Difficult Decision Story

Tareq wrote in post #2030518
Sorry to post this second time but i think it is better here than a reply post on another someone thread, sorry for that.

now i am happy that i got 30D, and i am waiting my 1Dmk2N to come soon i hope.
Now Full Frame calling me alot so i can't sleep till i can afford one very soon.
I will tell you my situation or thinking then you decide what is right decision: I love 1D series body for weather sealing, focus speed and so, for that reason i ordered first 1Dmk2N to help me in wildlife and sports later, i am thinking of 1Dsmk2 very very long time ago and i heard as you heard that maybe mk3 will come maybe, and with all that the price of 5D is coming down slowly so i can afford it anytime soon, but i don't want to get it and then replace it for 1Dsmk2 or mk3, i am sure i will buy mk2 or 3 even if i have 5D so i think maybe i will waste my money to get 2 cameras when i think of one, i am not hurry on FF now but i will think and decide to add it to my list sooner or later, i have time to buy it later. Now another thing i think about is that i got good bodies already so it is time to get some glasses as i am sure you all prefer to get more glasses over bodies, so what i think of glasses are all expensive except one or 2 glasses.

the glasses i look for are the following:

EF 500mm f4L IS
EF 400mm f2.8L IS
EF 300mm f2.8L IS
EF 135 f2L
EF 85 f1.2L
EF 50 f1.2L
EF 35 f1.4L

the most glasses i think of are: 500 & 135, the rest i can buy later one by one and maybe i can ignore some if i don't need for some reasons and all due to my limited budget every month.
there are 300 f4LIS and 400 f5.6L i can afford them as well but always i look for the best so then i don't look back or replace later or buy another, need always fast lenses because i work in all conditions outdoor and indoor in good light and low light.

so now i don't know what to take next, new body is coming (mk2N) so i will not think of new body (dsmk2/3) very soon, so only glasses are in mind now, but 500 is out of my budget for about 2 months, and if i buy one lens now (say 135L) then i will wait another one or 2 month to get another gear. So if you are people in my place, what you will do?

Don't worry people, i take photos of anything in mind everyday (from wide to long).

Tareq, I think I can help you decide what lens you should be first, or the body. But first of all I have a few points to clearify with you before I can really help.

1. Do you like to view your photos on computer screen or on a screen by a projector or view large prints?

2. If what you want is large prints, what is the largest size of prints that you want to have for your photos?

3. If you want to view large prints, get a pro printer from Canon or Epson, with finest ink and professional quality photo paper. I assure you it'll be the most satisfying ever purchase among your photographic lineup.

4. If you want to view on screen by a projector, than get a good projector. Same satisfaction as point 3.

5. If you want to view your photos on computer screen, get a good LCD screen and calibrate it. But for myself, computer is just where I work with my photos, not where I appreciate them.

6. If you have already had all those above, then:

7. I don't know if you are professional, i.e. if you sell or give away prints bigger than A3 upon customers' request. In that case, you DO need prime lenses for the ultimate optical quality. You may even find full-frame not sufficient and want something bigger: medium format. It all depends on what your customers want from you. If they want a wall-size photo, fine. You can go and buy an MF Hassy and Zeiss lens and 22MP digital back for that one particular project ---- you customer will pay everything for you.

8. I'm no professional. So my main interest is to print A4 and occasionally A3 (if I really like the photo) to make my own album (not portfolio though) for fun. If you experiment with the finest inkjet printers, ink and photos, you'll find what lens, megapixels etc make a real visible difference on an A4 or A3 print.

To me, it doesn't matter to me if photos taken with lens A, when you examine a 100% crop on computer monitor, are marginally sharper than those taken with lens B. If they deliver photos on A3 prints identical to my naked eye, they are the same to my need. They may not be the same to you as you have different need. But I think the principle applies. In my case, Lens A is $300 consumer lens, Lens B is $1500 L lens.

9. Do you need the 1D MKIII? I can't answer that for you. However, you can do the reasoning for youself, from the end product backwards. Decide what quality photo you want, then all the gears (camera bodies and lenses) are decided by your need.

However, one word about the 1D series all-weather sealing. It only makes sense when you work in EXTREME conditions for months. Canon's cameras, from 10D/20D/30D to 5D, are absolutely good enough for 30 minutes photograhing in rain with some cover. As long as you wipe it clean and dry when you can. I never hesitated to use my camera in rain or dust, though it's not a 1 series, and it never failed to do its job.

10. You need telephoto primes for sports and wild life. I think if for sports, all pros use zooms instead of primes, the reason is for better composition.

For wild life, more primes than zooms for lighter carrying weight and better optical quality. There are zooms used in wild life though. However, if you shoot that telephoto, you definitely need tripod, no IS will replace tripod in wild life. And when you mount your lens on tripod, you need to turn off your IS.

Lenses that have the IS feature have an additional group of glass, which gives your the Image Stablization, but impairs the optics. Some resolution fanatics don't use zoom, don't use IS either.

11. One word about your 30D. If you feel the resolution of the 30D satisfies you, and you want to do sports or wild life, you may feel the 1.6x factor on 30D is more welcome than a heavier and pricier lens on a full frame. A full frame is more justifyable for wide angle photography.

12. It's absolutely alright for you to have the entire Canon L lens collection. I bought many books that I like but I never read. But, I suggest you play them one by one, for a serious hobby (for family gathering shooting or friend's wedding, pick up the zoom lens that does the job). There's a lot a lot for you to find out at every focal length. For example, 36mm on a full-frame or 24mm on 20D/30D. In order to get a feel what and how a 36mm lens expresses, you gotta train yourself see the everything like a 36mm lens. It takes months, if not years to learn it.

It's more fun to be a master of one certain focal lens than a jack of everything from 10mm to 1000mm. It's just simply more fun, for a serious hobbist.

From my own experience, when my attention was on gears, i enjoyed gears; when my attention was on photography, i began to enjoy photography. I always tell myself that, many of the photos exhibited in New York's most prestigious galleries selling at multi-thousand dollars were taken with merely a Nikon D70 or Canon 10D.

Canon's advantages, over Nikon, one being it's telephoto lenses, one now being it's better image sensor. But don't forget its three tilt-shift lenses:

TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
TS-E 45mm f/2.8
TS-E 90mm f/2.8

If you ask me if I still have any dream lenses, they are.

Happy shooting,

Franxon

franxon wrote in post #2033689
Tareq, I think I can help you decide what lens you should be first, or the body. But first of all I have a few points to clearify with you before I can really help.

1. Do you like to view your photos on computer screen or on a screen by a projector or view large prints?

2. If what you want is large prints, what is the largest size of prints that you want to have for your photos?

3. If you want to view large prints, get a pro printer from Canon or Epson, with finest ink and professional quality photo paper. I assure you it'll be the most satisfying ever purchase among your photographic lineup.

4. If you want to view on screen by a projector, than get a good projector. Same satisfaction as point 3.

5. If you want to view your photos on computer screen, get a good LCD screen and calibrate it. But for myself, computer is just where I work with my photos, not where I appreciate them.

6. If you have already had all those above, then:

7. I don't know if you are professional, i.e. if you sell or give away prints bigger than A3 upon customers' request. In that case, you DO need prime lenses for the ultimate optical quality. You may even find full-frame not sufficient and want something bigger: medium format. It all depends on what your customers want from you. If they want a wall-size photo, fine. You can go and buy an MF Hassy and Zeiss lens and 22MP digital back for that one particular project ---- you customer will pay everything for you.

8. I'm no professional. So my main interest is to print A4 and occasionally A3 (if I really like the photo) to make my own album (not portfolio though) for fun. If you experiment with the finest inkjet printers, ink and photos, you'll find what lens, megapixels etc make a real visible difference on an A4 or A3 print.

To me, it doesn't matter to me if photos taken with lens A, when you examine a 100% crop on computer monitor, are marginally sharper than those taken with lens B. If they deliver photos on A3 prints identical to my naked eye, they are the same to my need. They may not be the same to you as you have different need. But I think the principle applies. In my case, Lens A is $300 consumer lens, Lens B is $1500 L lens.

9. Do you need the 1D MKIII? I can't answer that for you. However, you can do the reasoning for youself, from the end product backwards. Decide what quality photo you want, then all the gears (camera bodies and lenses) are decided by your need.

However, one word about the 1D series all-weather sealing. It only makes sense when you work in EXTREME conditions for months. Canon's cameras, from 10D/20D/30D to 5D, are absolutely good enough for 30 minutes photograhing in rain with some cover. As long as you wipe it clean and dry when you can. I never hesitated to use my camera in rain or dust, though it's not a 1 series, and it never failed to do its job.

10. You need telephoto primes for sports and wild life. I think if for sports, all pros use zooms instead of primes, the reason is for better composition.

For wild life, more primes than zooms for lighter carrying weight and better optical quality. There are zooms used in wild life though. However, if you shoot that telephoto, you definitely need tripod, no IS will replace tripod in wild life. And when you mount your lens on tripod, you need to turn off your IS.

Lenses that have the IS feature have an additional group of glass, which gives your the Image Stablization, but impairs the optics. Some resolution fanatics don't use zoom, don't use IS either.

11. One word about your 30D. If you feel the resolution of the 30D satisfies you, and you want to do sports or wild life, you may feel the 1.6x factor on 30D is more welcome than a heavier and pricier lens on a full frame. A full frame is more justifyable for wide angle photography.

12. It's absolutely alright for you to have the entire Canon L lens collection. I bought many books that I like but I never read. But, I suggest you play them one by one, for a serious hobby (for family gathering shooting or friend's wedding, pick up the zoom lens that does the job). There's a lot a lot for you to find out at every focal length. For example, 36mm on a full-frame or 24mm on 20D/30D. In order to get a feel what and how a 36mm lens expresses, you gotta train yourself see the everything like a 36mm lens. It takes months, if not years to learn it.

It's more fun to be a master of one certain focal lens than a jack of everything from 10mm to 1000mm. It's just simply more fun, for a serious hobbist.

From my own experience, when my attention was on gears, i enjoyed gears; when my attention was on photography, i began to enjoy photography. I always tell myself that, many of the photos exhibited in New York's most prestigious galleries selling at multi-thousand dollars were taken with merely a Nikon D70 or Canon 10D.

Canon's advantages, over Nikon, one being it's telephoto lenses, one now being it's better image sensor. But don't forget its three tilt-shift lenses:

TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
TS-E 45mm f/2.8
TS-E 90mm f/2.8

If you ask me if I still have any dream lenses, they are.

Happy shooting,

Franxon

OH wow, it is long post.

I am a member in a photography club in my area, most members print thier photos on A3 or larger and they asked me to print on large size as well, i think someone told me to print in size of 30X40 i don't know what size is that but sure is large, so that i care very much of sharpness and quality, and they join some shows or exhibitions so i may need to print very large prints and some of those members sell thier photos, so i can be the one in the future who will sell his photos, and in this club they have large epson printer.
I hope this answer will clarify more, so i am waiting your reply.

Tareq wrote in post #2033924
OH wow, it is long post.

I am a member in a photography club in my area, most members print thier photos on A3 or larger and they asked me to print on large size as well, i think someone told me to print in size of 30X40 i don't know what size is that but sure is large, so that i care very much of sharpness and quality, and they join some shows or exhibitions so i may need to print very large prints and some of those members sell thier photos, so i can be the one in the future who will sell his photos, and in this club they have large epson printer.
I hope this answer will clarify more, so i am waiting your reply.

In your Country, are you on the Imperial or Metric system? If you tell us which, I can give you an idea of what 30x40 inches would look like, or give you dimensions (although I'm sure you can find a converter yourself or do some simple math that 12" is 30cm or whatever.)

Anyway, if you want to print like 30x40, you'll definitley be needing to send your photos into the lab or whatever, cause I don't think there are any printers that people could afford, but instead more realistically labs could.

30x40 is huge though, sorry to keep ragging on about this, but I'de think you'de need an image with very little noise (shot at low ISO) on a high megapixel camera (maybe 5D or 1D MK II, not N.)

I will open a studio sooner or later so that i need larger printer, i saw a wall sized photos in that photography club, and for sure i go to labs to print large prints, so with all that i need the highest quality resolution wether it is body or lenses, even studio lightings i will choose something decent, so i can't say that i will do alot of professional works just with 350D and 50 1.8 only, and yes, even 16MP is not sufficient, some members got MF stuff so for sure i can't beat them with something semi pro or not that high quality if i need to print large, but with all that i don't want to go film or MF as i will spend alot more than getting longest primes with $4k-10k or bodies above $5k.
Maybe i am not thinking well but i feel that some highest primes with highest rated top bodies will be enough for me for a while till i feel that i need MF.

Take it slow, show off your work here, I think you'll know when you should buy more stuff. Buying multiple expensive items in short periods of time between eachother isn't so smart.

JaGWiRE wrote in post #2034482
Take it slow, show off your work here, I think you'll know when you should buy more stuff. Buying multiple expensive items in short periods of time between eachother isn't so smart.

I will show some works here sooner or later, but from which camera or lens you want to see these works, because i can post works from any camera or lens but not that much in one thread, so either i have to post them in galleries section or just i post few photos (one for ech lens) as you request.

i think you're just getting too much gear. maybe you should think about using that money elsewhere besides photography. gotta think smart pal.

Tareq wrote in post #2031416
you are right. but let me ask this question: what is that 500 used for?

Tareq...
Are you serious? You had the 500mm on your “need to buy list” and you don’t know? The 500mm prime is a telephoto lens; I guess it would fit your bill because I think I read somewhere you wanted to take bird pictures. That is good use for the 500mm.

Hey, why stop there….GO FOR THE 600MM its Canons most expensive and longest lens … it’s BIG, and almost as heavy as the 400mmmmmm. If you buy it you will take the BEST pictures humanly possible. It WILL make you a GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER. The long length of the 600mmm is very impressive, it will definitely make up for ANY photographic inadequacies you might have and fill your needs superbly!

GO FOR IT! BUY THE 600!!!!!!

Ed Hamilton wrote in post #2036968
Tareq...
Are you serious? You had the 500mm on your “need to buy list” and you don’t know? The 500mm prime is a telephoto lens; I guess it would fit your bill because I think I read somewhere you wanted to take bird pictures. That is good use for the 500mm.

Hey, why stop there….GO FOR THE 600MM its Canons most expensive and longest lens … it’s BIG, and almost as heavy as the 400mmm. If you buy it you will take the BEST pictures humanly possible. It WILL make you a GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER. The long length of the 600mm is very impressive, it will definitely make up for ANY photographic inadequacies you might have and fill your needs superbly!

GO FOR IT! BUY THE 600!!!!!!

I will think of 1200MM better, no need for 600mm when 1200 is there, i will be one of those few owner of this lens in the world.
Anyway, it is my mistake to ask for anything when all or most of you don't agree to buy whatever, and instead of advising or recommend one or 2 lenses i listed you prefer to tell me to stop buy at all, who will stop buying when get infected and addicted.
Thank you for your FUNNY way and i appreciate that.
GOOD LUCK

Jaetie wrote in post #2035013
i think you're just getting too much gear. maybe you should think about using that money elsewhere besides photography. gotta think smart pal.

HAHA, that is too funny reply.
I got many friends spent alot of money (minimum $40k) to buy many cars, for What? just to show others.
so if i have money to buy a car, and i am not interested to buy cars for show then i can spend my money on something else, photography is my life and mind now.
BTW, i have 2 cars, and one of my dad as backup.
Anyway, thank you for your post, i will ask my question somewhere else rather than this forum whom think i am just running after too many gears for nothing while this forum full of gears kings.

Good luck.

don't feed the trolls

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #2037030
don't feed the trolls

I am sorry for that but i didn't understand what that mean (forgive me, i am arabic after all).

Tareq wrote in post #2037002
HAHA, that is too funny reply.
I got many friends spent alot of money (minimum $40k) to buy many cars, for What? just to show others.
so if i have money to buy a car, and i am not interested to buy cars for show then i can spend my money on something else, photography is my life and mind now.
BTW, i have 2 cars, and one of my dad as backup.
Anyway, thank you for your post, i will ask my question somewhere else rather than this forum whom think i am just running after too many gears for nothing while this forum full of gears kings.

Good luck.

Hey…sorry man. Look, I’m just jealous. I only have a few lenses. In fact, I am so ashamed of my limitations in the gear area I don’t even post a gear list. I’m afraid everyone will just laugh.

I’d like to be photographer one day….but still have a lot of work to do. So, Tareq please stick around. Having you around is like knowing a lottery winner. Maybe some of that ‘gear ability” will rub off!

If you like taking pictures of birds I’d go for that 500mm, it’s a fine telephoto lens (…or so I’ve been told). Never tried it myself but I imagine it would work great for wildlife. Again I am sorry…please don’t go.

Ed Hamilton wrote in post #2037112
Hey…sorry man. Look, I’m just jealous. I only have a few lenses. In fact, I am so ashamed of my limitations in the gear area I don’t even post a gear list. I’m afraid everyone will just laugh.

I’d like to be photographer one day….but still have a lot of work to do. So, Tareq please stick around. Having you around is like knowing a lottery winner. Maybe some of that ‘gear ability” will rub off!

If you like taking pictures of birds I’d go for that 500mm, it’s a fine telephoto lens (…or so I’ve been told). Never tried it myself but I imagine it would work great for wildlife. Again I am sorry…please don’t go.

WHAT!!! I thought you got plenty of lenses so that you are laughing at me.
Anyway, you are lucky to have nice weather and nature there, all my photos even with sharp prime are not so sharp out due to weather, only indoor are superb great, thats why i look for all high top prime as much i can to gain sharpest quality in bad conditions more than zooms, but who knows, i try hard to have money to buy what i like or "NEED", some people just buy what they need and like but if only like and not need they don't do, Life is once.
I don't buy any gear if i don't have enough money, and i don't buy many many gears as there are more than thousands of lenses over there and it is not a big deal if i have about 10 or 20 out of 1000s lenses, and 5 cameras out of 100s, just as i said before, i know what i choose and need but i ask you before i buy, maybe some tried many lenses and they know everything about it, so then they can tell me if it is worth or not, i am not asking if i should buy or not because i will buy even all the world said: DON'T BUY.
don't be sorry, i am here all the time as i believe that this forum is the best overall, just i wish people can understand me and respect me wether i go wrong or right, but i will leave this forum if some feel that i am annoying and i am wasting thier times.

Tareq i think you've mistaken Canon for Pokemon, you haven't "Gotta catch ’em all!", easy mistake to make, they're both Japanese

But joking aside if it really makes you happy why not, my mum collects Swarovski crystal which i think are overpriced lumps of glass that sit in a cabinet doing nothing, everyone needs to have a hobby, even if yours is collecting Canon glass that stands in a cabinet doing nothing that's fine too, it's your hobby after all Just please yourself