Worth upgrading to 5D for stock photography?

Is it worth upgrading to the 5D for stock photography? Is the Full Frame Sensor (better DOF control & wider angle view), bigger view finder, higher pixels, higher dynamic range, and larger LCD really worth it for my type of photography?

I currently own a Canon 20D with some descent glass.

Aren't there guidelines by the major stock houses with regard to the megapixel requirement of submitted images? That would be a basis to switch.

You would need to sell a helluva lot of stock photography to justify the upgrade.

In a nutshell, and to be very brief: If you need full frame for Stock photos, or higher MP's then spend the extra $2,000.00.

If not... stay with the 20D

JMHO

Peace!

If you are looking for an excuse to buy a new camera then go ahead. I think I would buy some new L glass.

If your 20D is still doing the job, then why would you need to upgrade? If its necessary, then it's really not an issue - you have to upgrade. Will your work pay for the upgrade (as mentioned earlier?)

Hmmm... sounds to me like your looking for an excuse for a new toy JK!

Peace!

you can use the 20D, but Stock is probably the only exception where i would say the MP is a valid excuse to get the 5D

The reputable stock agencies (the one that pay real money not the penny downloads) that I have dealt with really do like the highest resolution possible. There accepted the 20D and 1DMKII files from me so it does meet their criteria.

Due to the pixel density differences between the 20D and the 5D the only way the 5D would be better is if you are not going to be cropping the images at all.

I will agree with the others that perhaps you are just looking for an excuse to buy the 5D. I wish you luck.

BTW - looked at some of your links in your signature...some nice stuff there.

Using the same logic, wouldnt you say that it gives him about 40% more area to crop w/ same qual as 20d?

Nope. Look at the pixel density difference. If you take the 5D image (4368 x 2912 pixels) and crop it to the size of the 20D image you have a resulting image of 2730 x 1820 pixels. An image from the 20D is 3504 x 2236 pixels.

Thus, if you intend to crop the 5D image to 39.44% of its original area (the 20D sensor's area is 39.44% of the area of the 5D sensor), the image from the 20D would be of higher resolution.

The point I was trying to get across, and perhaps I didn't do it all that well, was that if you are going to use the 5D and then crop, you might as well stay with the 20D

Using full frame doesn't mean you need to crop more, except in the case of certain wildlife shots. It's a false dichotomy. I say, go ahead and get the 5D---it's an awesome camera.

OMG cummon you are splitting hairs!!! with a 5D @ 13mp you can crop the **** out of an image for a stock agiency WAAAAAYYY more than a 20D

Quite true - if you're going to crop both images. The question I was addressing, though, was concerning cropping a 5D image to arrive at a duplicate of the 20D image. I assumed the scenario included using the same lens on both, and that you were going to crop out everything on the 5D image that didn't show in the 20D image. In this case, the full 20D image would have better resolution than the cropped 5D image.

Go with the 5D for larger images, my experiences with stock has been that (and it does depend on the use of images) is the larger images do sell better. cropping won't be such an issue.Just one thing that SkipD mentioned about resolution when cropping. The 20D is about 62% of the size of an 5D ,and it won't make much if any difference when cropping to same size. 5D (4368 x 2912 pixels)= about 12.7mp , 20D (3504 x 2236 pixels)= about 7.83mp thus been 62% of 5D . The area you stated of ( 2730 x 1820 pixels)= about 4.97mp which is about the difference in size between the two not the final size of the 5D cropped the way you say. At 300DPI cropping it the same size shouldn't change the actual size. AT 300dpi a 5D is about 14.56in x 9.71in ,20D is 11.68in x 7.45in. If you cropped the 5D image about (2.88in horizonally) and (2.26in vertically) you should be very close to the same image(At 300dpi).

Cameras

eos 3,10d,20d,5d

Lenses

16-35mm f2.8
24-70mm f2.8
50mm f 1.4
70mm-200mm f 2.8 IS
100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS