I've gone and done it.

neil_g · 7 Sep 2011 at 11:11

adamau5 said:
not at f1.4 you dont... razor thin dof

agreed. a few mm movement and youre OOF.

focus and then recrop in edit in my opinion.

Mr Jones · 7 Sep 2011 at 12:01

Rojin said:
The D700 is actually cheaper second hand than the 5D2 (this was around £1200 at one stage but people are asking £1400 now!).

bigredshark said:
There are many reasons to look at the D700 but price surely isn't one of them, The D700 is a clean £200 more than a 5dII today in general and the glass is more expensive by about 20% in my experience recently (24-70/2.8, 35/1.4 for example are both a lot more from Nikon). It's part of what has caused me to look at Canon again (other factors too though).

What JJ said.
It was only the Nikon glass that's putting me off BUT all third party glasses on a Nikon are generally cheaper than that equivilent on a Canon (second hand market anyway).

An Exception · 7 Sep 2011 at 12:22

Rojin said:
This is what I read a lot, but the lens I had before was "meh". Colours and contrast were poor and the AF was a bit slow. I'll have to keep an eye out for another one. It may be a Nikon mount though...

Same on Canon mount, on the wide end it was extremely sharp for me on my 550D, on the long end it was soft, got a 50D and micro adjusted it, and it was soft on the wide end, and sharp on the long end, it seems this lens is incapable of perfect focus on both the long and short end.

An Exception · 7 Sep 2011 at 12:27

bigredshark said:
There are many reasons to look at the D700 but price surely isn't one of them, The D700 is a clean £200 more than a 5dII today in general and the glass is more expensive by about 20% in my experience recently (24-70/2.8, 35/1.4 for example are both a lot more from Nikon). It's part of what has caused me to look at Canon again (other factors too though).

Yep, since moving to my D7K, focus-recompose has become a thing of the past, which I also found has meant I do much much less cropping these days due to better composition in camera, allot of the time I don't crop at all, just hope it stays that way when I move to the D700 that only has 95% VF coverage.

bigredshark · 7 Sep 2011 at 14:05

Ejizz said:
Yep, since moving to my D7K, focus-recompose has become a thing of the past, which I also found has meant I do much much less cropping these days due to better composition in camera, allot of the time I don't crop at all, just hope it stays that way when I move to the D700 that only has 95% VF coverage.

My take is the CAM3500 (D300s/D700/D3s) AF is better still, maybe I'm just more used to it but it's got half as many cross type sensors again and feels more reliable to me. D7000 was good for it's market though. Whether the vf coverage matters is up to your taste, never been as issue for me.

My view of cropping is composition is best done in camera but it's a personal choice and as much about my workflow as purity, I don't much enjoy sitting in front of a computer editing photos and I shoot a lot of film where there's more need for it to be right in camera so it makes sense to use the same approach to both mediums.

Got your D700 yet?

An Exception · 7 Sep 2011 at 14:38

^^^
No, picking it up Saturday after a test drive, as the guy is currently on holiday until then.

Raymond Lin · 7 Sep 2011 at 17:43

adamau5 said:
not at f1.4 you dont... razor thin dof

I never recompose with my primes, I have done on my wide angle zooms (even then it's outer points then move subject more into the corner) but never primes.

I rarely use the centre point.

Rojin · 7 Sep 2011 at 18:45

Raymond Lin said:
I never recompose with my primes, I have done on my wide angle zooms (even then it's outer points then move subject more into the corner) but never primes.

I rarely use the centre point.

Interesting, do you use the outer points with kids running around etc?

adamau5 · 7 Sep 2011 at 18:47

on my 70-200 i can see that being fine in daylight.... the 50mm f1.4 would struggle. Low light forget it.

Raymond Lin · 7 Sep 2011 at 18:50

Yup, I ONLY ever use centre point if I shoot landscapes, group shot where everyone is level to the sensor plane. Or when I purposely put something in the middle of the frame.

Those shots of bride and groom dancing, kids running, etc, it's almost always outer points.

ElDude · 7 Sep 2011 at 19:12

I seem to have developed the habit of using pretty much all focus points except the centre one, apart from landscape, as Ray says. I didn't even think about it until I read this thread. It's helped me take more photos without cropping too.

Now if I can just remember to change the damn metering when I'm out taking photos when I'm hungover, I'll be sorted

Rojin · 8 Sep 2011 at 09:41

Raymond Lin said:
Yup, I ONLY ever use centre point if I shoot landscapes, group shot where everyone is level to the sensor plane. Or when I purposely put something in the middle of the frame.

Those shots of bride and groom dancing, kids running, etc, it's almost always outer points.

Nnnnnnnnng! The thing is I don't have the glass that you have, so that's probably going to play a part in the outer AF performance.

Mr Jones · 25 Sep 2011 at 00:45

I've gone and done it: I'm in the middle of selling my 40D, sold my 50mm and my Tamron is waiting for the picking.

All these sold and I've just paid for...
The 24-70L.

*Holy Chanting* I am so looking forward to this lens. Now to sell my kidney to raise money for a 35L.

Rojin · 25 Sep 2011 at 00:50

Nice, I really liked the 24-70L I had. It was practically glued to the 1D3. I've been toying with the idea of getting another but I'm liking primes at the moment. I've even been thinking about the 24-105 but can't get past the f4

Mr Jones · 25 Sep 2011 at 00:53

I was toying with the idea of the 24-105L but aye, the f4, with flash is fine but in scenario like Churches will make it not quite as good - even if I bump the ISO up.

So I settled with dropping a little bit more for the f2.8.

The Tamron is still available, I did 'grab' it off you when it was FS, selling it back same price + postage *hint hint*

Mr Jones · 25 Sep 2011 at 01:02

On a side note: The 5D2 and the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 - OMG it's sharp, along with the high resolution power, I'm still in awe.

Centre 100%: