Hi Jonas,
My buddy, who is a photographer, has the 5D, and no doubt, it is an excellent camera. His results even impresses colleagues of his, who use the Mark II.
If you primarily use wide angle, and have good lenses in that range, I can understand why you would prefer the FF, and not the 1.5 crop factor.
The roadmap shows that telelenses will be made in DFA. This could leave options open for a Pentax FF, along the way. But that doesn’t help you now.
However, the DS and DL are entry level cameras. They are good for their use, but K10 is a semipro. Images can be enlarged 8-20 times, and still show more detail.
And down the road, the K1 is also on its way; looking to be a full scale professional camera.
The 645D is also an option. As you say, it is an expensive camera. But still, if you trade in what you have now, and just purchase a few medium format lenses, then it should be within reach. I don’t know if you via adaptor, could use some of your 35mm lenses on it. Here we are talking 30 MP, and the former 645 film camera has been used by many pros.
(The weight of the old 645n was 1280 g, and the 5D is 810 grams. But no doubt, it will be less handy.)
The Nikon D200 is a camera that quite a few professionals use as a backup camera. It also has the CCD sensor. There has been a lot of criticism of it, and the first shipments were not up to notch; still there are also many that are happy with it. E.g. check out user feedbacks here :
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=getItemDetail&Q=&sku=407284&is=REG&si=rev#anchorToReadReviews
If Pros can live with a CCD sensor, then you should be able to also.
The 5D has an excellent viewfinder with 96% frame coverage, the K10 has 95 %.
Regarding viewfinder in the FF Canon 5D, then that was one of the main reasons that my friend left Nikon.
The 5D handles noise well, but its due to in camera noise reduction. As I understand it, many generally prefer to be able to do this via software instead. Since new RAW software programs can improve images later on, where you are more stuck with manipulated images direct from the camera.
Generally CMOS are better with fast action, with higher FPS. And conserve battery power better.
Canon admits that CMOS sensors have more noise :
http://www.robgalbraith.com/public_files/Canon_Full-Frame_CMOS_White_Paper.pdf
(From another user, on this dpreview site) :
Canon themselves, in a white paper posted on Rob Galbraith's website, wrote, and I quote, "CMOS sensors generally have the disadvantage of generating more electrical noise than CCDs, which can result in poor image quality. There are unavoidable fluctuations in the performance of the millions of photodiodes and amplifiers incorporated into a CMOS sensor, and the tiny differences in performance result in noise in the output image. To overcome this problem, Canon developed on-chip technology to record the noise of each pixel before exposure, and automatically subtract such noise from the image when it is created."
Here's a non-Canon view of the two technolgies from a company that offers both. :
http://www.dalsa.com/shared/content/pdfs/CCD_vs_CMOS_Litwiller_2005.pdf
(In this you will see how there had to be put a lot of work and money into CMOS, before it was up to the mark of CCD. [Last page in the document, start of first paragraph]).
(Courtesy of RPulley, as I remember it. And it was stated :
CMOS may well be the future, but right now it is pretty much a tie.)
(You’ll probably get more out of these papers than me, its taken from a discussion on this board, and I’m still learning).
And here is something I had copied, from a discussion on the PDML board :
“As I've said before, the FF idea is foolish, and there is really no reason
(in my humble opinion) to go jumping ship to Canon just because they have
"FF" sensors in their cameras. I've yet to see a wide-angle shot taken with
a "FF" sensor that doesn't have soft or dark edges and corners. I mean,
hell, even Leica, the king of high-priced, high-spec'd cameras, isn't using
a "FF" sensor in their dSLR and digital M and R cameras. Doesn't that tell
you something? If nothing else, I think they're trying to say this:
35mm digital sensors do not produce the kind of edge-to-edge quality
customers demand!
It's that simple.
John Celio
P.S.: a coworker of mine sold 90% of his Leica gear and bought a Canon 5D
and a couple L lenses and fast wide primes. He frequently laments to
customers how disappointed he has been with his purchase, especially how it
performs with the wide lenses. That's usually enough to get said customers
over their preconcieved notion that "FF" is better. Hell, one customer even
went on to order a Leica MP.”
Many of these things you are probably already aware of, but its just to give another opinion and input.
If you get the 5D, most likely you will be happy with it, it is for sure a fabulous camera. Even though it has no weather sealing.
My friend uses it with Leica lenses, since he has not been satisfied with the Canon lenses he used.
From your point of view, I can understand that you would find FF appealing. For me the lighter gear with the K10 sensor, e.g. pancake DA40 lmt, will be fine. And I like the tele opportunities that the crop factor gives. The 600 mm or the 250-600 zoom, would financially be out of my league.
I was skiing in Banff in minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the SLR was too heavy to sling in and out of the bag. And other times hiking in the mountains, with tent, food, etc. then it was annoying when trying to cut grams, that an SLR & lens, still was pretty heavy.
But have fun whatever you choose
Greetings from Scandinavia
Sune
P.S. please bare with me, if I got some of the technical aspects messed up. I’m still a bit new to the digital SLR notion. (And maybe it was a different kind of noise that you were discussing in the thread, than I brougt up).
Still, found the discussion interesting.
