It’s been a
while since our last communication and I am happy to say that my equipment
upgrade is almost complete and initial tests are under evaluation. What I always try to do with new equipment parts is
to reach their limits, find the strong and week points and what I can
do with it. To my surprise I have gained a lot with this upgrade in terms of quality and performance. In fact, this was a massive upgrade since I
changed all my lenses in addition to my camera.
I recently gave up
my Canon
60D for a Canon
6D, a full frame DSLR with better High ISO performance, GPS and WiFi
(although I am trying to find a way so that GPS turns off when the camera goes
to sleep and I have found support from the guys at Tragic
Lantern, which is a branch of Magic Lantern add-on firmware). I hope this goes well since I got response, but you can also vote for resolving the issue here.
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| Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM, ISO 320, f1.8, 1/320 |
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| Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM, ISO 500, f2.8, 1/320 |
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| Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/320 |
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| Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM, ISO 200, f1.8, 1/320 |
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| Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, ISO 100. f8, 1/400 |
To complete
weather sealing and still keep the best image quality I made my research and changed
all my filters, based on the tests made here
for uv filters and here
for polarizers and I can verify the results.
In fact I had a softness problem with my previous Hoya Polarizer and bought the
Marumi (tested in the second row) and I was simply amazed by the results! It was tack sharp and without any softness,
something I was expecting from my Hoya polarizing filter, but it was never delivered. The Hoya UV filters though, were as expected clean
and crisp, so no surprises here.
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| Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM, ISO 100, f8, 10 seconds |
One thing I
knew about my previous lenses was that my Tokina
11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro DX was an exceptional piece of equipment, so I had
the same expectations for the lens that I had replaced it with, the Canon
EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM. However, this
was not the case at all! I had weird softness
on each corner that did not improve until the point that diffraction occurred (almost
f16). I am disappointed and I am currently try to find out
what’s wrong with it by planning on comparing two different lenses together sometime next
week or so. Having checked some internet
photos of the same lens, I made a rough conclusion that it is the specific lens or
the combination with the camera that causes the issue. So , I keep satisfaction on hold for now for
this lens.
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| Tamron 500mm f8 mirror, ISO 320, 1/1000 |
On the
other side, my portrait Canon
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM and general zoom Canon
EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM are simply astounding! I tried them both on my Canon
60D and Canon
6D and the results were similar and amazing.
Very clean and sharp images, amazing quality and they do whatever they
advertise very effectively. In addition my two cameras focused very accurately with both lenses, something essential
when Auto Focus is used all the time. I
really tend to manual focus most of the time when I shoot landscapes or when
focusing is slow and critical.
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| Tamron 500mm f8 mirror, ISO 1000, 1/1000 |
Having
tested a friend’s Canon
EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM I also expect similar very good results from this
lens and I have also got the Tamron 500mm f8 mirror that performs really well
with my Canon
6D. The Tamron 500mm f8 mirror is an old manual lens for film cameras that
I have converted to EOS mount via an adaptall-2 to EOS adapter. Its focal length is long enough for almost every tele
need and its fixed aperture of f8 makes it a little dark, so a boost in ISO is almost
always required for sharp results. This
is all I can do with my budget and that will have to suffice.
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| Tamron 500mm f8 mirror, ISO 4000, 1/3200 |
Please note that I have used external links for the detailed reviews of hardware I owned or recently bought. In this case I have used links from the digital picture because the guys do a very good job there.
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| Tamron 500mm f8 mirror, ISO 4000, 1/3200 |
