tamaraw35
Leading Member
You could get the 35mm, which is less expensive and more useful for general photography, but like you said, you would have to get much closer to your subjects, which could be difficult. I can technically focus a lot closer in my shots, I'm just not to keen on getting really close to a hornet or a spider on a branch that is blowing back and forth in the wind. In macro, working distance describes how close the front element of your lens needs to be to your subject to achieve 1:1 magnification. If you want to take shots of live subjects like your samples, longer focal lengths will typically give longer working distances in macro. If you want a more budget option, there is a Canon 60mm, the non-L 100mm will still be good, or there are a few 3rd party (Sigma, Tokina, venus optics, etc.) options as well. Look up samples in reviews and see if some of the lenses might have dedicated flickr pages.
Wow, those are really nice! Congrats!
That's a broad generalization and the tech used in the sensor is often a much bigger deciding factor. I should have more clearly stated that this is only meaningful for sensors of the same size, technology, and generation. It's technically about photosite (each part of the sensor that equates to a pixel) size which can be measured with pixel pitch (distance from the center of one photosite to the next) in micrometers. This relates to pixel density, which is why some people will say that 35mm is less noisy than aps-c and be technically correct in most cases (24 or 30mp spread across 35mm is much less densely packed than the same resolution on aps-c). While this is a more technical approach, it's not very important and there are a lot of other factors that go into creating a great image than lower noise. Also, when people compare noise between images of different sizes, some compare at 100% crops while others scale the larger image down to the size of the smaller one.
For that particular case, the 70D is not really better at noise performance and there are a lot of other advances on the 80D that would make it preferable. Use the dpreview studio comparison tool to compare cameras if you want, just be sure to set samples to raw if you want to see noise before reduction is applied. There are a lot of factors in IQ other than noise performance and imho, a little bit of chroma reduction goes a long way. For landscape during the day, it's not an issue, and at night you can use a tripod for longer exposures. In macro, generally you will be shooting well lit subjects and/or have a lighting rig setup.
Besides, differences you see will mostly be above 800 iso.
Not that I am aware of. There is a difference between noise native to the sensor and software noise reduction algorithms. Noise reduction carefully applied to a raw file in post production will almost always be better than in-camera reduction, regardless of manufacturer. That said, you can only push noise reduction so far before side effects begin to manifest. Personally, I prefer to apply chroma/chrominance noise reduction (desaturates colored specks) and leave luminance noise (mottled brightness variations) mostly alone because messing with the 2nd one can decrease detail and cause smudged or waxy looking surfaces.
Canon make their own sensors and just about everyone else use Sony sensors. Because of this, Canon is typically a little behind in regards to dynamic range. Outputs from different sensors will be different. Different companies use their own color science to help differentiate themselves and get their own look. Canon tends to be a little warmer and smoother with really nice skin tones. Nikon is a little punchier with more color contrast and a slightly cooler look. Olympus goes warmer and pumps color saturation. Fuji has settings to simulate various film stocks.
Of course, you can get any look you want from manipulating raw files, or adjusting in-camera profiles, but this is generally how the jpegs will come out of camera stock. There is no right or wrong answer, it's totally up to you which look you prefer from samples.
I shot Nikon for a long time and while I do really like Canon color output for most situations, sometimes I miss the je ne sais quoi of nikon colors. It's all a tossup.
BTW, I believe the M50 in my samples uses the same sensor as the 80D.
