Goodbye full-frame, but not good riddance

Falmanc came into being out of a love of history and a love of photography. I don't talk about the photography aspect much; it's mostly a tool to showcase the great historical spots we come across, and besides, there's a zillion or more camera sites already out there. However, I like to blather on about hardware as much as the next guy, so here goes.

This past week, I sold my Canon 5D and bought a Canon 30D. By all accounts, the 5D is the better camera. It has a larger sensor, more pixels, and costs a whole lot more, so it must be better, right? To tell you the truth, the 5D is the better machine - for most applications, but it just wasn't for me. Here's some more good stuff about the 5D. It produces the best color I've ever seen from a camera. It's nice and heavy, not too heavy, but it feels substantial. You can crop the heck out of a shot and still have something viable left over.

Many people like the 5D because it's "full frame," the large sensor uses all of the lens. I found this feature to be underwhelming. The edges of a lens aren't all that great to begin with, and there's lots of vignetting and distortion issues to deal with. And then there's the dreaded DOF (Depth Of Field) imbroglio. Some say there's no difference in the DOF of full frame cameras and reduced (APS) frame cameras. It's quite a heated debate. I can't explain the science to you, but having owned both types of cameras, I can tell you this: full frame cameras have a shallower DOF than reduced frame cameras, at least as far as the Canon 5D & the Canon 20/30D go. This fact is almost entirely without consequence for most camera owners, unless you like shooting in low light, without a flash. And dislike background blur ("bokeh"), as I do. It seems to me, that to make one's subject "pop," one should make one's subject more interesting - but that's a whole other topic.

All in all, viewers of this blog will notice little difference. The 5D is a full-frame 20D, and the 30D is a reduced-frame 5D, which sounds a bit murky, but it's the best way I can explain it. Anyway, all the pictures should look pretty much the same. Visitors to my night photography site "Nightening" will hopefully notice better pictures, and more of 'em. Here's hoping. Now, back to the history ...

Photos Canon EOS 30D