Posted by Roger Rouch on October 2, 2012 at 2:38 PM
I am talking myself into some camera upgrades and thinking a couple of options through. I have been mostly a landscape shooter and last year started some BIF photography using my back up camera, a T2i. I have mostly used it with the 400mm 5.6 during hawkwatch migration counts for documentation and identification, but have found myself also getting into other bird photography. The T2i seems to get fairly noisy at even moderate ISOs. Not knowing any better, the slower fps doesn't seem to bother me, but the AF does hunt around some.
The obvious replacement is a 7D. However, I have also worked up a desire to replace my old 5D classic for landscapes.
My question is whether I would sacrifice much in image quality, relative to the 7D, by cropping with a full frame Canon offering in the 20-25 mp range, thereby getting two birds with one stone (no pun intended). With my raptor photos I am rarely able to fill the frame with the T2i crop sensor. I realize that the difference in MP gain with a full frame does not fully compensate for the advantage of a crop sensor, but isn't there also pixel size advantage to consider with a full frame sensor?
Posted by Keith Bauer on October 2, 2012 at 3:10 PM
Roger: There are many variables to consider, and I don't think there is a singular right answer. I'm including a link to a thread I posted a while back in Avian with a MAJOR crop from a static bird using my 5D Mark III. As noted in the thread, this is 11.9% of the original frame. Follow it down and you can see an image resized to print at roughly 16x24. Clearly one of the selling points of the 5D mark III is the AF system. I can tell you for BIF, it is fantastic. Interested to hear others thoughts on your question.
Dear Roger
I've been using two 7d bodies for bird photography for around 2 years and I've often felt that a lower number of MP (around 12MP) but with a larger pixel surface would have been welcome. If you make a 50% crop of a 22MP full format camera, you almost get 11MP... Therefore I got the 5DmkIII and started working with it and I must say that since then I rarely use the 7D anymore (only in perfect light...).
The 5Dmk3's pixel quality is really greater when compared to the 7D.
The noise is much lower. Consider that I always had to work with photoshop to reduce the background noise with the raw files from the 7D, while with the 5D's that's generally not necessary.
I think that if landscape photography is your favorite field with some bird photography, then the 5Dmk3 is a great choice.
Go ahead! Bye!
Posted by John Cubit on October 3, 2012 at 11:59 AM
Remember that the smaller sensor on the 7D is already a cropped version of the view you will get with the larger sensor. It is not just a smaller version of the same frame of the larger sensor. Consequently, your 400mm lens will seem to provide more magnification on the smaller sensor than on the larger sensor--compared with the bigger sensor, the smaller sensor is essentially pre-cropped.
I follow the quality of the many posts on the the Fred Miranda Nature & Wildlife forum, and the 7D + 400mm 5.6 has been a very successful combination for bird photography. However, the newer cameras, such as the 5Dmk3 will provide less noise at a given ISO, faster focusing, and the other advantages of the latest cameras.
I have been shooting full-frame with a 600mm lens for about 3 years now, and I like the greater flexibility to re-compose photos of flying birds by cropping after the fact. This is especially important for fast and erratically flying birds.
Posted by Roger Rouch on October 3, 2012 at 8:22 PM
I appreciate the feedback and any more forthcoming. It is helpful. Keith, you great example from your MkIII certainly gives some food for thought. At least with my cursory web search, I couldn't find any comparison testing specific to my question, but perhaps the cropped full frame image quality might at least equal and possibly exceed the 7D crop sensor in many situations? Since the 7D seems to be the "go to" avian camera (from my best knowledge anyway) I guess the advantage is a combination of fps, AF, plus image quality?
I currently shoot with a 7D + 300mm f4 L + 1.4x TC for birds. This is a classic birding set-up that is not exorbitantly expensive, and I love it, *especially* because it is light enough to hike with and hand-hold for long periods. The IQ one can get with this rig is great. BUT: if money were of no concern, I WOULD upgrade to the new 5D. I had a chance to test a friend's body with my lens and in spite of the loss of the sensor crop factor, I really did prefer the avian images I took with the 5D. I got a greater number of "usable" images with the 5D than I would have with the 7D. Being able to push the ISO higher on the 5DIII really helps, as does the faster focusing.
Discussion
5 repliesThe obvious replacement is a 7D. However, I have also worked up a desire to replace my old 5D classic for landscapes.
My question is whether I would sacrifice much in image quality, relative to the 7D, by cropping with a full frame Canon offering in the 20-25 mp range, thereby getting two birds with one stone (no pun intended). With my raptor photos I am rarely able to fill the frame with the T2i crop sensor. I realize that the difference in MP gain with a full frame does not fully compensate for the advantage of a crop sensor, but isn't there also pixel size advantage to consider with a full frame sensor?
http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/ic.cgi?a=vp&pr=193637&CGISESSID=9ccbdc6b7470a017996d2e25f605914c&u=31725
I've been using two 7d bodies for bird photography for around 2 years and I've often felt that a lower number of MP (around 12MP) but with a larger pixel surface would have been welcome. If you make a 50% crop of a 22MP full format camera, you almost get 11MP... Therefore I got the 5DmkIII and started working with it and I must say that since then I rarely use the 7D anymore (only in perfect light...).
The 5Dmk3's pixel quality is really greater when compared to the 7D.
The noise is much lower. Consider that I always had to work with photoshop to reduce the background noise with the raw files from the 7D, while with the 5D's that's generally not necessary.
I think that if landscape photography is your favorite field with some bird photography, then the 5Dmk3 is a great choice.
Go ahead! Bye!
I follow the quality of the many posts on the the Fred Miranda Nature & Wildlife forum, and the 7D + 400mm 5.6 has been a very successful combination for bird photography. However, the newer cameras, such as the 5Dmk3 will provide less noise at a given ISO, faster focusing, and the other advantages of the latest cameras.
I have been shooting full-frame with a 600mm lens for about 3 years now, and I like the greater flexibility to re-compose photos of flying birds by cropping after the fact. This is especially important for fast and erratically flying birds.