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The Perks of Switching Camera Systems

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The choice of the first camera system is an exciting one. Why would it not be? You get to pick the first camera to buy, the first lens, and you spend so much time reading reviews, forums and asking friends for advice. I know I did – some eight years ago, I was admiring such cameras as the Canon 30D and 40D, and was seriously eyeing the 400D which was then within the budget of a teenager me. Nikon D200 looked out of this world and the then-announced D300 was a camera of dreams. All of these models, now obsolete from a technological standpoint (much like the D700 I now own and love), were as desirable as any current equipment you can think of. Maybe even more so, since the refresh cycle was longer and digital photography in general not as widespread as it is today.

Yes, the choice of the first camera and lens is a very exciting one. But, inevitably and at some point, a different question arises for just about all of us, and one much less pleasant – should you stick with your first decision or is the grass truly greener somewhere else?

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Recommended Canon 7D Mark II Settings

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Being a specialized tool for sports and wildlife photography, the recently announced Canon 7D Mark II is a popular choice among many Canon shooters, thanks to its impressive 10 fps continuous shooting speed, a sizable buffer, high-end 65-point AF system and a solid weather-proof build. Along with these pro-level features, the 7D Mark II comes with numerous buttons and a sophisticated menu system that can be pretty overwhelming for even intermediate-level photographers. To help guide our readers through these features and menus, we decided to share the settings our team has been using on the camera during the past 3 months while testing the camera. Please keep in mind that the below information is provided as a guide for those that struggle with the camera. While this particular configuration has been working great for our needs (mostly based on wildlife and landscape photography), it does not mean that it is the only way to properly setup and configure the camera.

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Canon 7D Mark II First Impressions

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I had a chance to play with the new Canon 7D Mark II this past weekend and I wanted to provide a little bit of feedback regarding the performance of this speed monster. I received my copy of the camera earlier last week, along with the Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L lens, so that I could exclusively photograph wildlife with this setup. The Canon 7D Mark II is specifically targeted at sports and wildlife photographers, so I did not think it would make much sense to evaluate the camera for everyday photography needs. With the Canon 6D being in the same price range, it is a given that a full-frame camera would be much more desirable in terms of image quality for other photography needs.

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Canon Announces Three New Lenses

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In addition to the 7D Mark II, Canon also announced three new lenses this week at Photokina: EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM, EF 24–105mm f/3.5–5.6 IS STM and EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM. The first two are designed to work on both full-frame and APS-C cameras, while the 24mm f/2.8 is designed to be only used on cropped sensor cameras. The EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM is an update to the first model of the lens that was produced back in 2000, and this time Canon put a lot of new technology into the lens and has updated the lens design. The letters “DO” stand for “Diffractive Optics“, which not only reduce chromatic aberrations thanks to their different light dispersion path, but also allows for much smaller lens design. As a result, the EF 400mm f/4 is significantly smaller and lighter than the regular 400mm f/2.8L lens. In addition to the above benefits, the 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM now has better coatings to reduce ghosting and to improve color balance. Just like the professional “L” lenses, the lens has both dust and water-resistant construction and a 3 mode Image Stabilization system that offers up to four stops of vibration compensation. At $6,899 it is not a cheap lens by any means, but at the size a little bigger than a 70-200mm lens, it is surely an attractive choice for those that want to be able to hand-hold a 400mm lens.

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Canon 7D Mark II Announcement

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Today Canon announced a highly anticipated update to the sports and wildlife shooter’s camera, the Canon 7D. After over five years of long wait, the new Canon 7D Mark II finally saw the light of day and it is not here to disappoint – Canon crammed quite a bit of power into the camera and made it a speed demon with a very impressive speed of 10 fps. Aside from the speed, the biggest highlight of the 7D Mark II is its impressive autofocus system. Borrowed from the top-of-the-line EOS-1D X, the autofocus system has a whopping 65 autofocus points, all of which are cross-type. Similar to the new Nikon D750, the Canon 7D Mark II also has -3 EV sensitivity, which means that it can focus quite well in low-light situations. To drive 10 fps continuous shooting speed, 65 focus points and 1080p full HD video recording at 60 fps, the 7D Mark II comes with dual DIGIC 6 image processors. Nikon shooters have been waiting for a “Pro DX” camera like this for many years now, so with Canon releasing the 7D Mark II, many of us might be wondering if Nikon will ever respond with a similar camera.

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Used Full-Frame DSLR – Which Ones are Worth It?

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Yesterday, while thinking about the upcoming wedding that I have to shoot, I glanced at my trusty old D700. The rubber is coming off in places and needs to be glued back on, nothing serious. Two of the batteries that I have need replacing. The plastic screen protector has a few minor scratches on it, but would you expect anything else? No. Those are just minor signs of careful use. In every single way, it’s a damn good camera. And then I wondered, would I recommend it to a beginner looking for an affordable entry into the full-frame world? Oh yes, definitely. And it’s not the only one. So if you are a beginner – either to DSLRs or digital photography – and want to potentially improve the quality of your family pictures, to, perhaps, photograph your son’s football games with more confidence or even start your own photography business, there are a lot of used, older cameras you could go for and not regret it. Let us glance through some of them.

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Nikon vs Canon Dynamic Range

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After I have published my Canon 6D review, a number of our readers asked if there was a way to show a comparison between dynamic range performance of a Canon DSLR and and a Nikon DSLR side by side with image samples. Since the Canon 6D has the largest dynamic range in Canon’s line (higher than 5D Mark III), it was a good candidate for such a comparison. On the Nikon side, I used my Nikon D800E, since it has the same base ISO of 100. Since there was a brightness difference between the two cameras (as noted in the above-mentioned review), I compensated the shutter speed accordingly to make it a fair game. The results are quite interesting to look at, showing visible advantage on behalf of Nikon when compared to Canon. The intent of this article is not to spark another Nikon vs Canon debate, as I personally find such discussions useless. This is done as a case study to analyze recovery options between the two brands when shooting in the field.

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Canon 6D Review

Review Rating:

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Although the Canon 6D has now been out for almost two years, I never had a chance to review it. Since the new Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art series lens was initially available only for the Canon mount, I requested the Canon 6D with the lens from our trusted partner B&H Photo Video. My aim was to review both, as I had been planning to review the 6D for a long time now. Ever since I reviewed the Canon 5D Mark III, our readers have been asking us to test out other Canon DSLRs, including the 6D. So this was a good opportunity to catch up, although quite late. Well, better late than never, I guess! Instead of covering everything in much detail though, I will be mostly summing things up based on my three month experience with the camera and feedback from others – I don’t think there is a need to spend a lot of time on this, especially after the camera has been in the market for so long and reviewed by so many people.

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Recommended Canon 6D Settings

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After we’ve published our series on recommended settings for Nikon D600 / D610 and D800 / D800E DSLRs, we received a lot of requests from our readers to provide similar information for Canon and Sony cameras. While using someone else’s camera settings is probably not the best way to achieve the best results in every situation, we understand that many different menu options can be rather overwhelming for those who are just starting out. Therefore, the below information is provided as a guide for those that struggle and just want to get started with a basic understanding of important menu settings.

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Weekly Photography News #1

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Instead of dedicating a whole post to every news revolving around photography, we decided to write a weekly article, which will include some fun finds from the photography blogging sphere. Although we do our best to only post original content, we still see value in sharing important photography-related news and stories our team comes across, or receives from our dear readers. We hope you enjoy these series!

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