The 6D is Canon’s excellent full frame DSLR which produces photographic quality essentially equivalent to that of the more expensive 5DIII. The 24-105mmm f/4L IS lens (which I own) is a fine and versatile lens for a wide range of types of photography. The combination is the core of a fine system for many photographers. If you have been considering moving the the full-frame 6D, this sounds like a great deal.
By the way, a few years back I wrote that it would not be all that long before high quality full frame DSLRs would be available in the price range of what were then the high end crop sensor bodies – like today’s 7D. Well, considering what the list price is of this lens alone, we are now there and more!
Canon 6D DSLR with Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Fujifilm has announced their new X-T1 Mirrorless Camera. The rumors regarding this new camera have been rampant for the past few weeks, and here is what we now know:
16.3 MP X-trans 1.5X cropped sensor
ISO 100-51200
8fps continuous shooting
Improved hybrid AF system incorporating contrast- and phase detection methods
Improved manual focus with digital split image and focus peaking
Faster, higher density, and larger electronic viewfinder
1080p HD Video
WiFi
Expanded manual control dials for shutter speed, +/- 3 EV exposure compensation, ISO, aperture (on many lenses), and more.
A number of features get my attention. My Fujifilm X-E1 works well at high ISO values, but this camera appears to take the much farther extending the lowest ISO from 200 to 100 and the highest all the way to 51600. The specifications and early reports on the web suggest that the AF system has been significantly improved, even beyond those improvements on the X-E2. The added manual controls are going to help a lot for the sorts of photography that many of us do with this sort of camera, where we need to change settings quickly and without going through menus. There are lots of other improvements, large and small, too numerous to mention here.
I’m very interested in this camera. My X-E1 is a wonderful little picture-making tool that complements my larger DSLR system – and the X-T1 sounds like it has been designed to significantly improve on this effective concept. (There is a very good chance that I’m going to get one.)
The camera is available for pre-order now at site sponsor B&H:
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
An interesting little article at site-sponsor B&H Photo (“History of the Canon 5D“) got me thinking back on this camera a bit today. The 5D was my first full-frame DSLR, as it was for quite a few other photographers. It was not the first full-frame DSLR, but the earlier models arguably made much less of an impact, either because of design issues that prevented them from being as successful or because their cost was simply prohibitive for too many photographers.
Canon EOS 5D
Today the 5D may seem dated by comparison to more recent cameras with higher megapixel sensors, additional useful features (dust reduction, video, live view, and more) and sometimes lower prices, back in 2005 the 5D seemed like quite a remarkable development. At this time, almost all photographers were shooting cropped sensor DSLRs and the MP level of sensors was universally a lot lower than what we regard as normal today. So a 12.8MP sensor full frame body seemed – and was! – state of the art in terms of potential image quality. And the price was a “mere” $3299 list – no trivial amount but much less than the price for the equivalent Canon 1-series full frame model that was the likely alternative. Far more people could find a way to afford the $3299 (or, as the price softened, $2500) camera than a $8000 camera.
Of course, the $3299 model was not the $8000 model. The 5D construction, while just fine, was not equal to that of the legendary 1-series “tanks.” Of course, this also meant that the camera was smaller and lighter – something that quite a few photographers found to be pluses. This was especially true of the large number of landscape photographers, who often carry the gear away from roads on their backs. The AF system was, again by today’s standards, nothing special. But the image quality was as good as it got nearly a decade ago.
I moved up to a 5D Mark II about 3 or 4 years after the introduction of the 5D. The 5DII was a worthy successor to the 5D, nearly doubling the pixel resolution to 22MP and adding a bunch of useful features like live view (which I cannot live without now!), a better display, excellent video quality, a functional dust reduction system, better high ISO performance, and more. In every way the 5DII equals or exceeds the performance of the 5D, but…
The 5D is still as good of a camera as it was back then, photographs made with it still hold up beautifully.
(I have kept my 5D for the past 4 1/2 years or so since I got my 5DII, primarily as a back-up body but occasionally to let me shoot with two cameras at once. That said, the time is finally coming to sell it. I haven’t quite put it on the market yet, but if you are a San Francisco Bay Area photographer who is looking for such a thing, let me know. I’ll also be selling a copy of the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L lens – the non-IS version.)
Update July 26, 2014: The 5D body has now gone to someone else who should be able to get good use out of it. Since I occasionally read posts from people thinking of buying one today, I thought I’d finalize this story with some thoughts on that topic.
If you can find a good copy of the original Canon 5D (which some refer to informally as the “5Dc” or “5D Mark I”), it should produce photographs as well as it did when it came out about a decade ago. Many of us used the camera to produce some very wonderful photographs, and it can produce good sized prints if you shoot and post-process with skill and care.
Is it a worthwhile purchase today? That is a complex question.
With current prices floating around the $500 mark as I write this, the thing is certainly inexpensive. It is quite likely the least expensive entry point to full frame DSLR photography. People used it to make good photographs when it first came out, and a good unit should be capable of the same quality today. However, I do not recommend buying a used 5D to very many people. Here’s why…
While the 12MP full frame sensor was remarkable in 2003, today that is more than a bit behind the curve. So while you potentially gain something by moving to the larger sensor, when it comes to system resolution you also lose something to the lower megapixel count sensor. Today typical cropped sensor bodies have 50% more photo sites. In addition, even the least expensive cropped sensor bodies today have a better AF system, better low light performance, faster operation, sensor dust reduction technology, useful features like “live view” and video that are missing from the older 5D.
What if you really need full frame and cannot afford it? This is a tricky question. First, I think that quite a few people who are convinced that they “need” full frame really do not. Current cropped sensor cameras can produce truly excellent image quality. Unless you do some very specific things in your photography, the odds are that you will not get better image quality from the 12MP 5D than you would from even an entry level contemporary cropped sensor DSLR. But let’s say you are still convinced that you need full frame but are on a budget. What are you going to do for lenses? Clearly, you are not going to get the advantages of full frame if you cannot also get good lenses.
While I can imagine a very, very small percentage of camera users for whom the value of the full frame sensor might be great enough in comparison to the many other features that you give up with the 5D, for most people it just isn’t a great deal. And keep in mind that the price of the much more capable Canon 5D Mark II (which adds the features from my list a couple paragraphs up) with its 21MP sensor is rapidly dropping toward the $1000 point as I write this. Between $1000 on a 5DII (which is still my primary camera), and $500 for the 5D, I would think about delaying a purchase and saving a bit more.
YMMV, so feel free to leave a question or comment below.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Recently Fujifilm announced an updated version of the X-E1, the X-E2, with availability scheduled for sometime in the second half of November 2013. I have not had a chance to use the new body as of this writing, but here is some information about the new x-E2, along with some thoughts about it relative to the prior X-E1.
There is a perception that some camera manufacturers are slow to incorporate new technologies into their cameras or to make updates to improve the functionality of existing models. Fujifilm, on the other hand, seems to take a very different approach. They have frequently improved and updated the earlier X-series bodies by way of firmware updates that have offered significant improvements and added new features. This seems to carry over into the introduction of new models as well, and the X-E2 appears to incorporate a number of useful and important updates. Much of what follows is, as alluded to above, based on specification sheets and other writing about the camera since I have not used it as of this date.
The camera’s physical design appears to be very similar to that of the X-E1 – a casual observer might not notice the differences. A few control buttons have been moved, and there are now separate AF and AE buttons. The display is a bit wider.
The camera continues to use a 16MP 1.5x cropped format X-trans sensor, which I find to be a fine performer – the marketing material now refers to the “16.3MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor,” but time will tell whether the fundamental image quality is significantly different. Fujifilm says that image processing has been improved to include a Lens Modulation Optimizer function that compensates for image issues such as diffraction blur at smaller apertures along with other sorts of image aberrations. It will be interesting to see how the diffraction blur reduction software performs, as this becomes more of an issue with cameras with small sensors.
An improved (e.g. faster) “EXR Processor II” is said to improve camera performance in many ways – quicker startup, shorter shutter lag, burst mode shooting, and more.
The video performance has been improved. Video was not a strong point of the X-E1, but the X-E2 supports higher frame rates and more formats including 1080p video.
Fujifilm reports that the AF system has been significantly updated. It is said to use both contrast-detection and phase-detection systems (each of which has advantages in various situations) to improve AF performance – this is said to help with both low light conditions and moving subjects. This is an important area since mirrorless camera AF systems generally do not perform as well with moving subjects.
The camera incorporates a “digital split image” system for manual focus, which seems to recall the old split-image systems of film cameras, along with a focus peaking – both of which can assist with accurate manual focus.
The camera has built-in wifi connectivity. Fujifilm says this will allow connectivity to “Android or iOS mobile device[s]” to browse images remotely and to transfer images. It is unclear whether this works with other devices such as laptops.
The X-E2 uses the same battery as the X-E1, which might be an important issue for anyone considering an upgrade or using the X-E2 along with other X-series cameras.
What does this all mean? Should you sell your X-E1 and get an X-E2? Should you pre-order an X-E2 or wait and see? What else might Fujifilm have up their collective sleeves? The answers are not all clear, but some initial conclusions might be drawn.
The X-E2 appears to be a solid update to the X-E1, addressing a list of specific areas for improvement identified by users of the X-E1: improvements to both automatic and manual focusing, updating the video performance, upgrading the processor, tweaking the physical interface.
For many users, the introduction of the X-E2 provides an excellent window of opportunity to save money on the X-E1. Currently the X-E1 body is available for $799 (the X-E2 is $200 more and not available yet) and the X-E1/18-55mm lens bundle is only $999 ($400 less than the same bundle with the X-E2). This pricing may not be available for long.
If you are considering your first camera of this type and cost isn’t a constraint, the X-E2 seems well worth it. If you want to make sure you get one soon, I recommend pre-ordering now, since the initial deliveries are likely to sell quickly.
If you already have a X-E1, the answer to the question of whether you should update to the X-E1 is probably, “It depends.” If video is important to you or if you need improved focus performance performance, upgrading from the X-E1 to the X-E2 may be worthwhile. On the other hand, if you mostly do still photography and you are happy with the X-E1, it probably makes sense to continue to use it for now.
What am I going to do? My situation is perhaps unique. I’m quite happy with the X-E1, which I use in conjunction with a Canon DSLR system. Given the way I use it, I would probably not update for the improvements in still-photogaphy. However… I am also working on a project right now that involves video, and it may end up making more sense for me to move to a X-E2 as a way to get better video performance with the Fujifilm lenses that I already own.
(This text has been adapted from an update to my article on the X-E1, “Taking Stock of the Fujifilm X-E1 Mirrorless Camera” – visit that article for a review of the X-E1 that is still very relevant to the new X-E2.)
Fujifilm mirrorless gear at B&H:
Cameras/bundles
NEW Fujifilm X-E2 – due for mid-November 2013 release and available now for pre-order
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
