Which Camera do You Use?

[Ditape]

Just out of interest does anyone own a Canon EOS 100D ? If so I have the EOS 100 35mm SLR and wondered if the lenses would fit the 100D. 

If I uderstand the Canon philosophy correctly it should fit but if you go to the canon web site you should be able to find the answer

[red_death]

If it is an EF mount lens then it should be compatible, but you *might* find some compatibility problems eg AF on 3rd party lenses.

You lose nothing by trying!

Cheers, Mike

(A very happy user of Canon 70D)

[acko22]

Just out of interest does anyone own a Canon EOS 100D ? If so I have the EOS 100 35mm SLR and wondered if the lenses would fit the 100D. 

Don't know the exact answer but I do know that you can get adaptors to make them fit and they just clip on between the lens and camera, I can't for the sake of me remember where but I will have a look and try to fresh my memory!

[d-a-n]

Just out of interest does anyone own a Canon EOS 100D ? If so I have the EOS 100 35mm SLR and wondered if the lenses would fit the 100D. 

Your EOS 100 35mm Film SLR will only take EF Canon EOS lenses.

The 100D will take EF and EF-S Canon EOS lenses, but the EF-S lenses which may come with the 100D will not go on the EOS 100 35mm film SLR. If you fitted an EF-S lens to the 35mm film SLR (assuming it fit), it would extend too far into the mirror box and the mirror would clout it, possibly breaking the mirror.

Old third party EOS lenses will probably work on the EOS 100D but there's an outside chance they may not talk with one another. Also, your mileage may vary but cheap, old third party stuff may not perform well optically or in terms of autofocus speed on a modern SLR.

[d-a-n]

With regards to what camera I use to photograph my model trains, it's usually a Canon 7D and 17-40 L series lens zoomed in to 40mm. The 100L macro is too long and doesn't offer enough depth of field; for this same reason, I do not use my full frame work cameras. A compact camera will have greater depth of field with it's smaller sensor but might lack the range of control you can have with other cameras.
I sit the camera on anything that's to hand to get it in the right position, put it in Aperture priority with an aperture of about f/16 and an ISO of 100, focus in live view and start the camera off on a 2 second delayed shutter. The exposure is usually anywhere between 5 and 60 seconds which gives me time to fire a few blips of flashgun light in the shaded areas (although the flash isn't 'talking' to the camera in any way via cable or wireless.) I'll repeat this until I've got an evenly lit model.
If I've got time, I'll lightly process the RAW file in Lightroom, giving it a nice little crop and altering the white balance until it looks right.

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[Dorsetmike]

Any chance of repeating those pics with a compact or bridge camera on similar settings, to see if there is an improvement in the sharpness of the parts of the locos further from he camera, to me the cab numbers and BR logos etc are not in sharp focus; on the Duchess the point of focus looks to be around the cylinder and front end of the motion, the cab number is just readable, the BR logo is quite fuzzy, on the diesel the focus looks to be on the front cab , the front number is readable, the nameplate and rear cabside number are not readable even when magnified.

If I get time tomorrow I'll try some similar shots with a bridge and a compact, try and prove my point.

[MalcolmInN]

If I get time tomorrow I'll try some similar shots with a bridge and a compact, try and prove my point.

yep, agree
and above and beyond dslr/bridge/compact
you mentioned earlier focus stacking.
CombineZ freeware stacker in various versions can sort out the difference between a pic of a model, and a pic of a model simulating the real thing. (like some do with sepia tones in their B&W pics ! isnt that what we are all trying to do - make models the real world ? )
With CombineZ ( similar are available which may cost more, or are more complex ) you dont need to worry about depth of field in an individual shot

With a DSLR you have control on the focus point for your several frames at various depths,
with a bridge you can control the manual focus point by subterfuge, (rotate cam, 1/2 press shutter to fix focus, then rotate cam back to original frame align then complete the shutter actuation )

compacts ?  ?5th amendment

So, in summary, with combineZ you can simulate a train in focus from front bufferbeam to the brake van at the end ( in a bright summer sky at f22 or summat !)
or, simulate a model of somewhere on the West Somerset (from front buffer beam to somewhere along the first carriage ! on a dreary wet overcast day)  at f errr well summat less than f22 

or ofcourse you can also use it to just do, in focus, those regions of interest and 'silk screen' those which are not

[Agrippa]

Simplest is to get a Lytro camera which records everything in focus,
costs a bit though.

[d-a-n]

Any chance of repeating those pics with a compact or bridge camera on similar settings, to see if there is an improvement in the sharpness of the parts of the locos further from he camera, to me the cab numbers and BR logos etc are not in sharp focus; on the Duchess the point of focus looks to be around the cylinder and front end of the motion, the cab number is just readable, the BR logo is quite fuzzy, on the diesel the focus looks to be on the front cab , the front number is readable, the nameplate and rear cabside number are not readable even when magnified.

If I get time tomorrow I'll try some similar shots with a bridge and a compact, try and prove my point.

I'll give it a go later with the only non-DSLR digital camera I have - an old (2006) Fuji bridge camera and report on my findings. I agree that there are issues with the images above in terms of the drop off in focus due to the depth of field. Despite using a crop sensor camera at a small aperture, it is still very hard to escape focus drop off and the focus stacking technique is the only solution (although one which I wouldn't spend the time doing!) I expect to find that the bridge camera will deliver a greater DOF but will probably suffer in terms of image quality, colour and general usability. I expect a focus-recompose technique will also be order of the day too!
The image compression used when uploading images to the forum also acts as a good leveller and might show that for forum purposes, you don't need all that much camera to get a decent image, just decent technique.

[Izzy]

Generally speaking a small sensor compact type digital will have far more depth of field than a DSLR of any sensor size. I once did some charts for this which showed that the average compact/bridge digital had more DOF at maximum aperture than a DSLR could produce even when stopped down to f32/45. It gets particularly problematic at close focus distance because DOF reduces as focus distance does, and is minimal at macro levels even with minimum aperture.

Focus stacking doesn't really help much because there is so much image degradation that increased DOF is usually offset by overall lack of sharpness. I found that a single shot at optimum aperture - F8/F11 - produced a better result than stacking. With high sensor count DSLR's these days using a minimum aperture often isn't of help due to Lens diffraction now becoming an issue.

A modern compact is probably for most modellers by far the best/easiest camera to have for shots, and particularly in N.

Izzy

[Mr Sprue]

Correct me if I am wrong but another factor which can affect the quality of images is 'Noise', so choosing a camera with large amounts of megapixels doesn't always mean the best pictures!

[DELETED]

I got to disagree with statements that bridge type cameras take better photos than DSLR's.  But I would say that they do different things -if you don't want to post process much then yes, a bridge camera or other maybe "keen snapper" camera (not the right wording but can't think what else) will most likely produce better shots straight out of the memory card.  The amount of "in-camera" post processing is pretty huge now, but compare to the likes of my D2x I was really disappointing initially but have had to learn it's not doing much processing itself, you need to do it afterwards.

Correct me if I am wrong but another factor which can affect the quality of images is 'Noise', so choosing a camera with large amounts of megapixels doesn't always mean the best pictures!

Absoflippinglutely, really winds me up to see folk comparing phones or cameras and boasting the megapix count.  IMO past a certain amount of pix it doesn't mean that much really.  My old 5megapixel Nikon D50 takes superb pics and print-outs up to A3 without much post processing.  I stepped up through Fuji S3 then Nikon D2x and have had to learn a whole new way of taking photos (which is what I wanted).

I hadn't dug out my D2x for any railway stuff so had a quick play this morning on the tripod. Light's terrible though as didn't use any extra.  I thought I'd try 3 apertures (wide open, middle and fully closed) still in "program mode".  Used the timer as couldn't get my remote release to work for some reason.  Sigma 24-135mm and when I check the exif info I set it to 56mm, f21, f9.5 and f3.8.  I must have had "pattern mode" and auto white balance already set, and set to ISO100.  The angle of the objects were quite sharp to the camera (maybe 45deg) and I was quite close which doesn't help.

In Corel Photo XI I went "sharpen", "high pass sharpen" and "sharpen more".  I don't think I would have to do this in my other cameras as it's done in-camera instead.  I'm pretty convinced if I kept repeating the shots with different settings on the camera and corel then I would get something ALLOT sharper and greater depth, but I wasn't that unimpressed with the one at smallest f'stop.  That said, my old Fuji S9500 bridge was a great camera and I could maybe dig it out and try as a comparison if I find any spare AA batteries.

I would be keen on some comments / feedback on what's good settings to use for a DSLR though!  I think I should have changed the metering and focus modes.







As a comparison I took a very general shot of my layout from a few feet back at 21mmnd f21 and thought the detail was quite acceptable for the very quick shot it was.

[d-a-n]

Focus stacking doesn't really help much because there is so much image degradation that increased DOF is usually offset by overall lack of sharpness. I found that a single shot at optimum aperture - F8/F11 - produced a better result than stacking.

If it's done with equally well exposed RAWs, layered up with the correct software, you shouldn't see any image degradation. I'm thinking maybe your single shot could've been at the hyperfocal distance...

[d-a-n]

Just set my Fuji S5700 up to make this monstrosity.

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The shutter wouldn't allow me below 4 seconds and the smallest aperture was f/13.6 although this one was at f/6.8 because of the lack of shutter ability. Using a focus-recompose technique helped to keep the front in focus but as you can see, the focus is dropping off by the tender. This greater depth of field marginally beats the crop sensor DSLR but that's where the victory ends.
This was shot at 100 ISO and I can already see signs of chroma noise.
The colour rendered is poor and the lack of control over white balance only hinders proper colour management.
The lens just isn't very sharp.
I think I'll stick to my 7D, L series lenses and the ability to shoot models in RAW over this Fisher Price toy camera for the sake of a little softness further back when focusing at the minimum focus distance.

[Agrippa]

One solution is to use a tilt/shift lens, however unless you  were photographing
models and small objects professionally the cost would be prohibitive for the
odd shot of a loco on the forum, though they can be hired if you wanted to
record a large number of images over a few days. (about £50 for 3 days).