The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[mwl168]

Quote

EF 24 - 70 mm 1: 2.8 L USM

EF 16 - 35 1: 2.8 mm L II USM

EF 70 - 200 1: 2.8 mm IS II USM

EF 28 mm 1:1.8

EF 50 mm 1:1.4

EF 100 mm 1:2

Those are good lenses and cover most applications other than wild life, sport photography, etc. which need much more reach. But then we are talking really big dollars.  

And, yes, these are heavy bulky gears. The 24-70 f2.8 is a great walk-around lens with great optical quality but it's a brick not to mention the 70-200 f2.8.  

It's a plus that the body was not used for video. I read that some Canon bodies tend to overheat in video mode but not sure if 5D II has this issue. 

Edit: Forgot to mention, Fred Miranda is a good place to check on the going price for camera gears. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by mwl168

[blessingx]

Sounds like you've made a choice, but... the only things I can throw in here after everything else mentioned I agree with is A ) the obvious - figure out what you need and ignore the rest. The camera I most use is seven years old. Focal lengths outside your uses aren't important and heavy to carry around. Same with aperture. FPS and video too. AF speed? Don't ignore MF. PureRAW and Topaz products can help through AI on ISO performance and occasional resolution needs. These are getting better and I just used DeNoise this morning to battle low light. B ) With sensor resolutions doubling, the longterm lens to body relationship is changing. Most want perceptual resolutions to travel with sensor resolution increases. Character lenses can go on forever, but those aiming for accuracy aren't often built for the next jump. Keep an eye on MTF charts, but there was a repeated line about a ton of older celebrated lenses were really built for 10-12MP. Not the ones you mentioned, but they also were unlikely built for 50-100MP. I have some beautiful Voigtlanders that are my favorites at 24MP, but not at 50MP, unless again you're going for character. Finally, we're all likely different, but I shoot differently with different cameras. Again, I'm being obvious, but struggles often connect with deliberateness. I'm happy camera phones are always getting better, but when I throw the shots in C1 it's obvious I shoot different than with traditional cameras. Same between dissimilar traditional cameras. Finally figure out the more important practical needs around size/weight/speed/other conveniences and it's usually possible to build what you want as most are rarely in a need of more than 1-3 focal lengths, and given resolution-cropping options, maybe less than that. 

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by blessingx

[Torpedo]

Thank you for your thoughtful and elaborated posts. Since I didn't ever take seriously digital photo, I've been keeping the thought that any lens suitable to shoot film with good quality should fare fine to shoot digital no matter the pixels resolution. I'm starting to realize that this is most likely wrong. At what chip resolution do older lenses start to be in trouble? I mean if you're looking for accuracy.

[blessingx]

Short answer is I don't know beyond I think you're fine for any 16-21-24MP designs. And plenty argue 21-24MP is where most should probably stop. Now I'm going to blab.

In the Fuji world some people argue the 16 to 24 jump was when things went from analog to digital looking and argue there are downsides of even that high. Some systems change mounts enough you kinda can use it as a division (harder to do for Nikon's long compatibility back). The 16-24 designs probably start to breakdown around 40MP+ (a guess, because honestly I haven't tested to even state that - besides examples I mention), but can be a solution until you pick up "native" glass for a new resolution. Watching others debates are often a clue. When the GFX system was announced lots of people, including myself, used Mamiya M645 medium format glass. It looks great... until you compare to native GF lenses. Damn! Over time hardly anyone uses M645 lenses (unless you want character - say funky, busy bokeh). That said many still use some EF lenses and others use Sigma Art lenses to fill in focal lengths, and I bet they outperform the M645 glass (on GFX), and they're happy.

Half this is like TV shopping. One looks incredible, then you glance at the colors and blacks of the model next to it. And then all the other questions - is a "portrait lens" more suitable over time than one used for landscape? Maybe. Should you consider buying new lenses if considering a doubling of resolution new body? Maybe... if perceptual resolution is the goal. The reverse question - should you stop climbing resolution if you have lenses you know and love? Maybe. Whatever the end point, does every lens eventually become a character lens? Maybe. Seems so for a ton of big cinematographers. Does sharpness/resolution over time stop being a primary goal? Also seems so for many. 

I'm babbling and not really answering your question, because I just don't know, but to make things even more confusing there are long term medium format film shooters that claim digital starting beating traditional MF by most measures with Micro 4/3s around 2010. If true, we're a dozen years into everything equal or larger sensor and equal or higher resolution being icing. So whatcha gonna do with that? I know it's not a very Head-Case question, but gear in the way? 🥴

EDIT: Just reread the above. Boy that’s a lot of useless text. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by blessingx

[Iron_Dreamer]

22 hours ago, Torpedo said:

Thank you for your thoughtful and elaborated posts. Since I didn't ever take seriously digital photo, I've been keeping the thought that any lens suitable to shoot film with good quality should fare fine to shoot digital no matter the pixels resolution. I'm starting to realize that this is most likely wrong. At what chip resolution do older lenses start to be in trouble? I mean if you're looking for accuracy.

 

The cameras that I've used which have been over 24MP, are where not only lens quality, but also shot discipline, support, and careful focusing/depth-of-field selection all become much more relevant and visible in the end results.  Minor amounts of camera shake, focus error, or lens aberration that would be all but invisible on lower resolution cameras become hard to ignore as you approach 40MP.

Unless someone is looking to get into very large printing or pixel peeping for its' own sake, I would say stick to a 20-24MP full-frame or APS-C camera depending on system preference, with reasonable-sized good-performing modern lenses (no need to obsess over f/2.8 zooms or f/1.4 primes unless your obsession is amount of out-of-focus area).

I say this as an admitted pixel peeper and occasional large printer, who owns not one but two 45MP full-frame bodies, but am well aware of the inherent compromises and tradeoffs.

I was pretty pleased with the Fuji APS-C system as travel cameras when lugging my full-frame system wasn't reasonable. But ultimately I wanted those cleaner, finer detailed files, and once someone else could take the depreciation hit, I cobbled together a reasonably small FX mirrorless system. Admittedly it's not quite as small, light, or cheap as the Fuji system. But I was okay taking that hit for my preferences.

[dsavitsk]

Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station – photo essay

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/polar-bears-move-into-abandoned-arctic-weather-station-photo-essay

[Torpedo]

Is there any camera like the Leica M11 (or M10 for that matter) that is full frame, equally compact and lightweight, uses stellar glass but doesn't cost over 12k including the lens?

[padam]

You can use Voigtlander Leica M lenses on any mirrorless camera with an adapter which are also excellent and compact, so choose whichever one you like the most. There are also Voigltander FE lenses which work natively on Sony mirrorless cameras.

At this point it does not matter if it is Canon Nikon Sony or Panasonic, they all use stellar glass (but they cannot make it with AF in that compact size)

[blessingx]

Equally small is hard for mirrorless to compete with M bodies, but lightweight they can. As mentioned above, the E mount Zeiss Loxias and Voigtlander E models, if you can deal with manual focus, are great on Sony bodies, but there are a ton of options. It’s what I used for a couple years. M-mounts versions can be adapted to anything (also mentioned above). Not small or light, but nicely balanced, I recently switched from a M240 to original Leica SL (that seven year old body) and couldn’t be happier with it. Shoot mostly M glass adapted. You may want to read around the below to find lenses, if you’re adapting. It’s Sony-Leica focused, but you could apply out. 
https://phillipreeve.net/blog/ 

[Torpedo]

Weight-wise the M10-11 bodies are very close to Sony A7 III, but the thickness of the Sony is almost twice the Leica's. That's probably one of the reasons why you pay close to 5 times the price, besides branding 

Wondering if that Voigtlander M mount lens would yield as a good result on the M11 60MP sensor. What a resolution beast.

Once again, you can't have it all. Thanks for the input, guys  

[blessingx]

Kinda funny Leica's highest resolving lenses (SL) and current highest resolution sensor (M11) don't work together.

[Torpedo]

3 hours ago, blessingx said:

Kinda funny Leica's highest resolving lenses (SL) and current highest resolution sensor (M11) don't work together.

They'll bring the sensor to the SL systems, I guess. Looking at the size difference I don't think there's a chance that any sort of adaptor could get the SL glass working on the M chassis.

[blessingx]

 

 

[blessingx]

The Architecture of Musical Instruments 

https://petapixel.com/2022/02/02/photographer-reveals-the-architecture-inside-musical-instruments/ 

[mwl168]

On 2/3/2022 at 11:38 AM, blessingx said:

 

 

 Gives a new meaning to “rolling shutter”.

Edited February 6, 2022 by mwl168

[mwl168]

[blessingx]

It’s alive… 

https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/sigma-three-layer-image-sensor-camera-development-160972  

[blessingx]

Photos from Inside the Russian Invasion of Ukraine 
https://petapixel.com/2022/03/01/photos-from-inside-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/ 

 

[blessingx]

No big news here (Ricoh releases a new edition of a model that's just a focal length change from another model), but check out someone exercising their marketing muscles! 

| Main Features of the RICOH GR III Street Edition Special Limited Kit |

The RICOH GR IIIx Urban Edition camera body is accented by a navy-blue ring around the lens barrel. This color was selected to represent typical street shooter imagery such as deep blue skies reflected in a puddle following a rainfall or the bright neon signs of a never-sleeping city. The camera body is finished in metallic gray, reminiscent of the gritty tones of the urban landscape.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ricoh-announces-ricoh-gr-iiix-urban-edition-special-limited-kit-301499622.html 

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

All things considered the 40mm equivalent lens does make it a more appealing camera for me personally, but yeah what a joke of a marketing effort there.

[dsavitsk]

18 hours ago, blessingx said:

The RICOH GR IIIx Urban Edition camera body is accented by a navy-blue ring around the lens barrel.

 

 

 

[Knuckledragger]

Flickr is changing their ToS.  From now on only paid members can show titty publicly.  I take this as a sign that the site had been overrun with porn and phishing accounts.  Based on the moderation I've had to do in the tattoo group I took over (because it had been abandoned for years and was overrun with porn and phishing links) I can't say I'm surprised.

Also did I mentioned I had to leave the Discord of a group I founded because one of the VERY VOCAL members objected to a channel dedicated to photos of tattooed women?  I hate the modern world.

[blessingx]

It's being positioned as opening up to artistic nudes. Still Flickr is owned by SmugMug and SmugMug HQ is a small crumbling building with a permanent for sale sign about 2000 feet from my house. Every time I pass it I'm always amazed they're still going. So I guess, they're trying? It’s an interesting compromise at least compared to Instagram (high bar I know). I suppose all discussions of nudity are colored generationally. Certainly the Art/art-porn divide is. 

In other shilling, DxO just released PureRaw 2. PureRaw has without a doubt changed the way I shoot in high ISO situations or even just general clean up. I don't often have matching body/lens combos to use optical fixes (nor LR workflow mentioned in below review), but the denoise and sharpening during demosaicing is pretty amazing. Seriously. And they like to support older cameras. Anyway you may want to give if a free trial try.  

https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2022/03/16/dxo-pureraw-2-hands-on-review

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by blessingx

[blessingx]

So if there's one thing I learned from the headphone hobby it's if you don't have too many headphones and amps you're going to have to collect dust somehow else. With the addition of the CV 50mm f/1.0 arriving yesterday (and today a blah and rainy day to test instead), doing more buying than selling during the pandemic, and knowing that has to change (I have lenses that have no corresponding bodies at this point), decided I needed to lay out the worst offenders to survey the damage (and offer you a laugh). I'm pretty much a prime, "normal" focal length shooter. Prefer 50mm to 35mm, though have drifted somewhat to 40mm over time. Well, 40 is the cine's normal to photography's 50 after all. Anyway, including only lenses at these focal lengths, not 35s or wider or 55 or above teles or any zooms, this is what sickness looks like. 17 lenses covering the same-ish view. "All the shots look pretty much the same!" Yeah, kinda, mostly, not completely, but I know. Don't harsh my buzz. A purge will come. 

Left to right and front to back...
Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.0 (m-mount)
Sigma dp2 Quattro [Foveon] camera fixed 30mm (45mm equivalent) f/2.8
Asahi Pentax SMC-M 50mm f/1.7 (k-mount)
Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.2 (m-mount)
Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.2 (m-mount)
Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 50mm f/2.0 (m-mount)
Voigtlander Heliar 50mm f/3.5 (m-mount)
Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 mkI (m-mount)
7Artisans [Photoelectric] 50mm f/1.1 gold-baby! (m-mount)
Sigma Contemporary I 45mm f/2.8 (l-mount)
Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 (sa-mount)
Sigma Beyond Art 40mm f/1.4 (l-mount)
Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.2 (e-mount)
Zeiss Loxia 50mm f/2 (e-mount)
Mikaton Zhongyi Speedmaster 35mm (50mm equivalent) f/0.95 (x-mount)
Contax Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f/1.7 (c/y-mount, thanks @dsavitsk) 
Fujinon GF 50mm (40mm equivalent) f/3.5 (g/gf-mount)

sd Quattro H and Fujifilm X-pro2 cameras not shown for those lenses. 

And here's a quick shot of a diarrhea sign testing the new lens last night before the sun went down.

Buy high, sell low. 

I do love those Noktons. Maybe just settle on the CV 21 f/1.8 Ultron, and Noktons CV 40 f/1.2, CV 50 f/1.0, and CV 75 f/1.5 and one system? But the GFX is so fun with those Lomo lenses and color manipulation. Maybe two systems? And a basic zoom for each? Oh, that GF35 is so light, basically a X100 on steroids. And that CV f/3.5 so fun at that aperture. And I still have film aspirations. And I'm not going to get much cash at this point for those Foveon cameras anyway. I dunno, is minimalism still in? 

[mwl168]

36 minutes ago, blessingx said:

So if there's one thing I learned from the headphone hobby it's if you don't have too many headphones and amps you're going to have to collect dust somehow else...

Allow me to help solidify your point...