Is it really ALL just in the lens?

Paul870

Paul870

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Hi all!

I went over to the new PC world / currys megastore nearby just to have a nose around and noticed their photography section was quite big.

I had a nose around all the various DSLRs including my own ( Canon 500D ) and picked up a D7 with a 18mm-135mm lens.
I've not been happy with my image quality from my 500D with the standard 18-55 lens, the colours have never been vivid enough for me, I can never get the focus point where I want them and just a general lack of quality coming from the shots.

First couple shots I took with the D7 with equiped lens were fantastic! Colour was perfect, the focus points I wanted were what I wanted - It was just 'right'.

Now I asked the sales person Why am I seeing such vast difference, and they said - as ive seen alot of people say on here its down to the lens.

Now is it the case if I went and bought the lens which was on the D7 I'd experience the same results with my 500D?

My thinking for asking this question really is.. the D7 is about 3 times the cost of my 500D, will that mean the quality is overall better or are there other things i'm missing out on?
 
you mentioned autofocus is better on the 7D, that's because the autofocus on that camera is one of the best around. so no, not just the lens. What you will probably find also is that larger aperture lenses are brighter in the viewfinder and that also helps with autofocus.

In terms of image quality and AF speed the lens does contribute massively though, but getting the right photograph is also down to the user no matter how good the camera/lens combo is, down to the light conditions and also the timing.

I would keep the 7d if i were you :)
 
What lens was on/with the D7?
 
First questions are how long have you had the 500,how long have you been taking photographs and are you shooting in Raw or jpeg

The reason I ask is that you cannot just point and shoot with a DSLR you have to work at it,the focus points do you have them all switched on in which case there are scenarios whereby any camera will select the wrong focus point,I nearly always just use the centre point and then recompose my shot.
Re the colours if you shoot in jpeg what settings have you got re the saturation if in Raw what changes do you make to the shot in the raw converter,it may just be that the 7D was set to different parameters that you could use on your 500D
Regarding the lens do you shoot wide open because kit lenses are not brilliant at extreme apertures stopping down to say f8 could improve the quality

If you are an experienced photographer and I have just told my grandmother to suck eggs accept my apologies
 
on the subject of sucking eggs Nigel, try to shift the focus point to the part of the image you want the focus point on rather than recomposing. All that waving about does very little for sharpness as the focal plane shifts. It's really not such a good thing to do unless you are shooting at f22. ;)
 
The glass makes a massive difference no matter what the camera, I've tried the numerous lenses on my 500D and seen a marked improvement with each step up the ladder...
 
Sorry I should really give more information with my post - appologies!

I've been around photography for only a couple months, and extremely new to everything!

I understand alot goes in to getting things right to get those great shots. However the main reason I started the thread was because I literally picked up the camera - with a canon 18-135mm lens.. if there are a variety of models in this band appologies.. I'm very new to lens information, and being very hesitant before I upgrade.

Regarding my kit - Ive the standard 18-55 lens, all the settings are parameters are standard on it, the only thing i change are iso, F, and shutter speed, I only know what each of them do currently! I shoot in the highest quality jpeg, and have not yet tried to wonder to RAW as i'm still very inexperienced.

I do understand a 7D is a high peice of equipment, but I was just staggered at the shots I had taken after working so hard on my own and not get anywhere near it! So I thought i'd ask if there is anything I can do to work towards it.. without much flameing :shrug:

I'm like a blank book at the moment, with very minimal knowledge from what i've fiddled with so far.. if any advice can be given to me to get what I want i'm more than willing to listen and learn!
 
What display did you use to view the images? Did you use a computer monitor or could it just be that the 7D has a better screen?

Also, could well be that the 7D was on a vivid setting (or it's default is different from the 500D).
 
How could you tell the photos were that much better? Just from the image in the rear LCD? From experience these images almost always look good, you really need to get the images onto a decent calibrated screen and compare a shot from each side by side.
 
On the 500D as said I've played with numerous lenses...

Tamron 70-300, thought it was crap and upgraded to the...
Canon 70-300 IS USM, first trip out and could immediately see the difference, less processing, sharper images etc. I wanted longer reach so changed that to...
Canon 100-400 L which I love, again sharper images and less PP

I am currently borrowing a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 MkII, the first trip out and I had a much higher keeper rate and pretty much no PP on any of the shots, hence a strong believer in it being the glass not the camera.
 
CaptainPenguin said:
the focus points do you have them all switched on in which case there are scenarios whereby any camera will select the wrong focus point,I nearly always just use the centre point and then recompose my shot.
Click to expand...

I've just looked in to this, I've been using automatic setting for this area, and i've just swapped to manual centre and this has helped so much, and a big step forward to what i'm looking for.

The next thing is colour..

I used the standard lcd screen on the camera to view the shots.. It could be thats screen is better than mine.. but normally on my own it gives a good indication of the results i seem to get.

I'm unaware that settings can be set to make them more vivid or any other options.. an insight to this would help greatly!
 
Paul870 said:
Sorry I should really give more information with my post - appologies!

I've been around photography for only a couple months, and extremely new to everything!

I understand alot goes in to getting things right to get those great shots. However the main reason I started the thread was because I literally picked up the camera - with a canon 18-135mm lens.. if there are a variety of models in this band appologies.. I'm very new to lens information, and being very hesitant before I upgrade.

Regarding my kit - Ive the standard 18-55 lens, all the settings are parameters are standard on it, the only thing i change are iso, F, and shutter speed, I only know what each of them do currently! I shoot in the highest quality jpeg, and have not yet tried to wonder to RAW as i'm still very inexperienced.

I do understand a 7D is a high peice of equipment, but I was just staggered at the shots I had taken after working so hard on my own and not get anywhere near it! So I thought i'd ask if there is anything I can do to work towards it.. without much flameing :shrug:

I'm like a blank book at the moment, with very minimal knowledge from what i've fiddled with so far.. if any advice can be given to me to get what I want i'm more than willing to listen and learn!
Click to expand...

as captain penguin asked before, are you letting the camera select the point where it wants to focus (by having all the focus points activated, or are you just using one focus point and placing that over your desired focus point and then recomposing your shot?

If you let the camera choose the focus point by having them all activated it will pick whatever is the easiest part to focus on and that will not necessarily be what you want to focus on.

also are you shooting in scene modes or using PASM settings (P, Av, Tv, M on a canon)

as for colours, i found that with alot of lower spec lenses they donot give good colour saturation, i was amazed at the difference when i swapped from a sigma 70-300mm to a canon70-200L, the colours were much better.
 
TheNissanMan said:
On the 500D as said I've played with numerous lenses...

Tamron 70-300, thought it was crap and upgraded to the...
Canon 70-300 IS USM, first trip out and could immediately see the difference, less processing, sharper images etc. I wanted longer reach so changed that to...
Canon 100-400 L which I love, again sharper images and less PP

I am currently borrowing a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 MkII, the first trip out and I had a much higher keeper rate and pretty much no PP on any of the shots, hence a strong believer in it being the glass not the camera.
Click to expand...

Thats the sort of information I was looking for regarding my first question. and abit of a confidence booster!
I've been struggling with my standard set up, it is literally standard! out the box and i've fiddled with the iso, F, shutter etc.. but no further than that!
 
Funny you mention the vividness on the 7D, I've compared this with my (Nikon) D3 and D300S and the 7D is extremely vivid compared to these. Checking the settings revealed that nothing was bumped up on the 7D. I then grabbed a 5D MK II and indeed the 'base' saturation of the 7D seems a lot higher.

Now while they may well look great on the LCD and monitor - not sure how this extreme saturation would work out on a dye sub such as the Mitsubishi. Also for a 18megapixel crop sensor - its sure is bloody sharp; I was well impressed.

Mark
 
whitewash said:
as captain penguin asked before, are you letting the camera select the point where it wants to focus (by having all the focus points activated, or are you just using one focus point and placing that over your desired focus point and then recomposing your shot?

If you let the camera choose the focus point by having them all activated it will pick whatever is the easiest part to focus on and that will not necessarily be what you want to focus on.

also are you shooting in scene modes or using PASM settings (P, Av, Tv, M on a canon)

as for colours, i found that with alot of lower spec lenses they donot give good colour saturation, i was amazed at the difference when i swapped from a sigma 70-300mm to a canon70-200L, the colours were much better.
Click to expand...

Before reading his post I had them all selected, having just swapped to manual - the centre point ( I wasnt aware what this would do! ) it seemed to helped alot.
I don't find my self shooting in the scene modes, I normally have it set to P if I want some quick snaps (holiday snaps) when on the go for something I want, and I've fiddled with Av.

I bought a dslr tool kit for dummies on my iphone a few weeks ago to help with shots i've wanted and tried using the M mode there, however my experience is no where near enough to use this mode on my own!
 
EDIT to my post: you answered the points i brought up.

remember that for all its bells and whistles any camera is dumb, it does not see an image as we do, therefore its important that you tell it as much as you can about how YOU want the image so it can then do the best job it can. make sure you use the PASM settings, ignore anything with a green square or a frilly picture, set the focus point yourself, tell it what shutterspeed or aperture you want and let it do the rest.
 
razor777 said:
Funny you mention the vividness on the 7D, I've compared this with my (Nikon) D3 and D300S and the 7D is extremely vivid compared to these. Checking the settings revealed that nothing was bumped up on the 7D. I then grabbed a 5D MK II and indeed the 'base' saturation of the 7D seems a lot higher.

Now while they great on the LCD and monitor - not sure how this extreme saturation would work out on a dye sub such as the Mitsubishi. Also for a 18megapixel crop sensor - its sure is bloody sharp; I was well impressed.

Mark
Click to expand...

Is this something that I could impliment on to my camera to increase vividness, or is this something that the 7D just outruns other for?
What do you mean the 'base' saturation is? Is this a starting point the camera uses?
 
it'll be in the jpg settings and be called saturation, don't know exactly how on your camera as I'm a Nikon man but it'll be in the manual.
 
whitewash said:
EDIT to my post: you answered the points i brought up.

remember that for all its bells and whistles any camera is dumb, it does not see an image as we do, therefore its important that you tell it as much as you can about how YOU want the image so it can then do the best job it can. make sure you use the PASM settings, ignore anything with a green square or a frilly picture, set the focus point yourself, tell it what shutterspeed or aperture you want and let it do the rest.
Click to expand...

I understand and that makes alot of sence. I do really appreciate all the advice I can get, the only other places i've asked are jessops/jacobs and got next to no help from them which was a huge confidence knock, especially as i've been struggling alot with the camera!
 
Paul i see your in liverpool, if you fancy meeting up and going shooting at some point im sure that would be possible, try a few other lenses on your camera and generally learn, there are loads of togs about all over the place and most would be more than happy to ablige, would help you lean and improve your confidence etc.
 
That'd be a great help! i'll see what I can come up with on what i've seen here, and if i'm still struggling i'll give you a PM if thats ok! thank you for the offer :)

From what i've looked up in my manual I can edit picture styles in a few seperate user defined options, i've upped the sharpness abit, and the saturation as they are what I understand what happens when they are changed.

What does color tone do when changed, and just for clafication if I put the contract up it go brighter, lower darker?
 
a better body will give better images, you are likely to see more advantages in a glass upgrade

tbh the best solution is the best of both, progress both in line as in a pretty good lens on a pretty good body beats a very good body with a **** lens or a very good lens on a **** body (except maybe for perfect light)

properly exposed framed and timed pictures will make either shine, much more important than the kit
 
mastertrinity said:
ffs its a 7D!!!!!!

rant over

yeah to be honest the 7D is better however it all depends on the glass thats on the front of it.
Click to expand...

always been my way of thinking, the glass is main part, most of the DSLR's have decent capture capabilities, from the 350D upwards stick a L glass in front or a half decent lens then you have a excellent combination. 40D's excellent example fantastic upper level camera put a 17 85 or 24 105 L on and get some great shots, or a 70-200 :clap:


did you shoot in manual with the 7D,

Ta Mark
 
mercmanuk said:
always been my way of thinking, the glass is main part, most of the DSLR's have decent capture capabilities, from the 350D upwards stick a L glass in front or a half decent lens then you have a excellent combination. 40D's excellent example fantastic upper level camera put a 17 85 or 24 105 L on and get some great shots, or a 70-200 :clap:


did you shoot in manual with the 7D,

Ta Mark
Click to expand...

What is an L glass?

Well it seems my decision to upgrade lens will be coming around soon.
the 18-135 on the 7D seemed really nice, I quite liked that. However i'm sure that would be abit pricey!

What would be an ideal upgrade for me from a standard 18 55? as said the one on the 7D seemed to suit what i'm after for the shots Id like to snap!
Is this a personal choice, or is there normally a standard way to go? Ideall i'd not want to spend a huge amount.. second hand would do too!

edit - the 7D i'd put in to P mode just to have a play with it!
 
Canon's professional range of lenses are designated 'L' (i.e. they have an L in the model name).
 
Paul870 said:
What is an L glass?

Well it seems my decision to upgrade lens will be coming around soon.
the 18-135 on the 7D seemed really nice, I quite liked that. However i'm sure that would be abit pricey!

What would be an ideal upgrade for me from a standard 18 55? as said the one on the 7D seemed to suit what i'm after for the shots Id like to snap!
Is this a personal choice, or is there normally a standard way to go? Ideall i'd not want to spend a huge amount.. second hand would do too!

edit - the 7D i'd put in to P mode just to have a play with it!
Click to expand...

Hi have a look here, be carfull you don't drool over the keyboard like i did :D

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-L-Lens-Series.aspx check out the 7D body in the right hand corner with various L range lens
 
Paul870 said:
What is an L glass?

Well it seems my decision to upgrade lens will be coming around soon.
the 18-135 on the 7D seemed really nice, I quite liked that. However i'm sure that would be abit pricey!

What would be an ideal upgrade for me from a standard 18 55? as said the one on the 7D seemed to suit what i'm after for the shots Id like to snap!
Is this a personal choice, or is there normally a standard way to go? Ideall i'd not want to spend a huge amount.. second hand would do too!

edit - the 7D i'd put in to P mode just to have a play with it!
Click to expand...

Hold on fella, and save your money ;)

Edit: BTW, to answer your question, it is not all about the lens - it's about the whole imaging chain. With film, that was a combination of the camera, lens and the film, with the camera adding very little. Today, it is very much about the camera too, as that effectively is the film also, plus the lens, and also another major factor, image processing. You can do a lot to address that last factor by adjusting the Picture Styles. Think of it as in-camera post processing, because that's exactly what it is.

If I've got this right, you are making sweeping judgements on the basis of having picked up a 7D in Currys and looked at a couple of snaps on the LCD :eek:

To be honest, you would be hard pressed to see much difference between a 7D with 18-135, and your own 500D with 18-55 lens. Honestly, you won't.

What you are looking at is the superb LCD on the 7D, which is subject to Picture Styles. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a canny salesman has pushed up the Saturation setting in Picture Styles, and the LCD brightness, just to impress people. It makes a huge difference, and you can make identical changes to your own camera if you want.

You are not comparing like with like!
 
I see what you mean, however considering how bland my shots have been before I changed some settings before it was a big wonder why thy were so different.
I may return and see their picture styles and see what settings were what just to see if it was the case of fiddling the setup!

I can edit photos pretty good as I've used cs2 for a few years and seem to get good results through that.
However I've always struged with the initial images I'm shooting!

This whole Photography, mainly the camera is a whole new thing! It's like learning camber and toe for car set ups but harder haha!
 
After a while messing with various modes I bit the bullet and made myself learn by using full manual (M) and it was one of the best things I ever did. The keeper rate was pretty poor in the beginning but it soon got better and now exceeds pre-M levels.

Glass will make a difference and you will benefit from replacing the kit lens, L stuff is great but also expensive and other lenses are available that would motive things.

Also, if you're already using Photoshop then shyly raw & jpeg together - there's a lot more scope when editing raw files than jpeg as raw is the digital version of a negative whereas jpeg has already been processed.

You're working your way up a big learning curve, keep at it and it'll be worth it.
 
You really don't know how long it took me to type that - I am hurt. :help: ;)


TheNissanMan said:
On the 500D as said I've played with numerous lenses...

Tamron 70-300, thought it was crap and upgraded to the...
Canon 70-300 IS USM, first trip out and could immediately see the difference, less processing, sharper images etc. I wanted longer reach so changed that to...
Canon 100-400 L which I love, again sharper images and less PP

I am currently borrowing a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 MkII, the first trip out and I had a much higher keeper rate and pretty much no PP on any of the shots, hence a strong believer in it being the glass not the camera.
Click to expand...

Well it depends. When I first got my 450d and an 18-55 IS, I found that to get really sharp images I had to bump the sharpening up to notch 4 or 5 in DPP else I wasn't happy. When I got my Sigma 10-20 I found 2 or 3 notches was ample else too many jaggies appeared - it was a pretty sharp lens I have to say. Roughly the same for the nifty fifty, 2 or 3 notches was all that I needed to do in PP. It was when I got my 50mm f/1.4 that I really noticed a difference - only one or two sharpening was needed and the colours and contrast were better than any lens I'd owned previously.

Then I put the 50mm f/1.4 on a Canon 1Ds. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! So so sharp from RAW with no sharpening applied whatsoever. I am quite certain that the low pixel density of such an old full frame sensor, along with probably a very weak anti-aliasing filter, is the reason for such sharpness. I add one notch of sharpening now in DPP just 'cos, but in all honesty I probably don't need to. It was then that I believed that what is behind the lens (other than the person) can make such a difference too.
 
trencheel303 said:
You really don't know how long it took me to type that - I am hurt. :help: ;)




Well it depends. When I first got my 450d and an 18-55 IS, I found that to get really sharp images I had to bump the sharpening up to notch 4 or 5 in DPP else I wasn't happy. When I got my Sigma 10-20 I found 2 or 3 notches was ample else too many jaggies appeared - it was a pretty sharp lens I have to say. Roughly the same for the nifty fifty, 2 or 3 notches was all that I needed to do in PP. It was when I got my 50mm f/1.4 that I really noticed a difference - only one or two sharpening was needed and the colours and contrast were better than any lens I'd owned previously.

Then I put the 50mm f/1.4 on a Canon 1Ds. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! So so sharp from RAW with no sharpening applied whatsoever. I am quite certain that the low pixel density of such an old full frame sensor, along with probably a very weak anti-aliasing filter, is the reason for such sharpness. I add one notch of sharpening now in DPP just 'cos, but in all honesty I probably don't need to. It was then that I believed that what is behind the lens (other than the person) can make such a difference too.
Click to expand...

In the simplist terms, it's not about pixels, it's about photons. More light. Full frame is just bigger, much bigger. Like 2.5x bigger than crop format. Full frame asks a lot less of the lens to deliver the same standard of sharpness.

Canon 5D2 and 7D have a similar number of pixels, one is full frame and one is crop format. Full frame wins easily. Nikon D300 and D3 have the same number of pixels, but the full frame D3 blitzes the smaller image sensor.

It's like a 5L car engine is always going to be more powerful than a 2L or a 1.8L turbo. They will all cruise at 100mph no trouble at all, but when you push them the big one has just got so much more.
 
I agree which is why it breaks my heart that the world is moving towards smaller and smaller sensors...

After seeing what full frame (even in a 7 year old camera body) can deliver I don't think I'll easily be turned back!
 
I have printed out normally to a max of A4 and have produced stunning prints from my D90 and latterly my Fuji S5 pro. Recently I tried some A2s from full frame S5 pro output with stunning prints that were so good I really dont see why I would ever need full frame (other than high ISO performance).

In the A2 prints there was no pixelisation, but areas of softness were visble at some edges (sigma 10-20 at 10mm), but even then only at really close inspection, at any normal viewing distance it was fine.

So for me the lens is the limiting factor, but if you havnt done so try an A2 size print from a cropped sensor image, I was stunned how good they are.
 
HoppyUK said:
Hold on fella, and save your money ;)
If I've got this right, you are making sweeping judgements on the basis of having picked up a 7D in Currys and looked at a couple of snaps on the LCD :eek:

To be honest, you would be hard pressed to see much difference between a 7D with 18-135, and your own 500D with 18-55 lens. Honestly, you won't.

What you are looking at is the superb LCD on the 7D, which is subject to Picture Styles. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a canny salesman has pushed up the Saturation setting in Picture Styles, and the LCD brightness, just to impress people. It makes a huge difference, and you can make identical changes to your own camera if you want.

You are not comparing like with like!
Click to expand...

What he said. :agree:
 
The 500D is a fantastic camera - the 7D is better, rather obviously, but not a massive amount when pictures of a well-lit Currys interior is concerned. Your 18-55mm IS is an acceptable lens, although you can easily do better, but as said above the ones that come with the 7D aren't much better really. They wouldn't be much of an upgrade from yours.

You're not going to be limited by what you've got for quite a while - so don't worry about it. If you're in the mood to spend money, definitely put it towards a lens rather than a 7D body.
 
Both have a fairly high mp count and you do need better quality lenses to make the best of them

Never used a 7D, but do own a 500D and combined with a Canon 17-55 lens I can't imagine seeing a vast improvement from using any other crop sensor camera at normal parameters

Know there would be a difference in other aspects such as AF points, Build quality,Custom menus etc which is what you would expect having paid three times as much for the body

Get the basics right before you chuck money at it otherwise you will soon be rather less well off than you are now
 
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