Please guide me.... I have a t4i with the kit lens 24-135mm and the nifty fifty f1.8 prime lens. For my birthday my wife gave me free clearance to buy whatever camera/lens I wanted since she would take the t4i for her business. I mostly take photos of my kids while we are out an about, family candid shots here and there, some landscape photos, long exposure/time lapse. I shoot in Manual outputing Raw+jpg. I love editing my photos that turn out great in terms of composition/moment. As far as video needs, I would like the camera to have 1080p/4k video for convenience of not having to have another camera around What I want in the end is to be able to take the best clear photo I can with and without tripod. I am torn between the 5DM4 and the R with a 24-105mm L lens I classify myself as an enthusiast that wants to take pro level clear shots. I know composition/lighting, etc go a long way in the overall photo but I would like to take clearer crisper photos which I am not achieving even on a tripod with the lens/body I have.
Well, both are good cameras, if you want to switch gears to mirror-less it will be cheaper and lighter for the body, but the RF lenses are quite expensive. You have a larger selection of EF lenses for the DSLRs and technically you can adapt them to the R body. You surely don't need to go all the way to either of these models but I can defiantly understand an upgrade from the t4i, not so much because of sharpness but to have more control, better ISO performance and and a more rugged build. Which begs a question about her using this for her business, I would not recommend using this old camera for a primary business use depending on what she is doing with it, its a dated consumer body and if you as enthusiast are not happy with its limitations then how can use it as a work camera and be happy, my 2 cents anyway. Not that I think anything is technically wrong with it. Maybe share the upgrade or upgrade for both of you? With regards to crisper clearer photos, you may be pushing the limitations of your cheap kit lenses. For example the nifty is a lens I have actually and they are noticeably soft wide open, I upgraded that to the 50mm 1.4 edition. Not sure you have the info right on the zoom, i thought they were all 3.5-5.6. Review lenses before purchase, you can find good lenses without buying expensive pro level primes and zooms but you will have to decide what you need. Cheap, Good, Fast? Generally you can pick 2 of three on any lens. Take the 50mm, 1.8 is cheap, ok, and sorta fast for $100, at $350 its not as cheap, 1.4 is noticeably faster and pretty sharp for a 350 buck lens, the $1300 lens is very fast at 1.2, quite sharp, and also quite expensive. Another example you can get a modest plastic zoom with a variable aperture like 4.5-5.6 for a few hundred, not fast lens not the sharpest zoom but its cheap. If you spend a bit more on the 70-200L F4 you get a nice sharp lens for $600 bucks, but you will need spend 2-3 times as much on a 2.8L to get a faster lens, depending on if you want IS. So in short your money is better spent on good glass, sharpness is not determined by camera body. The other half of the sharpness/clarity argument is that when you are shooting raw your files are not going to be processed by the camera like they would be as JPG, canon has profiles for shooting modes in JPG that will apply color, saturation, sharpening etc. In raw the assumption is that you want to season to taste as the photographer, so you should expect to have to fine tune those from a more neutral raw file including some slight sharpening.
Thanks Johnsey. Her using it for her business should be ok as her photos get posted on Instagram for her feed so the clarity she gets now on her smartphone is step down even though it takes good photos but not as good as the t4i IMHO. Her use will be on a tripod with settings that won't change based on the lighting she has, so it will be a set it and forget type of situation. If she finds the DSLR better then I will probably upgrade her too in the near future. Sorry I said F/4 to average it out, but you are correct. I wanted to get the 50mm F/1.4 but at the time I got the F/1.8 it was a steal at $80 which I couldn't pass up, and the fact that it was my first Prime lens so I didn't want to spend too much money at the time on a lens I was going to be learning on with that short focal length, but definitely I will be considering the F/1.4 I thought about getting a couple L series lenses to put on the t4i but wanted to get away from the cropped sensor and get a larger full frame sensor like you said for the control/iso performance as the noise is crazy at 800 and higher ISO on the t4i. Yes understood on the Raw vs Jpg processing in the camera and i expect sharpening to be done in post but the level of sharpening I end up doing doesn't seem right. My struggle on the body is do I shift away from mirror or stick with the mirror in the 5DM4. I feel like I want to move into the mirror-less but my gut is telling me I will get better results with the 5DM4 on what I am struggling with on the t4i. I even started considering the Sony AR73 or the 4 but their shutter issues make hesitant.
I wonder if you are having an issue with your lens where everything is back focused if its happening on all shots. That or your focus screen could be out of alignment. You could have easily bought some L glass, all the EF mount lenses will work on your t4i, its EF-s lenses are stuck on the crop sensor bodies. I think the real question I was steering you towards is look at the lens line you want to primarily in. The RF lens line is small and has some really nice lenses some of the L glass is quite expensive in that mount. The EF lenses will work on full frame, the old 4ti, and will even work on the full frame mirror-less R with an adapter. There is a much larger market of EF mount options. This will also be a good deciding factor if you upgrade her camera down the road, both of you want to be able to share lenses when you can. For me having the gear in EF mount already the decision was quite easy to stick with the 5d line for now, I just ordered a mark 4 yesterday with the black Friday rebates. Eventually I may get a mirror-less a few years down the road but I don't see the need to jump in at this point.
I was thinking about the alignment as well, I will have to look into seeing if I can get it troubleshooted for that and repair same regardless if I buy a new camera or not. I probably will buy the L lenses first use on the t4i and if I get the mirrorless then buy the adapter so I can still use the EF lens. Your last line is where I am at but I may not buy a new camera for a while which is why I am thinking about the R over the 5DM4 and just move into the new tech. Thanks for your insights!
"ordered a mark 4 yesterday with the black Friday rebates." Johnsey where did you get the rebates if I may ask? I'm looking at the 5Dmk4 very hard right now. Really wanted to buy a 90D as my next camera for the 4k video but I keep seeing people post about the resolving issues, seems almost 50/50 love hate from the crowds around that camera. My son has an R and I'm just not that impressed with all that is does but mostly what it cannot do. So next thing up is the 5Dmk4, way more than I wanted to spend but oh well. I kinda wanted to own a really good dslr before I go mirrorless on FF. I do mostly cooking videos for YT with my M50 and 6Dmk2 but want to move up to 4K and the R6 is same price range but reviews show that you can record 15-20 minutes then you have to wait at lest 45 for it to cool off and record again, bummer. Might keep the 6D or light sell it not sure because it has been a really good camera. Only real downer on the 5d is the fps for sports imo. Thanks
Usually every holiday season the canon rebates get applied by all major retailers. They will also use the instant rebate pricing to make attractive bundles. I bought mine after black Friday last year as you will notice. I got it for below the 2500 price with extras including canon grip.
whats the limitation you are having with the M50 and 4k, if its the crop you can use a super wide to bring it back to a standard do you have the budget for a dedicated movie cam?
Thanks for the reply, the M50 4K has no IS besides the huge crop and cannot maintain good focus on 4k unless stationary on a tripod, it works fine for non 4k. Yes I could get a dedicated movie camera and did look at some of those too but I prefer one that can do both photo and video just more versatile and also most of my videos have two or three angles to include overhead. in addition I like the potential run n gun and lighter weight for future projects so the 90D and 5Dmk4 appeal to me for those reasons, also looked at some 1DX2's on ebay at just over $3K with low shutter counts but again that's a heavy camera lol. Again thanks for the reply.
Hello SmokenMirrors. Your statement as to the lack of IS on the M50 is confusing to me at least. In my understanding no interchangeable lens EOS dslr or mirrorless contains IS within the body. That being said you can use EF lenses with the proper adapter on your M50. The EOS R like the M50 allow you the opportunity of using "vintage lenses" without much ado.
have you tried one of the bluetooth lenses for the M50, the front part off the lens comes of (magnets) and it has both af and is in it, you can then run around with that while the camera records
