Will you send me some food?

[millera9]

Ok, I finally broke down and bought a real camera and a couple lenses.

Canon 30D
70-200 f4 L
24-70 f2.8 L

I am now, officially, poor. Would you mind sending me some ramen? Pretty please?…

/No, I’m not really serious, I will be able to eat. Besides, I could stand to go on a diet. Please don’t actually send anything.

[Analogy]

Trust me, eating Ramen for the next 5 months will be totally worth that setup. I love my 30D and wish I could have babies with it. I’m saving up for the 24-70 myself, and as soon as I sell my 100-400 I’m going to get the 70-200 f2.8 IS. So we’ll be kind of like gear twins.

[zeke]

Dude, sweet rig — taken shots with it yet?

[Elsinore]

OMG I’m ridiculously excited for you, Miller! (And more than a little jealous of that 70-200 f/4 L !) Congrats on that camera and the lenses–you’re going to love them!! My 30D is my most prized material possession. I pack it up after the kids and the diaper bag when we head to the basement during tornado warnings. Actually for that matter, I take the A620, too, cause ya know it takes great macros. Seriously, though, I really would be upset if something happened to them.

/would gladly send you Ramen and Mac n Cheese.
//oh, and peanut butter

[millera9]

Oh man Analogy, that 2.8 IS lens is sexy. Why are you selling your 100-400?

No Zeke, I ordered online so it won’t be shipping until Monday and it’ll probably arrive on Thursday. I’m gonna be a twitchy wreck this week now…

[millera9]

LOL Elsinore! I went overboard on the lenses considering my skill level and experience, but I figure this is an investment that I will be keeping for a long damn time. As long as Canon doesn’t change their lens mounting system like they did in the 80’s, I should be ok…

[zeke]

Good call on the investment. Down the road you may want to upgrade, and those L lenses will go along with it. Worst case, even if Canon DOES change the lens mounting system, there’ll still be used 5Ds on EBay that they’ll work with nicely 🙂

[Elsinore]

It is an investment, especially the lenses. I wouldn’t say you went overboard. I mean, if you can afford them, that’s an excellent focal length range, and of course the optics are superior, so good on ya. You’ll quickly grow into them, and you’ll get lots of use out of them.

This could be wishful thinking, but I don’t think Canon would dare change their lens mount anytime soon–they’d be shitting in their hats given their market share of pro photogs. Of course, like you said, they did do it before, so we’ll see. But I think we’re safe for quite awhile.

/wasn’t kidding about taking the camera in case the tornado comes
//would sleep with it, but Zeke would get jealous

[staplermofo]

*adds miller9a to his list of people to mug*

[zeke]

//would sleep with it, but Zeke would get jealous

// and I would
/// She won’t let me leave the house with it and not her

[Analogy]

I’m selling the 100-400 because for what I shoot the 70-200 works better. I rarely even go tighter than 200mm and the light loss from zooming in just kills me in low light (which is where I do most of my shooting). I’d rather have a 2.8 lens that doesn’t lose light when I zoom in because of all the low-light shooting I do. If I ever do need more tele reach I can throw one of Canon’s extenders on it. Or just, you know, walk closer.

Differences of a stop or two don’t sound like much when you’re talking about aperture, but remember that every extra stop of aperture I get means I can double my shutter speed and motion freezing ability. Take this shot for example. It’s 1/80 f/5.6 at 150mm. With the 70-200 I could have shot that at f/2.8 for a shutter speed of 1/320 and eliminated that ugly motion blur.

PHOTO GEEK MODE ENGAGE
As far as the extenders, they do lose light, but at most focal lengths the 70-200 with an extender is still faster than the 100-400. For example 70-200 + 1.4x is 100-280mm f/4. That beats the the 100-400 by a third of a stop at the wide end, and is still f/4 at 280mm, where the 100-400 is f/5.6. With the 2x extender the 70-200 is 140-400mm f/5.6, which the 100-400 beats by a third of a stop with f/5 from 140-250mm, but ties it with f/5.6 from 250-400mm.
As far as sharpness, the extender does lose a little bit but not enough I think to turn keepers into rejects. If I were printing billboards I’d probably worry about it more, but if I was doing that I could afford to buy a ton of primes and extra camera bodies. =D
PHOTO GEEK MODE DISENGAGE

I agree it’s a good idea to invest in the best equipment you can possibly get your hands on. While it may feel more comfortable to gradually step up over time, you’re really costing yourself more money in the end buy buying gear only to end up replacing it later. The thing is if you spend all the money now on high-end gear, you will never have to spend money for gear ever again. In my case, I can’t really afford to spend all the money at once, so I have to wait a couple months to save up for a new lens. It means my lens kit will probably take a year or two to build, and meanwhile I’ll have to come up with creative ways to make what I have work for the situation, but in the end I’ll have everything I need without spending any more money than necessary.

I started this philosophy when I got into music, my first drum set was a piece of crap just to see if I had any interest, but my next one was a very high end custom kit that I managed to nab very cheap used. Same thing with bass, I actually learned on someone else’s bass (they desperately needed a bass player), but when I joined another band to play bass in it I went out and bought (again used) a high end rig that will last me forever.

About Canon changing the mount, I doubt that’s going to happen… the original reason for the mount change was to start fresh with a mount designed from the ground up for electronically coupled focus and aperture instead of shoehorning these features into a mechanically coupled mount. I don’t see what features Canon could want to add that would require a new mount.

[Klahanie]

//would sleep with it, but Zeke would get jealous

// and I would
/// She won’t let me leave the house with it and not her

😆

Congrats on the upgrade Miller! I could send you some food, but I’m all out of bubble wrap. Ramen would make pretty good packing material though and it’s probably cheaper than bubble wrap. Hmmm…

[schnee]

That 70-200 is one sweet lens (I have one). And the 24-70? Well, if ‘mofo doesn’t get you first, just let me be the first to say that I don’t look like anyone who would ever mug you. I’ve even been told that I bear a striking resemblance to your grandmother.

[staplermofo]

Psst, schnee, play along, I’ll split the lenses with you.

*puts staple gun to schnee’s head*

If you ever want to see your grandmother unstapled again, hand over the lenses!

[millera9]

ROFL! Ok, you guys are freaking me out. I’m at my parents house right now and I drove up here today with my grandmother. Ummmm…. yeah…. creepy. She’s in the other room right now. I’ma go keep an eye on her now… If some dude with a beard and a staple gun comes running in, I just want you all to know that I have a staple remover and a pair of paperclip nunchacku in my pockets. That’s right, I’m a brown belt in non-penetrative fastener-fu! Bring it!

GalleyWench, it probably really is cheaper to just pack boxes with ramen. That’s brilliant!

Analogy, you and I have the same philosophy on purchasing things it would seem! I bought the A700 as a travel camera and because it had enough manual settings to let me know for sure if I had any interest in learning how to use them. Now that I’m sure I do, I’ve bought the nicest gear I can afford. And I definitely understand why you would want those extra stops of light. Being able to shoot at a faster speed makes life so much easier most of the time! Good luck with the saving.

[Author]

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