Going Digital - Need Advice

[alex saltzman]

one last question...a friend of mine just emailed me and said he might be willing to sell me his 5D Mark I for about $850 as he is upgrading.


I

[HDNitehawk]

I have never had one, but in 10 years it would be 15 year old technology. I would prefer the new 5D mark II or the 7D over it. There are a lot of improvements and upgrades to the new cameras.

[Daniel Browning]

Great questions, Alex. I hope I can give you some useful information. I think we should touch on some of the differences between film and digital:


Ye Olde cameras came with hot-swappable image sensors (also known as "film", for you young folks). This meant that every camera, even 30-year-old models could take advantage of the newest advances in film emulsion technology the very same day that they hit the market, and you could even swap between several different types of film in a matter of minutes.


Digital is totally different -- the film (sensor) is stuck in the camera and can never be changed or improved. As new films (sensors) are developed and improved, there is no way for you to take advantage of them like you did when you bought new film for your camera. I'm sure you remember how much film improved over the course of a decade.


With film, buying one good body and keeping it for 10 or 20 years was feasible, because you you didn't have to use 20-year-old film with it. But since you can't with digital, cameras fall quickly out of date.

So, 10 years from now, which camera am I going to be happier with, the 7D or the 5D.

Let me ask you this. 10 years from now, which computer would you be happier with, a 100 mhz with 128 MB of RAM, or a 150mhz with 256 MB of ram? I think the answer is "neither". Just like with computers, you would get better results spending $1000 on a camera now and $1000 on another one in 5 years rather than $2500 all right now that has to last you a decade.

Is the 5D worth the extra $600 or so?

It has a lot of advantages over the 7D, but most of them don't apply to landscape/architecture. The 7D has a ton of features that the 5D2 does not have, like FPS, autofocus, etc. But if you're considering the 5D2 then that might mean these aren't very important to you. In that case, I would strongly advise you to consider the 60D instead. That will leave you an extra $1500 to spend on a new camera (like getting the latest film technology) in 3-5 years.


As for a used Canon 5D for $850, that sounds like a good price, but it's so far behind on features, I would personally prefer a 60D far more. The liveview feature alone is so vital to my landscape and architecture photography that I cannot imagine ever having to go back to a camera that lacks that feature.


Happy shooting!