Upgrade suggestions

[jkpadgett]

Hi gang,

I am just looking for some advice. I currently have a Canon 50D with 24-70 EF-S lense. I have been tossing around the idea of upgrading. I do not consider myself an expert, and prefer to shoot landscape and occasionally candid photos. Just thought I would post here for some suggestions for the next step. I see a lot about full frame. Is this really an advantage?

Thanks in advance!

[HDNitehawk]

Yes there is an advantage with FF over Crop. For most models less noise at high ISO. With a FF you have more ability to take advantage of your DOF and Bokeh. For landscape work it is much better. The AF systemem of the current offerings will be a huge bump up. The exclusion would be the 6D which is closer to your 50D than the other current offerings.

But it really comes down to your skill level. If you shoot green box or automatic modes the benefit will be minimal. Do you mind the extra weight. Many people I know I wouldn't recommend a FF body because they just do not need it.

With FF you will end up buying a body and lens. The 50D was my first dSLR, I followed it with a 5D which I considered a huge upgrade. If you were to get the new 5D IV or a 5Ds R it would be a huge leap in technology from where you are now. Add to that you will spend at least $4K getting the body and a decent lens.

[DavidEccleston]

I'm curious about your lens. I'm not aware of an EF-S 24-70mm. Canon's 24-70mm lenses are EF (and thus full-frame compatible). Before that they had EF 28-70mm, and EF 28-80mm.

[HDNitehawk]

The EF 28-135 mm is the lens that came with the 50D kit and will work with a FF body as well.

[Kayaker72]

My first dSLR was the 7D. I then jumped to the 5DIII.

As HDNitehawk was mentioning above, there are advantages of FF over crop. But not everyone would see or appreciate the advantages and they are not apparent in every situation. To put this in context, we live in a world where the most common camera is on a phone and a lot of people are very happy with those images. I personally dislike most images I take with my iPhone once viewed on anything other than an iPhone.

Also, there are advantages of a crop sensor over a FF.

Really quickly:
A few quick advantages of FF over Crop:

• Noise. FF will have less noise. Considering the age of the 50D, if you upgrade even to a new crop sensor (80D or 7DII) you will likely see an improvement. More if you upgrade to a FF sensor
• Bokeh. Larger sensor, same focal length means that the angles the light takes are more extreme. So as you move away from the focal plane the blur happens more quickly (steeper angles).
• Lenses. Bottom line is that most good lenses are designed for FF. Sure they can be used on a crop sensor, but they are intended for FF. As a quick example, I love the 24 mm focal length on FF, as do a lot of people. Look at how many lenses cover the 24 mm focal length on FF. The equivalent focal length on a crop sensor is 15 mm. How many lenses can be used on a crop sensor that are 15 mm? More lenses are designed to be "native" to a FF sensor.
• Pixel quality. This isn't specifically FF vs crop, but it is typical that FF sensors have larger pixels than crop sensors. This plays into the noise issue above, but typically a larger pixel is a higher quality pixel for noise, DR, tone, and color.

A few quick advantages of Crop over FF:

• Simply the #1 advantage of crop over FF, in my opinion, is cost. Crop lenses are less expensive, crop bodies are less expensive. Crop lenses tend to have smaller thread size so filters are less expensive. And put another way, everything about FF is more expensive than crop.
• Reach. A 400 mm lens on FF is 400 mm. On crop it is equivalent to 640 mm. At least ideally. A few people have played with the "true" reach and think it is closer to 1.2x and not 1.6x. This is because of the pixel quality/noise advantage of FF. But there is a reach advantage. But it might be small.
• Size and weight. Crop bodies/lenses are smaller and lighter. I recently saw someone reference the 7DII as the most fun camera body they've ever owned. I get it. There was something about my 7D EFs 15-85 combo that I still miss. Something about it was "fun." Granted, I am not going back

All of that said and both crop and FF bodies can take excellent pictures. While there are several example of people using crop sensors camera bodies and taking excellent photos, I'll encourage you to look at Jamsus or Jerrytech1 in this forum. Both are often winning our weekly contests and both shoot a crop sensor body. In doing so they are routinely beating people using FF sensors. But this leads me to my last point....glass.

The rule of thumb for investment in photography, get good glass first then worry about your camera body. Actually, lighting, composition, etc are probably even more important than glass. But in terms of glass vs camera bodies, glass is usually the better investment.

So, I do not know what your budget is, but if you can buy everything you need FF, if this is a serious hobby/profession for you, I would encourage it. But I would add up the cost first. If you decide to save some money, I could see upgrading to the 80D/7DII and investing in some good lenses, tripods, or lighting.

[Joel Eade]

To the excellent points made already I would add .... if you have the budget after obtaining a great lens and you decide full frame is the way go I would consider a used or refurbed 6D. The sensor in that camera is really great and has been compared favorably with the 1DX sensor.

[Manofmayo66]

Kayaker: I really loved my 15-85 on my 50D. It was perfect for nearly everything I wanted to do. I wish I had kept that combo and purchased the 6D as my primary body.

JKP, I was in the same boat as you at one point, and I upgraded to the 7D first, then added a 5D to play around with. I found I liked the IQ better on the 5D, sold both of them and went to the 6D. When I sold the 2 cameras, I also sold 2 lenses (70-200 f4 & 15-85). Then I purchased a 7D again for a project, then traded it in for a Sony A6000. Before I made the switch to FF, I made sure most of my lenses were FF compatible (Tamron/Sigma make EF-S lenses that can be mounted on FF cameras) and good quality. Given what I shoot, I wish I had made the jump to the 6D immediately instead of the 8 months where I had the 7D & 5D simultaneously.

My experiences only......

[jkpadgett]

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[jkpadgett]

I spoke in error, it is an EF 24-70. Thank you!