Yes, I realize they are bad example in the context of what we were discussing (DSLR and Compact). Just carried away with the DOF idea. They were actually taken using the macro setting on the G11.


Anyway, I am now seriously considering 7D + EF 24-70 F/2.8L USM.

I have no right to respond here, but I agree with this. Middle ground is seldom the right answer, for anything. You rarely get the benefits of both ends, but, rather, the drawbacks of both ends. In this case, I'd tend to agree that you get the lack of portability with the lack of high-quality imaging and the lack of flexibility.

I will point out that Doug's camera did likely cost far less than a DSLR would have.

Lack of portability? I'm not carrying around a bag full of lenses and accessories. It's all one unit, about 20% smaller than a typical DSLR and half the weight.

Lack of high-quality imaging? Yes, but for most purposes the deficiency is (to me, at least) acceptable.

Lack of flexibility? You gotta be kidding! I can shoot aperture preferred, shutter preferred, full manual, or programmed manual. I can choose manual focus (with 8x enlargement of the focusing area) or several different modes of auto-focus, including continuous (faster focus but more battery use) or auto-focus at exposure, or macro-focus. I can choose several exposure methods (spot, averaging, center-weighted, histogram, or manual), with the ability to bias the exposure in 1/3 f-stop increments or shoot in 3-exposure groups, one under-, one normal-, and one over-exposed and can choose the degree of over/under in 1/3 f-stop increments up to two full stops. I can adjust the degree of flash intensity in 1/3 f-stop increments. I can choose between two different methods of optical image stabilization, (although I've never been able to tell any difference between them) or I can turn stabilization off completely. I can focus and expose through the viewfinder or through the viewing screen (although why anyone would do the latter is beyond me), and I can choose among five different viewfinder information displays, plus adjust viewfinder brightness to fit the circumstances. I can change shutter speeds and/or aperture without taking my finger off the shutter release. All of this is without going into the context-sensitive menu system which consists of 13 screens, each with five menu choices. I can select from two to ten megapixels, and my choice of "normal", "fine", or "raw" output. From "power-on" to shutter click is less than two seconds. I can shoot continuous exposures until I run out of memory (4 GB) at the rate of two frames per second, and can shoot movies (with sound) in four different modes of frame rate and resolution. And... I actually do use every single one of the features I have listed. Oh, wait, except the histogram exposure method, I don't quite understand how that works.

Is there some useful bit of flexibility I am missing here?

tanstaafl.

Scrap that lens -- way too big and bulky. You'll curse it forever. The body with that lens mounted, won't fit into _any_ reasonable camera bag. Not even the bag I carried around Roma!

Yes, I have that lens. It takes excellent photos, and has fantastic depth-of-field control etc.. And it's a real pig to manage. I _never_ take it further than it can be carried by our automobile.

Get something smaller instead. I _highly_ recommend the 17-85 EF-S lens for this series of cameras. Sure, the optical quality is probably "only" double or triple that of your G11, nowhere near the 24-70 wide open, BUT.. it has image stabilization, is lightweight, covers the sweetest zoom range, and FITS in any camera bag.

When I travel the globe, I take the Canon body (D60, 20D, or now 40D), plus three lenses. Exactly which three varies from trip to trip, but I choose them from this pool:

10-22 EF-S (fantastic for indoor use)
16-35L (f2.8) (my all-time favourite lens; dark/indoor uses)

17-85 EF-S IS (best all-rounder)
24-104L IS (f4.0) (decent mid-range zoom, but not wide enough)

70-300 DO IS (excellent and compact tele-zoom)
70-200L IS (f2.8) (HUGE lens, unbelievable image quality)

(I do have other lenses too, but not for travel use).

Most of the time, it's the 16-35, 17-85, and 70-300.

Sometimes, I'll substitute the 24-105 for the 17-85, but it isn't quite wide enough for a lot of travel pics (esp. cities).

Still, to repeat, get the 17-85 EF-S IS lens. And _only_ that lens. Then, 6 months from now, perhaps consider something different. But get used to things with that one lens to begin with.

Or, if you're suffering "L" envy, perhaps get the 24-105L IS instead, but it's really not wide enough to be the only lens in the kit.

Cheers

Mark,

Thanks a lot for the info! As a matter of fact, Raffaella already owns a 15-85 IS, which is supposedly a newer version of the one you mentioned. Here: http://www.canon.it/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/EF_Lenses/Zoom_Lenses/EF-S_1585mm_f3556_IS_USM/

So, I was thinking I may get something different (better, in this case) that we both could use. .

I also think it should fit in this bag:

http://cgi.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310224087242&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

which I already happen to have.

In any case, that lens is less than 13cm (5 inch) long. Not too bad, it seems to me?

Oh, if you or anyone else here still really wants a 24-70L (f2.8), then make me an offer (email) for mine. This specific unit is excellent, with no issues or flaws I can find (other than size). And I imagine this could be way cheaper than retail.

Cheers

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what Mark is on about with the length, my 75-300 is much longer than that and it fits into my camera bag.

Actually, I expect girth is more the problem, it does look to be very fat

You have an email

But see... you don't have to do that with an SLR, either. Do you take every pair of shoes you own with you, plus extra shoelaces and a shoe polishing kit, every time you go for a walk?

By "lack of portability", I think Bitt means "shove it in a pocket." You're still carrying around a bulky camera, even if it is 20% smaller than a typical DSLR.


And that's all that really matters. If you're happy with the camera, the image quality is good enough for you, and it has the features you need (and it does have a pretty impressive feature list for a non-SLR), then you have the right camera for you.


Maybe not useful to you, but useful to others is the ability to change the lens. Like I said in another post, I do most of my shooting with a single zoom lens, so I rarely change the lens. However, in the last couple of years, I've started shooting publicity and dress rehearsal photos for my wife's theatre -- a use that wasn't anticipated when we bought the camera. The lens I have is too slow (in the light gathering sense, though the autofocus is a bit slow, too). Since I can't use flash without altering the stage lighting (a big no-no), I'm forced, to get the shutter speeds I need, to shoot up in the 800-1600ISO range, leading to noisier photos that don't print well at poster sizes. If I had your camera, I'd have to buy an entirely new camera. Instead, I can just buy a new lens.

But remember, just because I have more than one lens, doesn't mean I have to cart them all around with me.


The histogram gives you a sense of whether your picture is under- or over-exposed, by whether or not the graph is crowded to one side. In general, you want your histogram to cover a range in the middle of the graph. Just looking at the picture on the LCD can't always give you a sense of whether or not your exposure is correct, particularly if you're fighting glare from the sun. See http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_histogram.html for more.

3.3 inch diameter (~84mm). That's bigger around than my 400mm 5.6 that has a 72mm filter thread. That is kind of excessive for a 24-70 zoom.

Ah, but that's just it -- with a zoom range from 35-420mm (35mm equiv.) or even to 1680mm if I want to use digital zoom (ugh!), I don't need to change lenses. You make a good point, though, about changing lenses not for a different focal length but for more light-gathering. Like all small-sensor high-zoom-ratio cameras, my low-light capabilities are marginal. Unless I can set up with a tripod and a lloonngg exposure (my moonlight on the lake photo was 40 seconds!) I either put up with a lot of noise, or I do without the picture. This works for me because I rarely have to deal with low-light situations. YMMV.

tanstaafl.

It's actually about 4.25" (117mm) in diameter with the lens hood. There's just about NO camera bag that will accomodate it mounted to a body with the hood in "shooting" position (7.5" or 187mm long, plus the camera body), and very few bags that will accept it with the hood in any position.

Sure, the lens by itself, with hood reversed and caps on both ends, will fit in all of my camera bags. But that's of no use for pulling out and taking a shot.

Cheers

Ahh, that changes things then.

Since you've already got a great all-rounder, the next lens really could be anything you think would be useful, then.

Cheers!

Have you considered this Kata DT Series, and 213 in particular?
http://www.kata-bags.com/productFRM2HS.asp?p_Id=475&Version=Photo
As I was saying, we have one already, and I find it very convenient. It is a torso/back pack. 20-70 will definitely fit, mounted, hood in shooting position, in it.
I believe it will fit in the smaller DT211 with hood dismounted or mounted "backwards".

Now that looks like a really cute camera bag. It's the first one I've seen that looks as good (for my style) as the one I normally carry abroad.

And you're right: with the camera inserted diagonally, there should be lots of length to handle a big lens. So long as the opening is broad (wide) enough for the hood.

Looks comfortable, too.

Cheers!

Kata bags aree the best i've seen so far. Torso packs like DT-211 and similar are very very versatile: being able to push them to your back and pull them to your front to extract your camera is just priceless, i think.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, here, and I promise I'll go away and shut up after this post.

The point I am trying to make that I just haven't been clear about, is that unless someone carries around a bag full of lenses, he cannot take some of the pictures I can. Yes, no question about it, if he does have the bag full of lenses, he will get better quality pictures than I will, but without those extra lenses he won't get the picture. Sometimes a lesser-quality picture is better than no picture at all.

The rock climber pictures were snapshots. Attached are a set of pictures shot with more care, hopefully of better quality.

The first picture is no zoom at all, 35mm (35mm equiv.) focal length. If you look carefully, you will see the church tower in the middle of the picture.

The second picture is the maximum I can reasonably zoom my camera before getting ugly defects. It is about a 750mm focal length (35mm equiv.)

The third picture is the "desperation shot" that is (maybe?) better than no picture at all. Yes, it's ugly and noisy, but you can make out a good bit of detail. You would need a 3000mm lens on a DSLR to take that shot. Well, no, not really -- I imagine DSLRs have digital zoom also, don't they? So you'd need either a 750 or 1500mm lens (assuming 4x or 2x digital zoom) to duplicate that shot. But not too many people carry around a 35-750 zoom lens.

Keep in mind that my camera is old. FWIW, the lens is made by Leica. There are newer cameras with more than twice my zoom range, but they lack some of the features my camera has that I consider to be essential.

Anyway, all this dead horse beating is to say that DSLRs, while providing better image quality, lack the convenience, versatility, and [some] features of my camera.

So there!

tanstaafl.

I attached the pictures, and they're not there. ?? I'll add them to another post, I guess.

db

Maybe this time they'll show up...

BTW - the attached pictures are not the full-resolution originals, I resized them to keep the file sizes down.

Also BTW - that church tower is .37 mile (600 meters) from my house where the pictures were taken.

tanstaafl.

I don't know amy DSLR with digital zoom, it isn't needed. Just cropping the picture is the same thing as digital zoom, which means every camera effectively has digital zoom.

Some DSLRs have a manual crop feature.

This means that with just my 17-40 and 75-300, with some cropping I can match or exceed the zoom range (when also comparing the image quality) of any compact I've come across.

Now admittedly that combination is heavier than a big zoom compact, but I think it also falls short of the bag of lenses you are imagining is needed.

And yes, the image quality of your unzoomed church was much is much better than the rock climbers

Andy, I bet you're right. Please believe me that I am not being snarky here, but I am really curious to see... Would you be able to find a nice recognizable landmark 600 meters away from you (use Google Earth to get the distance) and create three pictures similar to the ones I posted? I would enjoy very much seeing how much better image quality you get. I know it would be better, but how much better is what I want to see.

And is that 17-40 zoom in 35mm equivalency? You really have a 17mm wide angle? That's incredible! That alone might almost make me a DSLR convert. I can simulate 17mm by taking two pictures and stitching them together (I do that regularly with the Microsoft ICE program) but in doing that I risk weird distortions where I failed to hold the camera at exactly the same angle(s) for the two shots. Usually it works, but other times, well...

If you do take the three pictures, keep in mind that the longest shot (the ugly one) is zoomed 87x the widest one.

tanstaafl.

The 17-40L is a 17-40mm lens. So on a 60D, it's more like 27mm at the wide end. But Canon sell a 10-22mm lens for this purpose (I have one here), which gives the equivalent of 16-35mm on a 10/20/30/40/50/60D camera body.

The photo below, has about a 10' wide field of view, at one metre from the front of the bookshelves.

Now that is impressive.

Either you deliberately built a lot of curvature into your shelves so that they would photograph in a straight line with a super-wide lens, or else that lens has virtually no barrel distortion.

tanstaafl.

Any barrel distortion you may see in that snap, would be due to me not having the camera perfectly level.

But yeah, it's a phenomenally great lens. Very lightweight, too.

For full-frame (35mm sensor) cameras, Canon has the equivalent 16-35L lens (which I also have here). It is quite a bit heavier, though -- metal body, and (constant) f2.8 wide open.

Cheers

You couldn't have moved in a bit and taken a shot a yard away -- or one with a three-metre field of view?

Peter

Just helping to maintain the international flavour here, that's all.

I'll see if there is some decent light tomorrow.

In fact, that true on all Canon reflex cameras except 5D and above. I see on Canon's website current lineup is:

1000D
450D
500D
550D
60D
7D
5D Mark II - Full Frame
1D Mark IV - Full Frame
1Ds Mark III - Full Frame

Too bad full frames are so expensive still.

Well.. with the cropped frame cameras, we get a much smaller optical viewfinder. That's the major downside for most of us.

On the up side, we get excellent light-weight lenses from the EF-S series, and our cameras use only the centre "sweet spot" on regular lenses. Plus, we get a built-in speedlight ("flash").

Good trade-off, on the whole.