Canon vs Tamron the 70-200 f/2.8 challenge!

My mate Ed is selling his 70-200 f/2.8L, and graciously *cough* cheap sales pitch to try and sell it to me *cough* lent it to me to try out over the weekend. So here's a quick comparison between the Tamron and Canon.

Price
The Tamron will set you back about AU$1000-1100 new, best price, where the Canon will cost more like $1500 for a grey import, and increasingly upwards for Australian stock. So there is definitely a premium to be paid for the Canon, but is it worth it?

Looks

I like the look of the Tamron more, the all black on the black camera, just looks right, it looks mean, and it gets comments. The strange white striped L lens, it looks the part to people who KNOW that "L lenses are white", so it's a show-off tool amongst other 'togs.

Feel
The lens cap is tough to get off on the Canon when the lens hood is on. The Tamron is fairly easy to get off when the hood is on.

Tamron has a pull/push AF/MF focus ring, which is a bit clunky, where the Canon has full time manual focusing and USM which is just easier, quieter, and faster.

Other
The Tamron being a macro lens has a MFD of 0.93M (about 3 feet), where the Canon is 1.5M. That means the difference between a shot of a bug on a leaf, versus a shot of a leaf.

There is also a difference at the 200mm end, with the Tamron "zooming in" a little more, which is nice, giving you a bit more zoom, and the MFD makes it a bit more versatile.

Verdict?
If I had to choose from scratch, given that I already have a macro lens, I'd probably choose the Canon. Now that I have the Tamron, I think I'll wait and eventually go for the Canon IS model.

Upgrading - 7D vs 5DMkII vs 1DMkIV?

... or how I learned to stop worrying, and love da bomb!

The Problem

I have a Canon 40D that I've been very happy with, but some of it's limitations were starting to bug me enough to upgrade:
- Poor low light/high ISO performance (3200 is noisy)
- Not full frame (always feels like I'm wasting my L lenses)
- No video (no big deal, but it's nice to have)
- Less than ideal battery life (for a full day of shooting)
- LCD could be better (usually only a problem in sunlight)

The Solutions

With the modern camera line-up, there are stacks of different ways to jump. I looked at getting faster lenses (I love my Nikon 55mm f/1.2 MF) for better low-light performance - I examined my most used focal lengths, and worked out a cost of getting 1.4 or 1.8 lenses in those. That was about the price of a 7D, and that only solved one problem.

Simarly, a quick trip to DxOMark quickly told me that the 7D wasn't worth the upgrade cost over the 40D - the only problem it solved was the lack of video.

The kings of low-light performance in the Canon range are the 1D Mk IV, 5D Mk II and the 1Ds Mk III, but the 1Ds Mk III is the king of wallet damage as well, which ruled that out as a viable option, which left the 1D and the 5D.

5DMkII

The 5DMkII is the choice of wedding photographers for it's combination of a reasonable price, with full frame capabilities and great low light performance.

But, the 5D, like so many Canon cameras (!!?) suffers from pixel stuffing - how high can we bump this megapixel count? Nikon got sick of that game a while ago. Not many people need that kind of ridiculous pixel count, and it just means you have a lower frame rate (3-4 pics/second - yeah, the 40D doubles this), and the pictures take more time to unload, process, etc.

It also suffers from an older AF system (compared to the 7D & 1D), a slow flash sync speed (a worry for a strobist), and the battery life is less than on the 40D!

All annoying downsides of a substantial 'upgrade'.

1DMkIV

It's low light performance is bordering on insane. While the 5D may have a slight edge on quality (if you believe DxOMark. Or if you look at the right sample images, the 1D has about a 1 1/3 stop advantage over the 5d), the 1D goes a further (usable) stop of ISO, just incase you HAVE to get a picture.

As far as battery life goes, one charge gets you about 50% more than the 40D, and it gets a tick for it's great LCD (no, really, it's stunning).

Video is included, so the biggest downside...?

It's big; it's heavy? So am I. It's not full frame? But it's closer than the 40D is.

Ok, it's bloody expensive. But if there's one thing I've learnt from the Strobist... rather than upgrading every couple of years, getting the best could mean no upgrading for a lot longer. The cost is spread out over a longer period.

At least that's what I told myself...



(Incidently, the Nikon D7000D700 solved almost all these problems, except video, for a better price than the Canon options!)

Canon and Rear Curtain Sync

A few nights ago, I was taking shots of a friend, using a slow shutter speed to try and capture some nice night lighting. But (of course!) we had a sword, and hoodies galore, so fast action martial arts was the call of the day. What to do?

Use flash to 'freeze' the action. No biggy. But what about the ambient exposure blur during the frame? Well, everyone knows, you just use 2nd (rear) curtain sync, so the movement happens during the early part of the exposure, and then the flash goes at the end, giving a nice sharp final image. Easy!

The problem is, Canon (in their wisdom?!) decided that the only way you can do 2nd curtain sync is if you have a flash on the camera, and NO other flashes.

I'll let that sink(sync?) in for a moment. WTF? Seriously.


As soon as you add a second flash, and have the on-camera flash acting as master, you just lost 2nd curtain sync capability. WTF?

As soon as you put an unrecognized flash, or a remote trigger on the camera, you lose 2nd curtain sync.

Obviously unacceptable to any strobists.

The solution? Use an optical trigger. Thanks goes to Rαfα on flickr.

Now I've tested this, and a few things I've worked out:

• It works with Cactus V4 triggers.


• If you go faster than 1/25th, the 40D (and I'm going to assume others) switch back to 1st curtain sync anyway.


• If you plug a PC sync cable into the side (with a flash on top) you get 1st curtain on the PC sync port, and 2nd curtain on the flash.


• It works with an OC-E3 cable. Get a long one and half your problems are solved.


• Nikon SB-26 slave mode also works a treat!

In this final picture, I used a 5 second exposure (to get nice burn in of the ambient tungsten lights), and had a 580EXII on OC-E3 (left) triggering via the Cactus the 580EXII at rear, and the Nikon SB-26 (right) triggering via its optical slave mode. All fired on the second curtain, at the end of the 5 seconds.

Problem solved.