95% of the time. Poor bastards.

 

[zeg]

Yeah. If I get back to a point where I have the time to do photos for their own sake, I think I'll probably go L where possible. While they're expensive, they're generally not completely insane, and in addition to the image quality, they feel more reassuringly constructed. (I think they're generally better gasketed against dust/grit as well, but I don't recall for sure).

The one place I might go with ordinary lenses would be with long zoom lenses. There, that build quality turns into a lot of extra weight, and the prices start to inch towards insane...

I like to do manual metering---I was serious about my OM-1n, which I picked up in '99 or '00, way back when film was still ahead of digital in the SLR space. I got that one specifically because it was fully mechanical with no automatic anything, and I loved using it. These days, though, I am usually taking snapshots of the kids, and for that there's rarely time to think about metering. So most of my shots with the T1i these days are on aperture priority or program select mode. In those modes I still find myself tweaking the exposure pretty frequently, especially in the snow the last few days...

 

[Cromwell]

This is why I lust after the 5D MkIII. From what I understand, it does chromatic aberration correction well enough in it's processors that it can make a normal lens as good as an "L" lens. And image quality is critical when you're doing a 17X30.
I switched from a large format camera. It took me a while to accept having only 21MP. I have photos of Big Sur that I've printed at 30"X40", and they are breathtaking. You can walk right up to it, 18" away so you can't see the whole picture, but the little bit that you can see is a photograph all on it's own. The 7D can't do that at 30X40, but I'm hoping the 5dMkIII can.

 

[NervousDad]

One of the main reasons I went with the 6D over the 5DIII(besides price obviously ) was the mp. I wish they would have made is a ~18mp camera to help with the low light noise. I would love to have the focusing system, but I have that in my 7D and since 95% of my pics are of my kids, the 6D was perfect for me. I gain about 1 stop with the 6D over the 5DIII,but I never do large prints.

 

[Psych]

Digital Rebel (300d) purchased way back when, just after they came out. Using the amazing and cheap 50mm f/1.8 lens, a Tamron 18-75 (? I think...), Sigma 70-300.

And then maybe 7 years ago I picked up a 20d so gave the Rebel to my wife and bought her an 18-120mm lens (or something close to that).

Definitely always felt the Canon side had the edge as far as low light was concerned, since the Digital Rebel days. I find I shoot a lot of outdoors stuff in not-optimal lighting so that was a deciding factor for me back then.

Now I would love to sell those two bodies off and switch up to a full frame Canon DSLR for sure but money hasn't found it's way into that budget yet.

I used to use a Nikon Coolpix e4500, 4MP one with the swivel body, that was a sweeeeet camera for macro stuff. So many neat shots you can't get from another camera that doesn't have that feature, like shooting from 1 inch below something 2 inches high. But I dropped it a few times and something isn't quite right with the lens, or my perception of digital camera image quality changed somewhere in there. Now it collects dust on the shelf.

 

[Snisup]

Canon Rebel XS with $99 50mm (favorite), cheapo 75-300mm, and kit lens. Oh... Forgot to include the 500GB HDD full of pics of my daughter

 

[NickTheGreat]

I just got a T4i a month or so ago. My 'photography' experience had just been point and click until then. I'm really enjoying the camera so far

 

[homebrewhaha]

Rebel XS with 50mm 1.8. I've been itching to upgrade for some time, but still amazed at what I can get out of this little guy....

 

[Jukas]

20D
1D III
24-70 f/2.8 L
100 f/2.8 IS L Macro
70-200 f/2.8 IS L
300 f4 IS L
Nifty 50.
Gitzo CF tripod
RRS Ball head
blah blah blah.

One my son does into preschool and I have more time for hobbies again, I'll probably hand down the 20D and pickup a 5D III to round out my kit. To me, L glass is worth it's weight in gold and both provides and holds a better value than any body upgrade.