Suggestions for Photo Equipment

[ronaldhanko]

I switched from film to digital three years ago after shooting film for thirty years. Would I go back to film? No, and for all the reasons Ross gave. Do I find that the end result of digital photography is better than film? I haven't found that and disagree with Ross at that one point. I still feel that my best film shots are superior in most cases to my best digital shots, especially in depth and clarity of color, but that may be in part the equipment. And, in contrast to Ross, I found the transition to digital very difficult - and was, like Howard, daunted by all the options and still after three years am to some extent. I finally just had to get the manual and using it and some on-line instructions, work hard at learning it all, but that, for me, was a major undertaking. I still am not as comfortable with my digital equipment as I was with my old film equipment. I do believe, however, that the photographer is far more important than the equipment.

[Nico]

Originally Posted by ronaldhanko

I do believe, however, that the photographer is far more important than the equipment.

How many people realize these wise words? A very sophisticated equipment in the hands of an untalented person is a waste. But inspirations and high tech put together means art

[ChasWG]

Golforchid, what did you end up doing? It's been some 6 or 7 months since you first posted this. I was just interested in hearing what you did and seeing some of your work if you did go digi or even if you didn't.

Also, and maybe this wasn't as big of a thing a few months back, but for a lot of the newer digital bodies there are many different types of cross brand mounting rings. So there is still a chance that those older great chunks of glass are still useable on a new body. No AF or metering for sure, but with the right adapter you might still be able use you favorite glass.

[golforchid]

Chas - I'm borrowing the computer at the B & B where I'm staying in Vermont. Still have my old beloved Contax RTS II and Vivitar. Sigma and Contax glass. Have been out photographing today. If you want to see my photos, I have a photostream on flickrFlickr: golforchid's Photostream

[ChasWG]

well I'm glad that you are still shooting. Those Contax RTS cameras were pretty good in their day. Iused to shoot a lot of film and actually got paid for a while to shoot images. I guess I still do to a certain extent, but now I use a digital body and won't be going back to film anytime soon. I'm so happy with the work flow of digital I just couldn't go back to film at this point. You should really think about a newer digital body. Even a good used 40D or 50D Canon isn't too much and the quality is really years beyond shooting film and then scanning.

There are a lot of different places to find used camera equiptment. I've delt with Buy & Sell New & Used Cameras ? Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, Leica & More - KEH.com and been happy. Though I think you could find a cheaper used body elsewhere. Their lens prices are great though. I just got a 85mm f1.8 from them and have been nothing but happy with this purchase.

Good luck with your photographic endevors!

Also, if you want, take a look at my Flickr photostream. You might like it!

[tropterrarium]

Originally Posted by golforchid

Chas - I'm borrowing the computer at the B & B where I'm staying in Vermont. Still have my old beloved Contax RTS II and Vivitar. Sigma and Contax glass. Have been out photographing today. If you want to see my photos, I have a photostream on flickrFlickr: golforchid's Photostream

I know your system and issues very well. I used a Contax RTS III and AX with a number of Zeiss lenses. MF Zeiss lenses can be used on Canon digital bodies (EOS series) with an adapter. There are cheap adapters on ebay, I chose a few from Haoda. Exposure is not accurate and deviation from proper exposure varies with f-stop, and it is all working aperture, which means, you set the aperture and it actually closes it immediately so the view finder gets dark, like in depth of field preview. As I have some very nice old Zeiss glass like the 16 mm F-Distagon and the 21 mm rectangular Distagon, I am accepting those problems, use a tripod and do manual exposure.

Shooting macro with working aperture is a non-starter, so I waited to go digital until early this year after the Zeiss Macro 100/f2.0 ZE, native for Canon became available. This is my workhorse lens, can't do without it. Exposure problems also exist with this lens, when you use available light, but everything works flawlessly with flash (also true for old CY-Zeisses with adapter).

Canon also has a nice lens, the 65 mm MPE, which goes 1:1 to 5:1. Great for small flowers and mushrooms. Use the twin head MX24 flash with it, and your golden.

Re body, I went with a 5DmkII. It is a full size sensor camera (camera sensor same size as 35 mm film), so my old fisheye is still a fisheye, and you get better signal to noise ratio at same files size/megapixels, because the pixels are physically larger than on APS format cameras. The standard focussing screen in digicams is problematic to useless for MF work, so I replaced it with a Haoda screen.

Re equipment not making a photograph, true to a certain extent. But possible detail resolution is much better with quality lenses. Zeisses are and remain at the very top there. Look at some reviews and you'll see. The build quality of Zeisses is vastly superior to even the best AF lenses. I bought a Canon 300mm/f2.8 IS AF, top of the line lens used in pro sports and wild-life. The tolerances on this lens are way greater than on the tight Zeisses. Slop means imprecise alignment of lens elements, which means image degradation. Needless to say, use a solid tripod with a decent head.

To reinforce this view, my other camera is an ArcaSwiss F-line 4x5 inch monorail with modern glass (Schneider XLs, Rodenstocks Apos, Sinaron S, Nikkor T). Yes, sheet slide film, one at a time, the size of a post card. I print on an Epson R1800 hexchrome inkjet, color managed workflow, spider calibrated monitor, the works. Those LF chromes beat anything.

If you have specific questions, do let me know, most likely I have come across it and have some further information.

[golforchid]

TropT - thanks for your very thorough answer. To tell the truth I've found all the available, and often conflicting, information rather overwhelming. I am a reasonably decent amateur photographer who shoots sporadically - ie when on vacation or when I have certain subjects in mind.
Yet I do want very good equipment which will last a long time with a minimum of upgrades and repairs. In my system the "big money" was spent on the camera body and the macro lens. However, I'm having trouble with plunking down several thousand dollars for digital equipment and then finding the time to learn how to use it.
At some point I will do so, "but who knows where or when"

[tropterrarium]

I hear you re not wanting to re-buy the entire system every other year, just because this or that is no longer compatible. I waited till last year/early this year to get my first digiSLR, exactly for that reason.

The RTS II is certainly a great camera, solid as a tank, and Zeiss glass is still top of the line, even after 15 or 20 years of use (I guess here how many years your body has on its shutter). You can scan your slides/negative no problem if digitization is desired.

Sorry for the information overload. Let me know what is unclear and I will back off and build up explanations/opinions more carefully.

Whether or not to switch to digital is entirely up to you. I can give you some feedback on the specific switch between Contax/Zeiss and Canon/Zeiss. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Learning it does take a bit of time, no question. I had the new camera about 8 months now, have shot about 2-3000 frames and slowly get the hang of it. I had a very thorough background in digital imaging (I sell some of my images through a digital stock-photo agency), so I am familiar with different digital parameters (e.g., jpeg-tif-RAW; sRGB-Adobe RGB-ProphotoRGB; the hole white-balance stuff, color temperature, etc.), "only" had to apply it at the picture taking stage.

Things I like better about digital than the old Contax system are:
- the instant feedback, which permits to make adjustments on exposure, lighting, composition, depth-of-field.
- The built-in view-finger magnifier (5x and 10x) for precise focussing, even permits to move the magnified portion to off center area.
- Canon flash system with nice exposure control and mixed lighting adjustments.
- MPE 65 mm. much more practical than doing lens-stacking with 100 mm Macro and reversed 50 mm/f1.4, or using bellows with reversed lenses.
- I shoot more regularly, as I don't have to wait for the roll to be full to have it developed, and then see the results. I take two pictures and see them immediately.

A positive surprise was the accuracy of auto-white-balance. I shot some orchids in my white kitchen, so very diffuse light, but color temperature most likely higher than standard daylight (ie. blue cast). Exposure at 20-30 seconds. I was not quite sure about color rendition, so measured it with a Minolta color meter III and manually set the color temperature on the camera. The AWB produced WAY better colors. Took me completely by surprise.

What annoyed me initially was:
- the incompatibility of the Canon flavor or RAW, called CR2, with Photoshop CS3, so had to go through a converter to make it into a vanilla-.dng. Just upgraded to to PS CS5, which now reads CR2 files.
- The oodles of menus on the camera. After a while you'll get the hang of it.
- The exposure inexactitude with the Zeiss lenses. Tried a bunch of things from different metering modes, different apertures, etc. Eventually found through some photo bulletin boards that there is an underlying, and unsolved problem. Now I know, so use exposure compensation or go into manual exposure.
- No f-stop ring on lens! how odd is that. F-stop is set on camera body. Finally get the hang of that as well.
- Firmware upgrades on camera.

Quality of image files is decent at 20 MP, about the same as carefully processed 35 mm, but still inferior to 4x5".

Repairs? We'll see. I hope by buying a decent Digi body to begin with, that I get a more reliable piece of equipment. I had one repair on my old RTS III, but the TTL flash cables died on my like the flies. I take my cameras hiking, and consider them tools, not an investment. So I use the tools. My RTS III has distinct brassing over most of the base plate and also at other spots.

[ChasWG]

Interesting ideas Tropt. I've always been a Canon user. I was tempted by the Contax RTS II back in the day, but I'm glad I didn't stray from Canon.

I have been using Canon EOS system cameras since about 1993. My very first lens that I bought with an old Canon 630 body still works perfectly on my Canon 40D and it would mount right up to your 5D MkII. The EOS system was first introduced in 1991 and Canon is still redesigning and creating new lenses to fit this system. It's not going away anytime soon. And if Canon decided tomorrow to create a whole new mount system for their camera line up, you'd still be able to buy new and used lenses for years and years to come. They are just that prolific. I guess I was an early adaptor to the EOS line as I just got tired of my old FD mount stuff. Funny thing is, you can still get FD mount stuff. Usually in a used state, but every once in a while you come across some NOS FD lens.

The Canon 5D MkII is an amazing camera and one that I hope to get real soon. The firmware up dates are a very good thing. Mostly they had to do with the HD video and even more specifically how the sound was recorded. The latest up dates get rid of that stupid Automatic Gain Control feature. That was a stupid idea! (BTW, I do sound recording for a living and have done a lot of Canon 5D MkII shoots lately)

In short, Both Canon and Nikon's mount systems are here to stay for a long, long time. A lens you buy today to fit either system will be able to be mounted to future bodies. Especially in the Nikon line up. They don't have that stupid EF-S type of lens line up that Canon has. :rolleyes: Either system is a sure bet that you'll be able to use you system for a long, long time.

[tropterrarium]

Hi Chas,

Interesting you bring up the HD movie. That was not in the least a selling point for me. Last week I thought, I should at least try it, just for the heck of it. I fiddled with the camera for at least an hour, and still was not able to figure out how to shoot a movie! I'm not talking about esoteric functions, I was not able to produce any kind of mpeg/avi/whatever file whatsoever! This is astoundingly poor interface design. I do some techy stuff for work (electron microscopy, 3D histology reconstruction, DNA sequencing) so am not easily flustered by obscure ways of getting stuff to work, but the movie interface (or lack thereof) on the Canon is just off the chart bad.

OK, I did not go through the manual, but basic functionality should be selfevident, IMHO.

Re Nikon/Canon here to stay, we'll see about that. I seem to have a talent to pick the system that will go the way of the dinosaurs. Started out in 1986 with OM (second place was Contax at that time). When OM abandoned SLR, went with Contax in about 2000 (very solid then). Now in 2010 to Canon. Let's see in 2020 who's still around. At least with the LF lenses, I could just put a different board on it, and voila, lens on new body. Fortunately, the Arca is built like a tank.