6D or 70D?

[throttlemeister]

There in lies the clincher... 12 stops is not HDR. I don't know why anyone gets their knickers in a knot over technical details when they still have to take two or more shots to achieve genuine HDR.

For the spec. freaks out there, you have the best camera available, but I still continue to see spectacular shots taken with middle of the road cameras every day.

Not saying it is mate. I personally don't like hdr. But it let me do things w/o bracketing that I couldn't with the 5D and since I always shoot handheld that is a godsend. I can't wait for cameras 15+ stops of DR.

 

[Puckman]

Archie, this is very cool stuff (love your shots as usual).
Thanks for the detailed response. As usual, in such cases, it just opened up more questions

1) In what way exactly is the 6D capable of the Paris shot below that the 600d isn't? You have to bare with me here as I am still fairly new at this.

2) Do you use a tripod for all these shots, generally? While I have a tripod and use it when I can, I find myself not wanting to lug it around most of the time and therefore prefer handholding. Not sure this comment has anything to do with the 6d/70d discussion, but I was curious as to your preferred shooting style.

3) Anything I shoot at ISO 800 or more looks grainy at even fair resolution (1900x1200 end product after post). Are you people getting these fabulous results at high ISO because of your cameras (meaning, is this a 6D advantage?) or do I just not know how to shoot in low light?

As a result, I have taken to forcing myself to ISO 100-400 and doing the best I can with low lighting (large aperture, faster lens).

Guess I need to learn a lot more about technique here.

Back to the 6D. I agree with you about the AF. I tend to use only the middle focus point and recompose. That's worked fine for me with the 600d and I see no reason for changing that, no matter how many AF points the new camera provides. More accurate/faster to focus would be nice (I do find the 600d has a tendency to go hunting, depending on the lenses and lighting). But I suspect the 70d is just as good (if not better) than the 6d and both would be miles ahead of the 600d in that department.

4) Depending on what you like to shoot, the faster burst rate on the 70d is interesting. I haven't quite yet decided "what I like to shoot" as a beginner. I shoot a lot of everything. I suspect with your focus on portraiture, but not "action", you probably don't care about the 7fps vs 4fps.

5) Is the diff between the 60d and 600d really the ergonomics and location of a few buttons? That seems a bit extreme of a comparison, no?

In any case, sorry for the long winded tangents. Lots of questions jumbled up in my head and things tend to come out in a stream of consciousness kind of way sometimes. All in all, this is all still very informative, and I keep going back and on forth on whether there is any reason I should go FF (ie 6d) or not for the time being (and accordingly, what lenses I should go for in the immediate future).

I wanted FF. I really like shooting people and natural light is my favourite (and easiest!). My requirements were low noise at high Iso for natural light portraits.

This picture highlights a shot that would have not been as possible on my 600D:

[url=http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8080/8446461889_95e8685165_n.jpg]Image[/url]
Paris by acearchie, on Flickr

It was taken at ISO 4000 and through further experimentation I know that I can push it to easily ISO 6400 (as in the image below) and still really not have to worry about noise.

[url=http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3787/9598901553_5d27f89096_n.jpg]Image[/url]
Alex by acearchie, on Flickr

In fact, I love the fact that my 6D can pretty much see better than my own eyes. The scene below was darker in real life yet at ISO 12,800 there is still low noise and it is definitely acceptable for a web use shot. This was the first shot I took from my camera after I took it out the box!

[url=http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/8519561764_495e9760d8_n.jpg]Image[/url]
Home At Night by acearchie, on Flickr

Linked with this is the AF on the 6D. My 600D would search quite a bit but my 6D is great at hitting the mark (by default I stick it on centre focusing and recompose if need be). The centre point is the best at focusing in low light compared to the rest of Canon's range:



This is something that a lot of people gloss over when comparing focusing types. To be honest, I have shot with a 1Div and found that I did not need all the focusing points it had to offer. In my opinion, 9 is the sweet spot and I only use the outers for portrait orientated photos when there is enough light.

The other main reason for me was I wanted a shallower depth of field. I like being able to separate the subject from the background and depth of field is the quick way to do this. Having now got lenses from 11mm all the way up to 85mm I am able to use my lens selection to aid how much depth of field and perspective distortion I want.

The DOF is the main reason that I have been shooting MF film for quite a while. Whilst the lenses I have are slower the DOF adds a really different look and helps pop the subjects out from the scene.

The 70D wasn't out when I bought my 6D but I didn't even consider the 60D as it is the same sensor as the 600D and in essence apart from a few buttons changing around (which in itself can be quite important) it was practically the same camera.

It wouldn't have allowed me to take any different pictures from the 600D as the focus points weren't my requirement and on the 70D I view the video AF as gimmicky as in a professional video environment you always focus manually and I have therefore invested in kit to aid me with this.

Feel free to ask anything else!

 

[ijohn.8.80]

I can't wait for cameras 15+ stops of DR.

On this. When I spoke to a printer about the dynamic range of photo's he said that the kiosk type printing is down as low as 5 EV and that better specialist printing services only get up to 11 or 12 EV at best. Is this true? It's only on top end screens that you have the visual ability to represent 13+ EV?

I did a cursory search for this and couldn't find any sites that spoke in lay terms about this. They spoke in different measurement types and didn't give any correlation between them.

 

[pna]

3) Anything I shoot at ISO 800 or more looks grainy at even fair resolution (1900x1200 end product after post). Are you people getting these fabulous results at high ISO because of your cameras (meaning, is this a 6D advantage?) or do I just not know how to shoot in low light?

I've actually been meaning to post something along the lines of this question myself. I see lots of reviews that talk about having no concern over shooting at ISO 1600 or 3200 (in some cases) for the camera I shoot with (Nikon D7000), but my experience has been that I see quite a bit of distracting noise even at ISO 1600.

I've been assuming that either the reviewers making these comments are either not printing large, or more likely, are using more sophisticated post-processing noise reduction tools than Aperture 3 by itself, which is all that I've used. Is it suites like the NIK plugins that enable such low-noise results from high-ISO shooting, is Lightroom just vastly superior for noise reduction out of the box, or am I just misusing the tools that I have already in Aperture 3?

 

[ijohn.8.80]

I've actually been meaning to post something along the lines of this question myself. I see lots of reviews that talk about having no concern over shooting at ISO 1600 or 3200 (in some cases) for the camera I shoot with (Nikon D7000), but my experience has been that I see quite a bit of distracting noise even at ISO 1600.

I've been assuming that either the reviewers making these comments are either not printing large, or more likely, are using more sophisticated post-processing noise reduction tools than Aperture 3 by itself, which is all that I've used. Is it suites like the NIK plugins that enable such low-noise results from high-ISO shooting, is Lightroom just vastly superior for noise reduction out of the box, or am I just misusing the tools that I have already in Aperture 3?

Tripod and a more improved sensor too. I've taken shots of the cat in the house at ISO 25,600 with acceptable noise to post at 1024px wide with my 6D and 24-105mm lens. I noticed a huge improvement in noise levels as I went up in camera range from the T3/1100D to the 60D to the 6D.

I shoot all RAW and don't use any of the noise reduction or high ISO things in camera. I'm not even sure if they work on RAW or just on Jpeg's.

NIk and Topaz Labs have pretty good sharpening and noise reducing plugins. Smart sharpening in photoshop is pretty amazing when used correctly too.

 

[Puckman]

Tripod

I know there's a smiley face there, but that answer isn't sufficient for me.
I shoot with a tripod, specially at night. I still see noise at 800, 1600 and up.

And I don't mean the "you have to zoom at 100% to see it" kind. Fairly apparent noise.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

I know there's a smiley face there, but that answer isn't sufficient for me.
I shoot with a tripod, specially at night. I still see noise at 800, 1600 and up.

And I don't mean the "you have to zoom at 100% to see it" kind. Fairly apparent noise.

I expanded the answer above while you typed this, sorry.

The things that helped me the most for night shots with the 1100D and the 60D, neither of which I could take over ISO 800 either.

• Tripod
• Mirror lock
• Timed delay (2 second)
• Remote trigger
• ISO 100 always
• Better lenses
• Set the camera to quiet shooting mode, find out which has the least vibration for your camera.

The sensors on fullframe are a lot better than crop for noise. When there is no in camera trickery used!

 

[Puckman]

Thanks for the reply.

I use a tripod, 2 sec. delay (or remote) for all my night attempts at photography.

Not familiar with mirror lock or "quiet" mode. My camera is a T3i, so not sure if either applies, will research that tonight.

What I'm definitely getting from both you and Archie is that the FF sensor is definitely a step up, as far as noise, compared to something like my T3i.

PS: Of course, better lenses! That goes without saying

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Thanks for the reply.

I use a tripod, 2 sec. delay (or remote) for all my night attempts at photography.

Not familiar with mirror lock or "quiet" mode. My camera is a T3i, so not sure if either applies, will research that tonight.

What I'm definitely getting from both you and Archie is that the FF sensor is definitely a step up, as far as noise, compared to something like my T3i.

PS: Of course, better lenses! That goes without saying

I reckon if all you are doing is posting on the internet and printing small, stick with your current body and get better lenses. Learn to minimise as much as you can with your camera. Experiment with the different settings, like High ISO noise reduction, observe what it does to your pictures apart from removing or minimising noise. Accept that if you shoot in RAW, post production is necessary to get it to come to life and then choose your poison for how you want to proceed with that. Aperture alone can have plug-ins that I mentioned and it's a pretty powerful all in one type package.

 

[Puckman]

I reckon if all you are doing is posting on the internet and printing small, stick with your current body and get better lenses. Learn to minimise as much as you can with your camera. Experiment with the different settings, like High ISO noise reduction, observe what it does to your pictures apart from removing or minimising noise. Accept that if you shoot in RAW, post production is necessary to get it to come to life and then choose your poison for how you want to proceed with that. Aperture alone can have plug-ins that I mentioned and it's a pretty powerful all in one type package.

Yeah. Also still learning here. Been pondering an upgrade (my birthday's coming up and thought I'd treat myself to a nice piece of equipment). Hence my various threads asking about lenses, FF vs. crop, etc. LOL.

More importantly I need to keep practicing.

 

[fa8362]

What I'm definitely getting from both you and Archie is that the FF sensor is definitely a step up, as far as noise, compared to something like my T3i.

So are Pentax and Nikon APS-C DSLRs which utilize Sony (and Toshiba) sensors. Both are significantly better in both dynamic range and noise. You should definitely consider dumping Canon.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

You should definitely consider dumping Canon.

As per normal you've gone straight into a p!$$ing match, rather than answer the guys queries about differences between crop and full frame sensors. Maybe we do need Bill Gates eugenics program after all.

 

[throttlemeister]

First of all noise is pretty much irrelevant if the photo is good. It's about the emotions your photo invokes, not how clean it looks at 100% pixel peeping.

Second, sensor difference between brands are irrelevant once you bought into a system, so don't worry about it.

Third, focus on making or learning to make great shots instead tools. Tools are not going to make you a better photographer.

 

[acearchie]

Not saying it is mate. I personally don't like hdr. But it let me do things w/o bracketing that I couldn't with the 5D and since I always shoot handheld that is a godsend. I can't wait for cameras 15+ stops of DR.

Check out some footage from the RED dragon sensor. Pretty unbelievable stuff. Even when I was shooting on the BMCC with 13 stops it was pretty interesting!

1) In what way exactly is the 6D capable of the Paris shot below that the 600d isn't? You have to bare with me here as I am still fairly new at this.

Mostly due to the low light capabilities and the autofocus. Without the 6D the shot would have likely been unfocused and very grainy with an abundance of colour noise. The lack of a 1.6x crop (a la 600D) also meant that I was able to use a 50mm and be closer to the subject, to be the same distance with a crop camera would mean I would have had to have used a wider lens which would have reduced the apparent size of the Eiffel Tower.

It might seem like a few small things but having the ability to have those advantages for every photo it does make a big difference.

2) Do you use a tripod for all these shots, generally? While I have a tripod and use it when I can, I find myself not wanting to lug it around most of the time and therefore prefer handholding. Not sure this comment has anything to do with the 6d/70d discussion, but I was curious as to your preferred shooting style.

I can't think of the last time I used a tripod. I like my shots to be un-fussy and usually candid. I don't want to have to spend time setting up and risk missing the shot.

3) Anything I shoot at ISO 800 or more looks grainy at even fair resolution (1900x1200 end product after post). Are you people getting these fabulous results at high ISO because of your cameras (meaning, is this a 6D advantage?) or do I just not know how to shoot in low light?

FF will help this. I could shoot a normal day shot at ISO 1600 and not worry about it. If I did that on my 600D I wouldn't have the same shot and it would hamper the image quality.

Have you been to DPreview and compared different shots from different cameras? They will allow you to see the same scene taken with different cameras at different ISOs and compare the noise in each shot.

4) Depending on what you like to shoot, the faster burst rate on the 70d is interesting. I haven't quite yet decided "what I like to shoot" as a beginner. I shoot a lot of everything. I suspect with your focus on portraiture, but not "action", you probably don't care about the 7fps vs 4fps.

Have you tried 4fps? It's actually quite quick. I have done a little bit of sport (literally a pinch) and found 4fps to be quite capable. As long as you are intelligent with your shutter instead of spraying it you can get decent shots with 1fps!

5) Is the diff between the 60d and 600d really the ergonomics and location of a few buttons? That seems a bit extreme of a comparison, no?

Maybe I was a bit extreme but check out Snapsorts comparison. Most of the differences are not about the electronics or internal system but more about external body. If you need the weather proofing then go for it but £150+ more than the 600D I really don't rate it that highly.

I've actually been meaning to post something along the lines of this question myself. I see lots of reviews that talk about having no concern over shooting at ISO 1600 or 3200 (in some cases) for the camera I shoot with (Nikon D7000), but my experience has been that I see quite a bit of distracting noise even at ISO 1600.

It's down to sensors and progressions in technology. FF sensors have larger pixels than their crop counterparts in general and therefore have a better ability at working in low light.

As I suggested to Puckman check out DPreview and see their comparison on cameras in the same scenario and then you can compare the image quality at different ISOs.

On this. When I spoke to a printer about the dynamic range of photo's he said that the kiosk type printing is down as low as 5 EV and that better specialist printing services only get up to 11 or 12 EV at best. Is this true? It's only on top end screens that you have the visual ability to represent 13+ EV?

This sounds like balderdash to me. Dynamic range may be measured in EVs but as soon as the camera has captured the data this is useless (at least I believe it to be and I am happy to be proved wrong).

Once your camera has taken the image the completely black parts will be 0,0,0 and the completely white parts will be 1024,1024,1024 or 256,256,256. The same happens with printing as there is always a pure white and pure black (depending on the photograph). The DR of your camera is the ability to compress the scene into a viewable range rather than just clipping all the whites and crushing the blacks.

The same is true of monitors. Look at the recent RED Dragon sensor video and you will see what extreme dynamic range looks like. I was able to notice pretty much straight away the areas that would 'blow out' on my shots or would require fill to be illuminated.

 

[Puckman]

Very helpful, Archie. I appreciate you taking the time to get into all these details and answers.

I remain intrigued by the idea of moving to 6D, but find myself unable to justify it at this stage in my development as a photographer.
Rather, I invested in the Canon EF-100/2.8 macro yesterday (waiting for it to arrive this weekend). With that, I will have 3 primes covering a good range (EF-28/1.8, EF-50/1.4, EF-100/2.8).
And these 3 will translate eventually to FF if I decide to get the 6D later this year.

Having said that, I'm still at a loss about this ISO/noise issue. Is the 600d so much worse at noise? I mean, I get that the FF sensor on the 6D will be better. But i find my shots at ISO 800 or 1600 on the 600d to be literally unusable.

In fact, I will go ahead and upload a couple I took last night (testing out this very issue) to my Flckr and share them in this thread post-haste.

 

[Puckman]

Here we go.

Ignore the subject matter. These were just taken around the house, trying out higher ISO settings.
I had High ISO noise reduction turned on in the 600d.

Both pics were exported with no edits to JPG (originally shot raw, but didn't wanna upload giant file sizes).

ISO 1600. Focus on the back of the chair. Noise is quite visible to me.


IMG_3323 by Puckman2012, on Flickr

ISO 1600 again. Focus on the chair. Blacks show noise (although not terrible here).


IMG_3321 by Puckman2012, on Flickr

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Once your camera has taken the image the completely black parts will be 0,0,0 and the completely white parts will be 1024,1024,1024 or 256,256,256. The same happens with printing as there is always a pure white and pure black (depending on the photograph). The DR of your camera is the ability to compress the scene into a viewable range rather than just clipping all the whites and crushing the blacks.

I am confused, the RGB colour range is 24 bit and HDR is 32 bit, but we then compress that down to export it, so a lot of stuff is lost along the way as a consequence and we just tinker with it in photoshop to retain the bits we value the most. The way it was explained to me was that in 32 bit we have more accurate colour descriptors again than the old xxx xxx xxx format, but we still have to compress that in export due to current technical limitations of monitors and printing. I was also told that only the very high end monitors would really show full 32 bit gamut properly and not to bother on my iMac even if I do calibrate it. I haven't studied this stuff at University like you, so I trust your knowledge to be correct.

It would be so much simpler if there were one common measurement across the board from sensor to display to printing. Or is that the wrong way to think about this?

 

[acearchie]

Here we go.

Ignore the subject matter. These were just taken around the house, trying out higher ISO settings.
I had High ISO noise reduction turned on in the 600d.

Both pics were exported with no edits to JPG (originally shot raw, but didn't wanna upload giant file sizes).

ISO 1600. Focus on the back of the chair. Noise is quite visible to me.


IMG_3323 by Puckman2012, on Flickr

ISO 1600 again. Focus on the chair. Blacks show noise (although not terrible here).


IMG_3321 by Puckman2012, on Flickr

This might be a case of what is alright for me is not alright for you. Like a lot of photography it's completely subjective.

Personally I think those shots are perfectly acceptable. My main output is digital and when I do print it's usually 6x4's although I have done 1mx1m and still found the quality absolutely fine.

Have a play around with different cameras and ISOs here and see if you think the difference is worth it.

I am confused, the RGB colour range is 24 bit and HDR is 32 bit, but we then compress that down to export it, so a lot of stuff is lost along the way as a consequence and we just tinker with it in photoshop to retain the bits we value the most. The way it was explained to me was that in 32 bit we have more accurate colour descriptors again than the old xxx xxx xxx format, but we still have to compress that in export due to current technical limitations of monitors and printing. I was also told that only the very high end monitors would really show full 32 bit gamut properly and not to bother on my iMac even if I do calibrate it. I haven't studied this stuff at University like you, so I trust your knowledge to be correct.

It would be so much simpler if there were one common measurement across the board from sensor to display to printing. Or is that the wrong way to think about this?

Please don't assume I have studied this sort of thing! We never touched on anything like this (actually we didn't touch on much at all!).

The way I see it is that most modern high-end DSLRs are recording 14bit raws. I.e. they are all recording the same values just some cameras are better at recording the extremes at each scale so Nikons tune up their sensor to be able to read low signals (dark areas) and high signals (light areas) at the same time better than the Canons. In essence DR is the ratio between the lightest area and the darkest area and how much each pixel can tolerate of both.

Conversely, Canon seems to have set up their sensor for the ability to amplify the signal with less noise than the Nikons. This would make sense as dynamic range is larger with lower iso cameras (look at the MF digital cameras for example).

Not having played around with a Nikon body I can't really say how much more push/pull it has in real world terms but I have heard they have more DR.

I do know when I export JPEGs from PS I am exporting an 8bit image so although I do work in a 16bit colour space I have never really thought that much about it!

 

[Pompiliu]

6D, ofcourse.

You can't compare a full frame sensor with apsc.
I would rather have a 5d mark 1 from 2005 than a 70D.

 

[Puckman]

This might be a case of what is alright for me is not alright for you. Like a lot of photography it's completely subjective.

Personally I think those shots are perfectly acceptable. My main output is digital and when I do print it's usually 6x4's although I have done 1mx1m and still found the quality absolutely fine.

Have a play around with different cameras and ISOs here and see if you think the difference is worth it.

Fair enough. Having had no frame of reference, I didn't know whether the above, for example, was within the norms of "acceptable", when reading your previous comments. Now I have a better sense that it's not necessarily anything "wrong" with my 600d, but rather that you find these acceptable or not.

Cheers.

 

[acearchie]

6D, ofcourse.

You can't compare a full frame sensor with apsc.
I would rather have a 5d mark 1 from 2005 than a 70D.

What if you want the extra reach, faster burst rate, better AF and video AF?

You've slightly missed the point of the thread.

 

[NewSc2]

What if you want the extra reach, faster burst rate, better AF and video AF?

You've slightly missed the point of the thread.

You still can't compare a FF with an APS-C. Image quality is leaps and bounds better. I'd rather be limited on the functionality side than the sensor. You can always change the way you shoot. You can't change image quality.

 

[throttlemeister]

Fair enough. Having had no frame of reference, I didn't know whether the above, for example, was within the norms of "acceptable", when reading your previous comments. Now I have a better sense that it's not necessarily anything "wrong" with my 600d, but rather that you find these acceptable or not.

Cheers.

Again, don't obsess about noise at 100%. First, a bad shot is going to suck with or without noise, and a great shot is going to be great with or without noise. Second, looking at your screen at 100% does not give a realistic representation of your photo. When you save for web, or print you will barely see noise, if any. Even if you print huge, like several feet wide, you still don't see much when you look at it from the distance you need to look at it to see the photo. Third, have you ever shot film? When it comes to noise, digital has surpassed film ages ago.

Stop obsessing about noise, stop pixel peeping, focus on the quality of the photo, learn your gear and use its strengths and limitations to your advantage.

 

[acearchie]

You still can't compare a FF with an APS-C. Image quality is leaps and bounds better. I'd rather be limited on the functionality side than the sensor. You can always change the way you shoot. You can't change image quality.

Again I disagree. What is your definition of IQ?

The answer isn't always FF especially if you can only afford a cheap superzoom to put on your FF camera.

Stop obsessing about noise, stop pixel peeping, focus on the quality of the photo, learn your gear and use its strengths and limitations to your advantage.

Well said!

A lot of people forget that great shots can be taken on iPhones and P&Ss. Focus on the techniques of photography rather than the technical aspects of photography.

 

[Mattjeff]

ok... well... damn power went out and erased my long response and i'm gonna make this one shorter.

I just moved from the 40D to the 6D about 3-4 months ago and im loving it. There are a few things that you should think about that I didn't see covered yet here (although I was skimming a bit ). If you are coming from a cropped frame you should note that the EF-S lens wont work on the 6D. I am dealing with this now because I can't use my "Adventure" aka "cheaper" lenses that I didn't worry about breaking while climbing or on patrol in Afghanistan.

This doesn't by any means mean that you can't find affordable lenses for the 6D it just means that if you had a collection of EF-S lenses you might want to hold off. No one wants to revamp their whole kit unless they are made of money.