FF or crop for wedding photography

Bloody hell mate you don't have much luck if your 24-70 was faulty do you :-( do you have any examples of it being soft ?
 
joel222 said:
I'll post a crop of a 2 shots I've done today shortly. Ironically I was going to show a friend who's interested in getting into photography the difference between a "good dslr" and cheap one
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Tell him to buy a Sony or Nikon ;-) pmsl :nikon:
 
Tbh mate looks like the lens is front focusing on the 6d a little to me
 
There's 2 issues here imo. The focus is definitely off, and of course the 6D is going to have over one stop shallower DOF looking at the EXIF. I assume camera/subject distance was the same giving you the different focal lengths (but same effective focal length), but both are shot at f2.8.
 
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DG Phototraining said:
...To regularly be shooting at 6400 though - what dungeon-like area do you live in ??? :D
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Wales! :D

I shot a wedding back at the beginning of February in a tiny church not far from where I live. The ceremony was a 4pm and was supposed to be entirely candle-lit but luckily for me, someone decided that it wasn't exactly a safe idea and a few of the lights were turned on. It was still darker than a coal-mine in that church though and I'd have been properly knackered without the performance of the D750. I wasn't allowed to use flash either but that's rarely an issue for me. :)
 
^^ glad to here I'm not the only one was getting paranoid for a bit lol
 
Joel don't take these as gospel, and it's the results you're getting that's important, but this does show quite a difference between the 550D and 6D. I'd be tempted to test on a tripod using liveview, ie using contrast detect rather than phase detect and see what the results show and take it from there.

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joel222 said:
I'll give it a go but tbh I'm not 100% sure what you mean "ie using contrast detect rather than phase detect"?
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There are two primary ways in which cameras can autofocus, phase detect and contrast detect. Phase detect works by converging/comparing two images reflected by the mirror, is faster but less accurate. (this explains exactly how it works https://photographylife.com/how-phase-detection-autofocus-works) This is the system DSLR's use when shooting normally through the viewfinder.

Contrast detect works on detecting contrast in the image, it is slower but more accurate, in theory 100% accurate. This is the system used by most mirrorless cameras, which is why mirrorless AF systems are slower and struggle in low light, but why mirrorless 'can' be more accurate.

DSLR's also use contrast detect when using liveview as the mirror is flipped up out of the way and can no longer reflect light onto the AF sensor. Therefore using liveview is arguably the most accurate way of testing a lens sharpness (unless your manual focus skills are top notch ;)) and is useful to compare the same shot taken via live view and 'normal' shooting to see how accurate your AF system is. In an ideal scenario your shot taken through the viewfinder should be as sharp as the shot taken with liveview (it's not always the case as there's a tolerance allowed with phase detect). Obviously this is best done on a tripod shooting at a high contrast subject such as a test chart.

What method have you used for fine tuning your lenses previously?
 
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I bought what I think was called a lens calibration scale which was a long piece of paper with lines and numbers on, I'm sure you know what I mean. Thanks for all the info, I'll try the test now
 
Can't find the chart I'll order another 1. I've just had the camera in live view for the 1st time, the square in the middle where the focus is is quite big, will that work on a chart or cover a few of the lines?
 
joel222 said:
Can't find the chart I'll order another 1. I've just had the camera in live view for the 1st time, the square in the middle where the focus is is quite big, will that work on a chart or cover a few of the lines?
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To be accurate you only want it to cross the one line. I think you should be able to change the size of the square, pretty sure I can on my nikon. I"m assuming it's one of those charts that looks like a ruler? If so it's really important to make sure it's set up correctly. There's another method called dot tune that I find can work well, and it's free. Videos on how it works are on youtube. I download all my charts for free, including the line one ;)
 
joel222 said:
Yes, it's not soft or out of focus, just not as sharp as the 550d, which I do find strange to be honest
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If you do proper side by side, like for like comparisons, it is simply impossible for the 550D to be sharper than the 6D. It's physics.
 
f/2.8 said:
Do you think that if you had a better camera that dealt with noise better than your current option that more higher ISO images would make the album?

Are your couples not wanting to include them because of excessive noise or are you encouraging them not too?
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He uses a 6d which will produce perfectly printable images at 10,000 ISO plus!

I shoot the occasional wedding with my 6d, it's almost the perfect wedding camera. You can certainly tell the difference between that and my cropped 2nd body in pretty much all the shots, especially high ISO.

As with the others, I've been shooting at 6,400 on occasion regularly.

Why would you ditch the FF body in favour of a crop? I'm not saying you can't shoot good weddings with a crop, but why take the kit backwards and lose the ability for when you might need it (not to mention the other benefits)?
 
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joel222 said:
They seem sharper, my 6d is ok but the 550d is super sharp




Because the controls are slightly different on each body so although I carry the 550d as a spare I wouldn't feel comfortable switching between the two regularly.
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Strange. By the basic laws of physics the 6d will give you sharper, more contrasty images lens for lens. If that's the case, somethings amiss!

My 6d gives far better, sharper images than my cropped Canons, as you'd expect, there's no way a 550d should outperform it in the IQ front.

Having read the posts on this I don't think it's been asked yet - are you shooting raw or JPEG?
 
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odd jim said:
He uses a 6d which will produce perfectly printable images at 10,000 ISO plus!

I shoot the occasional wedding with my 6d, it's almost the perfect wedding camera. You can certainly tell the difference between that and my cropped 2nd body in pretty much all the shots, especially high ISO.

As with the others, I've been shooting at 6,400 on occasion regularly.

Why would you ditch the FF body in favour of a crop? I'm not saying you can't shoot good weddings with a crop, but why take the kit backwards and lose the ability for when you might need it (not to mention the other benefits)?
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I think perhaps you are a little confused.
 
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That's one thing I didn't miss when I went from Nikon to Fuji, all the faffing on adjusting lenses to focus properly!
 
bazfoster said:
That's one thing I didn't miss when I went from Nikon to Fuji, all the faffing on adjusting lenses to focus properly!
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I've never had to MA any of my 15 lenses on any of my DSLRs! I do think some people do it for the sake of it, and actually muck things up. A lot of the time it's a placebo (I've seen people post on here the first thing they do with every new lens is MA it!), though of course it does have its uses.

If I had a lens that didn't accurately AF out the box it would go straight back :)
 
The photos you posted are issues with focus. Send them to Canon and they will sort them.

Also it doesnt matter FF or APS-C.

Both will handle high ISO fine if they are newish bodies. Fast lenses are the key.

With high iso images print them and then judge, dont zoom into 100%!!!
 
owenb said:
The only argument I would say is 5k is a drop in the ocean if you make 40k with it as a tool.....
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If one body increases your work by 35k then decent business sense.

If thats your total income and one body costs £5k (so you probably need 2) plus all of your other expenses, its not the best investment.
 
andyscott said:
If one body increases your work by 35k then decent business sense.

If thats your total income and one body costs £5k (so you probably need 2) plus all of your other expenses, its not the best investment.
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yep spot on Andy ;-) All depends on incomings and outgoings.... and in the end if you WANT that big huge camera lol
 
andyscott said:
The photos you posted are issues with focus. Send them to Canon and they will sort them.

Also it doesnt matter FF or APS-C.

Both will handle high ISO fine if they are newish bodies. Fast lenses are the key.

With high iso images print them and then judge, dont zoom into 100%!!!
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That's debatable and depends on the demands/expectations of the user :p
 
snerkler said:
That's debatable and depends on the demands/expectations of the user :p
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My newish crops can't cope with ISO 6,400 let alone anything higher :)
 
odd jim said:
My newish crops can't cope with ISO 6,400 let alone anything higher :)
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Hmmmm. I'll use MFT up to and including ISO 25,600 but it all hangs on what you do with the pictures... process them for best effect and size them for final viewing and view them normally or even quite closely and they may look perfectly acceptable depending upon your own interpretation of what's acceptable. Non geeks viewing pictures may not see what us geeks see.

Sometimes when I'm not happy with the quality of picture I can get I take a look at what others are doing with the same kit and I usually realise that the problem isn't the kit. A quick Google should take anyone interested in the higher ISO performance of just about any camera to example images and if they're good enough the challenge then is to match them.

There was a thread on Luminous Landscape recently about MFT noise which includes some high ISO pictures...

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=108083.0
 
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odd jim said:
My newish crops can't cope with ISO 6,400 let alone anything higher :)
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That's just not true, I have shot old bodies and pushed to 6400 and printed fine.

Do they look like iso 100 nope, have any clients complained.

5 years ago people mustn't have got any decent low light shots ;)
 
tbh it depends how big your printing the iso shots....
 
owenb said:
tbh it depends how big your printing the iso shots....
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I think this is where some people go wrong. If you think about the final image, how big it's going to be and how it's going to be viewed - paper or electronically - you can then chose the gear accordingly and if your image size and viewing circumstance requirements aren't all that demanding even humble kit can be good enough, but some people think that very good pixel level image quality is needed for every shot.
 
yep if your printing a 6x4...7x5 no issue a0 is a different story lol
 
I've had church photos from the Fuji X-T1 at ISO6400 across a double page spread in a large album with no problems whatsoever (here is a sample shot prior to a clean up for the album: https://flic.kr/p/smZGJG. Some of the X-Pro2 guys are setting their AutoISO ceiling at 12,800 now.
 
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ukaskew said:
I've had church photos from the Fuji X-T1 at ISO6400 across a double page spread in a large album with no problems whatsoever. Some of the X-Pro2 guys are setting their AutoISO ceiling at 12,800 now.
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I'll take the D750 up to 12800. Did so at the wedding I was at on Saturday to keep shutter speed up around 1/200th
 
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