kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[rishu_pepper]

Originally Posted by kien

The one that takes awesome pictures. Serious, didn't you read ANYTHING that I wrote?

LOL this ^

If one is really hardcore about reef pictures, probably the Canon 100mm f/2.8 L macro lens would do wonders.

For wider shots like FTS, something like a 24mm/35mm prime lens would be great.

Currently if I were on the market for a camera body, Canon 6D would probably be my choice. Full frame >>> crop. Or a used 5D2 is still a great camera.

Last couple years I've really enjoyed using the Fuji X100s as a non-work camera. Beautiful image quality and affordable price, with a small body/footprint that you just can't get with a DSLR.

[kien]

Originally Posted by rishu_pepper

LOL this ^

If one is really hardcore about reef pictures, probably the Canon 100mm f/2.8 L macro lens would do wonders.

For wider shots like FTS, something like a 24mm/35mm prime lens would be great.

Currently if I were on the market for a camera body, Canon 6D would probably be my choice. Full frame >>> crop. Or a used 5D2 is still a great camera.

Last couple years I've really enjoyed using the Fuji X100s as a non-work camera. Beautiful image quality and affordable price, with a small body/footprint that you just can't get with a DSLR.

Yes, I do love the 100mm macro lens as well! Awesome lens that I used to use a lot to take reef photos.

A lot of photography is dependant on your particular needs. Everyone has different needs. I owned a Canon 5D Mark II for a couple of years while I used it as my primary camera. With it I owned and used the very nice but expensive 24-70mm L F2.8 and Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS L lens. Although that particular kit took AWESOME photos I did not enjoy using it. I am an asian with small t-rex arms so for me lugging around that kit was HEAVY. I rarely ever took it out during family outings, instead favouring my smaller 40D with a lighter 17-50mm Tamron lens. When the new 6D came out I immediately sold my arguably better 5D Mark II in favour of the 6D simply for the fact that it was easier to use. Getting a 6D over the 5D mark II wasn't an upgrade. Most people would probably consider it a downgrade. Still, I often favoured my 40D. In addition I have since sold both my 24-70 F2.8L and 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens and got the F4 version of it instead. Again, another downgrade but I use it more now because it is much lighter and easier for me to carry around to say, the zoo with my wife and kids.

Currently I am in the market for a new camera and am actually looking for an even smaller and lighter body while not sacrificing some of my favoured workflow features on my existing camera bodies.

As for Full Frame vs Crop, again, this is highly dependant on your particular needs. For me, even though my 6D is full frame, after it has left Lightroom I crop it down to a 10 megapixel image anyway because quite frankly, I find them (10 mega pixels) good enough for 99.9% of my needs. It's good enough for the web and good enough to print photos with. I have only ever once generated a full frame (24 mega pixel) image out of my 6D and that was for a client who wanted to make a poster once. 24 megapixel images are massive and while I understand the need for them and the benefits of them, I don't think everyone needs 24 mega pixels. They take up a lot of space and take a long time to process. All of my clients received 10 megapixel files for their use and they were more than happy with them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not disagreeing with you. In many respects full frame is better than cropped. It's just that I don't think everyone *needs* it :-)

At the end of the day, I could and did afford some high end equipment but learned that I didn't necessarily need them. My needs were different. A 5D mark II with a 24-70 F2.8L lens (while totally AWESOME), did me no good if it frequently sat on my desk while I took pictures of my kids at the park with my iPhone. I guess that was part of my point earlier about when people ask me for my recommendation or what camera I use. When I tell them I use my 6D or 40D they go researching and discover that those can be fairly expensive cameras so many people think that's what they need (those expensive cameras) to achieve similar results to what I've posted in my thread. Well, that's not correct. They don't need to buy an expensive full frame 6D or even a 40/50/60D to achieve similar results. If they want to photograph fast paced sporting events or model shows or make billboards, then yes, they will probably need to buy those more expensive cameras, but those have not typically been the people asking me for my recommendations :-)

[rishu_pepper]

Well put. The reason I favour full frame over cropped is two-fold: shallower depth of field and better ISO performance. For me, that's worth the price difference.

With the emergence of the Fuji X100T, the X100S can be had for a relatively low price on the used market. The Fuji gave me what I wanted: a compact, discrete camera that rivals, if not betters DSLR image quality. I took the Fuji on our honeymoon last year and I did not feel crippled in any way, and took some fantastic photos while not being encumbered by a heavy DSLR.

Macro-wise, it is acceptable. The shutter lag of course is the one disadvantage but it really isn't that bad once you get used to it.

Another good camera I have had experience with is the Olympus OM. More flexibility than the Fuji but a bit more bulky and I daresay the Fuji has better IQ.

Another thing people often miss is the importance of a good tripod. Instead of spending all the budget on body/lenses/etc., a nice tripod can do so much more for photography. Definitely a worthwhile investment and the technology never goes out of place, unlike cameras and to a lesser extent, lenses.

[daplatapus]

Interesting discussion, I took notes

Kein, in that last set of pics you posted, are all those shot Raw then tweeked?

[kien]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Interesting discussion, I took notes

Kein, in that last set of pics you posted, are all those shot Raw then tweeked?

Yes. Actually *all* of my photos are shot in RAW. I prefer to control the output of my photos so I use Adobe Lightroom to generate JPG, PNG, or TIFF files (depending on my needs). I definitely do tweak the photos prior to outputting them. I have a macro/preset in Lightroom for various applications (Portraits, Landscape, Reef, etc). For photos in my tank my macro/preset typically does the following:

1. Reduce black level (reduces shadows due to harsh halides)
2. Adjust white balance to 15K to balance out the Halides and T5 lights. The camera often has a tough time with white balance when photographing reef tanks.
3. Crop/resize image from 20.2 Mega pixels down to 10 Megapixels (yes, I literally THROW AWAY half the pixels that my camera used to generate the image ).
4. Output file to JPG.

[kien]

[kien]

[hillegom]

awesome

[kien]

Originally Posted by hillegom

awesome

Thanks :-)

[Reef Pilot]

Now that you are staff, are you still eligible for TOTM!!?...