My experience going from A700 to Canon 60D

[bakubo]

Greg, yes many years ago the thought of plastic camera bodies and plastic lens tubes seemed to not be such a good idea to me either, but since 1988 or so my opinion has gradually changed. These days I more or less prefer it. My new 60D has a plastic shell over a metal frame, but it is nothing like the 550D or A100 (and other low to mid range Sony bodies that I have held). It is really well done and if you don't know it is plastic you might think it is magnesium. I had a magnesium 30D before and still have my A700. The 60D looks and feels good. I take care of my stuff too so don't drop gear but, of course, none of us knows when an accident will happen.

The only camera I have ever had that had visible, but slight, damage was my Minolta XK bought in 1976. It was a heavy, metal camera. I had not used it much, but one time I dropped it about 2 feet onto a carpeted floor and it landed on the big finder. I don't know how it happened, but it got a small dent in it. It still worked, but it made me feel a bit sick for a few minutes. Over the next few years one corner got some brassing where the black enamel had worn off. I sold it on ebay in 2000 to a collector in Japan along with the box, manuals, everything. I took several close-up photos of the camera also showing the 2 places where it was slightly damaged so anyone bidding on it would know exactly what the condition was. My 7000i, 7xi, and 707si are still in good shape with just the shiny plastic a bit dull from rubbing on clothing and also just age. The 60D does not have shiny plastic.

In normal use occasionally the camera or lens might get small bumps on the edge of a table, chair, railing, corner of a building, etc.. Enough to sometimes dent, scratch, or scuff a metal lens, but I have never had any cosmetic damage to a plastic lens or body. The lighter weight is also very welcome to me.

[bakubo]

Still, blue on black is not such a good choice. I think if the background is black then white is a pretty good choice to make things very clear. If the background is white then black is a pretty good choice. It just dawned on me, but I wonder if that is why for so long books, newspapers, etc. generally do that??????

Here is a screenshot from today of some other random text and background colors that could have been used for the last few centuries. I, for one, consider myself lucky that all that time ago the random color combination that was chosen turned out to be one that I find relatively easy to read. It was random, right? Not by design? In the screenshot there is white text on an almost white background and yellow text on an almost white background:

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[Dusty]

I have to agree that with digital we now never "have the wrong film in the camera". I always had several bodies when I went to do anything serious just to have the various different film speeds and types available.

I was thinking more about this. In 1991 I was in Kenya and mostly used ISO 100 slide film, but I brought some ISO 400 slide film too. It seemed no matter how hard I tried I sometimes had the wrong film in the camera. It would be early in the morning or late in the day and I would end up having ISO 100 film in the camera and then during the day have ISO 400 in the camera. In 1993 I was in Africa and I had a Minolta 7xi and Minolta 7000i. I kept ISO 100 slide film in the 7xi and ISO 400 slide film in the 7000i. I thought that having 2 bodies would solve my problems. Well, it helped a bit, but not much. I found that I would often have the wrong lens on the camera I wanted to use and would have to swap lenses on the bodies. Then 5 minutes later I would be in a situation where I needed to swap the lenses again. Swapping lenses from one body to the other is more difficult and takes more time than dealing with 1 body and 2 lenses. Also, with all the dust while riding on the dirt roads having 2 bodies and 2 lenses and trying to swap the lenses leaves the bodies open longer and harder to protect. Plus, sometimes I would be trying to swap the lenses while the vehicle was on the move on those bumpy dirt roads and everything was bouncing around.

It is all so much easier these days! Another thing is having access to excellent quality ISO settings than just ISO 25-200. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I usually used ISO 25 and ISO 64. ISO 100 was a nice improvement in speed, but now it is the slowest ISO normally found on a DSLR. Now, I think nothing of using ISO 400 or 800. Actually, when I travel and the light is low I think nothing of using ISO 1600, 3200, and 6400. With the 60D it also has ISO 12,800. Sure, the quality goes down as the ISO goes up, but it is still outstanding compared to what we had with film. Also, for many photos the noise/grain is not much of a problem and sometimes looks good. I have Neat Image that also helps a lot. Also, for low light shots at high ISO it often looks good to make them B&W.

I guess having a few more bodies made it easier for me! I have XGM, XGA, X570, X700, SRT 102 & 201 and usually packed them all. For my Holy Land tour in 1999, I ONLY took 3 manual bodies and borrowed my brother's 7000, only because he had that 28-200 superlens. I usually prepared for the next day's planned events by burning up whatever film was close to the end and replacing it with anything special. (Like Konica 1600).

Yes, the lens change was sometimes a hassle, but having a couple of extra 50's and overlapping zooms also helped.

Agreed also that base ISO used is now up, but the fact that we can't get down to ISO 25 when we want to upsets me, too. I'll have to buy a stack of ND filters to compensate for that.

All in all the 'magic ISO change on the fly' beats the old system hands down!

Dusty

[bakubo]

Agreed also that base ISO used is now up, but the fact that we can't get down to ISO 25 when we want to upsets me, too. I'll have to buy a stack of ND filters to compensate for that.

To get from ISO 100 to ISO 25 you would need just one ND4 or from ISO 200 to ISO 25 an ND8. If you need multiple filter sizes it would be easier to get a Cokin holder and just one ND filter.

[bakubo]

To get from ISO 100 to ISO 25 you would need just one ND4 or from ISO 200 to ISO 25 an ND8. If you need multiple filter sizes it would be easier to get a Cokin holder and just one ND filter.

By the way, I bought a Cokin holder and a couple of graduated ND filters of different grade a decade ago. As you know, I don't do landscape photography much, but I had a bug up my butt that I needed these graduated ND filters. I have never used them. Of course, this was back with film so these days with digital I think they are somewhat less popular than they used to be.

[Greg Beetham]

The dpr review of the D7000 is up and as usual there is a lot of blather on the Sony DSLR talk forum about how the A55 is wonderful etc. but too my mind if you look at p.12 of the review where they compare noise and noise reduction in three cameras D7000, 60D and A55 (and turn on the 60D's to 'standard' so it is on an even footing with the others), the 60D shows better detail too my mind than the other two at most ISO's. But of course no one at dpr is even mentioning the 60D.
Greg

[bakubo]

The dpr review of the D7000 is up and as usual there is a lot of blather on the Sony DSLR talk forum about how the A55 is wonderful etc. but too my mind if you look at p.12 of the review where they compare noise and noise reduction in three cameras D7000, 60D and A55 (and turn on the 60D's to 'standard' so it is on an even footing with the others), the 60D shows better detail too my mind than the other two at most ISO's. But of course no one at dpr is even mentioning the 60D.

Greg, thanks for posting that. Usually I only read the reviews of a camera I am seriously considering as a purchase. For other cameras that interest me, but I don't think I will buy, I just read the conclusions page. For cameras I have no interest in I usually don't even read that. I had only looked at the Nikon D7000 conclusions page yesterday.

Your post prompted me to examine page 12 though. I am not interested in jpeg results so I set it to show raw for the Nikon D7000, Canon 60D, Sony A55, and Sony NEX 5 and I looked at all ISO values. I normally just skim over this stuff when reading a review and just take a quick look to make sure nothing is way out of whack, but this time I looked more closely. Here are 4 screenshots that show the Nikon D7000, Canon 60D, Sony A55, and Sony NEX 5 at their lowest ISO, ISO 800, ISO 6400, and ISO 12,800. The 60D looks the best to me. What do you think?

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[Greg Beetham]

Yeah I think the 60D is pretty solid, I would have liked them to get the magnification more consistant accross the brands than they did, just for the sake of conformity. I really like watching the JPEG output from the various cameras, I reckon it shows more of what's going on between brands and what's going on under the hood than RAW. RAW too me is cool if you like to do processing and can find a software solution that happens to suit your particular brand and model well, there is not a guarantee that the processing solution you happen to be using is the best one for the task at any given time. (Look what happened with the A700, Adobe eventually thew their hands in the air and gave up, there were that many upgrades...how would their software deal with an A700 with upgrade x or y or z???)
As I habitually use the JPEG out of the camera 99% of the time and just do a bit of tinkering with that and downsize it for the web; (good enough for the bush), I tend to gravitate towards what a given camera is doing with JPEG's and how that compares with other cameras JPEG's.
Yes Henry, I thought I'd take a gander at the D7000 review out of curiosity, seeing as how it's got a sensor very similar to the A580, A55, and see what's a cookin. In all honesty I thought the 60D was better in the JPEG department than the others.
Greg

[bakubo]

Yes, if you normally shoot jpeg then looking at the jpeg versions would be more appropriate for you. I shot jpeg until 2006 mostly because while traveling the raw files took up too much space and CF cards were a whole lot more expensive than now. I would still pp the jpeg files a bit and got good results. For example, the photos in my Ecuador and Morocco galleries were all shot in jpeg. I remember before long trips in 2003 and 2004 I looked into the cost of buying enough CF cards for the trip so that I wouldn't have to reuse them. My recollection is that it would have cost a thousand or maybe it was thousands of dollars. Just before my recent Vietnam trip I bought an additional 16gb CF card for $50. I now have 41gb of CF cards and didn't have to reuse any of them during the month in Vietnam shooting cRAW.

The 60D uses SD cards and all I had was a 2gb and 1gb card used in my digicam so I bought a 16gb class 10 SD card a few weeks ago for $25. Memory cards are just not much of a problem anymore.

The 60D examples in those dpreview screenshots look to me to have small, tight grain/noise and the other 3 cameras all have big, blotchy grain/noise.

[bakubo]

I am getting fantastic battery life with the 60D. This is the first DSLR I have owned (Canon 300D, KM 7D, Canon 30D, Sony A100, Sony A700, Canon 60D) that I have not immediately bought a second battery. Not having the A700 sleep mode bug that keeps turning the rear LCD on is an additional benefit that makes the 60D battery life even better. I have been using it with the Tamron 18-270mm VC lens, but even with the VC (ILIS) and using the camera everyday I have only recharged it once in the 20 days I have had the camera and even then it was only down to 71%. It is now down to 69% so actually it would probably still be okay even if I hadn't recharged it about 10 days ago. While using the A700 in the same way the battery would usually get to those levels after just a few days. Of course, when I travel I am using the camera even more and walking around with the camera for hours and hours during the day so I would recharge the A700 battery every night.

If I take a trip where I know I will not have access to electricity for a few days I will get an extra 60D battery to be safe. For most of my trips if they don't include trekking/camping though I have access to electricity at night.

[bakubo]

Just a reminder to everyone, I am comparing the 2010 60D to the 2007 A700 (since I own them) so they are different eras of technology. Probably in all my comments in this thread if you were to compare the closest current Sony competitor, the A580 and A55, things might look different. For example, the Sony cameras of 2010 probably get much more battery life than the A700.

Also, I am not much into pixel-peeping so the earlier dpreview screenshots are somewhat interesting, but they all do pretty well, I guess.

[bakubo]

Here are 3 from the last few days.

Still time for a few more rides in the day:



There were some workers with a huge crane about a block from where we live and they were about to raise a really big air-conditioning unit from a flat-bed truck to the roof of a hotel. This man is helping to guide the unit as it is lifted off the truck (the yellow crane and crane operator are in the background):



I think that she must be posing for a sculptor:

[bakubo]

I saw someone asking about auto ISO with M mode, like on the Nikon D700, so I was curious to see if the A700 and 60D can do it.

I just tried it and if you set the A700 to M mode then you cannot select auto ISO.

I tried it on the 60D and it works. Cool! I didn't know that. I can set the 60D to M mode, auto ISO, set the aperture/shutter speed, and as I point the camera at areas of the room with different lighting I can see the ISO changing in the vf.

[bossel]

Maybe that's the future: Choose your DOF via the aperture. Choose speed according to how you want to freeze action. Let Auto-ISO from 25-12800 do the rest...

Btw I really started looking into Auto-ISO with NEX and it's good (too bad it ends at 1600). Have to try the same with the A700 (which I recently revived, the wife claiming the NEX ).

[bakubo]

Maybe that's the future: Choose your DOF via the aperture. Choose speed according to how you want to freeze action. Let Auto-ISO from 25-12800 do the rest...

There was a poster on dpreview with an A55 and Nikon D700 and he was asking about it. He said it doesn't work on his A55 and was curious if it worked on the A700 so I checked. He says he uses it in some situations just for the reason you said.

Btw I really started looking into Auto-ISO with NEX and it's good (too bad it ends at 1600). Have to try the same with the A700 (which I recently revived, the wife claiming the NEX ).

While walking around with the A700 I usually have it set to auto ISO (200-1600, the maximum range) and aperture priority mode. It works well. I have played with it enough to know that it tries to use the lowest ISO while keeping the shutter speed to 1/(focal length * 1.5). Generally, if I was setting the ISO myself I would be doing the same thing. Even with SSS I am glad it uses focal length * 1.5 instead of just the focal length as the denominator since that gives slightly higher shutter speeds and when I am walking around that keeps the shutter speed from getting too low. SSS might save you, but subject movement might be a problem. Of course, you still have to watch the shutter speed to make sure it isn't too low for the subject. I adjust the aperture depending on the DOF I want and also the shutter speed I need. The bad part is that the camera's actual chosen ISO isn't known until after the photo is taken. The actual ISO is not displayed in the vf. You have to be aware that in order to keep the shutter speed high enough the ISO may go up and if you don't need the shutter speed (SSS and static subject) then you might want to select your own ISO to get a lower one.

Fortunately, the 60D works the same way, but the camera selected ISO is always shown in the vf. It makes it easy to see when the ISO is higher than I want when I have ILIS and a static subject. With the 60D I have auto ISO set to the maximum range, ISO 100-6400.