For those shooting crop and ff for a wedding.

I'm tempted not to post this for gear of starting the age-old debate, which is better yadda yadda.

What I am looking for is advice from people who shoot with 2 cameras, one ff and one crop. Lets start this thread with the pretense that each camera has its benefits.

When do you find the crop works better for you? Do you consider it for formals because of its greater dof? Or more reach?

I find it very hard to use my 40d lately after my 5d2 purchase, and want to shoot with 2 bodies, and looking to upgrade to a 7d. Although I know the 40d is a great camera, the 7d offers better af (which would obviously be a plus, especially if im starting to shoot some more sports) and a better lcd screen (which surprisingly has become very important to me) That way I'll have an extra camera on me if anything goes wrong, and one in the bag.

Im trying to justify buying a 7d, and I have the money to do it soon.

I'd use the 5D for my main workhorse with a 24-70 on it.
The cropper I'd put my longer lens on it like a 70-200.

The cropper gets you that extra reach.

That seemed to work well for me.

I shoot with 5DII & 7D and for the ceremony I usually have the 24-70 on the 5DII and the 70-200 on the 7D. If space is really tight (and I'm confined to a small area near the couple) I might go for the 85 on the 7D instead.

I gave up on the inconvenience of mixing a 5D and a 40D and just went all 5Ds.

form wrote in post #10570930
I gave up on the inconvenience of mixing a 5D and a 40D and just went all 5Ds.

And that is why I am thinking of going 7d, the setup is similar and they use the me battery.

If I got another 5d2, It wiuld be tougher for me to do any sports, and I wiuld have to get a new ultrawide. That and primes become more effective with more options, great for backup gear.

Red Tie Photography wrote in post #10570944
And that is why I am thinking of going 7d, the setup is similar and they use the me battery.

If I got another 5d2, It wiuld be tougher for me to do any sports, and I wiuld have to get a new ultrawide. That and primes become more effective with more options, great for backup gear.

oh yeah, if you are also doing sports you will love the 7D. i'm not sure what kind of sports you shoot but that's certainly its forte..
not that i think it does bad for weddings. i think it would be great paired with a 5dII, for both weddings and sports.
wish i could afford a 5dII myself because i think that would be a sweet combo. maybe next year..

to me the 7D was quite a leap from my ol' 40D.

I've posted a couple of times on this to other but similar questions and LOVE having both. I like the way FF interprets the look better than a crop, but it's no big deal. The 5D2 (IMO) has about a one stop advantage on noise; also no big deal. Nor am I bothered by different batteries. And the menus and buttons, though different, are so close, I'm usually not sure which camera I have in hand just from the back or top.

For me, it's all about flexibility and how it doubles my lens collection. With a 35 and 85 and these two bodies, I get (essentially) a 35, 50, 85, 135, only now my 135 is sharper and much faster.

My decisions on which body to shoot are usually shaped by what focal length I want for a shot. If I want 24mm and happen to have my 24-70 on my 5D2, I shoot with that. If I have my 16-35 on the 50D, I'm just as happy to shoot with that, too. And if I want to shoot at 16mm, I know which body I'm using. The only time I let the body decide is if I have a situation coming up where I know I need faster focusing or a faster burst. But that may happen only once during a wedding if at all.

At the moment, my old Rebel XT is a third body (with a fisheye on nearly all the time). Come the day they introduce a faster focusing 5D3, I'd like to add that as my third body. I really do like FF better, but really like the flexibiltiy that I get from having both even more.

24-70 on the 5DMKII
70-200 on the 40D

That takes care of most of the wedding for me, 100mm Macro, 50mm f1.4, get swapped to either body for some shots and the 15mm FE onto the 5D MKII for the odd shot.

crenda wrote in post #10570876
I'd use the 5D for my main workhorse with a 24-70 on it.
The cropper I'd put my longer lens on it like a 70-200.

The cropper gets you that extra reach.

That seemed to work well for me.

ditto.

Does shooting both a crop and full frame sensor confuse anyone? I'm learning my 7D and have a feel for DOF,etc. Having to learn and develop twice the experience seems like it might be tough?

IUnknown wrote in post #10571957
Does shooting both a crop and full frame sensor confuse anyone? I'm learning my 7D and have a feel for DOF,etc. Having to learn and develop twice the experience seems like it might be tough?

No, it's something that feels intuitive. DOF is made up of so many factors, I've acquired enough of a feel for what a certain set of circumstances will deliver, at least enough to get the look I want to achieve.

I've used both crop and FF bodies at a wedding, and honestly I just look through the little hole and move the zoom ring until I like what I see. It makes little difference to me. FF is better for narrow DOF and seeing if things are actually in focus though, but crop is good for reach. Crop plus FF doubles your lens choices too. Also, the 7D is way faster to use than the 5DII.

I have a 7D for sale here. It's as good as new, and is $300 less than new including the grip and battery.

You could spend the extra money on a 5DII, but you won't be able to charge more for your services because of it, so I think the business case would be for adding the 7D. With a W/A zoom like a 24-70 on the FF, and a 70-200 on the 7D, you will have a gap in coverage between the 70mm on one hand, and the effective 110mm on the other, which you may notice once in a great while is inconvenient, and you may have to think harder going into certain situations about your lens choices, but I'm sure you could do quite well with this set up. I would consider it myself if I was looking for another body, though I confess I would have a hard time with the smaller pentaprism, being so used to the larger, brighter viewfinder on the FF bodies, but that may be a small price to pay for the savings in cash.

Philco wrote in post #10574213
With a W/A zoom like a 24-70 on the FF, and a 70-200 on the 7D, you will have a gap in coverage between the 70mm on one hand, and the effective 110mm on the other, which you may notice once in a great while is inconvenient, and you may have to think harder going into certain situations about your lens choices, but I'm sure you could do quite well with this set up.

Ive done it before with my 40d and noticed this difference, and my next wedding I'm going to try it again, but seeing that I like to shoot tight this may even help me.

At the moment, my ideal ff/crop wedding combo would theoretically be to use the 17-55 on the 7D and the 70-200L on the 5dII,
then there would actually be a small overlap in the field of views. then if i was in a position where i needed more range,
putting the 70-200 on the 7D creates quite the sniper setup. of course the drawback is the 17-55 can't go on the 5d, but man i like that lens on the 7D.

especially when i need a normal zoom lens to cover action, i find that the 7D's af is $$
i purposely haven't used the markII so can't speak to its af or anything, but listening to you guys it has never sounded as great in af department.
but pair that bad boy with the 70-200L and it's got to be a thing of beauty, poor af or not
(purposely haven't used the 5DmarkII because i know then i'll want one!)